News Why Valve don't make PS3 games

I think Sony got a big head from PS1 and PS2. They decided to make a platform that almost requires exclusive titles, rather than something that developers can easily port to. I work on cross-platform software (not games), and 90%+ of code we write works on any platform, because we can make certain assumptions (i.e. you have a CPU core available->you stuff a thread in it->it runs). With PS3's weird architecture, you can't do that. You absolutely have to write specifically for that platform. Because of this, it's just not cost-effective to port to PS3. And 256MB of RAM--you gotta be kidding me!

 

I'de take Valve seriously if Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Infinity Ward, Treyarch, Square-Enix, Capcom, Sega, Tecmo we're also complaining. But they aren't. He can sit on his soap box all he wants. To me it just looks like Valve is lazy.

 

Well, you call it lazy, but at the end of the day, if they don't enjoy coding for the PS3, and can let someone else do it, then can you blame them?

I mean, I enjoy my job, but there are certain tasks I hate doing. It doesn't mean I can't do them, it just means they suck, and if I don't have to do them then I won't. It doesn't make me lazy. Sure, I still end up doing them 9 times out of 10, but that's only because I have no choice

 

There is a different between you not enjoying your job, but can do it, and complaining that it's too difficult on a soap box when an industry full of other developers sat down and learned. Indie developers don't even have much trouble and given that the dev tools have been updated a few times to make it easier as well 2nd party devs offering support, I still say Valve is just lazy.

 

I do feel for people who have to work on PS3... I remember getting a presentation from a guy who wrote C++ compilers for the cell for sony... read that again... they need full time staff to write new compilers for a language that's been around since the 80s... thats a HELL OF A LOT of work that you just don't need to do for PC and xbox 360. The cell is very powerful, but it takes a lot more to get that power out of it.

 

...so they should stop whining and outsource ports like they did for orange box

 

well really the Xbox 360 is not the #1 console this gen. That is the Wii. The 360 is only 7.8 million console head of the PS3 which is a small number considering the gap between the Wii and 360.

So why doesn't Valve support the Wii? I'd say they are just lazy. Same reason why they won't support the PS3.

 

+1 to that.

I guess its a case of effort required to port compared to profits in PS3 game sales just does not add up. Shame i would have liked L4D on the PS3.

 

I suspect its less laziness and more becuase they can't be arsed designing for the minority console which is more work (like it or not fan boys). Some games might be interesting on the wii portal for example, but i don't think tf2 or even Hl2 would play very well with the wand thing. So why bother porting your games to that platform.

Valve are primarily a PC developer it just so happens that the xbox is fairly easy to port to so it makes business sense to do so the other two platforms don't, laziness is so very rarely the reason business do things lack of profit is generally the first place to look.


Just to back this up, a fan boi publication said it best...

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2007/06/13/is-the-ps3-really-harder-to-develop-for/

That will also apply to games which start off on the PC and as we've already discussed valve develop PC games and port them or not in the case of the minority console.

 

Months back,....did we have a article saying that there was some absurd fees to having your game on PS3?........ or something about update download fees? ..... I can't remember.

When I read this article I thought about the bad taste in some developers mouth because of something like that. Oh well.

Anyway, this kind of stuff just reassures me that stopping at Playstation 2 and gaming on my PC from there on was the best decision I've made yet. I probably will not buy anymore gaming consoles.

PC forever!

 

Ask anyone who actually works in the industry if your statement is true and they will say YOU are talking rubbish. The programmers, artists and designers do it for the creativity primarily.

 

Porting a high end PC game to the Wii is completely different compared to porting to 360. You have to consider some gameplay changes and significant graphical scaling as well. Not to mention that all developers know that 3rd party Wii titles hardly sell. Especially if they haven't added in the game significant innovative support for Wthe Wii mote controller, which takes alot of time to design for. Scaling a PC game down for the Xbox 360 requires alot less work.

 

Completely agree. Why waste immense resources maintaining multiple code-bases just to support console #3 in the race? Porting is always cost/benefit, since porting is almost never fun.

To put it in a really simple way, let's say you want to run from one end of a road to another. That's your only objective.

* For PC, you can more or less go with any equipment you like and run it without interference. The road will have the odd pothole though.
* For Xbox 360, you're given the equipment and have to make do - but it's top dollar kit so you don't really mind. The road narrows in a few areas, and a car occasionally travels down it.
* For PS3 you're either given sub-standard equipment (sandals that are falling apart rather than trainers), or you can buy a few pieces (gloves, t-shirt, no shoes) from a vendor on the side of the road for extortionate sums of money. Finally the road curves, has traffic, and there are hurdles every 10m that you have to jump. If you fail to make the jump your foot gets caught and you slam face-first into the concrete. Occasionally a hurdle will move, this stops you getting a rhythm. Then when you don't reach the finish as fast as the other platforms you're efforts are branded as half-hearted, poor, and various other vicious put-downs.

Yeah, I wouldn't code for the PS3 unless my life depended on it.

 

Meh. I don't think he has a point here as other developers (including PC devs like id, epic or crytek) don't seem to have trouble developing for the PS3. So to me it looks like Valve are either lazy or incompetent. Or they get a fat cheque from Microsoft.

 

Well said.

 

There are businesses where you can make better money, Valve isn't EA, they do actually care about making good games. This guy isn't a big evil fat cat at the head of a massive mega corporation, he's an employee, last time I checked, games developers were one of the most exploited skilled workforce there is, making a game requires buckets of overtime that only 1 or 2 companies actually pay you for.

 

*cough* Actually the 256MB of application ram is shared with the GPU on top of the 256MB for the graphics card. Also the main ram is XDR RAM and runs at 3.2Ghz.

 

Indeed, Developmag do annual questionnaires that are sent to employees in the games industry (the latest one has just come out). I can't remember the numbers but the main jist of it was that employees felt unhappy, tired (doing lots of overtime) and were "underpaid"...but they put up with it because they enjoy making games.

People forget that games programmers use in-house tools to make their games, middleware such as Epic's Unreal engine is an example of such tools. Sometimes they are re-used from a past project but other times they are developed from scratch. Stuff like compiling code, organising assets, etc. are probably done automatically for each target platform by the tools which eases development. My guess is that Infinity Ward, Treyarch and the rest of the studios don't complain about it is that they have spent a massive amount of time developing their tools to a point that the developers can just code whatever, hit a button and out comes their game build on the target platform. And it shows, the COD4 engine was brilliant as is Bethesda's Gamebryo engine they used for Fallout 3.

In a way, I do think Valve are a bit lazy (programmers usually are) they probably have a set of tools already and are reluctant to re-design them since they've served them perfectly already. I actually had a chat with the lead programmer who makes the engine tools for Kujo and he says that the PS3 is hard to develop for since the Cell cpu isn't suited for games but once you get your head round it, it can be just like any other platform. The problem is that developers target Xbox/PC first and then PS3, leaving a big hurdle to climb (and by then, people can't be arsed re-doing the game again). Instead, it should be target PS3 and then Xbox/PC as any complicated code in the PS3 can be just ironed out easily for Xbox/PC. It sort of makes sense...in japan. lol j/k but yeah, other factors are obviously in play like how popular each console is, etc. etc.

 

Exactly. When EA was taken to task on poor PS3 ports, they didn't complain. They started working on the PS3 version first and porting to Xbox. Square-Enix create the Crystal Tools engine and then optimized it for multiplatform. Epic has the unreal engine. A dev house as big as Valve couldn't be arsed to optimize their engine? 3rd place or not, PS3 still sells a good amount of copies when it comes to multiplatform. Doesn't CoD4 have over 10 million sold? I know about 3 million copies sold on PS3 which is a good return if you ask me, even for the "minority" console.

 

TF2, L4D and DoD Source do all have the option to use multiple cores now and indeed do utilise them:

multicore

The Xbox 360 is essentially a PC in a box, which is why developers like Valve prefer to code for them.