 |
| |
|
|
pg
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by DarkCloud
Huge Development Costs= a factor YES
System Reqs= NO.
Very few games have high system reqs... |
i disagree. i think most games which require 1ghz+ to be playable are pretty high. one of the reasons counter strike is a big hit is because you can play it on such low spec machines. there are lots of games with high requirements today that have no reason for them like railroad tycoon, civ3, or even paradox games seem to be requiring faster and faster pcs. higher requirements slashes your market share you can sell to and most games coming out today play worse(interface lag, long loading, choppiness). in many cases even the gameplay doesn't seem to have any real benefit from high requirements. good example being civ2/smac where turns were super fast, you could have a million cities/units to civ3 which runs slow, loads slow, etc with a fraction of the cities/units of earlier games.
quote:
If you ever travel to Thailand or Eastern Europe, you will see thousands of pirated CD's undercutting the real CD prices... |
i don't think pc games have ever not been pirated or strong sellers there. game companies probably don't even factor in official sales from these places as they are so small.
quote:
And it's very easy to pirate games if you have DSL or Cable or T1 hookups... or just have a friend who has a CD rewritable. |
it is easy, but it has been going on forever. i never heard piracy being blamed so much as it is now. the thing with piracy is i don't think many sales are lost. i'd rather buy a game i'm going to play a lot so i can play multiplayer or use mods/patches hassle free. the games i pirate are ones i'd never buy anyways(usually stuff that is old, hard to find or bad value).
quote:
as for GalCiv's complaints- royalties only appear after the advance has paid for itself... now I don't know his full details- but his game just didn't sell is what I assume. at least with Strategy First. Since otherwise the non-payment would border on illegal (nonetheless, I will admit, it's hard to nail a company for that) But I doubt that galCiv outsold its advance. |
afaik galciv sold over 100k copies which is fairly good for a pc games nowadays. publishers probably don't pay royalties just like in music. my understanding is they hide behind loopholes and pretend not to make a profit when they really are.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Dis
|
 |
Las Vegas, Nevada
Feb 2000
time: 21:36
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by pg
i disagree. i think most games which require 1ghz+ to be playable are pretty high. one of the reasons counter strike is a big hit is because you can play it on such low spec machines. there are lots of games with high requirements today that have no reason for them like railroad tycoon, civ3, or even paradox games seem to be requiring faster and faster pcs. higher requirements slashes your market share you can sell to and most games coming out today play worse(interface lag, long loading, choppiness). in many cases even the gameplay doesn't seem to have any real benefit from high requirements. good example being civ2/smac where turns were super fast, you could have a million cities/units to civ3 which runs slow, loads slow, etc with a fraction of the cities/units of earlier games.
i don't think pc games have ever not been pirated or strong sellers there. game companies probably don't even factor in official sales from these places as they are so small.
it is easy, but it has been going on forever. i never heard piracy being blamed so much as it is now. the thing with piracy is i don't think many sales are lost. i'd rather buy a game i'm going to play a lot so i can play multiplayer or use mods/patches hassle free. the games i pirate are ones i'd never buy anyways(usually stuff that is old, hard to find or bad value).
afaik galciv sold over 100k copies which is fairly good for a pc games nowadays. publishers probably don't pay royalties just like in music. my understanding is they hide behind loopholes and pretend not to make a profit when they really are. |
move into the 21st century  
|
|
| |
|
|
|
LDiCesare
|
|
La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:36
|
|
quote:
There's certainly some games companies who can be devoted enough to produce good games and have some modding support, but the temptation to release a rubbish game and have the fans fix it for free is always there. |
I think you're having it the wrong way. Typically, civ3 out of the box didn't come with modding. You can't blame modding for it. I have an example of one company which made 2 games, one moddable, the other not: Troika developped Arcanum (moddable). That was a very good game. They later released Temple of Elemental Evil (not moddable), which was mostly crap (very shallow game). Both games were buggy after release and patched later on. The worst one was the not moddable game, in part because some content had been edited out of the game by the publisher. This content could easily had been put back in if the game had been moddable.
As for NWN, the main thing in the game was multiplayer, which made the single player game shallower than what it could have been. Modding is not the reason why the game is not up to one's expectations.
The lack of quality of PC games is not due to mods but to the internet and the large amount of different hardware they have to run on. Internet allows players to download pâtches, and they have become accustomed to it. Some people actually tweak the game and add contents in patches, which really adds value to the game, but mostly patches are just patches, and the average joe who doesn't play often will feel that PC games are much harder to work with and of lower quality than console games. Those who can download patches may actually think the same.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
DarkCloud
|
 |
of Lists
Jul 2000
time: 05:36
|
|
And about Brad Wardell saying that piracy is not a factor. I'm pretty sick with people like him saying that.
Haven't you noticed that games have been creating CD-keys, etc? Haven't you noticed that the main people claiming that piracy 'isn't an issue' are the small-house developers, the people who don't make much money off games anyway and whose games aren't that popular? And whose games didn't cost amazing amounts of cash to make in the first place.
(Just an aside here on GalCiv selling 100,000 copies- that's a lot more than most small houses, but GalCiv so far has been his only 'medium-sized' product... it wasn't an amazing hit.
A hit= 1,000,000 copies sold)
Big-House developer companies have razor-thin profit margins. They need at least 1 hit a year and can only suffer at most one bomb a year. Their art development and programmers cost money. At the minimal, a programmer making 60,000 a year necessitates a game sells: ($40) [I'm assuming that the retailer skims $10 off the top at usual sales places] (40)(1500 games sold)= 60K... and that's not even taking into account advertising budgets and distribution shipping reqs... or the fact that usually teams of 6-10 programmers are at work, plus playtesters (paid hourly) AND art direction... and cleaning ladies for the work place (unless they're decentralized... but that increases development time usually) and probably a whole cadre of other items that I have forgotten.
Indeed, piracy costs the industry thousands if not tens of thousands of unsold games... and games rarely sell more than 2 million copies anyway... and the games that get pirated are usually 'popular' games that are heavily advertised... therefore, the bigger companies are hit more by the problems.
So don't tell me piracy doesn't hurt.
Last edited by DarkCloud on 25-07-2004 at 20:35
|
|
| |
|
|
|
DarkCloud
|
|
of Lists
Jul 2000
time: 05:36
|
|
pg quote:
disagree. i think most games which require 1ghz+ to be playable are pretty high. one of the reasons counter strike is a big hit is because you can play it on such low spec machines. there are lots of games with high requirements today that have no reason for them like railroad tycoon, civ3, or even paradox games seem to be requiring faster and faster pcs. higher requirements slashes your market share you can sell to and most games coming out today play worse(interface lag, long loading, choppiness). in many cases even the gameplay doesn't seem to have any real benefit from high requirements. good example being civ2/smac where turns were super fast, you could have a million cities/units to civ3 which runs slow, loads slow, etc with a fraction of the cities/units of earlier games.
|
I'll echo your sentiment that games with 3D are a waste and are too slow. I play the old games because I like my top-down 2D and fastness. The newer games like CTP are too intensive to run on computers and games like NeverWinter Nights are too bulky and unnecessary when a Baldur's Gate Infinity Engine would have serviced.
That being said however, I'm pretty certain that the majority of 'gamers' who are the people who usually buy games, have systems at least with 1GhZ of power.
Personally, of people I know, the slowest computer of someone who regularly plays games has 650 MhZ or so.
And that being said- interestingly enough, out of 4 gamer friends... the only games they have purchased in the last 4 years have been:
Serious Sam, Neverwinter Nights, Dungeon Seige, Final Fantasy 11/12.
and not all those games worked on all their computers (or at least they ran slow) However, I believe that this lack of purchasing games is because the new games are trashy rather than they don't work- since the only games that weren't returned or trashed were Serious Sam and Final Fantasy. (personally I don't own either of those games  )
Nevertheless- 1GhZ plays most games- even 750 MhZ will play most games (albeit slow)... it's just the **** graphics-accelerators and Memory (256 MB minimum) that gets to people... and memory doesn't cost that much.
You mentioned that casual gamers can't keep up with people 'like me'... well, generally casual gamers never bought the type of games that 'people like me' play.
Casual games are like : Sim City, The Sims, civ II...
not like Empire Earth, Warcraft III, AFterlife, Age of Empires, Railroad Tycoon, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, etc.
quote:
i don't think pc games have ever not been pirated or strong sellers there. game companies probably don't even factor in official sales from these places as they are so small. |
Okay, you have me there But you can't say that it helps these companies to have illegal playing going on. And these things do get around, I know friends who come home from Thailand after trips with tons of pirated CD's, DVS's, videos, and music so these things get spread around.
quote:
it is easy, but it has been going on forever. i never heard piracy being blamed so much as it is now. the thing with piracy is i don't think many sales are lost. i'd rather buy a game i'm going to play a lot so i can play multiplayer or use mods/patches hassle free. the games i pirate are ones i'd never buy anyways(usually stuff that is old, hard to find or bad value).
|
Piracy is being blamed more than ever since it is now easy for 'casual' gamers to pirate.
Personally, 'core' gamers and people like me have always known how to crack a CD (personally, I don't know how to do that) but I always knew how to copy one and where to get copies from people
And some with fast connections have had access to mIRC rooms and WareZ sites...
BUt now, more people than ever have fast connections... DSL has spread.
And KazAA and Morpheus have just made this proliferation much easier.
More things are being pirated now than ever before!
That's why it's being blamed more now.
quote:
afaik galciv sold over 100k copies which is fairly good for a pc games nowadays. publishers probably don't pay royalties just like in music. my understanding is they hide behind loopholes and pretend not to make a profit when they really are. |
If you can prove that to me, then I'll believe you. I'm pretty certain that publishers pay royalties. Although I could be wrong.
zero
quote:
Piracy doesnt only affect PC. Console piracy is probably equal or even larger actually. Places like phillipines and thailand, I saw far more bootleg console games on market than PCs. Plus on warez or shared groups console ISOs are much more popular in my experience.
I think its because most PCs games that are worth playing usually has CD-key or online account of some sorts. Since most PC players are MPers. While Console is &^(@ing too expensive, averaging around 50 bucks per game for game that can easily be ISOed and system modded....
Hell even XBox Live's MP feature can be played with bootleg if you have the right modchip. There's simply much more incentive to bootleg console games.
I dunno, average ppl probably dont mod systems like people I know... But then again, most average folks actually buy PC games too so I think it would be even.
|
Console games are also generally shorter and take less time to develop. They also have a booming rental business.
The reason they cost so much is that there are too many middle-men and the demand for them is too high. That's why they cost 60+.
Personally, I agree with you that they're overpriced, but piracy isn't going to bring down prices...
Just as a note: Did you know that your food and clothes could be priced 10% lower than it currently is at groceries and department stores? Well, yes it can! But theft and product vandalism FORCE companies to raise prices to ensure that they still make a profit.
LDiCaesar I'll second your opinions
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Traianvs
|
 |
Belgium, land of plenty (corruption)
Jan 2000
time: 06:36
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Jaguar
I think 2003 was rock bottom for PC games. In every other year, I can think of multiple games that were absolutely incredible. Even fairly recently there were some great games. 2002 brought us Warcraft III, Battlefield 1942, and Neverwinter Nights. However, I will grant you that none of them were spectacular. But they were three very well refined games from the three major genres. 2001 brought us Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Civ3, Black and White (included not because it was a great game, but because it was extremely original) Serious Sam, and Max Payne. |
You're missing out great games really, you're just thinking of the 'big' products, released witha lot of hocus pocus and big bidgets. There's a lot of good games out there, but serious sam seriously rocked though
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Urban Ranger
|
|
Apolyton Duke of Off-Topic
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by DarkCloud
Haven't you noticed that games have been creating CD-keys, etc? |
And that's stupid. Even though it's tolerable stupidity.
quote:
Originally posted by DarkCloud
Haven't you noticed that the main people claiming that piracy 'isn't an issue' are the small-house developers, the people who don't make much money off games anyway and whose games aren't that popular? And whose games didn't cost amazing amounts of cash to make in the first place. |
I don't see how that makes a difference. If piracy does hurt sales substantially, it will be right across the board. Just because smaller developers don't make much money off games anyway doesn't mean they don't depend on that income to survive. If they can't make money, it would be better for them to pursuit gainful activities elsewhere.
quote:
Originally posted by DarkCloud
Big-House developer companies have razor-thin profit margins. |
And this is based on what?
quote:
Originally posted by DarkCloud
They need at least 1 hit a year and can only suffer at most one bomb a year. Their art development and programmers cost money. At the minimal, a programmer making 60,000 a year necessitates a game sells: ($40) [I'm assuming that the retailer skims $10 off the top at usual sales places] (40)(1500 games sold)= 60K... and that's not even taking into account advertising budgets and distribution shipping reqs... or the fact that usually teams of 6-10 programmers are at work, plus playtesters (paid hourly) AND art direction... and cleaning ladies for the work place (unless they're decentralized... but that increases development time usually) and probably a whole cadre of other items that I have forgotten. |
There are several flaws right off the bat here. First of all, most game programmers don't get pay anywhere near $60,000 a year. Secondly, programmers and artists don't work full time on a project at a time, and certainly you don't need 6-10 programmers throughout the whole development cycle.
quote:
Originally posted by DarkCloud
Indeed, piracy costs the industry thousands if not tens of thousands of unsold games... |
From what did you pull this?
quote:
Originally posted by DarkCloud
So don't tell me piracy doesn't hurt. |
In conclusion, you haven't shown that to be the case.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
pg
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by DarkCloud
That being said however, I'm pretty certain that the majority of 'gamers' who are the people who usually buy games, have systems at least with 1GhZ of power. |
i wouldn't be so sure the majority have 1ghz+. if you have win98se and 500mhz you can do the vital functions most people want(internet/business software). the only reason for most people to have faster than 500mhz is games. lots of gamers get dropped from the hobby if they can't keep their computer up to date(i'm starting to feel it now w/ my pc). i know the counter strike survey is bias to counter strike players but there is still a large number of gamers(950k+) in the survery. look for yourself - http://steampowered.com/status/survey.html
the most interesting numbers are ram(30% have 128mb to 256mb) and a third have a gf mx card or worse(my gf1 ddr is faster than those). most people do have fast cpus now in that survey but lots is still unknown. if i had to guess i'd say the people that answered that survey are fairly hardcore judging from the fact 60% use 16bit color and at least 40% use 800*600 resolution or lower. 16bit color and 800*600 resolution or lower doesn't match up with the percentage of fast cpus.
quote:
Personally, of people I know, the slowest computer of someone who regularly plays games has 650 MhZ or so. |
i think it'll be almost impossible to find believable numbers but i know i only have a 750mhz/gf1ddr/128mb ram but i did play civ3 and morrowind(barely playable for both). there probably are quite a bit of 1ghz+ pcs out there but if many of them have big bottle necks like celerons or no good 3d card or not enough ram or a shitty sound card or mobo, etc so they will preform like **** regardless of their cpu speed(even more true if they are running xp right?).
quote:
and not all those games worked on all their computers (or at least they ran slow) However, I believe that this lack of purchasing games is because the new games are trashy rather than they don't work- since the only games that weren't returned or trashed were Serious Sam and Final Fantasy. |
why are new games so badly programmed though? it's like a catch 22 you can't expect to sell tons of pc games if they aren't quality.
quote:
You mentioned that casual gamers can't keep up with people 'like me'... well, generally casual gamers never bought the type of games that 'people like me' play.
Casual games are like : Sim City, The Sims, civ II...
not like Empire Earth, Warcraft III, AFterlife, Age of Empires, Railroad Tycoon, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, etc. |
you are totally wrong here. all those games you mention can't be classified into casual/hardcore they are just games. you can play wc3 casually or the sims hardcore. btw, did you just call afterlife hardcore? 
afterlife picture...
quote:
Piracy is being blamed more than ever since it is now easy for 'casual' gamers to pirate. |
this isn't really true. you could pirate stuff just as easy years ago via floppies or a 28.8k modem. i have a 28.8k modem now and i can pirate stuff if i choose to.
quote:
More things are being pirated now than ever before!
That's why it's being blamed more now. |
i don't know if things are being pirated more now but even if piracy is on the rise i doubt it's such a signifant increase from a few years ago that it's the sole cause of the computer games industry shrinking so much.
quote:
If you can prove that to me, then I'll believe you. I'm pretty certain that publishers pay royalties. Although I could be wrong. |
er? did you read the quote in my earlier post? that was quoted from brad wardwell himself so i think he knows the publishers didn't pay him(unless you think he's lying). i also got the 100k+ sold numbers from him but i'm too lazy to find a link(i think it was on the quarter to three message board).
quote:
Console games are also generally shorter and take less time to develop. |
heh, lots of console games are also very long. i don't see how you can say they are generally shorter. some of the best selling console games offer practically unlimited play just like their pc counter parts.
at the end of the day quality pc games usually still sell well enough. really good games will always do good even if they are on pc. i'm not worried about the death of pc gaming. i'd rather have a 100 games to choose from all developed for 100k than 1 developed for 10mil. gameplay is what matters to me. i do like fancy graphics/sound but as long as the game is done well and playable thats what's important.
we've almost reached a ceiling for graphics anyways and sound has hit a ceiling. once graphics stop evolving at such a break neck pace it should be interesting to see what happens. the real death of pc gaming everyone is complaining about is the death of AAA super duper multimillion dollar pc games.
Last edited by pg on 26-07-2004 at 15:17
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
Apocalypse
|
 |
Lexington, VA: College - Houston, TX: Home
Aug 2005
time: 00:36
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
quote:
KOTOR is incredibly overrated. All IE engine games are better than it, along with Fallout, Arcanum and Morrowind. The combat is incredibly meh and the voice acting was horrible much of the time. It has very little replay value, especially compared to other RPGs that Bioware and Black Isle released. That people put it on such a high pedistal is sad. |
I can say someone isn't really and RPGer . KOTOR had a better story than just about every Bioware and Black Isle game with the exception of, perhaps, Fallout. It was a very detailed story based on some great source material. Futhermore the combat was fun and the characters were top notch.
I'd say it's EASILY above Icewind Dale (1 and 2), Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate 1, etc.
It is one of my favorite games of all time . |
Bah.
spoiler(highlight to read):
How is the story that good? Ooooo the main character has amnesia and a mysterious past. Like we haven't heard that before. We have two robots which are basically copies of two oher robots but with a personality change, but their still one dimensional. The others that were slightly more dimensional weren't that good either. It's not like the whiney ***** sidekick (not talking about Bastilla yet) hasn't been done before. And with Bastilla, I never really saw why she was being tempted by the dark side half the time. Usually characters seem to have some reason for that. Mission was just another whiny angst filled little girl with a run of the mill wookie.
|
The combat was especially poor. You can't even really move your characters around and there really isn't a reason to make characters with ranged weapons less likely to be able to get of the range of grenades. It's horribly linear too, aside from a choice of 4 things you pretty much half to do eventually anyway. Nearlly all the choices are good/evil which is too overdone in RPGs. Even the most involving dialog in the game doesn't compare to some of the IE Engine games.
It's an alright game, but if it came out at a time of more competition, things might be different.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
DrSpike
|
 |
Enthusiastic member of Apolyton
Sep 2001
time: 05:36
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
quote:
KOTOR is incredibly overrated. All IE engine games are better than it, along with Fallout, Arcanum and Morrowind. The combat is incredibly meh and the voice acting was horrible much of the time. It has very little replay value, especially compared to other RPGs that Bioware and Black Isle released. That people put it on such a high pedistal is sad. |
I can say someone isn't really and RPGer . KOTOR had a better story than just about every Bioware and Black Isle game with the exception of, perhaps, Fallout. It was a very detailed story based on some great source material. Futhermore the combat was fun and the characters were top notch.
I'd say it's EASILY above Icewind Dale (1 and 2), Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate 1, etc.
It is one of my favorite games of all time . |
It's easy to knock KOTOR because it is a simplified version of the 3rd edition rules, and thus is seen by some as dumbed down. However, the characters and plot are much better than the more complex (rules wise) NWN, and the combat probably more fun.
|
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:36.
Apolyton Time is 00:36. |
top of page
|
|
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
25-07-2004 05:10
|