Gaming The Problem With Porting Games

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2009/08/18/the-problem-with-porting-games/1

As the cost of developing games has risen, so has the popularity of multi-platform titles. While multi-platform games are attractive to publishers, PC gamers often feel hard done by when it comes to ‘ported’ games. Ben Hardwidge talks to developers about the difficulties involved.

 

WOW...SO MANY THINGS INVOLVED.
I often see people commenting on games being badly ported, I don't personally have anything with "ported" games because I know programmers see their work as their own baby. They would do the best under the constraints.
Kudos for BT to give us an insight on this subject.

 

keyboard and mouse feel correct, wider camera angle, more detailed graphics, advanced graphics options and performs on an enthusiastic gaming machine.

those are the things i look for in a ported game, if most of which are there: GTA4, then it's a good port.

Halo 2 on the other hand is the worst port ever, wrong camera angle, wrong crosshair location, no more graphical details, no advanced graphics options and doesn't perform very good. don't forget key assignment is messed up.

 

halo 2 was a real bad port, i had to manually change the layout of my keyboard from AZERTY to QUERTY in the OS itself before i could even walk straigt :d. but i loved good and evil. (only the final battle was kind of stupid i felt)

however it's nice to see articles like this come up now and then, that's why i keep coming here. good job BT

 

Guitar Hero 3 for pc is a prime example. Basically the xbox360 version with a slightly different controller plug and a very poor emu built in.. lags like hell on even a 4850 :/

 

It's not about the code, it's not about the graphics. It's not about the controllers. Or camera angles. With time and effort, a Developer will happily modify and update code to make it suitable for any platform. The problem is cost and market. Those in charge of the purse strings do not see that the return is worth the cost of porting properly.

"So, the next time you complain about a PC game being a “port”, think about the reasons why the game isn't quite what you expected."

It's because they want to make some easy cash by extending the market with the smallest possible effort. To suggest that it is because "it's difficult" is insulting to Developers and Designers everywhere. Give a Dev and a Designer time and money and they will make the game suitable to run on a toaster.

 

whilst i appreciate this article going into depth as much as it has, it mentions nothing of the real problem thats pissing us off.

big colourful fisher price huds, appauling menu systems, ropey level design and so on and so forth

gameplay is the problem here gentlemen, not technicalities.

 

Rob Lang speaks the truth. The vast majority of developers can achieve the vast majority of technical feats with enough time and effort. The problem is the fact time and effort costs money. The Guitar Hero 3 port was crap because no-one put any real money behind it, simply because chances are, no-one would buy it. That only makes sense.

I understand a lot of what the devs are saying, but if I'm going to be really negative about this I couldn't help get an uneasy feeling reading about Dead Space. So, essentially he's saying "don't blame the consoles for the restrictive PC experience, blame us, we chose to make it restrictive!" Surely saying they designed it explicitly for consoles, so natrually it wouldn't work well on the PC, is the epitome of consolification? If I designed a game that only worked "as intended" on my Nokia 3210, and thus doesn't work well on anything else, claiming no-one can complain because it was originally designed for a phone is not an excuse. It's still just poor design choices.

 

seems to me a lot of these companies should tajke a leaf out of Capcom's book. the last three ports have been flawless.

the introduction of the 360 controller for windows has made many ports much more playable for me. DMC4 was excellent on the pc but would have felt very wrong on mouse and keyboard.

generally though yeah, ports suck

 

Hmm, this seems to be pulled straight from Custom PC again, come on guys stop the porting

 

It was written by one of the Custom PC guys, so I'm not surprised.

Batman is the best cross platform game I've seen in a while. It looks great on all systems.

 

Is there? The only games that really need a first person view are first person shooters. If the game is designed correctly, there's nothing wrong with a third person view.

Try telling all the teenage boys from the mid-nineties that Tomb Raider would be better in first person view, without the ability to look at a pixelated arse.

 

Wait, what?

I'm pretty sure the difference between first person and third isn't limited to shooting games. The main differences are in the way you interact with the game. First person - you are interacting directly with the game environment; Third person - you interact with the environment through an avatar, usually the game's protagonist.

Trouble is, the extra layer third person adds to the game can distance you from actions and consequences. For example; Mirror's Edge might not have had the same feeling of vertigo if you could see Faith in third person swan diving into the pavement, rather than tasting asphalt yourself.

Third person is okay, but if the engine is up to it and I have a keyboard and mouse, I'd rather have the first person option.

 

Before i start ranting: good article, very interesting read.

See, now this is exactly the nonsense that pisses me and milions of other PC owners off. You don't hear Ferrari execs saying that they will start making sensible 4-door saloons with 80bhp because 99% of the roads in the world won't even allow you to go over 120km/h.

I have no objection to some studios producing games for mainstream (afterall, we do need Kias and Volkswagens), but the porblem is that nobody is making a Ferrari anymore. The last one was Crysis, released in november 2007. Game developers have the advantage over car manufacturers that they can produce a Ferrari for the same price a Volkswagen would cost, yet they keep being held back by investors that seem to be hellbent on mainstream. If there is nothing at all to be starry-eyed over, the mainstream will lose it's appeal too.

As far as games go, the performance crown is still held by Crysis, which was released almost two years ago. On the hardware front, we were just marvelling at our q9400's and eagerly awaiting the new g92 cards from nVidia at that time, look how far we've progressed! Meanwhile, on the software front nothing has happened to be starry-eyed about.

We want a game that doesn't run again, like Crysis did the first time we subjected our poor socket 939 rigs to it. I don't understand that nobody is doing this at all, and i havent heard of any plans in the pipeline either, which basically means that Crysis will at least be able to celebrate its 30th month on the throne before it is replaced.
The saddest bit of gamenews for me was when i read about CryEngine 3, that isn't built to finally step forwards again, but to be able to run on Xbox and PS3. MAJOR FAIL.

[edit]
Direct X 11 is coming. A grand total of 6 (six) games have announced that they will be using it. Only one of these games is PC-exclusive, and that is a BattForge, a game that's been out for a while that will receive a graphical refresh. If I understand the article correctly, this means that all the others are watered-down for consoles. Cheers.

 

hes right, and whilst you might not get along with Crysis you have to admit it was the last shining example of the quality of what a pc exclusive game should be.

I got bored of driving a kia and i wanted a lambo. hence i am a PC Gamer.

 

^^ +1

I'm happy I still have a GT8800 and not SLI GTX295 on high power game rig waiting for ever for those dx11 games that are replaced by some stupid mario part 212 wii console to PC port.

On the other hand i feel the pain of those with the high end game systems eating away power and GPU features that are sleeping since the last 'hi-tech' PC game. But if you read my posts 20 months ago about the uselesnes of Multi GPU rigs you would have known...

 

True. But the point isn't 'Oh, it's a PC game, therefore it needs a first person view' which is what the article is suggesting. The point is that the game should determine which view works best. Gears of War is a great game, and the cover system really benefits from the third person view. I doubt it would work as well with a first person view.

And as you say, Mirrors Edge would lose a lot of its appeal if it was moved out of first person and into third person.

 

Ugh, so at least there was an explanation for the utterly horrible third-person perspective in Dead Space. I bought the game after reading the review and several forum posts hailing it as brilliant, and then I got about ten minutes into the game before quitting and uninstalling it in a fit of frustrated rage! The controls were crap and the perspective was horrible to the point of being nausea inducing. Haven't touched it since I'm afraid, and it's a shame because I did want to play it. As far as I know there is no first-person option in it. Maybe I'll reinstall it some day and give it another go, but I have to say - even though the intro was enthralling, I couldn't bear the controls and perspective.

Third-person in Max Payne worked brilliantly though.

 

what extrafresh said

even games like diablo 3 and dragon age dont look as if they are going to push any boundaries, and these are supposed to be primarily PC games!

i picked up a GTX280 cheap to replace my 8800GT, and tbh apart from Warhead i've had absolutley no reason to do that. do we have to constantly wait for the console upgrade cycle? looks like it.

 

thx bit-tech i was waiting for this