Crytek: PC A Generation Ahead of Consoles

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[citation][nom]pandemonium_ctp[/nom]Still amazes me to this day how people don't know how to connect a PC to a big screen TV. All you need is cabling and you're done. Wireless keyboard/mouse is nice as well, but not really necessary; you can simply have or move (temporarily - you aren't really that lazy, are you?) your computer near your big TV. Or if you want a more permanent solution, there's a plethora of routes to choose from; such as using an additional mouse/keyboard set remotely near the TV on a KVM switch. (KVM Switch, DVI->HDMI cable, Stereo-7.1 cabling, additional keyboard/mouse can all run you around $70 if you know where to look.) Use your imagination. And I'm not just talking about a media PC that can barely run high-end graphics engines, though that is another option (building another PC that can run games as good as a console are just as, if not more expensive than the console itself - so defeats the purpose really).You definitely haven't looked hard enough. There are several "AAA" games on the PC that no console game can even come close to. Not to mention the fact that MMO gaming is extremely limited on consoles. No, I'm not talking about WoW. Your point?[/citation]

When I was talking about HDTV... its not so much that you can't plug in a PC into a TV (typical PCs don't have HDMI/DVI ports, still) - but that current PS3/360 consoles can play games in a high-res on a big TV with a simple plug of a cable. Its not like comparing Playstation1 to a Voodoo2 card in which the Voodoo2 murders the PS.

So now, the avg consumer can easily play quality graphic games without a $200+ video card... which is pretty much desired in the PC gaming industry (ATI-7850 and GF-460 video cards).

Face it, the console makes general gaming FAR easy than a PC. Compatible video card, strong enough CPU, enough RAM, the correct drivers, on and on.

Geez, since I've rebuilt my PC with Windows7 from a HD failure about 4-5 months ago, I've yet to re-install some of the games because I have to RE-INSTALL the game, type in the CD-KEY... so yeah, I generally have better things to do. if it was a console, drop the disc in and go.

And *NO*, the number of top AAA titles for PC exclusives are rarely there... Crysis, that's about it. Hey, I agree when it comes to FPS gaming, a mouse & keyboard is where SKILLED players go... but typical PC gamers are playing Half-Life2 tech type games - even WOW uses 2005-class graphics.

Its economics, the number of gamers for consoles completely outnumbers the PC-ONLY gamer... and more and more PC-Gamers simply have a console or two... maybe 3.
 
[citation][nom]ct1615[/nom]honest PC gamers who pay for their games get screwed by developers and the scum bags who pirate games.[/citation]

I am an honest pc gamer! But I'm also a pirate. So by not buying certain overpriced games with piss poor quality, I am at fault when companies struggle to stay afloat in an enviroment where 10% are unemployed? That's just bullsh..
I've got 86 games on my steam account at the moment - that's 86 legally bought titles over a 19 month period. If I hadn't pirated serveral of those titles earlier, I'd have never bought em on steam later.

imo the sales model and price level of games are a big factor of what hinders sales. Piracy has the potential to both limit and futher game sales, depending on the situation (cost of ownership).

ps. I preordered crysis back when it was new. If I'd pirated it I wouldn't have wasted that much money on a mediocre game. But on the other hand, if I hadn't pirated burnout paradise, borderlands or supreme commander 2, I'd have never bought em. Which I did.
 


A 5770 or 450 both have hdmi ports and can play games on high at 1920x1080 for under 150$. Unless you're playing on integrated graphics, yea, it may be a problem to plug into an HDTV and play.
Most hardware can be found cheap, 4gb kits are only 5-15$ more than single 2gb sticks of RAM, you can get a cheap tricore or quad processor for under 100$ that outperforms the Xbox's processor, and drivers take less then 5 minutes to update after every few months when you choose to update them, like consoles do when they try to install new patches and updates.
The problem is that people who aren't wanting to build their own computers look online, and find 800$ computers that bring them down because their too expensive for a gamer who wants a decent gaming experiance. So they end up buying a 300$ console, and a 500$ computer from a store nearby that was expensive for the outdated hardware.
Re-installing a game should only be a problem if you only game, and don't know how to watch a video in the mean time, unlike a console you can leave your pc on for more then a day.

MMO's & RTS games are still dominant on the PC over Consoles.
 
You know what? Myabe if you guys charged $40 bucks a game, and used a high-security system (like online code validation) then people wouldnt be able to pirate the games. Ill admit ive downloaded a game or two before, but when i loved it i went to the store and bought it when the prices were cheaper.

Just lower the fucking prices!!! $60 bucks is a little too much for an average amercian to afford. Lower it down to $40 and the ammount of people that buy the game nearly doubles.

Also those who think PC gaming is expensive, think of this. You will eventually need to upgrade the console and sell it. And yes, thats true with PC as well, but if you get the vital High-End components that stay as others are updated (PSU, Case, HDD, CD Drive) then upgrading components would be a lot easier, just sell the old ones! Its a cycle, and it will always will be because there is a better thing out there always. Also PC can be used for something other than gaming.

3 Points:
*PC Gaming is the best.
*Companies need to lower prices.
*Gaming PC's arent THAT expensive.
 
I really doubt piracy forced them to go multi-platform.
Only reason piracy was high with Crysis is because not everyone could run the dang game, and they didn't want to pay $50 to have something that would just crawl.
 
There are a few reasons why PC gaming is doomed.

1) They are a generation or two ahead of consoles and keep getting faster so every 2-3 years gamers have to buy new computers if they want to keep up with the technology and get the best graphics and physics they can get. A console is cheap and will stick around for maybe 10 years and the graphics are good enough.

2) Its easier to cheat with PC games. With PC games you have tons of cheating, you can't play a fair game unless you play on a dedicated server with just your friends. Unless something like OnLive really takes off and takes over PC and console gaming, I see PC gaming as a looser. Its cool if you want to play MMO's or free to play games, because you're not buying a $60 game to just be cheated on by 15 year old kids.

 
I find cheating a plus for pc games, not a negative thing. there's stuff like punkbuster for online cheat prevention - it just needs to become better.
I probably spend more 'game time' with a memory editor open than actually playing a title though. For me the challenge of unlocking near-impossible achievements thru memory hacks and cheats is more appealing than playing most of the games.
I was cheating with a ram drive in nethack, I was cheating with vmware in flash games, and I'm cheating with a host of things in modern games. Not because I can't beat em, but because it's a fun thing to do. On a console I would be stuck to playing the game. I couldn't extract the speech to use elsewhere, craft myself a wierd weapon or unlock hard modes without wasting hours playing normal mode, if I weren't playing on a pc.

ps. imo consoles are endangered just like pc's when it comes to gaming. Cloud computing and mobility will eventually replace both platforms. It might take another ten years though.
 
[citation][nom]kronos_cornelius[/nom]If I go to a car dealer, and nobody is there to let me test drive the cars, I just carjack the one that I like. Of course once I decide I like the car, I go back to the dealer and arrange a payment schedule. The logic makes perfect sense ![/citation]
Please learn the difference between intellectual and physical property before you open your mouth again on the subject, okay?

[citation][nom]Razor512[/nom]the most common trick is to progressively use lower quality textures and objects depending on their distance, than after a certain point, you simply have a pre-rendered scene.[/citation]
That's known as "Level of Detail scaling." It's actually present on PCs, since it lets them stretch things further. (for instance, it allows modern RTS/RTT games like the Total War series to have thousands of troops on-screen)

It's just that it's set far more agressively on consoles, because they have less power to play with in the first place. Hence, while on the PC, when set to "high" the scaling tends to not be noticeable at all, it's always noticeable on a console. And of course, there's the flip side: PCs have tesselation, which is, in some respects, LOD scaling in reverse, so as you get even closer, the polygon count balloons.

[citation][nom]Razor512[/nom]w few years ago, games could not wow people with graphics, ti immerse the gamer they relied on a solid story that pulled the user in. (the majority of games still sucked but the good ones were better than the good ones from today in terms of gameplay and story)[/citation]
For one, graphics has ALWAYS been a selling point for games, on the PC and console. This dates back to the 1980s, where NES games advertised "high resolution graphics," and other such things that got parodied on the "box art" for the retro-styled Mega Man 9 & 10. (things like "ultrasound graphics synthesis" and "dual FX twin engines") I know it's kinda hard for someone, spoiled by even the Xbox 360's graphics, to imagine this applying even as far back as, say, the Playstation and Nintendo64.

Likewise, "story" wasn't a strong suit back in the day either... I think it was John Carmack who said it, while making Doom: "story in a game is like story in a porno: it's nice if it's there, but people aren't expecting it." Most games even then had rather flimsy premises, often full of clichés; we've just traded which ones we have: we've gone from a superhero soldier who's a one-man army, to a grizzled (often ex) space marine who is... a one-man army. All told, though, story isn't entirely necessary for a game, just for RPGs. Laughably thin plot never really hurt Half-Life, Doom, Quake, or, of course, any of the Mario games, now did it?

[citation][nom]Razor512[/nom]Compared to PC games, it is easier to pirate console games and most piracy happens on the console.[/citation]
Yep, this is a very interesting situation: BECAUSE developers assume that "piracy is a PC thing," they put little to no copy-proection on their discs. As a result, it's less of a pain to pirate them. This is a far cry from the 1980s, where the NES's infamous lockout chip meant it was an open question if your cartridge would boot even if it was legit, or if you were going to have to spend 10 minutes blowing on the connectors.

[citation][nom]Hellcatm[/nom]There are a few reasons why PC gaming is doomed.1) every 2-3 years gamers have to buy new computers if they want to keep up with the technology and get the best graphics and physics they can get. 2) Its easier to cheat with PC games.[/citation]
Both are false points. With #1, consoles don't magically gain new powers over time: they remain static. They're just another computer. So in the end, you see them never actually looking any better. The same can go for a PC: you CAN just stick to only buying a PC every 5 years, the length of time before a console is abandoned. (though technically, the Xbox only existed for 4 years before being ditched for the 360) You don't NEED to always play on max settings at 60 fps: after all, consoles NEVER get that, ever. I have an ancient, 6.5-year-old machine that hapily plays anything that isn't Crysis. Sure, I don't get any tesselation or such, but then again, neither does a console.

With #2, that's almost as much a misconception as that piracy is PC-only. Kiddies can cheat on consoles. They can get caught, and banned for it: the same happens on PC games. There was actually a posting about it right here on Tom's about Blizzard banning thousands of hacking and cheating StarCraft II players. I mean, it doesn't take long for hacks to appear on games on the consoles... It took all of two weeks for Halo: Reach to have aimbots as shown on YouTube.
 
Dear Crytek,

You are 'fairly' new so I hope you know. People have been pirating your partner EA's games since before the Commodore64 5 1/4" floppy disk days. And back then there were usually like 3 guys doing program development (talk about taking money out of your pocket!).

Since then EA has 'somehow' managed to grow into a multi-million dollar company...right along with pirates stealing their stuff each step of the way -- copying 3.5" floppies, then CD's, and now DVD's. EA Console games more safe? Guess what? Rented, used, and traded-in carts/CDs were sales EA didnt profit from either.

So, all I'm saying is that 1 of 2 things probably happened here. Either EA never really learned to account for piracy in their sales strategies for over 30 years of game producing and have just been lucky...or...Crysis was a PC game that just didn't sell well.

Piracy is a problem, but not "the" problem. The problem was that you were more interested in developing/promoting your 'game engine' than the actual game - and the PC gaming community called you on it.

No biggie. It kinda worked. The engine 'is' legendary, you made a profit anyway, and learned something (I hope). So no more excuses. Move on and make some better games!

love,
a PC Gamer

 
Didn't crysis sell like 1.5 million copies? Not very many console games do better than that...

And wouldn't it make sense to develop a game for PC then dumb it down for consoles? Its much easier to dumb a game down...
 
[citation][nom]Phate[/nom]Actually most rags rate the Boxster as more enjoyable and a better driving experience than the 911. It's mid-engined and better balanced, as compared to the polish a turd rear-engine design of the 911. http://www.caranddriver.com/featur [...] an_page_10But other than that yes, your post is spot on, everything about a modern PC is superior to console hardware.[/citation]

LOL, yeah, I thought my analogy would fall a little flat for some. But for the average guy, a Boxster is for guys who love Porsches but don't make enough money to buy a 911. At least, that's the joke. A Camaro is not a Corvette and a Civic is not an NSX.
 
Jeez i hate to say it( no i don't) but you got to realize even though the PC is well advanced over a consol that gaming on a consol is a much more assessable platform. Price , ease of use, and control mostly knock a PC into a cocked hat, any one with subjective judgment will know that. I have played many platforms through the years. And although PC's are inherently capable of whupping a consol on paper, the reality of the experience tells a different tale. So while I would like to join you in high def gaming on a big screen at $3000 + the cost of the tv. You will understand that $500 bucks for a 360 is a better deal for me .Unless you have money to burn , and if you do, well good for you , I would join you in a jot, with a big wad of firey $50's if i were able.
Seeing as the last i herd PC games were about 5% of the market. You will see that you are fighting a losing battle with the impoverished masses for cutting edge games software. I don't think my 360 is perfect, or even close to being so. At times it slows and frame rates stutter. Microsoft seem to deliberately make transferring and backing up files difficult for you if you cant afford the latest incarnation of their outdated consol architecture. I should know i just lost a profile that has been in the making since the 360 came out. Because the "approved" thumb drive i used to transfer files onto, blanked itself over night.I was just off the rank of Brigadier in in Halo Reach. Had 1000,000+ credits. All gone along with everything else.Back to the start, (and no i cant reclaim my tag from xbox live, as i don't currently have an account)
You will notice in this world that everything is being dragged down to a lower level of development and features than a properly finished product should reasonably be expected to have. Many products that we buy, and consume, in droves are full of flaws and design faults. But as a race we have become consumed with form over function. Must have items, to be seen with. What the hell if it doesn't actually work properly. The ownership confers status.( Strange but true more often then you would care to admit)
So the masses that continue to buy outdated games consols, (me included), will it seems, inevitably hold back development of hard' and software. Why on earth would you bring out an update when the old one keeps selling . Oh the joys of a free market economy (wastonomy i call it). Got to go, i feel a hostile takeover coming on.
 
Yeah, keep up with the PC game piracy. Keep stealing. Keep making us ALL pay more for games because YOU are a total dipshit. Once, just ONCE I would like to get my hands around one of your scrawny little necks. And squeeeeeeeeeeeeze. Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard. Dieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Good riddance.
 
After flop Windows Wists Microsoft launch it's one of the best product in the across the world that's called Windows 7 What a fantastic games for all gamers I also playing Foreign Language Games on the Windows 7.

Thanks for writing a good article.
http://www.skymindgames.com :bounce:
 
WARNING: OFF TOPIC.
(but already started so i will add some more)
To all you self righteous piracy protesters out there. Try this piece of logic
Piracy helps to hold down the price of games, cd's dvd's, whatever else is being pirated. HOW ? I can here you all screaming in impotent rage . Well here's the theory.
Price has little to do with cost. It is about percived value, and Supply & Demand.
SO
If Piracy is as prevalent as we keep being told it is. It will be increasing supply & therefor decreasing demand to legitimate vendors. This will hold prices to us the end users down. As suppliers and manufacturers are forced to compete for sales with cheap pirate copy's.
Otherwise if Piracy is not any significant amount of potential sales. Well whats all the fuss about?
Either way you cut it. The answer is the same. WE are being gouged.
Of course you will hear all this stuff from company's and corporations about how piracy has forced them to cut this and that. Stopped development of some kind of wonderful new uber game concept (details will of course by sketchy at best),etc. Of how they were forced to lay off a load of workers, and some of them went mad with despair , shot their family's and so on.
This is B.S. Piracy is just one of the excuses given to justify whatever decisions are taken.
Excuses given in an attempt to extricate said corporation from any culpability for it's actions.
Now much as it pains me to write it, I'm not going to blame the corporations. They are only acting within the legislative framework that politicians have been bribed, (sorry that should have read "Lobbied"), into drawing up for them.
It is a corporations legal duty to it's shareholders to maximize profits an any way possible. It's all part of the Free Market Economy that must be allowed to flourish for the good of us all. Oop's aren't Pirates part of the free market economy too ? Ha , ha.
Yes, but not apparently the right part.... ?
As for perceived value. Well lets look at something most people would agree is overpriced ,allowing for cost of materials ,development and slave,(there I go again that should have said Chinese) labour. Lets pick, oh i don't know, an Iphone.(easy target, but what the heck)
What do you think would happen if we en mass were to stop buying this lamentably non battery changeable piece of scratchoniun ?
Well first off Apple would realise that they had been sussed.
Then the beneficent tyrant "King Jobs" would decree a price cut.
Would Apple make less profit ? Yes.
Can they afford to . Well lets ask Jobs'y . He would have to decide between.
Either "terminateing" a few of his Chinese hordes.
Or perhaps sell one of his solid gold rocket cars.
Or give out a slightly less obese bottom line to his shareholders. I will let you decide which of these options would more likely be followed.
So next time you feel the need to vent your spleen on the ravening plagues of Pirated software, and it's unholy vendors. Just stop and think.
If you want to be led up the garden path, and round the back, to the slaughterhouse. By some anonymous "industry spokesperson". Well that's fine by me.
But I would be more worried about their hands in my pockets. Then studioman22 (and all the rest of the strident, "think of the corporate profits" you monsters, posse), getting his/their hands around mine, or anyone else's, throat.
Of course it's possible that big business is largely benevolent and has our best interests front and center of it's enormous saintly heart, it's possible.
But I reckon that a lot of people who might read this, spend a mighty long bit of time fighting through some fairly dark conspiracy's in the games that they play. Now some would say it takes a twisted mind to come up with those story lines, story lines that we routinely immerse ourselves in. I just wonder whether it was the that games spurred the reality or reality that spurred the games.
I myself posses no pirate games. I game on an unchipped consol. My P.C. is to old and infirm to play anything worth playing . But Piracy is not destroying anything. It's not costing end users money. It's costing corporate profit. Which is not on the endangered list as far as I can tell. We would be charged more if there was no alternate lower priced source to buy from.
Prove me wrong .
Go on.
Don't do dirty work for corporations.
Get them to do it for themselves.
.....Flawed.....
 
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