Do you think PC gamers are being shafted lately?

[Flyordie]

Shafted.

I am not buying/playing MW2 because of Kotick.. I will stay away from Blizzard Activision games now because of him.

Kotick, if you ever read this- I didn't pay $70 for a game to have it nerfed because a console is harder to pirate on.

 

[TVman]

unless consols get mouse and keyboard option,have vsync enabled all the time(consols have horrible screen tearing)AND run at SOLID 60 fps(anything less and it makes my eyes hurt),game developers you can shaft us pc gamers as much as you want,but im not going anywere from my beloved PC

 

[Triprift]

If you guys all feel that way then rebel dont buy games at all ofcourse the comapnies wont care cus theyll be making money aplenty of consoles.

 

[pr0n Inspector]

On one hand I will, for a short while, whine about how SupCom got raped, but on the other hand I enjoy the sight of butthurt gamers screaming over and over and over and over again.

 

[Widjaja]

PC Gamers get shafted most of the time.

A console plays the game superbly yet a PC of much higher spec than a Console strains to play the same thing.

 

[JC316]

Oh yeah. They are sticking it in and breaking it off.

 

[Lionheart]

Theres always going to be bad games coming out on all platforms if you concentrate on them instead of the great titles then ofcourse youll think your being shafted.

Good Point! if thats the case, Im not gonna concentrate on crysis 2 then LMAO

 

[TIGR]

Complaining to developers and posting in forums about the issue has already been shown to be, on its own, ineffective: consider Modern Warfare 2. There was a petition for dedicated servers that got over 250,000 signatures, there were petitions on IW's own forums (which were "accidentally deleted"), there were complaints and boycotts and outrage on clan and gaming forums all over the Net. And I doubt that all that resulted in a single change to the game.

Here's the problem: despite all the drama, MW2 was the biggest entertainment launch in history, pulling in over $1 billion in revenue as of six weeks ago. Firstly, the PC gaming market is just too small compared to that of consoles, and secondly, Activision/IW called the bluff: despite all the PC gaming community's outrage, PC gamers bought plenty of copies of the game; MW2 outsold CoD4 in its first week and as of yesterday, was the fourth most-played game on XFire (fifth now, Battlefield BC2 flexing its muscle baby!).

If you want to effectively change the way game makers treat the PC gaming community, writing a few books' worth of posts on their forums and sending them hate mail isn't the best course of action. Neither is trying to boycott a game, because even if you and your clan refuse to buy it, there are plenty of others out there who aren't involved enough in the gaming community to hear the drama and get in on the boycott, so the game makers will still sell copies to them.

The number one way to get game makers to listen is to get more people playing PC games, and get them playing games that give the community what it wants. Get your console friends off their Playstations etc. and show them the light. Help make the PC gaming community the dominating force in modern gaming, and then it will have the power to sway game makers.

Make it worth it to game makers to put forth the effort.

 

[warup89]

well said, too bad the common joe thinks PC's are too complicated.

 

[KainXS]

like 5 years ago when 360 came out games on 360 played very good and you would need a very good pc to play the pc versions, but now pc parts are much much cheaper, you can build a pc for like 300 bucks and play games on a 720p tv with no problem(because the resolution is so low) so I don't think its that, but oem's like dell sony etc will rip people off, I know alot of people with computers fast enough to play games but people at the stores like sh*tbuy tell them they can't.

I think TIGR is right + mass piracy(which cannot be stopped)

 

[Kreij]

PC gamers are not getting the shaft. What they are getting is the results of a changing gaming market. You can complain all you want about how money is their objective, but they are in business to make money. No money, no business.

There are still gaming companies that cater first to the PC gamers. Not every game is going to be great, but if you do not support them you can bank on the fact they will turn completely to the console market.

Some people will say that the current crop of PC games are boring. Well guess what, the dev companies are not catering to you personally. They are trying to reach a mass audience, and in a lot of cases (eg. Fallout3) they have done exceptionally well. Kudos to Bethsoft for not abadoning us PC gamers.

I will not comment on SupCom 2 as I have no idea how the full game compares to the demo.
Many sources are giving the game high marks so I will hold off my judgement until I have the game in my hands.

 

[AphexDreamer]

THE PIRATES

Its Ironic PC Gamers are shafting PC GAMERS!
I think the main issue is all the pirating that goes on for PC. If you really want to fight give the Game Companies the PC sells they deserve. Buy any game for the PC instead of the Console Tell every Pirater to go out and buy the game shut down the torrents of ISO's. Then maybe we can see a steady incline in PC gaming instead of this Baby Sitting DRM stuff they do to make sure we actually give them the money they earned.

 

[warup89]

Yeah pirates sucks, but instaed of raping the rest of us with crappy DRM programs, they just need to keep thinking of a better way to know that you actually own the game. I think Battlefield 2142 had a good method to check if you owned the game, although it still byspassed, you are looking into playing on crapppy hacked servers filled with hackers.

 

[KainXS]

goes like this

DRM>people pirate>devs put in drm>lose customers/make more pirates>people still pirate>more drm>lose customers/make more pirates=dev stops making games for pc or the cycle continues until they stop

 

[AphexDreamer]

goes like this

people pirate>devs put in drm>lose customers/make more pirates>people still pirate>more drm>lose customers/make more pirates=dev stops making games for pc or the cycle continues until they stop

Exactly so if you want to complain and fix things don't bark up the wrong tree. Bark at the source of the problem its not the developers its the same People doing the complaining (for the mots part). Developers try and fix the problem but we persist. Its amazing they haven't stopped developing on the PC completely yet.

 

[Binge]

PC gamers are not getting the shaft. What they are getting is the results of a changing gaming market. You can complain all you want about how money is their objective, but they are in business to make money. No money, no business.

There are still gaming companies that cater first to the PC gamers. Not every game is going to be great, but if you do not support them you can bank on the fact they will turn completely to the console market.

Some people will say that the current crop of PC games are boring. Well guess what, the dev companies are not catering to you personally. They are trying to reach a mass audience, and in a lot of cases (eg. Fallout3) they have done exceptionally well. Kudos to Bethsoft for not abadoning us PC gamers.

I will not comment on SupCom 2 as I have no idea how the full game compares to the demo.
Many sources are giving the game high marks so I will hold off my judgement until I have the game in my hands.

One piece of criticism that I must voice is that making a good game usually is accepted by the masses. The problem is that your average Joe Bum new-gamer doesn't know a thing about games. He's been propped up in front of a television/classroom teacher for most of his days, and his parents easily neglect him in order to go on with their significantly important lives. Face it... people who know what it takes to be entertained aren't in the game dev/studio saying what they want. The corperate side of the company talks to the corperate side of a retailer and they talk sales numbers. Corperate money making is blind, and it's just another market to them. Maybe people won't understand the analogy, but car manufacturers face the same issues. Eastern companies put a ton of money into R&D/customer care, and they make the best cars. Then down the road they won't need a bailout. Western car companies.... well we already know how that's going. They ride on the reputation of an old and really good idea. No innovation, and sometimes the new release is just a POS. I find video game companies can be the same way, but not implying that great companies are immune from going belly up.

 

[Widjaja]

I'm not so certain how much pirates are causing hte issue amongst PC gamers.
XOBOX360 has an awful lot of pirated games as well out there to be DL'd along with other consoles.

It all depends if you know people who know how to do it plus there is a lot of press about fines which deters most people from downloading except for most who have been long time PC Gamers.

I feel the issue lies more with the consumer and $$$ and guaranteed good gaming experience on a console.

There are many who will just go into a retail/franchise and buy a DELL, ACER , (other overrated POS brand) and not know that even though they bought a new PC for more than the console, it won't run the same game made for PC at the same quality.
WTF?!.....the box said I needed what I have to run the game!! $&^%$&^%!! (if they know to read the system requirements).
Although I think many of us here did this at the start too....

Then the average consumer goes and dowloads Limewire and a whole lot of free apps which give toolbars out of nowhere because they did not READ, wondering why it's now taking for ever for their system to start up and is using a HUGE amount of system resources. LMAO

 

[Benetanegia]

Exactly so if you want to complain and fix things don't bark up the wrong tree. Bark at the source of the problem its not the developers its the same People doing the complaining (for the mots part). Developers try and fix the problem but we persist. Its amazing they haven't stopped developing on the PC completely yet.

Pirating is not the problem. People that pirate the games, would never buy the game. Most pirates, cuantitatively speaking, come from poor countries, where they would never be able to buy a single game. And that's the statistics they use, they only care about how many pirated games have been downloaded, but there's no way to know exactly who downloaded it. Yet when making their claims they act as if every pirated game was a game that was not sold.

Look, pirating is something that has been happening for ages in the music bussiness and it has been proven once and again that pirating doesn't decrease sales, they increase them, always.

EDIT: And Widjaja is correct. I have many friends that pirated on consoles, in fact more than ones that did on PC. I don't know a single person who didn't have the chip on his PS2.

 

[AphexDreamer]

Pirating is not the problem. People that pirate the games, would never buy the game. Most pirates, cuantitatively speaking, come from poor countries, where they would never be able to buy a single game. And that's the statistics they use, they only care about how many pirated games have been downloaded, but there's no way to know exactly who downloaded it. Yet when making their claims they act as if every pirated game was a game that was not sold.

Look, pirating is something that has been happening for ages in the music bussiness and it has been proven once and again that pirating doesn't decrease sales, they increase them, always.

EDIT: And Widjaja is correct. I have many friends that pirated on consoles, in fact more than ones that did on PC. I don't know a single person who didn't have the chip on his PS2.

PC has been in the game a lot longer than consoles have, its had time to get to this stage. 360 has had a couple years and PS2 no where near the amount of pirates as PC. To say Pirating has a positive effect vs a negative on sales sounds like hog wash to me. Music and PC games are two different products.

http://www.gamecritics.com/videogame-piracy-and-the-pc-gaming-industry

http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_6.html This guy has been there and done that with this conversation. Let the facts speak.

 

[Benetanegia]

PC has been in the game a lot longer than consoles have, its had time to get to this stage. 360 has had a couple years and PS2 no where near the amount of pirates as PC. To say Pirating has a positive effect vs a negative on sales sounds like hog wash to me. Music and PC games are two different products.

http://www.gamecritics.com/videogame-piracy-and-the-pc-gaming-industry

http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_6.html This guy has been there and done that with this conversation. Let the facts speak.

Very interesting that article. That doesn't negate my point though, because most console people that I know don't download the games (because they don't have a PC, they don't have internet, or both) they buy them from the many chinese, rusian, eastern europe mafias... Basically from the same people that mod their consoles.

Piracy is easier on the PC, it's also easier to track down by counting the downloads, but it's not so much bigger than on consoles. It's up to everyone to decide which kind of piracy is worse. The one that is based on ocasional people, downloading the ocasional game, or the one that is based on people that actually pay for the cheaper pirated versions of the games and that has an active illegal bussiness behind.

EDIT: This differentiation is very important to my understanding, at least. When something is absolutely free, like pirating on the PC, many people will just DL many games with the sole idea of trying it. They would never pay for the game, they are in no way lost customers, it's people that suddenly have access to something they wouldn't ever pay for (it's here where piracy helps future sales). The piracy on consoles, where you have to mod the console and where most pirated games are bought to mafias, is directly hurting sales. There is an intention to adquire an illegal copy, to adquire the game.

I stand by my point, PC piracy is not bigger.

Statistics are pretty, but they don't always tell the whole truth and when it comes to internet and downloads it can't get more inaccurate.

EDIT2: The logic behind what I say about PC downloads is similar to the one associated here in Spain with the tapas in most bars in some areas of Spain. In those areas, almost all the bars offer tapas, a kind of apperitives, for free when you purchase a drink. Sometimes you eat it, most often, you don't, but they are always served. When not eaten they have to be thrown away, so as you may understand the price of the drinks are higher or profits lower in such bars. Well, most if not all those bars, at one point in time or another, have tried to sell the drinks alone at a cheaper price and at the same time offer some kind of combo drink+tapa at the same price they were selling the drink before, which would be advertised on the walls. Well this experiment has ALWAYS resulted in people asking only for the drink (and complaining some) and on lower revenues for the bar. The thing is that when it was "free" people would eat them, they would expect them to be there too just in case they wanted to eat them in that ocasion, but as long as they had to pay (even if they would essentially pay the same as before) most people just didn't want to hear about them. It has happened in every single bar. 100% verified theory.

I'm not talking about the socalled "Bar de Tapas" o "Bar the pinchos" where people would go just for the high quality tapas or pinchos and to socialize. I'm talking about normal bars.

 

[AphexDreamer]

Very interesting that article. That doesn't negate my point though, because most console people that I know don't download the games (because they don't have a PC, they don't have internet, or both) they buy them from the many chinese, rusian, eastern europe mafias... Basically from the same people that mod their consoles.

Piracy is easier on the PC, it's also easier to track down by counting the downloads, but it's not so much bigger than on consoles. It's up to everyone to decide which kind of piracy is worse. The one that is based on ocasional people, downloading the ocasional game, or the one that is based on people that actually pay for the cheaper pirated versions of the games and that has an active illegal bussiness behind.

EDIT: This differentiation is very important to my understanding, at least. When something is absolutely free, like pirating on the PC, many people will just DL many games with the sole idea of trying it. They would never pay for the game, they are in no way lost customers, it's people that suddenly have access to something they wouldn't ever pay for (it's here where piracy helps future sales). The piracy on consoles, where you have to mod the console and where most pirated games are bought to mafias, is directly hurting sales. There is an intention to adquire an illegal copy, to adquire the game.

I stand by my point, PC piracy is not bigger.

Statistics are pretty, but they don't always tell the whole truth and when it comes to internet and downloads it can't get more inaccurate.

I understand what you are saying but understand this. Its happed before in the past to the MAC it can happen to the PC as well. http://www.macworld.com/article/51414/2006/06/gamepiracy.html

Thats all.

 

[Benetanegia]

I understand what you are saying but understand this. Its happed before in the past to the MAC it can happen to the PC as well. http://www.macworld.com/article/51414/2006/06/gamepiracy.html

Thats all.

All I'm saying is that piracy is not the only factor. IMO it's even a tiny one. IMO based on my own experience and that of my PC gamer friends, the most important factor is that games are far worse than they were in the past and that discourages me, you and your mum from paying for them. Let's assume this for once, the console market, as a mass is a lot more stupid (basically because it's mostly formed by kids) than the PC community and expectations are far lower. Statistics speak for themselves here too, console sales are driven by marketing and not game quality. Transformers, Avatar, Wolverine... are just lame examples of what I'm saying. It's this what publishers like about the consoles, not the lack of piracy and developers have nothing to say about what is done with their games nowadays, I can count with the fingers of one of my hands the number of developers that are still independent. That's the sad truth and piracy is just the excuse. If PC gamers weren't pirating their crappy games they wouldn't be playing them at all, it's that simple. It's an egg-chicken situation, except that we know that crappy console ports (or simply crappy games) started first.

When I was young and didn't have money or my parents wouldn't buy me a certain game for whatever reason, I pirated some games. I left pirating when I started having my own money, but recently I'm considering pirating games again, because there's no way you can know if a game is good or not from a demo that lasts 3 mins and that is usually the most memorable part of the game. It's like the flashy movie trailers that make you go see the crappy films. IN reality the whole entertainment bussiness has evolved to the same model. Music is the same. What are most singers nowadays? The best selling ones i mean. They are just a face and a single hit in MTV and they expect to sell the entire album, which is crap except for that catchy single.

 

[newtekie1]

@Benetanegia: I don't see how you can say that pirating on consoles is anywhere near as bad as the PC. Considering the PS3 was just hacked a few weaks ago, and that is only the very beginning to actually getting pirated games to run on it.

I will agree with you that priacy isn't a direct reason for developers not making games for the PC, and choosing consoles instead. However, it is a very big indirect reason. The low sales number are probably the number 1 reason why devs don't develope the awesome PC games that we have been used to seeing. And of course the poor sales number is due in part to the huge increase in piracy. Of course, the devs also have to deal with PC users constantly bitching about every little piece of DRM that they attempt to use to help limit piracy. PC pirating has essentially become casual.

 

[Benetanegia]

@Benetanegia: I don't see how you can say that pirating on consoles is anywhere near as bas as the PC. Considering the PS3 was just hacked a few weaks ago, and that is only the very beginning to actually getting pirated games to run on it.

I will agree with you that priacy isn't a direct reason for developers not making games for the PC, and choosing consoles instead. However, it is a very big indirect reason. The low sales number are probably the number 1 reason why devs don't develope the awesome PC games that we have been used to seeing. And of course the poor sales number is due in part to the huge increase in piracy. Of course, the devs also have to deal with PC users constantly bitching about every little piece of DRM that they attempt to use to help limit piracy. PC pirating has essentially become casual.

Piracy on PCs is not much bigger now than it was in the past. It is bigger, but the volumes of sales are much bigger too. The gaming market is bigger (both software and hardware), so it just makes sense that piracy grows accordingly. Also read my last edit above. Better yet, I'll put it here instead:

One thing no one mentions is why piracy is growing. IMO the main factor apart from the overall quality of the games, is the laughable lenght of current games. In the past you would buy or pirate a game and have a good 15 to 20 hours of gameplay, now you are lucky if you get 5 hours of satisfactory gameplay. That being the case I see something natural that pirates DL twice or 4x as much as they did before to fill the same entertainment time. On my end, buying twice as many games is totally unjustifiable, it already hurts every time you buy a game: "I'm shelling out 50 euros, the demo looked OK, pleaseeee, make this game one those rare examples of games that are actually worth at least half of what they cost". So yeah I'm considering pirating as a means to fill those ours that I used to be able to fill with $50 worth of a game, but now can't.

Also the piracy argument goes down the drain when you consider:

- The Sims. The best selling game appart from bundled games like Mario and the likes. And it's on the PC. Isn't that proof enough that when a game appeals to someone, it sells?

- Crysis. Despite it's very limited hardware installed base and the fact that it was the most pirated game at the time, it vastly outsold the PC versions of such games as COD4, Assassins Creed and many others (games that sold a lot on consoles). Doesn't it tell the true story? Why didn't COD4 sell as much as Crysis if pirating is the main factor? If pirating puts the limit, why didn't all those games reach that limit marked by Crysis or The sims which was also very pirated? Isn't it just that those games didn't appeal the PC public and that's all? IMO it is JUST that or at least the biggest factor.

 

[Lionheart]

How about PC games that require steam, can hackers bypass that shit!