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Post by condroid on Nov 16, 2017 1:37:02 GMT -5
A PC is more or less just a souped up console these days. Which, if you're like me and came from the console world is pretty nice to know you're playing the best available version of multiplat games, but if you were originally a PC gamer I can imagine how much it must suck to know that PC gaming as it once was is more or less totally dead, even the most "PC" of games that come out now like The Witcher 3 you better damn well believe will also be releasing on consoles, gone are the days of AAA PC exclusives with rare exception like Civilization or anything else that absolutely requires a mouse and keyboard. That's factually wrong, there is not much overlap between the top-grossing console and PC games. And this is a similar list from 2015, all the best-selling games are actually PC exclusives. I think it is mostly the AAA games that are multi-platform these days. But beyond that, there are entire PC-centric genres that are still pretty much exclusive and thriving on that platform (MOBA, strategy, CRPG, survival games, simulations, etc). The vast majority of indie games is also PC-only due to the much lower barrier of entry compared to consoles. |
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Post by Feynman on Nov 16, 2017 1:42:00 GMT -5
Piracy has always been around from day one on PC, and it's still just as much of a factor as it ever was. You can't seriously be suggesting that piracy was "just as much of a factor" for PC gaming during the 1980s and early to mid-1990s as it has been since the internet became commonplace. Uh, yeah? Back when copying a game was as easy as buying a blank floppy disk/cassette/CD and cloning it? Certain computers were especially well known as having loads of piracy (the C64 is a good example), and in some areas you could even find stores that would copy and sell bootleg games ultra cheap. In the early 90's, before internet use became widespread, there was even the now infamous "don't copy that floppy" video made to try to get kids to stop making copies of computer software for their friends. There were also a shitload of physical DRM methods used before the internet age, from code wheels to stuff like lenslok, in an attempt to stop people from sharing computer software. Piracy has been a thorn in the industry's side since day one, and while the advent of the modern internet has certainly made it easier and more accessible in many ways, it's not like bootleg software has ever been anything even remotely close to uncommon. |
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Chezni
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Post by Chezni on Nov 16, 2017 2:13:33 GMT -5
Uh, yeah? Back when copying a game was as easy as buying a blank floppy disk/cassette/CD and cloning it? Certain computers were especially well known as having loads of piracy (the C64 is a good example), and in some areas you could even find stores that would copy and sell bootleg games ultra cheap. In the early 90's, before internet use became widespread, there was even the now infamous "don't copy that floppy" video made to try to get kids to stop making copies of computer software for their friends. There were also a shitload of physical DRM methods used before the internet age, from code wheels to stuff like lenslok, in an attempt to stop people from sharing computer software. Piracy has been a thorn in the industry's side since day one, and while the advent of the modern internet has certainly made it easier and more accessible in many ways, it's not like bootleg software has ever been anything even remotely close to uncommon. During the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s some people were actually selling bootleg PC games, and that was only possible because it wasn't as easy then as it is now. Sure, in the 1980s you could just "copy a floppy", but you still had to personally know someone that had a retail copy of the game, or know a "friend of a friend" that had a retail copy of a game. That's no longer the case, and thanks to the internet access to any bootleg PC game is as easy checking your e-mail. Furthermore, during a good chunk of the 1990s consumer CD burners were prohibitively expensive -- the first CD burner to cost less than $1000 ($1600 in today's money) wasn't even released until 1995 -- so bootleg CD-ROM games were incredibly uncommon until the late 1990s. Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting the gaming industry is in worse shape now. The fact that there is so much money in the industry that any competent indie developer (and some who aren't so competent) can make a living is a testament to how well the PC gaming industry is doing now. But it's definitely easier to pirate PC games now compared to the 1980s and early to mid-1990s as well. If it wasn't, people would still be selling bootleg PC games and let's be honest, they aren't. |
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Post by Bumpyroad on Nov 16, 2017 2:44:03 GMT -5
No, the deciding factor that moved game development focus to consoles is the simple fact that way more gamers play on consoles compared to PC. Like, several times as many, easily. Most developers are obviously going to target the market with more total customers. The PS2 era saw an especially huge surge in console ownership, and that's why so many developers started focusing on consoles... why target a PC userbase of a few million tops when you could target a console with a userbase of 20 million or more? You can't blend your vegetables and make coffee at the same time with kitchen food processor no matter how multi-functional it is, unless you've got 2 food processors. That's one of the reasons why PCs and consoles still coexist today. You can have 2 PCs, but coffee maker(console) is probably cheaper and does its pretty much a single purpose rather well. And then, there's a smartphone market. Where does it stand exactly now, i wonder? Should it evolve, re-purpose itself, stay the same? It's huge for sure. |
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Post by GamerL on Nov 16, 2017 7:20:43 GMT -5
What if, D. Dyack showed his 'sausagy' middle finger to everyone else and made that Eternal Darkness sequel.. Well, Eternal Darkness vaguely implies that there is a fifth Ancient, whose color is yellow, absolutely nothing is revealed about it but some fans have theorized that the shrine underneath the cathedral is in honor of it and not the other Ancients. Given that yellow seems to be the "neutral" color for the runes and spells and whatnot and if you contrast the idea with Mantorok, who represents chaos, then perhaps the Yellow ancient represents order? (think along the lines of Sheogorath and Jyggalag in Elder Scrolls) At any rate, the secret ending implies Mantorok would have played a big part in the sequel. Also supposedly Silicon Knights did work on a sequel at one point, concept art of which leaked, it showcased south American looking ruins, the Napoleonic wars era, the library of Alexandria and Viking era Norway. At the end of the day it's certainly disappointing a sequel never happened, but Eternal Darkness works pretty well as a standalone story, it doesn't leave you hanging on any major cliff hangers or anything *cough*Half-Life*cough* Also, what if Secret of Evermore had been more successful -- something that probably could have been achieved if the game featured optional 2-player functionality at release -- and Square USA wasn't shut down? That's actually a really good question, another good question is what if Spirits Within hadn't flopped and Square didn't have to take that financial hit? |
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Post by kaoru on Nov 16, 2017 7:53:33 GMT -5
That's actually a really good question, another good question is what if Spirits Within hadn't flopped and Square didn't have to take that financial hit? They wouldn't have to release a billion spinoffs in rapid sucession to make the money back on brand recognition only, and Sakaguchi would never have been demoted, thus he would have never had to open his own studio to make mediocre games that are comercial failures. |
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Post by GamerL on Nov 16, 2017 8:19:09 GMT -5
I've heard a lot of fans point to that as Square's "Jumping the shark" moment.
It's too bad it happened, what were they thinking with trying to release a mainstream Hollywood movie? No average American knew what the hell Final Fantasy was and though I do think The Spirits Within is an ok movie, it's not so good that I would have a problem striking it from the timeline if it meant Square could have stayed consistently high quality.
Well, I guess the best thing to wish for is that the movie had been a hit, but I just can't see how that could have happened given Final Fantasy had no name recognition to mainstream audiences and America just wasn't ready in general for an anime esque movie like that at the time.
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Post by dsparil on Nov 16, 2017 8:27:50 GMT -5
The effects of piracy are going to vary depending on the size of the publisher. I know of at least one small independent music label that shut down because their releases were being pirated at multiples of their sales from one site alone. This was on top other small labels reporting overall declines starting from the late 90s. I can't really remember specifics since I'm going off two decades of sporadic tidbits, but I think it is safe to say that small sales are going to be more affected than a millions seller. I can't recall a study that actually breaks down the industry into tiers rather than looking into its overall health.
On the other hand, I've met plenty of people that will pirate literally everything including stuff they have no interest in, and these people are probably responsible for a huge if not majority of piracy volume.
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Post by Bumpyroad on Nov 16, 2017 8:52:17 GMT -5
At the end of the day it's certainly disappointing a sequel never happened They rolled out a trailer at some point, was it on 'early access' or anything? 'cause it might just have worked that way. |
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Post by Arale on Nov 16, 2017 9:43:16 GMT -5
Dyack has been trying (though I hesitate not to put that word in quotation marks) for a long time to make the Eternal Darkness sequel, but its history has been a complete trainwreck through and through.
Just part of it: Dyack set up a 1.5 million crowdfunding page for the first episode of 12 of Shadow of the Eternals (the name of the sequel). This was not on any crowdfunding site, rather it was personally managed by Dyack's new company and featured a disclaimer stating that there was no guarantee that the money would actually, you know, go towards the game. Most people didn't trust this campaign enough to donate, so it failed. Soon after, they relaunched the campaign on Kickstarter, and it was actually going pretty well, but then they halted the campaign claiming they had found another solution. We never found out what that solution was because the co-writer was arrested on child pornography charges.
Relatedly: Dyack firmly believes that the reason it never succeeded was because of ethics in games journalism, and not all those other things.
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Post by Owlman on Nov 16, 2017 10:47:36 GMT -5
On the other hand, I've met plenty of people that will pirate literally everything including stuff they have no interest in, and these people are probably responsible for a huge if not majority of piracy volume. While "I wouldn't buy it if I didn't pirate it" is the classic pirate's defence, I think there is some truth in this. I know a couple of people who live/have lived in poor/developing countries, and many good simply aren't available there. Even if they are digital, they aren't always sold globally, and sometimes credit cards from whatever place you live aren't accepted or there are other hurdles. So people just skip all of that and pirate the stuff. Does that make it right? Probably not, but it does inflate the numbers, especially for music. People pirate individual films or games, but not necessarily songs, which can be part of large bundles. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2017 12:25:30 GMT -5
What if EA hadn't killed Suda/Grasshopper's reputation?  I think you might be overestimating the impact that Shadows of the Damned had on...really, anything. Grasshopper still exists and has published games since then. Further, Suda's reputation can't be completely in the gutter, as Travis Strikes Again is coming to Switch. From everything I've heard, Suda's time is basically monopolized by managerial duties these days. |
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cacao
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Post by cacao on Nov 16, 2017 12:53:24 GMT -5
I'm more of a PC gamer nowadays if we're being honest and I don't believe that most reasonable PC owners feel especially angry that theyr'e not getting exclusives. I actually prefer there to be as few exclusives on any platform as possible because it makes things more convenient for me! The PC gaming market is hardly dead or in bad shape, there have been some very solid releases for PC. If you like indie games (like I do) there's a really good amount of them that you can't play on consoles.
Companies' perceptions of piracy (no matter how overblown or exaggerated) may have contributed to PC games no longer being as exclusive. I just think it's far more likely that developers would want to be able to release their games on as many platforms as possible to reach more buyers. Unless you can't or have a better deal by staying exclusively with one platform, it makes some business sense.
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Post by Arale on Nov 16, 2017 13:09:26 GMT -5
(regarding SotD:)
You have to look at the bigger picture. Maybe Shadows of the Damned alone isn't that big a deal, but it set the pattern that its successors followed over the next two years. A casual western perspective of Grasshopper becomes this: "one weird political thriller, five wacky action games with sexy ladies". On the other hand, if Kurayami had come out instead, the perspective would instead be "one weird political thriller, a duology of wacky action games, one Kafka adaptation". I can't say for sure what games would and wouldn't have come out if SotD didn't, but the very presence of a SINGLE "serious" Suda-directed game besides killer7 in the eye of the casual western public would have changed much discussion on the company.
Just to give a concrete example, almost every review for The Silver Case's 2016 rerelease said that it's "not like a typical Suda51 game", because it doesn't have over-the-top violence action. This is egregious because only two games Suda has ever directed have been action games (four counting very obscure anime spinoff games), but he's directed six visual novels.
To be clear, I'm not saying that the company's actual game output would have necessarily changed that much, but that people would have much less misinformation and misconceptions about their work, which would in turn lead to much more popularity and success for their newer stuff. The only reason the general public cares about Travis Strikes Again is because it's No More Heroes; their other recent stuff is very overlooked and barely discussed anywhere, except for Let It Die because that one's free.
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Post by nerdybat on Nov 16, 2017 13:15:49 GMT -5
What if Episode 3 actually happened? How would it influence the way Valve releases games nowadays, considering their tendency to not make more than 2 installments of anything ever?
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