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The Problem with PC
By Kris Graft
January 26, 2009
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"The ultimate reality for us is that publishers seem to be primarily interested in console development opportunities right now and that dictates what we can sell them on."
Depending on who you ask, PC gaming is either dying or thriving.
Arthur Bruno, co-head of Cambridge, Mass.-based Crate Entertainment isn't saying that PC gaming is doomed, but admits that it's difficult to ignore a supposedly safer risk-to-reward ratio in console development.
"I think the problem [with PC developement] is two-fold: lower sales potential and higher risk," Bruno said in an interview with Edge. "People can say what they want about the number of PC gaming machines being sold each year but the reality is that most titles released for both PC and Xbox 360 see higher sales of the console version, in some cases more than double even with a simultaneous release."
Bruno has first-hand experience in the trials and tribulations of PC game development. Prior to founding Crate nearly a year ago, Bruno was lead designer at Iron Lore Entertainment, makers of the PC-only 2006 RPG Titan Quest, a critically-acclaimed game that earned the dev house a Game Developers Choice Award for best new studio.
Despite its accomplishments, Iron Lore was forced to shutter in 2008, unable to secure funding for the development of Black Legion--a console RPG that Crate now owns. (Black Legion concept art pictured.)
"The most obvious factor people talk about is higher piracy rates on PC," Bruno said regarding more specific risks associated with PC development. "Another possible factor is the number of titles PC gamers buy each year compared to the average console gamer. I could go on speculating about different factors but the ultimate reality for us is that publishers seem to be primarily interested in console development opportunities right now and that dictates what we can sell them on."
Bruno still has an apparent affinity for the PC as a gaming platform, saying he'd still like to develop for desktop gamers. After all, he said, porting from Xbox 360 to PC is "relatively cheap."
"...I think there is a very good chance we’d port Black Legion to PC but that’s a call we’re leaving up to prospective publishers."
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Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
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You want to know why japanese game devs are doing so bad. They made too meny games on console and not enough good games on the pc. Now the japanese game devs are paying the price. Japanese are so far behide the west and behide gaming tech it's not even funny.
Only the best game devs even make it on pc gaming platform.
Of course not, that's not the reason at all, there always been better tech on PCs but the Console Devs always surpass that when the Next Gen comes and the cicle begins again, PC has nothing to do about what's happening now. It's a lot more complex than that, and i guess it comes from the lack of innovation paired with economic problems.
"Only the best game devs even make it on pc gaming platform"
Again, as metioned before, there's the Crysis example. Crysis problem with sales goes beyond the tech used in the game.
And there's always the successful Casual games that wont sell millions but they never cost millions to make neither, so you can win from them several times the production costs.
Frankly, the PC problem is not a single one but many, is not that simple as change some dev politics and that's it.
Agreed. And in all honesty, the strength of the PC platform is also its weakness - with no platform holder there's unparalleled diversity but there's no real cohesive push, either. Everyone's doing their own thing and the din can be maddening. Games for Windows is a good idea in theory as is Steam, Impulse, etc., but even then there's no real advertising, no real appeals to educate consumers, no universal, easily understood method in identifying hardware (especially video cards) for regular folks, etc.
Its a free for all, for better and worse.
The trick is its a great proving ground for revenue models, distribution, online gaming, and other features that console makers have watched, learned from, and adapted. Even if their implementations are closed and, by some reckonings, inferior, they're polished for a less-technical audience. Where the PC leads, consoles will follow, especially since software/services is a defining feature of this generation - more so that boring hardware capabilities.
I think buying habits were good point, but its worth looking a bit more at...
The PC has a lot of lifestyle games (particularly MMO's). Get into one and many players will cut back on other purchases.
The PC has mods. Get one good game with a great mod community, and again you can cut back on purchases.
The PC has a lot of legitimately free and cheap games.
The PC is also used for work, school, and hobbies, whereas consoles are almost strictly entertainment.
And one other thing that Brad Wardell touches on - many PC game companies keep shooting for the narrow high-end market instead of aiming lower (in terms of hardware specs) and getting a significantly larger potential market. Sins of a Solar Empire did quite well for Stardock saleswise, and the lower budget (under $1 million) made things even better.
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21876
I think the real truth is that console gaming is higher risk. Game devs lose more money to consoles for a few reasons, Here is why.
rented games
high production costs
used game makret
pircay on consoles!
Lets look at alot of new companies, game tittles and publishers pc gaming has created. Pc gaming has given birth to alot more companies than consoles. games tittles,publishers and new game devs.
for exmple crytek,stardock,cdprojekt,
New IP's such crysis, stalker clear skies, the witcher etc.
there is basicly alot of new publishers and game for the pc. Atarri and interplay are making their come back as publisher by pc gaming.
Lets take a look at the number companies that have went bankuprt over high production costs on consoles. If your console game doesn't sell well it's game over. High production costs are killing so meny big companies. Like factor 5, Interplay, mIdway etc.
It's funny that game devs don't talk about console pircay, yes console pircay is big on consoles. In fact nintendo lost over 1 billion to pircay on the wii alone. Console games get pirated so fast on console that when the games go gold they are pirated.
I would link some proof but i don't know how on this site.
pircay on console is so bad there is people who make a living off of console games and mods by the way.
Now lets talk about MMO's and game like nacy drew, daiblo,starcraft,sims,guildwars,linage etc. No console game makes the kind of numbers those games make period. that is the buttom line. In fact one of the very reason actvisionblizzard is doing well is because of their mmo wow. If EA had a mmo like wow they would be doing well in a ression. I will say that EA still has sims that will make a ton of money.
Fifa koeria online game makes more than fifa on console by the way for EA. There is a few artles on that.
I have not even talk about free online games yet that are doing well on the pc.
then there is also the fact there is a ton of games made for the pc. To make it big on the pc your going to have to make a really good game.
"then there is also the fact there is a ton of games made for the pc. To make it big on the pc your going to have to make a really good game."
Oh really? Like Crysis? That game was awesome and it sounds like sales were pretty dissapointing. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm a diehard PC player and I hope the market improves but lets face reality here... this post from another forum pretty much sums it up:
"Not exactly -- Crysis sold about 86,000 in its first month in the U.S., which is a disappointment considerig the game got superb reviews and was arguably the most anticipated PC game of the 2007 fall/holiday season.
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php? [...] 2&Itemid=2
Don't get me wrong -- I don't wish to see Crysis or, any PC game for that matter, sell poorly. I'm glad the game has sold (or shipped, which is a very big difference -- see Halo 3 vs. Call of Duty 4 for more on that subject) 1 million copies worldwide. I just think a lot of folks, including me, expected the game to do better, especially in the states. And that fact that a game like Crysis, with all its hype and buzz, didn't sell more than some of the crappy Wii titles or multiplatform games like Kane &Lynch that didn't have nearly the buzz or reviews that Crysis did...well, that's a little depressing."
Crysis is the best shooter, imo, to come out on PC in a long time and it barely sold a million copies while console shooters like gears of war, halo3, and call of duty are selling 5-10 million. Blizzard seems to be the only hope for the PC market... maybe the release of starcraft2 and D3 will bring us back to the glory days of PC gaming. So yeah, the PC market spawned a lot of great developers like Valve, Bioware, Blizz, Lionhead, Bethesda... except for blizzard they're all moving to console - what does that say? So I guess the next great PC developers are companies like stardock that I didn't even hear of until now that apparently make old-skool budget turn-based strategy games - awesome! I guess if you make stuff cheap enough people will buy it. A couple years ago I would have laughed at the idea of buying a console but now it seems like I'll be forced into it unless companies at least keep porting to PC.
Yeah it sucks - but anyone who thinks the PC market is as strong as it used to be is crazy or stupid. whenn I was in highschool all the awesome games that I was most excited about playing were made for PC - now they just get ported to PC... : (
Well i won't argue with that, but i don't see the relevance in the PC problem. And i just can't quite understand if this port to pc it's so easy why GTA4 runs like crap on an uber powered PC if it runs perfect on 360? I think its because Direct X compatibility doesnt mean direct to PC port. That can be true to some simple games, but the heavy weigth ones that really could take advange of the reduced cost of working in both platforms seems that doesnt mean much if you have to battle with thousand of variations, one of the PC difficulties.
True, rahvii - sloppy ports will still plague the industry regardless, and the infinite number of potential configurations for PC developers is daunting. Neither 360 nor PS3 support DX10 so there's that learning curve, as well, if PC developers choose to go that route. From what I understand, despite those factors, it is still a relatively painless transition between 360/PC, as opposed to PS3/PC, and in these times that could factor into the decision making process for which platforms to develop on moving forward.
You're so full of shit and you don't even know it.
Great comment
No really, incisive and illuminating. If you're going to post abuse at least back up your argument.
That last section demonstrates a key factor in MS' success in the console space. Because the architecture/SDK's are virtually identical for 360 and PC development, MS essentially offers developers a "two-for-one" deal. If you develop for one, you can basically throw in the other format's sales potential for next to nothing. This is why we see so many 360/PC only releases (Left 4 Dead being a recent example).
are there really that many? Most EA releases are on any platform and most 360 games which are not on the PS3 are not on the PC either. L4D being a small exception, but basically Valve said that the only reason for not having a PS3 version was their lack of PS3 know-how.
Either games are exclusive to one platform, or they are on all platforms. There really is little to nothing in between.
I probably should have qualified my remark more noting that it was a bigger factor early on (and will probably be a larger factor now that Capital is getting hard to obtain for new games).
Other titles included Universe at War: Earth Assault, Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars, C&C3: Kane's Wrath, Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom, F.E.A.R. Files, Flatout: Ultimate Carnage, Spiderman: Friend or Foe (on PS2, but not PS3), Thrillville: Off the Rails (also on PS2, but not PS3), Two Worlds, BattleStations Midway, Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth and the obvious early 360 releases (Quake 4, etc.) and other MS stuff (Shadowrun, Mass Effect, etc.).