PC vs. CONSOLE WAR: PC's are LOSING.

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Oh I was just kidding! Saying pc gaming is alive because of liquid nitrogen and console gamers were stupid just struck me as needing an equally childish retort.

I have no envy for pc's, because I own both. I'm about to build another pc infact (I don't think pc gaming is dead, I just think it needs to find itself again). But I gotta tell ya, my experience is that console-gamers know just as much about what is coming out as the pc gamers.

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Part 2: it's also a huge mistake to think that all the artistic development happens on the PC.

I mean simply take Okami (beautifully different art and gameplay style), Gears of War (intense cinematics with high pressure gameplay), the upcoming Flower (I don't want to play it, but that's a very different gameplay mechanic). This is a short list, but there is actually quite a bit of innovation on the other side of the aisle. Some other notables are Patapon, Katamari (sp?), and Bioware products.

PC gaming isn't dying, but it is struggling. Sins of a Solar Empire is absolute proof that there is life and innovation out there and you would be hard pressed to figure out a way to console that game. However, if a game is a decent fit for a console, a developer would be idiotic not to develop it for console as well.
 
I play both consoles and PCs. I have a Wii, 360, PS3, and a PC LAN with 6 PCs in my house. Each has their strengths and weaknesses. I have no shortage of play time on any of them except the PS3.
 
Honestly, it is not that Steam is somehow hacker proof, because it is not. It is actually not difficult to hack at all. The reason it is an effective anti-piracy measure is that it supplies a valuable and useful service that you can no longer take advantage of once you have hacked it.

Gamers like Steam. I love the ability to just install Steam on a freshly installed computer and download all of my Steam games at once. It is really rather nice to not have to futz with 30 different game CDs and DVDs in order to get my game library reinstalled and functional. Furthermore I love being able to browse other games they distribute and buy then right then and there and have them to play within a few minutes to a few hours. Their prices are reasonable and their servers are fast.

That is a lot of valuable functionality that I don't want to sacrifice in order to play my games on multiple systems at once. It just isn't worth it to pirate Steam games.

THAT is what an anti-piracy measure should be. It should be a feature that is so useful that losing it due to hacking the system is too costly to be worth it.

The same thing works in favor of Impulse (Stardock).
 


Definitely, IMO STEAM is the future of pc gaming.
 
1. pc's are way more expensive than consoles, so yes of course consoles are going to be bourght more!

2. as original post pointed out . Drivers are the worst thing on pc's its such a hassle to get a new piece of software or hardware working sometimes.

when you compare this with consoles they beta test like made to make sure users dnt have to sit there downloading patches and fixes for bugs and compatability issues!

3. main reason why perants go more for consoles is price and the fact that most perants dnt really understand computers! i know my perants dont. they sit there and waste a good 600 pound on a piss poor dell system thinking it will suffice in todays market! and not only that they blame the systems poor speed and ability on the games i play!

so the reason pc gaming is in a slump at the moment is due to lack of support from developers and lack of knowledge from the group that buy pc's the most i.e people who have money in the collapsed economy.

would do you do when your kid wants to play games do you spend 300 or 4000 pound for a top end system.

and IMO i found steam to be amatuer at best . the one game i did buy from them was like a blast from the past ! shady graphics and glitchy engines!
 
notice i said pc's are in a slump at momment!

lets be honest pc's will never overtake consoles.

and until the economy (englands mainly) recovers from years of piss poor labour control people will be spending less and less on things they don't need!

so aslong as consoles stay as cheap as they are PC's will allways take the back bench!

its as i remember with the gamecube lol when it came out "GAME" and english store had like 5 bays worth of games 2 months down the line they had 1 and xbox controlled the whole store more or less!

but now look at it! the nintendo Wii is back up at the top and is level pegging with xbox 360 IMO so jst wait a little while!

and hope dell go out of business for being crap lol
 
PC gaming is loosing because console gaming is more user friendly


with a console game, all you do is buy the game, and pop the disk into the dvd drive and the game runs

with PC, you have to buy the game, enter in a overly long cd key, then go through a long install process, click no to install the spyware, aka gamespy, activate and register the game, hope that the DRM doesn't hate any hardware in your pc, keep the cd in the drive to play the game even though it was installed into the hard drive

the main problem with pc games are DRM

theres more drm in a pc game than in a console game so it is more frustrating to users to play a pc game because of all the hoops they have to jump through

with most pc games now, your also at risk for the drm servers going down and taking your game with it

it is a major problem that people are trying to avoid.



all of this usually moves users to get pirated games that are not filled with drm, and when you have to force users to risk infecting their pcs and waste time downloading a game, you can bet that you lost them as a customer


no one wants to buy something that has been purposely made to be more frustrating to a user

it is like buying a boat and the company knocks a few holes into it before giving it to you, it may still work but now it is frustrating because you have to toss out buckets of water


the goal of business is to make your product easier to use. when going from the dos days, to windows, people liked it.


free software is not going to cause the world to want it over paid software



look at linux vs windows

I paid $200 for windows xp pro when I build my PC

i could have gotten linux for $0 but to me, windows was less frustrating to use

with windows most things, including advance things can be done through the GUI, theres almost no need for me to deal with command line

with linux, most basic things require extensive use of command line

in windows, I can install programs I like by double clicking on their install file

in linux, I generally have to go through 10-15 steps and use a lot of command line to get the same task done, (and if you want audigy 2 drivers installed into ubuntu, your in for a really hard time )


game developers need to learn that, people will pay for ease of use

adding drm makes the product frustrating to use




compare windows xp to the mac os, windows is more popular because it is more user friendly, with the mac os, almost every advance task requires extensive command line use, users like having full control over their system and they like having that control easy to use


if game developers want their games to sell then make it much easier for users to get the game up and running.

remove all drm and most piracy will stop also as it will be easier to buy the game than to risk infecting their pc and wasting bandwidth for a pirate copy
 
PC gaming will survive, after all it is more profitable . You do not have to pay a percentage of your profits to the computer maker .. console games have to pay the console makers a percentage.
 
PC gaming will survive and it will survive by the companies that happen to not be constantly whining about piracy and how bad the market it, because those companies understand the current market.

Any companies that don't adapt will move to consoles and maybe port things to the PC. I will be sad to see some of them go but it really is their own fault. They have working examples of how to do things right and they still ignore them.
 
This maybe a bit simplistic but the reality of this is true (in most cases)

If you develop and publish a bad or average game expect to lose money, if you produce and excellent game you can expect to make money. This applies to both PC and console games alike, saying ‘we won’t publish on the PC because of piracy’ is nonsense, the % of profitable PC games is just as low as it is on the console format. In reality only 1 in 5 games will turn a profit, according to a report on Play.tm
 
That isn't entirely true. Unless you mean stupidity of customers and/or marketing. There are plenty of great games that didn't sell well. Beyond Good and Evil and Psychonauts come to mind.
 

You're right, that is a little too simplistic. Just because a game is a success that doesn't mean piracy has no effect on it's sales. Good games get hit much harder by piracy than crappy games. Look at the pic I posted earlier in this thread. People are not pirating that game. Despite being a horribly crappy game it will still probably make some money. No developer or publisher really thinks a title like that will be a big hit, so they must see some reason to produce it. They can create a weak product for a relatively low cost and bank on the generally stupidity of the consumer to buy enough to turn a quick buck- i.e. all of those genre parody movies. Big time titles on the other hand have a much higher risk which in turn should result in a much greater reward. Unfortunatly piracy affects the risk/reward ratio for these types of games much more so than "crappy" games. So even piracy doesn't determine whether an individual game will turn a profit or not it can still influence the quality of games being produced.
 
i have noticed that crappy games and games that had too much drm were the ones to be pirated the most


mass effect was a extremely good game, well worth the money

but it got pirated like hell due to the whole DRM uproar

alone in the dark, was a crappy game and i guess probably 90% of the people who have the game, are using a pirated copy

to me, based on gameplay footage, It is too crappy to even risk downloading it
 
alone in the dark, was a crappy game and i guess probably 90% of the people who have the game, are using a pirated copy
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I won't even waste anyone's time trying to debate "90%". But I wouldn't classify Alone in The Dark in the category of crappy games like "Hell's Kitchen". I haven't played Alone in The Dark but it looks as if a pretty decent effort was put into the game, although it has failed to meet expectations. Regardless of your opinion Razor I'm sure those making Alone in the Dark at least had the ambition to try and make a good game, unlike say the people who made Hell's Kitchen: The Game. So what was their reward - people go ahead and play their game without paying. Certainly a lot more was put into developing Alone in the Dark so it would be no surprised if they game actually lost money while Hell's Kitchen actually made money because it took no effort to produce. So why even bother trying to make a good game if you can make more money with less effort?
 
mass effect was a extremely good game, well worth the money

but it got pirated like hell due to the whole DRM uproar
Click to expand...

That's such a load a crap. You can keep on telling yourself that if it makes you feel better but please name one top PC title that hasn't been severely pirated.
 
all pc games get pirated like crazy but for games like bioshock and mass effect, the level of piracy was on a whole new level

and those games took the stage for having really bad DRM at the peak of their piracy

crysis was also pirated a lot but not as much even though the DRM was bad, many people couldn't run the game and it would be a waste of their time to even dl it if they cant run it
 
all pc games get pirated like crazy but for games like bioshock and mass effect, the level of piracy was on a whole new level
Click to expand...
really? And how do you know that? Especially considering those are both single player games so there's no real way to measure piracy. I don't think that there's any real argument that piracy is rampant. So going past that then question is why. I tend to believe the simpliest answer is the best. People want to get somthing for nothing. It's a simple truth that's as old as mankind. The idea that DRM is the factor driving many to pirate is silly. Now if the price of games suddenly doubled and you said that was the reason people were pirating I'd be inclined to believe you, but DRM is not the equlivalent to a $50 price increase. If you think so you're a fool. Look at consoles. Their games are pure DRM (and cost ~20% more), but that's not why people pirate them. They do so because it's a way of getting something for nothing plain and simple. Do you honestly believe people mod their consoles because they hate DRM or because they just want free games? There's no reason why the answer to that question should differ for PC games.
 
modding consoles also allow you to use custom programs line video players that support multiple formats

others do it to backup their own games since many consoles now seem to like scratching the disk

and free is also a factor but there many factors against it, mainly the risk of an infected game (not all groups upload a cracked game out of the goodness of their heart)


if you open a electronic store and mark all items as 100% off sale

you will see people from all over the world coming to get free electronics, and if you do it for a few days, you may even see aliens from other planets come to get the free stuff

but if you put a trench around the store, filled with acid and a additional minefield around the store as well as auto turrets filled with angry bees , then you will only get the most dedicated people coming for it

unlike other things like free samples at a mall, pirate games online have a major risk.


also the price of games have gone up over the years

not many people are thrilled to see that the 4-5 games they bought cost more than the the game console

game developers are scared to charge a reasonable price.

before in the old days, I would buy lots of games since most of the games were around $10-15 but now with more modern consoles, i have gone down to 1-2 games per year because of the steep price tag


while console games have lots of drm, it is not noticeable to the average user as you still like insert the game disk and the game plays (it cant get any easier than that)

 
I really have to disagree with you on the prices of games going up. Really it's just been with the ~$10 increase in PS3 and 360 games that games have really gone up much. I remember NES cartridges costing $50. Even a used cheapy game from the rental store still cost $20 twenty years ago. And you can still buy lot's of games for $10-$20 if you're willing to wait a little. I just bought Bioshock last weekend for 14.99 on Steam. When I got my first PC almost 15 years ago it still cost me almost $100 to buy my first two PC games, Myst and Doom II.
 
did not really notice it much as i generally got a new console a little late when many people already got it, at that time most of the good games were cheap and easy to get

when I got into bf2, it was $25, some of the best $25 I ever spent :) been a few years and I still play it (after bf2 there has been no games with as good enough gameplay to keep me playing the game after I beat it
 
Maybe Im just lucky. I took a lot of time and did loads of research and built myself a great gaming PC. I then went out and bought Bioshock, Mass Effect and Crysis.

Im running XP Pro SP2 ( latest updates ) and I simply stuck the disks in the drive and installed the games without a SINGLE problem. They all played beautifully without any DRM issues or resulting crashes.

So, someone please take the time to explain to me this massively problamatic DRM issue??? Aside from the issue with the invasive Starforce DRM software etc and the like what is causing people problems.

Or am i to actually assume that most of the DRM problems result from crashes which can really be chalked up to using a pirated OS and pirated games in the first place?

Consoles are great and serve a purpose - they also promote gaming to a wider audience and in doing so indirectly help people slowly shift into gaming on both PCs and consoles.

This isnt a VHS vs CD battle here. That was merely value for money and performance between 2 very different products that essentially did the same thing ( albeit a little differently - both with their pros and cons ). Consoles and PCs provide 1 similar aspect, gaming obviously, as well as other minor media player/extender features. Computers will always have the benefit of being upgradable/customisable and are capable of more powerful apps and games. They are also versatile tools. Consoles are easy to use and operate and are suitable to another area of gaming market.

Both will stay and coexist and provide joy for all.
As they have done so since their respective inceptions.

So please - no more of these threads. And stop all the doom saying. People like the OP arent exactly stumbling across new magnificently enthraling areas of interest here.

Fanboying one or the other isnt going to effect whatever the outcome is.
 
The problem with Mass Effect and Bioshock's DRM was never that it was flakey or unstable. It was that it was not consumer friendly.

With Mass Effect, and Bioshock when it first came out, you have three installs. If something happens after that and you need to install again you have to call up the publisher and beg for another activation. In the case of Mass Effect, that publisher is EA and they don't seem inclined to unlock the number of activations any time real soon and their customer service department is notoriously uncooperative.

I for one refuse to buy a game that I can only install 3 times before being subjected to such frustrating hoops to jump through. If we sit back complacent, many more games will show up with this and then, every time we want to go back and play one of our older games that we enjoyed we have to make a phone call and wait on hold and plead with someone who probably speaks broken English to let us play our game.

I have drawn my line in the sand and that is well past it.
 
yep and also with drmed games, your game will only last as long as the company
(how many people here enjoy calling a support line, PS there also many people who only have a cellphone in their house and heres no toll free for a cellphone so the cost of calling for activations can add up)
also no one wants to have to call call center in india and spend hours on hold, only to speak to a person who hates his underpaid job and also hates you, and beg him or her for another activation

also know that they only give you 1 they don't give you 3, so after you use up all 3 activations, you will have to call and speak to "Mr. I hate my job and you" every time you want to reinstall the game

so that copy of mass effect may not work 5-10 years from now

when annoying DRM is used, your basically handcuffed to the company, if they jump off a bridge, there taking their games with them.

same thing with drm music.

if you look at the msn and yahoo music stores, when they were trying to take down their DRM servers, they were going to for the most part take the music with them, to move the music, you have to connect to their drm servers first to allow you to move the music. so all it would take was a simple os reinstall and none of the music will work anymore as theres no drm server.

same with itunes, if apple gets rid of itunes, all music purchased from it will no longer function.

DRM links you to the company so they can control where and when the music is played

just like how you can control your own computer, they can control your music. but suppose the user of the computer was to suddenly die, would the computer continue to play games and surf the web and chat with friends and family and design new 3d art work in maya 3d?... well think about what happen when the server in charge of controlling your music or your games die out



DRM games should be mush cheaper, but instead there more expensive


a non drmed piece of software will last for ever, it will work 2 days from now, and it will still work 100000000000000 trillion years from now

a drmed piece of software can stop working tomorrow or the day after tomorrow


walk up to anyone on the street and ask them, would you rather want unlimited dollars, or 5 dollars and tell me what is their answer, and that will be the answer for why DRM doesn't work




drm would be understandable if they made the game free or one or 2 dollars to cover the cost of the box and the dvd but the current prices don't work. compared to non drm, the shelf life of drmed software cant even compare to the unlimited shelf life of non drm software

so why not price it as such?


with non drmed games, everything just works, the install process is easy, no hoops to jump through and the game will work for unlimited years
 
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