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Straight Talk from PC Gaming Alliance
PC Gaming Alliance president and Intel gaming director Randy Stude is tired of what he sees as misconceptions surrounding the PC gaming market.
Issues such as piracy, inaccurate system requirements, hardware compatibility and competition from consoles are all on Stude's radar, but abandoning the platform in order to avoid those problems is a misstep, he suggested frankly.
Asked by GamePolitics about game companies that leave the PC because of piracy, he called such a decision "ridiculous."
"If someone wants to leave the PC market, we’ll miss you," he said. "We’ll watch with admiration as your titles ship in a diluted fashion without a whole lot of gameplay innovation, at least until you copy the innovation that occurs on the PC. We'll find the great games on PC and we’ll play those."
There have been game makers that have openly expressed their frustration with PC piracy, one notable example being Crytek, which said it would no longer be making PC-exclusive titles because of what it classified as rampant piracy of its shooter Crysis.
“I believe that’s the core problem of PC Gaming, piracy… PC gamers that pirate games inherently destroy the platform," said Crytek's Cevat Yerli earlier this year.
Calling out one specific Ubisoft title, Stude reiterated his don't-let-the-door-hit-you-on-your-way-out mentality when asked if some publishers are trying to urge gamers to move from PC to console.
"I’ve heard people say, well, we’re just not going to publish this title for PC gaming because it’s in a state of disarray or because of piracy or whatever. Okay, fine. Do what you want," Stude said.
"If you’re not going to release the Tom Clancy EndWar game for PC day and date, when you do release it for PC don’t be surprised if everyone’s bought a different game instead. They all bought [Command & Conquer] Red Alert 3 instead of EndWar. You blew it."
Not all of Stude's comments were inflammatory towards PC abandoners. Among other topics, he also speculated on the possibility of PCs eventually having official built-in console emulators. Noting that console makers like Sony and Microsoft actually lose money on hardware, he said, "Are [PC manufacturers] going to [offer built-in emulators]? I don’t know. I predict that they will. I predict that all of the console makers over time will recognize that it’s too expensive to develop the proprietary solution and recognize the value of collapsing back on the PC as a ubiquitous platform."
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Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
England and Wales company registration number 2008885
Many moons ago, panasonic (if my memory serves me correct) released a PCI expansion card for the PIII's years ago that added hardware support for 3DO games. The principle was to offer PC users a cost-friendly solution to be able to run 3DO games and application natively, but on a PC-Compatible. It didn't work so well in practice as they couldn't nail down variables such as the type and speed of RAM for example, how much low memory could be dedicated to the add-in hardware among stability issues. It's a good idea in theory, and wouldn't it be nice if your pc could play every type of game under the sun? Current custom all-in-one systems are no more than a smattering of each console pushed together inside a single box and cost in excess of $10k or higher relegating them to the customary elite and still (usually) require independent hookups for each component. The PC will only maintain its integrity as a platform of its own as long as 'someone' is willing to utilize it to its potential to deliver a unique user experience. We'll always have the indies and offshoots publishing some of the best games that are available on the PC and on the PC exclusively (Depths of Peril comes to mind if you're looking for a modern example of what I'm referring to). We should celebrate our independence. It doesn't mean that we won't own consoles or we won't play games on them. It's just the important games and the ones really 'worth' playing will keep us coming back to our desks as we fondly dive into what has kept each and every gamer so fundamentally enthusiastic over the last four decades. Well, the real gamers will at least.
Publishing on the PC requires more skill due to all the variables and let's face it a lot of developers can't hack it. Take Epic Games. They move to the consoles and everyone thinks they're sweet.
On the PC they suck because once the coding gets a bit harder they fall apart. Bad code plus all their other short comings is too much for one person to take.