Developers and publishers of PC games really need to better capitalise on the deep penetration of the platform, Flagship Studios COO Max Schaefer has said regarding the much talked-about state of PC gaming.
"I think it's cyclical and transitional", Schaefer told CVG of the PC gaming scene, which has been blighted by 'PC gaming is dying' headlines in recent months.
He continued, "PC gaming isn't going anywhere until people stop having PCs. It's up to developers and publishers to keep it fresh and keep bringing creative, entertaining games to market.
"PC still is the only platform with decent chatting ability and people are by necessity in front of their PCs for many hours a day.
"We have a captive audience, we just need to do a better job of reaching out to them."
Schaefer explained that Flagship's trying this with its fantasy PC MMO Mythos and its free-to-download-and-play business model.
"We need to be evolutionary instead of revolutionary", he went on when asked whether developers and publishers need to radically rethink their approach to PC games and gaming.
"People know what kind of games they like, and instead of changing the target, we just need to extend the boundaries a little bit."
90% of PCs out there in the captive market are unable to play recent games though. Kind of puts a stopper on things - this isn't a fixed lump of hardware with set capabilities.
Flash games tend to run on most PCs though - although I doubt this is what he had in mind (being free and all)..
Thank you thank you thank you! I have been saying this for TWO YEARS and getting flamed for it everywhere I said so!
If 90% of home PC's are 2.4ghz, 1gb ram, onboard 6800 video card and onboard sound, then game publishers need to write more games that will run on those PC's! Why do you think the Sims has done so well? Because it DOES run on those PC's!
I am not saying ignore hardcore gamers with their uber machines, but just provide more for 'normal' gamers!
For example, what everyone needs to remember is that you can play STALKER with a medium OR High end PC, but you cannot play Crysis on anything but a high end PC. This means we have uber PC owners loving STALKER, but medium PC owners not able to play Crysis. More great games for low/medium level PC's will sell to everybody, if they are good enough, and we need more of them!
Your absolutely right. Ever since the hi def brigade marched in this generation, with their big shiny high resolution wellies, a game can only be so good if the graphics aren't stunning. I like upgrading every 4 or 5 years because I get a massive catalogue of games to play instantly at dirt cheap prices
Here's a dev that seems to get the idea. Now all we need is to convince more devs of what he just said and we're good to go for another golden age of PC gaming.
Making games on the assumption people will just drop 1000 euros or so just to play it is the dumbest marketting strategy i've ever seen. And unfortunately quite a few recent PC titles did just that. (Supreme Commander and Crysis being good examples) This ofcourse let to such people as Chris "PC gaming is dying" Taylor spouting nonsense all over the place just because no sensible PC could run that game of his for more than 30 minutes without melting itself into slag. And he's surprised he didn't make the sales figures he expected??
Ofcourse the fact that many games come pre-nerfed in the intelligence department to fit on consoles doesn't help either.
But as another poster said before me, if games scaled well enough to run on say 80%-90% of common household PCs then you could really rake in those sales, especially if you made a compelling and interesting game. Nothing revolutionary is needed, but scaling sure as hell is.
I personally think 'Sins of a Solar Empire' by Ironclad/Stardock is a good example of this philosophy having fairly low minimum requirements to begin with and often running on PCs quite a bit below that. And its been at the top-end of the sales charts in the US and Amazon for the past few weeks. Not bad at all for what is essentially an indy developer.
A dev who has his head screwed on? Can someone pass me the smelling salts?
Dev's have got to understand that they need to create games for the biggest crowd, the people without the UBERWTF Speed machine that a few hardcore gamers have. As someone said, this is why The Sims and WoW sell so well, they work on machines that are 3 years old.
Supreme Commander and Crysis, whilst be good games and look fantastic with everything on, play like a dog with it's legs cut off trying to catch a cat on anything other than a top spec PC.
The more devs that can think about building games for the most common, and I use that term loosely, spec'ed PC, then they will get substantially more penetration and, which will make them happy, more money.
I know that devs today just look at consoles and their eyes change to huge dollar signs..
For example, what everyone needs to remember is that you can play STALKER with a medium OR High end PC, but you cannot play Crysis on anything but a high end PC. This means we have uber PC owners loving STALKER, but medium PC owners not able to play Crysis. More great games for low/medium level PC's will sell to everybody, if they are good enough, and we need more of them!
That's absolute crap! I can run Crysis (and I've said it before) on an AMD 1600+, 1Gb ram and a 9600XT. And that's not even on the lowest settings. I get an average of 16Fps. That's playable in my book. Besides more games can be played on ordinary home PCs, if only they were optimized better. For example, Vampire Masquerade: Bloodlines (2003/4 release I can't remeber) runs much worse than Crysis - I mean 8 Fps average.
Another thing, Humourguy and the poster before Humourguy, is that to get all the benefits of a console you need many other things. The most obvious being an expensive TV. And not everyone already has a 42" HD TV. Besides, for every 5 games bought you will spend £100 pounds more than the guy buying identical PC games! Call that a bargain?
I don't know this guy bit I like the cut of his jib! Hope he keeps it up, and in 5 years from now when his MMO is a huge success, I hope he doesnt even think about selling out to EA!
MMOs are great because (gameplay aside) they are designed to run on as many computers as possible, and they do, so millions and millions of people buy them and it generates a s**t load of income, and any MMO is far more fun than anything EA drops out of its bottom.
We need more games like that, good graphics but not so good that no one can play it, then work on the bloody gameplay! Bionic Commando Rearmed is such an example, a remake of an amazing side scrolling game and it is already much more popular than the full 3d version Capcom are plannign to release.
Well, I think there's room to have it both ways, given the sheer huge size of the PC market.
While not providing for those who buy a machine off the shelf (and never upgrade) is stupid and commercially unwise, alienating the 'hardcore' who invest large amounts of money into their machines with the highest end parts would be harmful to the evolution of the machine as a whole.
As long as Devs are willing to keep their recommended specs at fair and sensible level, there's no reason to limit the extreme upper-end of what modern (and near future) PCs are capable of.
While the problem may exist with developer's and their inability to scale their engines (most of the time). The largest contributing factor to poor selling PC games has got to be the rise of the cheap laptop and the budget intel graphics processors. Most people buying a new computer these days buy a laptop, most likely a cheap one. Whilst the processor and memory of these computers is usually pretty up to scratch, the graphics are most certainly not. Intel are destroying the games market with this because the vast majority of new laptops have this massive bottleneck where the graphics card should be. These laptops can't even play 3 or 4 year old games full stop, let alone new ones at modest detail levels. ATI and nVidia really need to come up with competing mobile GPUs; cheap, but with some punch. ALso, it needs to be markted well. Everyone seems to be able to grasp fairly well what is a decent processor (because of intel's great ad capaigns) and what is a decent amoutn of memory, but they fail to notice graphics hardware in that laptop. The masses must be educated!
I agree with everything the Scramble man said, while adding that the worst performing PC games I've played recently have all been console ports. That's the real bane for casual gamers I suspect; they get all excited about the latest over-hyped franchise from the consoles arriving on our shores and then get irate at the PC because it doesn't work like a console'. The hardcore know how to spec a PC gaming machine and read game spec's so this isn't such a problem for them (and anyway, the hardcore - for all their moaning - will put up with a whole lot of s**t), but the more publishers try and palm cheap copies of games onto the PC the more casual players will loose interest and stop buying.
I've said it before but the biggest problem for the PC gaming industry is not the constantly renewed hardware, not the developers that focus on creating high end graphically intensive games specifically for the platform, and not the hardcore gamers that enjoy and support those games. It's the big cheap-bottom publishers constantly seeing the platform as a dumping ground. In that respect they are their own worst enemies and I find it very hard to have any sympathy for them (and no that doesn't mean I accept that the platform is doomed - much like the music industry, great PC games will continue to be produced whether Big Content is involved or not).
I think the devs need to change their focus from producing the incredible graphics of the high settings, and start making the low-medium settings more palatable. Crysis is a perfect example of this, spend a second in the slide show that is high and you will see some stunning visuals, lower this to a playable level and you are suddenly presented with one ugly looking game. I would be perfectly happy to run games at lower settings, just as long as they don't look worse than 5 year old games.
I think also, Nvidia and ATI need to be clearer on the capability of their cards. Even on the low end spec cards the box will be stating you will be getting better gaming from the card. Clearly stating on the box what the card is designed for would help greatly. For example, simply calling them Geforce 8 Extreme Edition, Geforce 8 Gamer's edition, Geforce 8 Basic Edition would give a much clearer idea of what the buyer could use the card for. At the moment many people are going to be thinking the recent 9600 will be better than 8800, which they aren't.
I bought a new PC last December (6750/2gig/8800gt) that cost me £700 (inc. 19" mon.), and I'm still having trouble playing new games on it. Some of them are the "games for Windows" ones that are supposed to work with Vista. So I'm still spending days/weeks trying to force these games to work, and when I do I have to spend hours changing settings to get them working smoothly (impossible I think), which isn't helped by games like MOH Airbourne not allowing you to change any graphics settings at all!
At least with the 360 everything works straight away, and any patches are handled for you in a fast and friendly manner.
There also needs to be a better system for tweaking software and matching it to ones hardware settings. I am not saying do away with the old individual settings but offer something that allows less tech savvy people an entry point. They need to work on making it more user friendly. Of course I am not talking about myself here. But even then, sometimes it is a real headache.
It is also confusing because the specs on the packets largely mean nothing unless you have other information at hand. Even when you know what you're looking for it is a hit and miss guideline.
I am always sure that most games should run on lower powered machines but developers seem less likley to tailor things to the middle market and rely on powerful hardware being shifted. Maybe PC titles have a slow uptake rate but eventually hit reasonable figures over time.
How much did your PC/console cost you? Mine cost me £50 inc. delivery. I think 16FPS is pretty good.
I think anyone who says you have to have a steady 60 FPS for a game to be playable is nuts. As long as you don't drop below mid 20s you will be perfectly fine. But an average of 16 is awful. This means anytime you hit a graphically intensive area your frames are going to drop below 10. From what I have heard about the final level, I guess you haven't reached that yet and I expect you won't be getting into double figures with your set up.
There is a reason why your computer only cost £50.
Yes, I agree. To be honest, I did (and do) not expect to play something like Crysis on my PC. Having said that what pushed the average down were the "cutscenes". But definitely, there is no need for a 60FPS setup. A lot of the games lock the FPS at lower levels anyway....
I guess my point is that if I were to spend £100 on eBay on a new graphics card and a better processor, I would have a perfectly able PC for £150...
In my opinion, Max Schaefer was not very outspoken. The most innovative machine in gaming history, the PC, needs to constantly innovate to keep showing its edge. A little tinkering, like Schaefer suggests, won't do.
I'm another one who thinks a lot (but not all) stories like this just come from lazy column-filling writers.
Maybe we should ask them to write an article entitled "How incredibly incorrect those sales figures are, and how PC games aren't always bought from bricks-and-mortar retailers and can't be tracked".
I wonder wehat they would make of that. (Or more snappily "The Steam Paradigm" )
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, UK BA1 2BW England and Wales company registration number 2008885
Now all we need is to convince more devs of what he just said and we're good to go for another golden age of PC gaming.
The hardcore know how to spec a PC gaming machine and read game spec's so this isn't such a problem for them (and anyway, the hardcore - for all their moaning - will put up with a whole lot of s**t), but the more publishers try and palm cheap copies of games onto the PC the more casual players will loose interest and stop buying.
)
