PC Gaming vs Console Gaming

[CorgiShinobi]

[Yantelope]

Both the Ace Venture and the video are hilarious. The console had a few glorious days of hack free online play. Those were the 6 months between Halo 2 and it's map packs.

[Battra92]

 

For those who don't get the joke (either being too young or not an American)

 

And yes, I'm old enough to remember this. Not as a new commercial but they played it for years.

 

You know what bugs me about PC gaming? When I need an emulator to run a game on a new system. I can dig out my old NES and pop in a cart from the 80s and it will still work. I have Ataris that still play fine but I don't have the room or desire to keep a 286 around just so I can play an old disc game. I'm sure this is becoming less and less an issue but it's something about PC gaming (and I guess in many ways gaming itself) that is an issue. It's also one of the reasons that online DRM pisses me off so much as someday games could be totally unplayable after the companies stop supporting them.

[deanb]

You know what bugs me about console gaming? When you need to keep around the old console to play the games. I can just install a few dozen emulators on a PC and run stuff from the 70's to now. I just don't have room or the desire to keep a NES or PS2 around just so I can play old games. I'm sure it's becoming more and more of an issue, and it's definitely something about console gaming that's an issue. It's also one of the reasons new generations piss me of because someday you won't be able to get hold of any of these consoles when they break.

 

I'm so sorry but that's such an easy one to turn around. Currently there are only 4 consoles sold of the several dozen that have come out in the past few decades. You can hunt around and pick up some used, though maybe not always in working order. The games are even hard er to come by. And once they break you're screwed. It's always one of the biggest failings I think of the games industry and the one thing that the games industry should want to be matching the film industry to and that's just how long you can get hold of old classics. Picking up films from 1985 is easy, but games from that period are a bit of a pain. The online stores are helping a little bit but still not much.

 

Also the DRM isn't much of an issue if you pirate it

[Strangelove]

A lot of gamers dont care about that stuff, though. Youre talking about a demographic who sell their old system to get credit to buy a new system every 5-10 years. Only "hardcore" game nerds care about that, which most have a pc with assloads of roms and isos on it..............or they have their old systems.

Most console gamers live only in the present. Take that as you will.

[deanb]

A lot of gamers dont care about that stuff, though. Youre talking about a demographic who sell their old system to get credit to buy a new system every 5-10 years. Only "hardcore" game nerds care about that, which most have a pc with assloads of roms and isos on it..............or they have their old systems.

Most console gamers live only in the present. Take that as you will.

 

You replying to me or Battra?

[P4: Gritty Reboot]

You know what bugs me about PC gaming? When I need an emulator to run a game on a new system. I can dig out my old NES and pop in a cart from the 80s and it will still work. I have Ataris that still play fine but I don't have the room or desire to keep a 286 around just so I can play an old disc game. I'm sure this is becoming less and less an issue but it's something about PC gaming (and I guess in many ways gaming itself) that is an issue.

What are you even talking about? You need an emulator on a new system to run an old game, just as in the console world, where new systems have to emulate old system's hardware to achieve backwards compatibility. You're comparing pulling out 30-year-old systems to run 30-year-old games to attempting to run 30-year-old games on brand new systems. I could just as easily pull out my old Intel 486 and run games sans emulator. You're not comparing apples to apples.

[Yantelope]

The other thing that's kind of worth discussing is the unpleasable elitist PC gamer crowd out there that Crytek is trying to please. Crysis came out and the response was "Crap, this game is so unoptimized, it runs like garbage!". Crysis 2 comes out and the response is "This game looks like crap, it was consolized!" Crysis 2 DX11 ultra patch comes out and fans say "This thing is crap and unoptimized!" (or at least that's what the forums on mycrysis look like right now). There's a lot more entitlement associated with PC gaming than there is on a console as is demonstrated by the 10 commandments posted above. What I think PC gamers generally fail to see is how small of a percentage PC game sales are and what a niche market it really is.

[P4: Gritty Reboot]

Do we even have PC game sales numbers, given that Valve doesn't release numbers publicly? Last I heard there were some 30 million Steam accounts, which is pretty sizable. I don't think you can really call it a "niche market."

[Saturnine Tenshi]

It's niche because it isn't vastly represented on MTV and talked about among casuals and students during lunch period.

[deanb]

The other thing that's kind of worth discussing is the unpleasable elitist PC gamer crowd out there that Crytek is trying to please. Crysis came out and the response was "Crap, this game is so unoptimized, it runs like garbage!". Crysis 2 comes out and the response is "This game looks like crap, it was consolized!" Crysis 2 DX11 ultra patch comes out and fans say "This thing is crap and unoptimized!" (or at least that's what the forums on mycrysis look like right now). There's a lot more entitlement associated with PC gaming than there is on a console as is demonstrated by the 10 commandments posted above. What I think PC gamers generally fail to see is how small of a percentage PC game sales are and what a niche market it really is.

 

The first Crysis was pretty unoptimized, even admitted by Crytek. Hence Warhead and the Cry Engine 2.5 it runs on. It's still generally highly regarded for it's visuals and such. Crysis 2 was pretty heavily consolized too. Another thing that Crytek have admitted too, and admitted it didn't quite work out for them. (Also you yourself have said that the DX11 patch doesn't run too well)

 

 

I don't really see what's wrong with wanting a game that actually runs at the recommended specs or isn't littered with signs of a crappy console port. It's a very "put up and shut up" attitude. "like what your given" etc. I don't see why it should have to be that way.

 

The "Press Start" on Crysis 2 was admitted to being due to the fact that the console manufacturers would kill you if you submit a game to QA and it has "Press Enter". Which pretty much reads as "we don't make sure to polish up a game to the standards of the PC platform, because there's no Sony/MS equivalent telling us we have to"

 

It's the way of PC gaming that anyone who can do basic coding can put out a game. But that also means that even AAA studios can shit out a port with no one to answer to. Console gamers have MS, Sony and Nintendo bitching for them on their behalf, PC gamers have to do it for ourselves.

[Yantelope]

Do we even have PC game sales numbers, given that Valve doesn't release numbers publicly? Last I heard there were some 30 million Steam accounts, which is pretty sizable. I don't think you can really call it a "niche market."

 

I'm basing this on comparative sales of major game series such as Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed or Mass effect.

 

http://www.vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=black%20ops

 

http://www.vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=Mass%20effect%202

 

http://www.vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=Assassin%27s+Creed+Brotherhood&publisher=&console=&genre=&minSales=0&results=50&sort=Total

 

You have a good point that this doesn't include steam sales so I wonder how that skews the result.

 

Also, nitpicking over stupid things like "press start" doesn't qualify something as a crappy port in my book. Crysis 2 plays beautifully and looks beautiful.

Edited June 29, 2011 by Yantelope

[deanb]

Basing of VGchartz, which are regularly missing huge amounts of PC data to the point that most PC version apparently don't sell a single copy, is a bit silly

 

It's not crappy, it's lazy. My point was they don't have to make sure it's up to snuff because there's not MS/Sony/Nintendo equivalent there to make sure it is. If the PCGA was worth a damn they'd have some kind of Gold Seal scheme in place where PC titles have to hit a certain amount of criteria and you can get your stamp of approval. Then the gamer knows it's up to snuff and things like press start, instructions given using 360 buttons, or a lack of customisability are absent. If a console title came out with the tutorial giving kb/m controls it wouldn't go down well. I'm sure the people who couldn't play their Ubisoft games while PSN was down won't have been happy.

[MasterDex]

Dean has said a lot of what I have to say but I'll add my own feelings on this matter. Lately it seems that all I see, even in an article that console gamers have no purpose commenting on, is console gamers railing on PC gamers and calling them bitches and whiners, etc, etc, etc. We're entitled and elitist and all that shit.

 

Buuuuuut when it's turned on it's head, when console gamers don't get what they expect, there's pure justifiable outrage and it's not bitching, it's not whining, it's justifiable anger. PSN down for a week? It's not "Wah!Wah!Wah!" that you hear, no, ohh god no, it's justifiable outrage.

 

It's double standards. PC gamers are treated like shit by everyone these days. It's not enough that we have to suffer through awful ports, we have to suffer the indignation of other gamers, who should really be sticking with us since we're all consumers at the end of the day. It really gets me, seeing all this. The "elitism" that console gamers rail on PC gamers about is, more often than not, a PC gamer expecting a certain standard for PC games. That's completely fair. 360 and PS3 gamers don't expect to get a game that runs in 480p that's designed to work with a Wii controller. No, they expect a game that runs in 720p that's designed for a controller. PC gamers are no different.

 

From now on, anyone that proclaims that PC gamers are elitist, I'm just going to write off as ignorant because in all my time playing on PC, I've come across very few people that I could label honestly as elitist but I've come across plenty of people with the same sort of attitude towards others that game exclusively on consoles. Take that as you will.

[Battra92]

A lot of gamers dont care about that stuff, though. Youre talking about a demographic who sell their old system to get credit to buy a new system every 5-10 years. Only "hardcore" game nerds care about that, which most have a pc with assloads of roms and isos on it..............or they have their old systems.

Most console gamers live only in the present. Take that as you will.

 

I'd say then that most PC gamers live in the now as well. Either that or they are digital hoarders.

 

Roms are fine and all but it's not the same. Yep, I'm a nerd who needs to own old systems.

 

And P4, what I meant was that I enjoyed having an NES, SNES, Genesis, Atari 2600, Dreamcast, Saturn, Gamecube, PS2 and PS3 all hooked up to the same TV back when I was living at my parents' house (the Wii was in the living room) That takes up a lot less room than having a 286 around just to play Tank Wars or a 486 around to play Jazz Jackrabbit. I still can't get King's Quest 6 to install with the good graphics version that I used to play on my old version.

 

So sure I could build a HTPC and torrent every ROM out there, get USB adapters to hook up all the appropriate controllers (playing a platformer with a PS3 or 360 controller is masochism at best) and maybe I'd have something but the fun is just not there. Just like I still have shelves of Vinyl instead of gigabytes of pirated music; I'm sentimental for the real original things.

[deanb]

Well then that's not really an issue with PC gaming, just a particular taste you have. I think most would call it a plus of PC gaming that a single machine can do the job of a dozen consoles.

[AgamemnonV2]

What I think PC gamers generally fail to see is how small of a percentage PC game sales are and what a niche market it really is.

Oh yes, because $8 billion alone in the MMO genre (which is PC-exclusive at the moment) is certainly a "niche market," especially when PC gaming sales only continue to increase as the years go by.

[MasterDex]

What I think PC gamers generally fail to see is how small of a percentage PC game sales are and what a niche market it really is.

Oh yes, because $8 billion alone in the MMO genre (which is PC-exclusive at the moment) is certainly a "niche market," especially when PC gaming sales only continue to increase as the years go by.

 

Exactly. PC gaming was never a niche market (unless you count the period of time when gaming itself was an absolute niche but that's going a long way back.). Sure,its not the majority but we have this habit of grouping all consoles together and then treating PCs seperately so it ends up as console market=majority and PC market=minority where in actual fact the markets of the Wii, 360 and PS3 are different enough that even when comparing them to the PC, they should be treated as seperate entities. In such a case, the PC doesn't come out so lowly. The problem with gauging thePC market is that it's so hard to get concrete numbers. If I was to speculate based on the amount of people I've met, I'd say the ratio of consoles to PC stands near enough 2:1 rather than anything like 5:1.

[Yantelope]

Dean, If VG Chartz is unreliable then are there any better numbers to go on?

 

MMO market is considerable but that's kind of a different market from multiplatform AAA titles.

 

The sense of entitlement I'm referring to is how people get pissed if you don't include mod support, dedicated server support, every control scheme imaginable, quicksaves and so on. If you leave one of these features out then it's just a crappy console port. Also, with respect to the manual having xbox controls. Well, you can use an xbox controller on the PC version, something a fair number of people do including myself. Additionally there have been Playstation games with xbox controls in the manual and people laugh at that. Laziness in a manual still doesn't speak about the quality of a port. Now there have been poor ports before, GTA IV comes to mind, but what I don't get is when you have a genuinely high quality game like Crysis 2 that looks and plays flawless on a computer and did look considerably better than its console counterpart (I played both) PC gamers still get all pissed off.

 

@Masterdex, The elitism that people hate is when "console port" is a pejorative.

Edited June 29, 2011 by Yantelope

[deanb]

PS3 = 50million

360 = 55 million

Wii = 86 million.

 

Steam alone has 30million+ users(this figure is from a while ago though, wouldn't be surprised if it's getting close to 40million given it's rate of growth) (oh and that's active accounts). And not everyone on PC is on Steam. If PC is considered niche then where does PS3 and 360 stack up to the Wii? Minecraft alone has 10million users and 2.6million sold. WoW has 11(12?)million active users. I think Black Ops is the only current-gen game to top that.

 

The audience and market size for PC is hardly small. I think one of the main reasons for decreased sales and such is that PC games are pretty damn diverse. You can look at the top 10 on 360 and apart from Kinect Adventures (bundled), Fable III and GTAIV(ish) they're all shooters. You'll probably find that the people with Halo also have Gears and COD too. Whereas on PC people don't tend to hop around so much. If you've got WoW you're not so likely to have a ton of other MMOs. Or with FPS titles you tend to find a nice community and hole up there. Dedicated servers kind of reward that. (PS3 does kind of throw a spanner in this with mainly racers with a dash of FFXIII amongst the shooters, though it's sales are lower across the board to 360's shooters, so maybe not too big a spanner).

 

AAA sales of PC titles are lower. (few exceptions to the rule) But I'd wager the sales of indies and the lower priced £20($30) or so games are higher than the console counterparts. If you are going to buy a game and you have the option of one for $50 or one for $25, both providing dozens of hours of play, the cheaper one probably having a better suited PC experience too, then which are you going to pick up? (oh and PC sales I'd wager have a much longer tail. CS:S has been floating around the Top 10 marker for 7 years. Console games however tend to have a 2 week window of high sales then relatively nothing after that)

 

edit: @Yante: Not really. Most retailers don't really stock PC games. Most of them tend to mainly stock Sims and WoW (which WoW has no sales numbers) if they do. And the Digital dudes tend to keep their sales figures locked up like Fort Knox.

And I didn't say the manual (note digital games = no manual) the tutorial. The in-game one. Last Remnant has 360 controls defaulted from get go, but there was something I was playing a few weeks back that had 360 controls everywhere for instructions so you're just having to mash around to work out what goes with what.

 

Dedicated servers are better. It's pretty much a fact. So yeah we'd be pissed if they leave them out. And mega fucking pissed if they then close down their MP. Mod support is mainly on games with engines that should support it. When I first got Mass Effect I was kind of expecting to be able to go and grab a few mods. Not really the case. Batman AA oddly had limited mod support of sorts in the Demo/beta(one of the two) where you could make custom skins but when the full game hit you were stuck with Batman. Which that mega stings cos the demo/beta showed it was possible.

Mods, dedicated servers etc are a long time staple of PC gaming. It would be like if next gen you could only use one controller, so no more local play or something.

[P4: Gritty Reboot]

I think most of the well-reasoned Crysis 2 "hate"--not that there wasn't nerdrage, because there was and always will be some--was more directed at the more confined spaces versus the vast, relatively open-ended setting of the first game, allegedly an intentional design decision to work within consoles' memory constraints.

[MasterDex]

The sense of entitlement I'm referring to is how people get pissed if you don't include mod support, dedicated server support, every control scheme imaginable, quicksaves and so on. If you leave one of these features out then it's just a crappy console port.

 

A PC gamer complaining about a game lacking mod support and dedicated server support when those features have been standard for years now on PC isn't a PC gamer with entitlement issues, it's a PC gamer with standards. Additionally, quicksaves and custom remapping have also been standard for a very long time. The sense of entitlement you think PC gamers have about this stuff is the same sense of entitlement that console players have. We all expect certain standards and sure, PC gamers standards might be different and higher than console gamers standards but that's because the PC is different and more powerful and versatile than the consoles. I also don't get why console gamers aren't asking for dedicated server support, hell even custom remapping is uncommon on consoles still.

 

but what I don't get is when you have a genuinely high quality game like Crysis 2 that looks and plays flawless on a computer and did look considerably better than its console counterpart (I played both) PC gamers still get all pissed off.

 

Except that Crysis 2 wasn't a genuinely high quality game. Firstly, the whole premise of Crysis was in being a sandbox FPS, it wasn't bought just because it looked pretty. Crysis 2 threw all that out the window. Why? Because they had to if they wanted the game to run well while still looking good on consoles. It became a mediocre corridor shooter with good graphics, nothing more. Keeping with Crysis 2, it doesn't have any cheat protection in its multiplayer so you're S.O.L if you expect fair games, it also released with no way to change graphics settings in-game. It wasn't terrible but it wasn't what it could have been and should have been and that's what PC gamers are angry about.

 

@Masterdex, The elitism that people hate is when "console port" is a pejorative.

 

That's not being elitist and if you take it that way, it's your own issue. If a PC gamer uses console port as a pejorative, there's a reason for it. It's not to bash consoles, it's not to put down console gamers. It's to express dislike and anger at recieving a game where the developers have made no effort to adapt the game to the PC. It's used as a pejorative for shitty console ports. There are good console ports too but often, they're shitty because the developers couldn't be bothered making any effort above the bare minimum for the PC. I really don't understand why console gamers would get so butthurt over that and think PC gamers are being elitist. If console gamers got a Call of Duty ported from the PS2 that only supported local multiplayer and the graphics of a PS2 game when they're after paying 60 quid for it on the 360 or PS3, they'd be pissed.

[RockyRan]

I will never understand the "PC elitist" argument from console-only gamers. Is there really such a thing?

 

The fact of the matter is that console gamers aren't used to certain things that PC gamers are, such that when said things are missing and PC gamers get vocally annoyed, they say "why is this such a big deal? I can't see it being a big deal because I've never really used those features. Because they don't exist on consoles". Then as time wears on PC gamers continue to demand features that have been standard for the PC, console gamers continue to sit in bewilderment why these features are that important, and eventually agree that PC gamers are simply whiny and bitchy. Why, console gamers aren't whiny and bitchy this much at all. PC gamers whine, console gamers don't whine, hence PC gamers are whiny by definition! The problem with this is that console gamers have the entire gaming industry revolve around them. Most every major game developer panders almost exclusively to them, and thus they make damn well sure that everything that console gamers expect is right there on day 1.

 

Let's, for a second, make a hypothetical situation. There's a reasonable expectation of dual analog stick gameplay, peer-to-peer matchmaking, friend messaging, persistent achievement features, high-capacity storage for game installations among other things, and high-definition graphics in console games. And that's totally OK, everyone expects this. But let's pretend the focus of industry isn't on consoles, but on handhelds. The DS specifically (DS, DSLite, DSi, DSiXL), since it's the most popular by far. On the DS there are no HD graphics, no dual analog sticks, barely ANY online features, and no achievements.

 

Pretend for a second that the DS is the center of the gaming universe. That is where the magic happens. Consoles aren't really all that profitable and hey, anybody who's anybody's making games on the DS and catering almost exclusively to that platform. What you're getting on consoles are half-assed DS ports. Stretched SD graphics, very poor (and sometimes nonexistent) dual analog controls, bad performance, no patches, no installs for better loading times, very poor netcode, peer-to-peer matchmaking is not a standard but considered a "bonus" and a "favor", and most developers just half-ass ports to the consoles.

 

I find it hard to believe that ANY console gamer will not protest such things. Over the years, I guarantee that you too will be very angry at relatively minor fuckups like "Touch the Screen to Start" instead of "Press Start". And I guarantee that handheld-only gamers would say "why are these console gamers so whiny? All their demands are so silly and it makes them look elitist that they think their platform is "better" just because they paid more for them. I'm used to all the DS' features, why can't they? They work perfectly fine for me." That will make your blood boil, I guarantee it. No, consoles are NOT handhelds. Consoles have an inherently larger capacity, not because you're "elitist", but because those are just inherent features that this platform has. It's completely stupid to assume that just because it works with handhelds, it automatically works with consoles, and consoles aren't being utilized to their full potential because they keep getting half-assed DS ports all the time. Then some random guy who's never taken console gaming seriously goes up to you and says "you're an elitist prick and a self-entitled whiner because you're not perfectly satisfied with the features that make ME satisfied".

 

Now you know how PC gamers feel.

[Yantelope]

"It wasn't terrible but it wasn't what it could have been and should have been and that's what PC gamers are angry about."

 

That's kind of the heart of the elitism. You said it yourself, you have standards. When those standards are set too high that can be elitism. Who says whether they are too high? Well it's all subjective but personally, I think Crysis 2 is a better game than the first but critically it got very good reviews as well so most critics think it's a pretty good game too.

[P4: Gritty Reboot]

Crysis 2 could be a great game, Yant, and I don't think that's the thrust of the complaints against it. It is possible for a game to be, at its core, fun and engaging, while still having flaws that jade its quality a little bit in the eyes of PC gamers, or any gamers for that matter. I don't think anyone's arguing that Crysis 2 isn't fun--at least, I am not. I think that it is a valid complaint to say that it lost the sandbox appeal of the first game due to its consolization, without knocking the other aspects of the game.