1. This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.

Gaming Please stop moaning about the price of games.

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Combatus, 11 Mar 2016.

  1. iggy

    iggy Minimodder

    Joined:
    24 Jun 2002
    Posts:
    1,029
    Likes Received:
    12
    Whats moronic is this article.

    Hint: don't belittle your readers.
     
  2. LennyRhys

    LennyRhys Fan Fan

    Joined:
    16 May 2011
    Posts:
    6,398
    Likes Received:
    887
    Sorry to disappoint, but I've made so many (totally unnecessary) changes to my hardware over the years it's easily into four figures, but I have been on the same platform since 2009. I guess I was just trying to illustrate the point that expenses incurred by choosing to be a PC gamer are not necessary expenses; they just come with the turf of being part of a community that thrives on--and obsesses over--gear. Is it any coincidence that I spend more when I'm more active on this forum? :lol:

    Graphics is innovation - it's what brought us Crysis and opened the door to a new era of gaming and game engine development. Don't misunderstand me here: I'm not saying that PCs are superior to consoles or anything to that effect. I'm simply saying that there is a constantly evolving industry that devotes a lot of time and money to how games look, and it's a really important part of the industry. Part of that is concerned with making games look very realistic, but that's not all of it. For example, was Borderlands graphically innovative? Absolutely. Does it need the latest and greatest hardware to run? Not at all - it's perfect for both PCs and consoles.

    I agree that games with fancy-pants graphics can be fairly dull (the aforementioned Crysis is a contender for that spot too), but I see no reason why game developers should devote more time to gameplay and cross-platform compatibility than they do to visuals. It's because of innovations in computer graphics that I'm virtually guaranteed work when I graduate in two years (digital artist in training).

    And that brings us right on track to the subject of the thread: games cost more because more work is put into them, and visuals are an enormous part of that process. The ensuing discussion of "why should PC games look different from console games" is a veritable Pandora's Box, but it does come down to what hardware is available to game developers and whether or not they should take full advantage of it to keep the industry moving forward.
     
  3. Porkins' Wingman

    Porkins' Wingman Can't touch this

    Joined:
    23 Feb 2008
    Posts:
    2,897
    Likes Received:
    129
    I can see your point of view, but I don't think it covers my perspective. I'm 35 but until I was about 25 I'd never owned a console. When I buy into a console it's a more exciting decision than upgrading a PC, the locked down factor makes it more of a commitment. Both the Wii and the Wii U have had very distinctive, memorable controllers, and through them I've built a bond with them (they're far more distinctive than a GPU or keyboard/mouse can ever be to me), which is then compounded by the number of exclusive quality games I've enjoyed on them.

    PCs are just generic computing devices that can play games. Consoles have a more defined identity. That makes them easier to love.
     
  4. Icy EyeG

    Icy EyeG Controlled by Eyebrow Powers™

    Joined:
    23 Jul 2007
    Posts:
    517
    Likes Received:
    3
    We'll agree on disagreeing, and that's completely fine, but I have to say that I completely fail to understand how it's possible to bond with something so static and restrictive. Each one to their own, of course.

    The PC is as distinctive as you want it to be. Consoles are generic computing devices that were locked down to play certain games, and thus appear distinctive.
     
  5. ChrisHowell

    ChrisHowell What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    29 Aug 2015
    Posts:
    78
    Likes Received:
    0
    Nice article. Games are expensive because (shock-horror!) they are REALLY hard to make and therefore cost lots of money to produce. I respect companies and developers enough that I'm happy to support them with my money.

    Side note: Did you see the closure of Lionhead studios this week? They were forced into competing in the free-to-play market and were shut down by Microsoft. Because they didn't make any money..... I'd rather pay more for games and have more studios developing games any day of the week
     
  6. DeckerdBR

    DeckerdBR Minimodder

    Joined:
    9 Mar 2011
    Posts:
    1,538
    Likes Received:
    29
    I'm sorry but that's just not true. There are companies out there. (CD Project Red for example) who can make good quality games that are not buggy messes and content raped for dlc sales. These game companies are not some single mass automatically deserving of your time and money. They varey massively in quality.

    But there has been a disturbing effort to unify pc game prices with consol game prices and a push to keep release day digital distribution prices high, in many cases costing more that the physical disks version. Even worse, some companies arnts bothering with disk versions of their games so the over priced digital channels are becoming the only option.
    Not all games cost the same to make or are the same quality and pc gamers are right to protest against prices rises that go drastically against the historic costs when there is little gain to the customer.

    Also free to play has nothing to do with lion heads demise, they went out of business because they made **** games.
     
  7. Vault-Tec

    Vault-Tec Green Plastic Watering Can

    Joined:
    30 Aug 2015
    Posts:
    14,886
    Likes Received:
    3,667
    I was chatting to an old school (and old skool) friend last night. We found one another through Facebook after I walked out of school at 15 and then pretty much disappeared off the face of the earth, not keeping in contact with any of my old chums.

    The topic turned to gaming and we basically both got a bit nostalgic and due to growing up through the 70s 80s and 90s we both agreed that the advances in technology (and gaming) were absolutely massive. We went from a black and white bat and ball to Doom within about 15 years.

    We then talked about modern games and how they don't seem to be improving on anywhere near the same ratio as they used to. Like for example, a modern FPS contains nothing more or less (graphics aside) than one from 2007. In 2007 every one raved about the "power suit". Since then no one has raved about much in modern games because hardly anything is changing. It's just the same stuff regurgitated over and over again. So between the first Half Life and a good few years after people were desperately rushing around trying to make their games more complicated (I mean like, jumping in a FPS or using hand weapons such as the crow bar) but that then reached a certain point and then stopped.

    So what have we had lately? companies desperately trying to stuff a FPS with elements of say, WOW. And IMO (and we had this discussion before) that does not work, because a FPS is a FPS and therefore should not be made to feel like you are playing something from a different genre.

    I dunno. From the POV of a venerable old sod nothing is really progressing. Certainly not at the speed it should be, or could be. With something like Titan X we should be playing mind blowing games. Not desperately trying to run the same crap games we had before at 4k.

    With all of the pump that Nvidia and AMD talk and all of these new "super graphics cards" we should be seeing a progression in graphics. Each time Nvidia double the power of a GPU that stood before it we should be able to reap the rewards graphically. But we can't, because instead of actually using that technology properly and taking full advantage of it they just use it instead to release slow rubbish games and then use the Titan X as a get out of jail free card.

    Maybe VR will change all of this. Maybe. Right now it is incredibly primitive and costs around £1600. And that's for something very primitive that will likely end up being replaced at least once before all is said and done.
     
  8. rollo

    rollo Modder

    Joined:
    16 May 2008
    Posts:
    7,887
    Likes Received:
    131
    The only accurate numbers are the players trackers that certain games run Riot has one and so does DOTA2 they are the only 2 games that can accurately track its userbase.

    Steam recently updated theres to show all games trades or buys that happened on a per game average.

    January averaged a rather small 3.3million concurrent users for the top100 games combined. Dota 2 is 1million of that alone.

    League of legends at last reported figures had broken 10million concurrent figures ( Riot report the figures every now and again at shows and events)

    The 2 biggest games that way on pc are free to play games.

    Both have something very similar in common they require very little computer hardware to run.
     
  9. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

    Joined:
    30 Oct 2012
    Posts:
    9,648
    Likes Received:
    388
    I can't speak for all games but some are probably pretty cheap to develop, take FIFA as an example, it seems all EA do each year is update it with new players and a few other bits & bobs.

    Just my opinion but that closure did seem odd, it's not like Microsoft is short of a few bob so i suspect Lionhead studios was closed for other reasons.
     
  10. Vault-Tec

    Vault-Tec Green Plastic Watering Can

    Joined:
    30 Aug 2015
    Posts:
    14,886
    Likes Received:
    3,667
    The biggest advancement in FPS has been the full on co op found in BLOPS III.

    Sadly BLOPS III was an awful game with a pretty much nonsensical story but it was still good fun in co op. We need to see more of this, even if it's on a six year old game with a new skin.

    And where the fudge is L4D3 FFS? Valve come along with a game that's completely mind blowing, release a sequel using pretty much the same graphics then go quiet. It's so damn frustrating !
     
  11. rollo

    rollo Modder

    Joined:
    16 May 2008
    Posts:
    7,887
    Likes Received:
    131
    It's so Valve in a nut shell. DOTA 2 is making them plenty of money why make anything else.
     
  12. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

    Joined:
    30 Oct 2012
    Posts:
    9,648
    Likes Received:
    388
    Isn't that just the way things are with new things, by that i mean we went from the wright brothers to jets in the space of 40 odd years and then nothing much from then on, the same sort of thing with the internal combustion engine and/or car.

    Maybe my perception is wrong though. :confused:
     
  13. N17 dizzi

    N17 dizzi Multimodder

    Joined:
    23 Mar 2011
    Posts:
    3,234
    Likes Received:
    356
    Totally agree.
     
  14. GeorgeK

    GeorgeK Swinging the banhammer Super Moderator

    Joined:
    18 Sep 2010
    Posts:
    8,705
    Likes Received:
    515
    Me too - to me this seems like a direct response to a number of us remarking that SUPERHOT was expensive for what it is... It could be a coincidence but it doesn't feel like it tbh...
     
  15. theshadow2001

    theshadow2001 [DELETE] means [DELETE]

    Joined:
    3 May 2012
    Posts:
    5,284
    Likes Received:
    183
    It's a direct response to customer feedback on the proposed price of no man's sky.

    A number of games journalists have commented about this. None of them say where they are finding these comments on price though. It's unrelated to what people here thought about super hot.
     
    Last edited: 13 Mar 2016
  16. Vault-Tec

    Vault-Tec Green Plastic Watering Can

    Joined:
    30 Aug 2015
    Posts:
    14,886
    Likes Received:
    3,667
    Well a friend of mine has a huge whacking great Mercedes and it does over 40 MPG on diesel. Back in the 80s and early 90s that was not feasible. Cars of that size would do 10 MPG if you were lucky.

    So if it does go like cars and so on then hopefully we will see better looking games running on the hardware we have at much higher FPS.

    But we won't, because in video gaming there is no refinement. And that's mostly thanks to the fact that game devs will ALWAYS take the easy way out* what I mean is if they are given a new card by Nvidia that runs at twice the speed of the current gen they will then use that instead of spending the time and money making games run on lower spec hardware.

    *I won't include Valve in that. Whenever they launch a game it flies on modest hardware (like Half Life 2 etc). However, look at how long it takes Valve to achieve that. Many would have died waiting.

    With DX12 we are being told that basically games should look better and need less power. Or, that a highly threaded CPU can spread the load better etc. Also included is supposed "multi adapter" support meaning that using more than one GPU could be native. Only, there are two DX12 games out there that don't support more than one GPU.

    So it's one of two scenarios. Either they are too lazy to actually implement DX12 features properly and have only released them as DX12 so they sell, or, they don't know what they are doing with it yet.

    And neither of those fill me with confidence.
     
  17. MightyBenihana

    MightyBenihana Do or do not, there is no try

    Joined:
    8 Sep 2011
    Posts:
    1,463
    Likes Received:
    117
    I would suggest he is the vast majority. Don't forget that we here , and those on many such forums are in a bubble.
     
  18. rollo

    rollo Modder

    Joined:
    16 May 2008
    Posts:
    7,887
    Likes Received:
    131
    Compared to people on these forums he is a big minority, most of us have spent more on gpus in that time.
     
  19. bigc90210

    bigc90210 Teh C

    Joined:
    7 Oct 2003
    Posts:
    1,262
    Likes Received:
    71
    this. Adding the quip that if you support a certain political party (albeit American politics) you're also stupid does no favours and brings nothing to the article either.
     
  20. nimbu

    nimbu Multimodder

    Joined:
    28 Nov 2002
    Posts:
    2,596
    Likes Received:
    283
    I've kinda been sheltered from aaa titles on the pc and next gen consoles as I was a firm WoW / EvE addict.

    Recentry I bought a ps4 for battlefront and realised I'll need to by a season pass. Skipped that.

    Randonly bought ARK: survival evolved, and while still beta I have nearly 600 hours clocked. Not bad for only 20 quid.

    I have been loosely following The division and decided to grab it, when ordering I has the choice of season pass or not. If I went without I was going to miss a lot so forked out for it.

    I felt kinda miffed at the price but I felt I didn't have a choice.

    As an mmo subscriber (I started with ultima online!) I don't mind paying a month subscription as my money appears to buy me continuous content. 70 to stump up front and not know what that is going to get me irks me a little.

    After the great xcom I had preordered xcom2, haven't played it yet from the issues I've read about so I'll wait till a decent patch is out.

    With digital delivery there appears to be a lack of a requirement for deva to get things right first time. Previously what was released on media had to work. Look at the flack elite first encounters got.
     
Tags: Add Tags

Share This Page