Why Game Devs Avoid PC?

[MadDog215]

Some games I really want to play are on console platform only. All I see in PC are common genres with no innovation. There is no Destiny, GTA 5, Infamous Series, Metal Gear Solid series etc. Considering PC is the best experience ( meeting recommended system requirements). Why PC is not the main platform for almost games?

 

[ThatVietGuy]

Consoles are far more prevalent and the piracy is always an issue.

 

[MalakiArtook]

a lot of games do come out it generally just takes longer. they make their money on console then a year or so later release it on pc to squeeze every dime they can. GTA will come out eventually. If its not a online game people would just crack it and no one would actually pay for it.

 

[Jacob McIntosh]

On top of what ThatVietGuy said, a PC can be running thousands of different setups across multiple operating systems, while with consoles, the devs only need to make the game for the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One, instead of the enthusiast gamer's right with 2 GPUs and a super powerful CPU, all the way down to the average Joe's $400 laptop from BestBuy.

Because PC graphics look so much better, if the devs releases the console level graphics for PC, the game would take on lost of hate for the bad graphics. The same goes for sound.

 

[MadDog215]

Consoles are far more prevalent and the piracy is always an issue.

Why Piracy is an issue man? PC gamers can buy a $1000 to $3500 gaming rigs, let alone a $60 game.

 

[ThatVietGuy]

That's a fallacy. Also, it's very easy to obtain and install bootleg games. You give people the easy way out, they'll take it.

 

[Mouldread]

Edit: Never mind

 

[Supernova1138]

Most of the games you listed are actually exclusive to Playstation because Sony either outright owns the developer, or has paid a crapload of money to get exclusivity. As for GTA V, Rockstar has had a very poor track record on PC releases for the past decade or so, with every one of them aside from Max Payne 3 being a terrible port that was rife with problems. As such, their games don't sell that well on PC, piracy issues aside, a lot of people aren't going to buy a broken product. I think once GTA III happened, Rockstar decided to just focus all of their efforts on consoles, because they could make more money there, especially with Sony paying them a lot to get timed exclusivity on their games back in the early 2000s. Rockstar just stopped caring about the PC ports, and released increasingly shoddy products until it got to the point that few people would bother buying the PC version at all except maybe at a steep discount.

In any case, I do hope GTA V appears on some other platform besides Xbox 360 and PS3, because the game barely runs at an acceptable framerate on those ancient consoles, and it would be a much better experience if it could run on something more modern.

 

[Pinhedd]

Some games I really want to play are on console platform only. All I see in PC are common genres with no innovation. There is no Destiny, GTA 5, Infamous Series, Metal Gear Solid series etc. Considering PC is the best experience ( meeting recommended system requirements). Why PC is not the main platform for almost games?

There are a couple of reasons. Several of which have already been mentioned in this thread.

The largest reason perhaps is that PC gamer expectations have become increasingly more demanding while developing AAA titles for the PC has become increasingly more difficult. Developing a game for a console is comparatively easy and streamlined. There's one (or two) target hardware platforms that are virtually guaranteed to stay static for the next 5 years at least. There's no need to fiddle around with scalability for different levels of visual fidelity, add support for different vendor components, or cede to the never ending list of PC gamer demands. Console gamers are simply easier to make happy and cost significantly less to do so, so many studios focus on consoles first and leave the PC as an afterthought.

With the above in mind, publishing companies prioritize production on the amount of expected revenue that the project is expected to bring in, and the risk involved with producing that product. It may be that working on a new product for a console makes more sense financially than porting an existing product to the PC if that port isn't expected to perform particularly well. An incredibly weak porting job may result in brand damage (Dark Souls, Resident Evil 4, GTA IV), as would a half-assed job across the board which take months to fix (Battlefield 4). In many cases, creating one or two quality products makes more sense strategically than reaching as many markets as possible (Nintendo approach).

Introducing a new product and introducing existing products to new markets are quite risky, the former more so than the latter. Brand new IP is often unsuccessful, which is why publishers looking to reduce risk often fallback on creating new iterations of established IP even if a winning formula is sacrificed to appeal to broader markets (such as the recent mockery that was made of Thief). New IP is often more successful on consoles than it is on PC, and many action/shooter games have made their debuts on those platforms first where reviewers and critics are more lenient. Some have gone on to become critical successes on the PC, but many have not. The reverse is often not true.

Piracy is also a huge issue. Many will prattle on about "marketing opportunities" and "failure of support" but at the end of the day piracy is significantly lower on consoles than it is on PC and to ROI chasing investors that's all that they care about. Investors do not care about whom enjoys the product, whom "would have paid for it had it included X, Y, and Z", or whom "just can't afford it right now but can't wait that long to play it".

 

[Divyanshu Sah]

There are many games which are playstation exclusive. These are made exclusive to ps, so that the fans must buy playstation in order to play the game. This is an easy marketing trick. This is the only thing keeping consoles alive. Otherwise pc gaming is awesome, People would buy pc to play games. Games like uncharted, infamous, gran turismo etc. are ps exclusive, so fans are forced to buy ps to play those games.

Same in the case of xbox. Games like halo and gears of wars published by microsoft are xbox exclusive , and increase the sales of xbox ( which is a product by microsoft ).

But the case of GTA 5 is different. It is taking a lot time to come to pc because it is being modified to run on pc ( or being ported ). Rocks**r does not want it to become like gta 4 which was a bad port. Gta 4 was not correctly optimized for pc. So they are giving more time to gta 5.

 

[sando99]

Maybe it's a lot whole easier to create a game for the console platform. It's easier to port it for PC intstead of creating it from 0. But console graphics are crap. They are looking better on a PC.