I wonder if there is a mod team working to free it right now.?.

I always felt the made it for the Mass Effect crowd.

@vlad what other genres do you use mods for besides FPS??? RTSs??? MMOs??? just cause you feel that PC owners are getting screwed dont take it out on me, put that rage somewhere else

Just to clarify something for you APIs are used for programing just about everything including console games, they are not a bad thing and make development much easier as you don't have to program directly to the hardware which is insanely time consuming. The fact that developers had to develop their own APIs for the Cell is the main reason for the low quality of many ports on the PS3 and one of the most lauded features of the 360 by developers is the robust and low level direct X like APIs which make development easy. Sony seems to have learnt that not supplying APIs is a bad thing in the fact that one of the lauded features of the NGP is the fact that it has very low level and robust APIs.

Now APIs will always be less flexible and incur a performance penalty than machine code programing but they make things so much easier that very few programmers would ever want to do away with them. Now the fact that Direct x and open GL have to work on a wide variety of hardware does restrict their performance more than specialised API but they are a necessary evil as they make code portable as well is improving stability.

The quote you are basing this post off was taken out of context anyway the guy never suggested high level API like direct x should be eliminated entirely but he was suggesting some developers would like the opportunity to bypass them and directly access the hardware in certain situations. Even tho that would be very bad for PC gaming as you would have situations where supported cards would have a massive performance advantage over every non optimized  card even if it was much more powerful. Leading to situations where a game sponsored by Nvidia for example could run flawlessly on certain cards and even if you had and ATI card that was much more powerful would not perform as well etc. The rapid advancement of hardware power compensates for that anyway and only lack of effort on the developers side is really holding back game visuals I mean just look at the graphics mods for Crysis they make Crysis look much better than Crysis 2 on PC.

if that is possible by a mod team for free with an old engine running on an old version of the DX API that is not as advanced as the latest version imagine what a full dev team could accomplish even with the limitations of high level API.

As for your "consoles are whats pushing the industry forward, not computer gaming" comment I think you need to look at the big picture, most of the most popular trends in console gaming today originated on PC, everything from online gaming, the FPS genre, the western style RPG, indie games, patches and add-on content for games etc. Now many of those things were changed to fit on consoles, things like add-on content went from $20-40 expansion packs that added entire new campaign sometime better than the ones in the original game to $15 3 map packs and costumes etc but they originated on PC. Many trends in gaming like multiple control options (optional move support in game etc on consoles,) user generated content (little big planet, mod nation racers, Infamous 2,) MMOs (starting to appear on consoles), alternative revenue channels (free to play MMOs with micro transitions are coming to consoles with free realms for PSN) and more. PC gaming is driving gaming forward more than console gaming I would say, tho the mobile and cloud spaces seems to be the fastest growing areas of gaming advancement, as Arcades (BTW you can find most of the genres tropes and design elements from gaming originated in the arcades) once were before the rise of consoles and PC gaming. 

/Rant

TL:DR I R Smartr than thou Herp Derp

I always felt the made it for the Mass Effect crowd.

1. Without consoles, we'd be pretty close to having only PC gaming. Obviously in such case, PC games would sell a lot better and maybe we'd actually get content instead of all money spent on graphics and such.

2. PC game servers are typically paid for by gamers, not publishers, meaning it's not that different for the publisher whether they use dedicated servers or p2p.

1. It's done to avoid piracy. The audience on the PC decided to treat game publishers as second rate companies, so the publishers responded by treating them as second class citizens. Why support a platform on day one, when the sales are going to be harmed and they already have two extremely healthy platforms that will sell many more copies.

Wrong, console and handhelds have the same amount of piracy, or worse, that PC. And msot of the titles pirated are the ones in which the publisher slammed with malware like securom that harms computers. The Witcher was successful because Projekt Red cared about PC gamers and they gained great sales and support from the community because of it. So does Valve.

2. Games are developed for specific audiences, not specific consoles. Dragon Age: Origins reviewed extremely well, played really well and sold millions of copies on consoles. Bioware didn't decide that the console gamers didn't want a similar sequel, they decided that they'd rather target a broader audience and took a stupid risk. It's Biowares fault, not the fault of the console which had already supported the previous 'PC' game.

No, more developers are catering to console platforms. PC has always had controller support, but the fact that games have been completely dumbed down to the point in which targets are highlighted, health renerates, and there is no game over screen shows which audienced games have been targeted to.

3. Outside of Blizzard, no publisher is going to be able to put $50 million dollars towards creating some super technical monster for the PC, which has a history of lower sales in comparison to it's competitors, a smaller audience compared to it's competitors and maybe only a handful of that small audience even having the PC powerful enough to take advantage of a game developed with the sky as the limit. It'd be Crysis all over again, it releases, sells well and than half the people that bought the damn game couldn't even run it properly. 

Without the consoles, the PC as a gaming platform would be considerably smaller or just dead, because without multi-platform development, barely any publishers are going to a risk releasing an expensive title for the weakest platform.

PC game would be perfectly fine if all publishers went bankrupt tomorrow. The indie game community produce thousands of great titles every year.

The whole Crysis thing with hardware lasted a whole like 4 months before everyone who wanted it had a PC that could handle it.

And Valve and EA have invested $50 million into PC games before.

4. It's the fault of the developers and it goes both ways, Dragon Age: Origins on consoles was hampered due to PC controls, the interface in DC: Universe was hampered beause of PC controls and I could probably list off half the WRPGs that have been released on the 360 for having similar issues. Plus, PC gamers should be happy that they are at least now getting a viable second option that they can use to play their games, console gamers only get one.

Get a good PC, quit complaining. A $500 desktop PC from Walmart should be able run Crysis on medium so you will not have any issues.

5. Mods are dumb and it's the fault of the developer. Sony have allowed mod support in the past and they are allowing mod support in the future, it's up to the developer if they want to go through with it.

No it isn't. Microsoft doesn't allow mods, so very few developers will make a title that supports both consoles with one having more features than the other. Only 3rd party that has made true mod support is Epic Games.

Also Mods are not stupid. They expand a title and allow experience that werent originally intended. StarCraft and WarCraft's DOTA mods are a great example of a successful mod. Battlefield 1942: Desert Combat gave a massive shelf life to Battlefield 1942 which is still selling today and being played thanks to DC. Counter Strike is another, Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 is another. There are way more benefits for supporting mods, like getting more sales for a game due to a strong mod community.

6. This is ridiculous, this whole article is him 'standing on a soap box and ranting' and it's not like PC elititst don't fill everyone forum with their slander and take every oppurtunity they can to lord it over 'console peasants'. Yes, I'm sure the PC Master Race is filled with humble and thoughtful gamers.

We tend to be very benevolent, but some times we have to stand up and shove know knowledge of how real games are supposed to be into our serfs faces.

7. Auto-saving isn't a console trend, it's a natural prgression of a gaming feature. It's also funny that his attacking something that was a PC trend and his putting the blame on consoles.

Auto-saving is fine for some titles, but this feature is abused way to often. A game shouldn't save after every bloody corridor fight! Save mid and end of a level only!

8. This is just reaching. It's an optional system, get over it and just ignore it. If you don't like it, don't use it. I have a feeling the writer is running out of ideas.

9. Most PC gamers are butthurt, there I said it. I can't go into any PC based thread without the occupants of said thread freaking out about the stupidest things and then lashing out at the developers they supposedly love. The only reason developers ignore or lie to PC gamers is to just shut them up, they supported you earlier in their careers and the audience didn't support them enough by buying their games and giving them the support they needed. Your a customer, your not entitled to anything and they aren't obligated to pander to you, especially when they have a much more supportive audience to develop games for.

BS, I have ripped apart Valve and they are one of my favorite devs of all time. Companies screw up and everyone has a right to bitch. I for one believe voting with one's wallet, and if a game is not up to par, I will not buy it. I don't care who developed it. No dev deserves support over releasing garbage and providing almost zero support.

10. Kinect wouldn't have been the success is it is without the Wii and the 360, if it was something that was exclusively released on the PC, then it would have bombed and years of research, development and marketing would have gone down the drain. Microsoft have said that they plan to bring the Kinect to the PC in the future and they are allowing hackers to hack it, so I don't see the problem.

Kinect's main competition are general webcams and the EyeToy/PlayStation Eye. Both of which has been doing motion tracked gaming for decades.. The Wii has nothing to do with the Kinect other than making Microsoft move their asses to release it without complete drivers.

11. Fault of the developers and publishers. How is this a console issue? Plenty of free content and support have been released for games on the consoles, maybe the PC audience isn't important enough for them to make the effort? If I sold  50,000 copies of my game for the price of $5 on Steam, I probably wouldn't think that releasing more content would be worth it. Also, consoles suffer from similar post support issues, look at Black Ops and MW2 on the PS3, it's not an issue exclusive to the PC.

Well since Valve takes like 15% of profit, and consoles take like 50% after all expenses (shipping, manufacturing, etc), I'd say its cheaper releasing a product digitally. At least release the game on the PSN to negate other expenses.

12. Once again, why should PC gamers get special treatment? Especially when they buy the least amount of games out of all the platforms. If it's not worth putting the extra effort and money into supporting the 50,000 people who bought their game on Steam for $5, then they should just be happy with getting what every other platform is getting.

LMFAO, are you kidding me. Just because digital sales aren't tracked does not mean that we buy the least! What a foolish statement.

The whole article is horrible and he contradicted himself half way through it with his whole 'console gamers argue' spiel. This whole thing sounds like a PC elitist just ranting about what he wants, why he isn't getting it and how he should get whaetever he wants. I'm sure this article is being appreciated in PC forums and the circle jerk going on in those threads must be marvelous, but this is whole thing was stupid.

And your replies are that of an console defender. So you're not much better.