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Forums - PC - Who is good at coding PC games these days?

Uh-huh. So why the dumbass thread?



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Foamer said:

Uh-huh. So why the dumbass thread?

/thread

You obviously want this thread to die, so let's just say you are guilty of threadicide and leave it at that.

Ok, if anyone else cares to continue a more civil line of discussion, please do so.



Oh I'm sorry, did you really expect anything good to come from your flamebait? Maybe a load of lists of well-known developers would have saved it.



Foamer said:

Oh I'm sorry, did you really expect anything good to come from your flamebait? Maybe a load of lists of well-known developers would have saved it.

This is the original post:

I am pondering this question after seeing this report about Stardock's new game:

http://www.giantbomb.com/news/what-is-going-on-with-elemental-war-of-magic/2479/

Apparently Elemental, which is arguably the spiritual sequel to Master of Magic, and  released by Stardock (they have coded well in the past) is a disaster of a release.  If Stardock has dropped the ball this badly, I am wondering who actually codes well for the PC outside of maybe Blizzard.  Anyone care to chime in and explain what is going on here and who can actually competently release major games for the PC these days?

 

It is a post of someone disillusioned that a favorite developer dropped the ball and asked what is going on.  I am sorry you see anything like this as "flamebait".  At this point, I could turn it intro flamebait if you like, since that is what you seem to see here.  I guess listing well known developers would make it flamebait as critics would bash whomever gets thrown up here.  Like mention Rockstar and have people then discuss how GTA4 was a trainwreck of a release on the PC when it first came out:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2008/12/gta-iv-pc-a-buggy-mess-steam-customers-ask-for-refunds.ars

 

Since you insist this is flamebait, I guess it goes that way.  Maybe actually listing examples of competence would be good here instead.



richardhutnik said:

Since you insist this is flamebait, I guess it goes that way.  Maybe actually listing examples of competence would be good here instead.

Not even talk about my list? sigh, feel ignored



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Capcom actually.

This might be suprising but coding in their pc ports is absolutly top level since this generation started (which is big contrast to awfull mess their ps2 era ports were)



PROUD MEMBER OF THE PSP RPG FAN CLUB

tallgnome said:
richardhutnik said:

Since you insist this is flamebait, I guess it goes that way.  Maybe actually listing examples of competence would be good here instead.

Not even talk about my list? sigh, feel ignored

Sorry.  I wasn't sure what to say in regards to it, outside of maybe ask if Gearbox also should be on it.  Myself, I couldn't comment regarding it, so I didn't.  I figure it was best to just be quiet ang let others chat about this.  I also believed you said you were going to get back to it.



Aww man. I was excited for Elemental.



The problem with PC games is they have no standards enforced on them like console games do.  If you're making a console game, they have to pass certain requirements enforced by Sony, Microsoft, and/or Nintendo (the game has to be submitted to each console you want your game on).  If your game is being put on PC, there's nothing that checks to make sure they pass those certain requirements.

If the game is something like a 360/PS3/PC game then the big stuff will at least be handled by the 360 and PS3 submissions but since PC games don't generally make as much money as console games anyways, it's a crap-shoot if the developer actually puts a lot of time into making sure everything is hunky-dory on the PC.

Furthermore, while there are only a few different PS3, Xblx, and Wii configurations out there, there are an infinite amount of PC configurations and those all cannot be tested.  You can hit the big ones but, again, with the PC version of games bringing in a much smaller profit than the console version, there's not a large incentive to test the game on many different configurations.

I know PC enthusiasts love theirs PC gaming and think it's the best, but PC gaming is really the red headed stepchild of the game industry and is becoming less and less significant.  It's just easier to make console games and it's easier to make money on console games.  It costs too much money to thoroughly test a PC game and the return is just too little.

(and yes, I realize there are exceptions)



twesterm said:

The problem with PC games is they have no standards enforced on them like console games do.  If you're making a console game, they have to pass certain requirements enforced by Sony, Microsoft, and/or Nintendo (the game has to be submitted to each console you want your game on).  If your game is being put on PC, there's nothing that checks to make sure they pass those certain requirements.

If the game is something like a 360/PS3/PC game then the big stuff will at least be handled by the 360 and PS3 submissions but since PC games don't generally make as much money as console games anyways, it's a crap-shoot if the developer actually puts a lot of time into making sure everything is hunky-dory on the PC.

Furthermore, while there are only a few different PS3, Xblx, and Wii configurations out there, there are an infinite amount of PC configurations and those all cannot be tested.  You can hit the big ones but, again, with the PC version of games bringing in a much smaller profit than the console version, there's not a large incentive to test the game on many different configurations.

I know PC enthusiasts love theirs PC gaming and think it's the best, but PC gaming is really the red headed stepchild of the game industry and is becoming less and less significant.  It's just easier to make console games and it's easier to make money on console games.  It costs too much money to thoroughly test a PC game and the return is just too little.

(and yes, I realize there are exceptions)

That is only and solely true when your game is made like crap. Didn't Bioware come out and say that its best market is still the PC, same with Valve and Blizzard? I am fairly sure other companies that make good games are also pretty satisfied. In fact if I am not wrong, even Activision would have gone heavily in the red last year if it wasn't for the massive money they made off the PC. They barely broke even in the quarters when MW2 was making record sales. THQ's sales were also heavily boosted by DoWII/exnasion and SEGA had Empire Total War. If they had been making just console games and no decent PC games they would have been in some seriously deep shit. The companiesneed the PC market desperately if they want to survive.



Tag(thx fkusumot) - "Yet again I completely fail to see your point..."

HD vs Wii, PC vs HD: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=93374

Why Regenerating Health is a crap game mechanic: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=3986420

gamrReview's broken review scores: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=4170835