News Mark Rein talks about the games industry

[Tim S]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/07...ames_industry/

[supermonkey]

Personally, I think he has the right idea. This quote in particular really hit home with me:

Originally Posted by The article

This is a lose/lose for the gamer and game makers, as it's cheaper to just not buy games than to buy a whole new computer to then spend money on games.

Frankly, I'm getting a bit tired of every new game seemingly requiring a top-of-the-line video card to play with full details. I know that I can play some of the games on my current hardware, but if I have to turn off all the new and improved features I could just continue to play Quake 2 and Warcraft 3. I played the demo for F.E.A.R but declined to purchase the game because my system can't handle the graphical demands very well. And I'm sure not going to shell out another few hundred dolalrs for another video card, only to have new card released less than a year later.

I noticed one of the other front-page items was a video card lineup that features "entry level" multi-gpu cards at $1000. I'll be damned if I'm going to spend more on the video card than the rest of the system combined, for something considered entry level, just to play a couple games. I'd rather wait for another 1 or 2 years until I upgrade again. Only then will I buy a game released within the past year. Of course, I'll save a bit on the game, too.

-monkey

[Kipman725]

THe people making the games should have low detail modes for older pcs... they used to offer software rendered versions untill recently for those without 3d aceleration. How hard is it to make some ultra low poly low res dx7 versions of your uber modles?

[Vergil_117]

Well HL2 has low end modes. BTW in lost coast are the combine models the high poly ones or the same from HL2?

[g3n3tiX]

I see no harm in having a good ol' Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 to play F.E.A.R... with a blistering 28 mb of SHARED memory !

Hopefully I haven't got these. Apart from CS 1.6 / video playback / basic things, they suck.
They should at least offer some integrated with discrete memory, or a very basic -albeit discrete- card, that is at least upgradable.

[yahooadam]

Originally Posted by supermonkey

I noticed one of the other front-page items was a video card lineup that features "entry level" multi-gpu cards at $1000. I'll be damned if I'm going to spend more on the video card than the rest of the system combined, for something considered entry level, just to play a couple games. I'd rather wait for another 1 or 2 years until I upgrade again. Only then will I buy a game released within the past year. Of course, I'll save a bit on the game, too.

that was a multi-GPU system, not a multi-gpu card, a GX2 will set you back like £400 (i believe), not $1000

i know people still playing on DX8 cards, and their playing source games on that, their not that bad, but don't expect uber resolutions, or uber options

i agree with everything mark rein said though, episodic content is overpriced, and doesn't provide a lot of gaming time, for EG i just found my box of HL1 and have installed that, I'm now up to 9 hours, and i think I'm about 1/2 way through, in contrast HL2:E1 provided about 4 hours pleasure, and cost about 2/3 of the price of HL1

and Ive always hated integrated GFX, a cheap GFX card will cost a manufacturer like £30 or something, but their so much nicer to use, and don't cause as much hassle

[DXR_13KE]

graphic cards makers must lower their price. or else the PC gaming industry will die.

[DeX]

I don't see what Rein's problem with integrated graphics is. If you don't want to play games and you're not thinking of installing Vista when it finally arrives then Intel's graphics chips are fine. The reason gamers feel stuck with them is because system builders will do anything to reduce the cost and increase their own profits by selling PCs to people less knowlegable about graphics hardware. I'm certain that if Intel didn't have such a massive slice of the integrated graphics market then nVidia and ATI would soon fill the gap with £20 graphics cards or just use one of their own cheap graphics chips on their motherboards.

Integrated graphics has nothing to do with how well the gaming industry does. If someone wants to play a PC game they will either upgrade when they can afford it or (providing the gaming industry has any sense) run their games at the detail level low enough for their system. If anything it's up to the gaming industry more than anyone to keep gamers gaming. I remember being really pissed off when I got GTA San Andreas and found I could only run it at 800x600 at the worst detail level when GTA Vice City would run at 1280x1024 at maximum detail with full anti-aliasing and the only benefit San Andreas offered in terms of graphics was a slight shimmering of the air in the afternoons.

I'm not too sure about episodic content but we've only seen a handful of games that use it and so far HL2 has been pretty successful with it I think. Maybe we should see how much gamers actually like the episodic content before saying it's a bad thing. So was their anything actually noteworthy Mark Rein had to say?

[scq]

Originally Posted by Kipman725

THe people making the games should have low detail modes for older pcs... they used to offer software rendered versions untill recently for those without 3d aceleration. How hard is it to make some ultra low poly low res dx7 versions of your uber modles?

Problem is, people will see that a $400 Xbox 360 could run a game at settings which look way better than a PC with a mid range graphics card which would cost them $2-300 for the card alone.

Game developers need to find ways to make their game engines a little more efficient, and the rate at which graphics hardware is refreshed is simply too fast. You shouldn't need to buy a graphics card for every new game that comes out.

[Cthippo]

I think he's right on the episodic content. We spent months anticipating HL2e1, and played it in 4 hours and people are already complaining that e2 won't be out until December(ish). Given that it takes monhs and years to develop game content, I think they are better off putting out one really big title every three years than a small one every 6-8 months.

As for integrated graphics, I think you're really seeing an evolutionary split between general purpose PCs and gaming PCs. You can buy a computer that does pretty much everything you need to do for $400 or you can spend at least a thousand for a gaming PC. I think it would be interesting to see someone take the minimum and recommended specs for the latest games and use them to price a computer to see what we're talking about cost-wise. The bottom line is that the big name games cannot be played on the average computer, and that limits your market and impairs your ability to attract new customers.

[Nezuji]

Imagine the outcry if some studios started producing HD video content that refused to play if your screen was under a certain physical size.

My only PC is a Mini-ITX SP13000, and I use the integrated graphics. This is, by no means, a "gaming" system in the terms that people here would be used to. In fact I'm aware that a lot of people on this forum would barely consider this worthy of running a home mp3 server. But I am still downloading and playing free 3D games from indie developers that have plenty of atmosphere and gameplay -- and the graphics aren't too shabby either, to be honest -- and they run just fine on my system.

But Mr. Rein's solution is for his potential consumers to shape up and buy better (i.e. more expensive) graphics hardware, and if only those gawd-awful folks at Intel would stop selling people the cheap, moderately-powered solutions that they want, that would happen. I think perhaps that if Mr Rein wants to reach a larger audience, then he should see a doctor about his cranial-rectal inversion and think about adding support for REAL low-end graphics systems. Or quit whining. One of the two.

Nezuji

[TheColdLord]

Episodic content is not a very good solution indeed, but there will always be fanatics that wait buy and play the nem released episodes. The question is how many of these fanatics have the money to spend every 6 months for 4 hours of not so intense gameplay. Sure every episode is probably going to be enhanced but still it isn't worth it IMHO. Integrated gpus are heardly mean't for gameing use. They are for the low-end\media center pc-s where the quiter the better. If you wan't to play games on you're pc then buy yourself a midrange\high-end gpu, even though it will cost a lot. As mentioned the refresh rate in grapichs technology is alarming but for the momment it is the natural way of things seeing that ATI and nVidia are far from giving up the development of gpu chipsets.