june gloom on 13/11/2010 at 01:18
That only boosts my argument. They got their start on the PC, the PC is what got them into the industry. Then they turn around and say "oh well PC gamers are pirates and terrible people."
You don't find that a little... douchey?
Yakoob on 13/11/2010 at 02:19
See you're missing my point - you are romanticizing the PC as some great wonderful realm that gave birth and nurtured these people and now they turn their back on it. But its not, it's just a glorified calculator. You identify yourself as belonging to the "PC" to the point where when someone releases on a different platform, you feel betrayed. You are pledging allegiance to a goddamn calculator. Think about it.
Also, the decision to release on xbox vs pc has little to do with "roots" and "loyal fans" or "my game developer heritage." It's more focused on a little compact chart that tells you which age and demographic groups in your target audience own which particular piece of electronic circuitry, and if the number is below a certain threshold it simply doesnt make sense to develop for that particular piece of hardware - at that point you are losing money. And losing money is Really Bad™ if you ever plan on staying in the industry and making more games.
So here's a dilemma for you: would you rather your favorite Dev stick to PC and crash and burn after their next big game? Or would you rather them jump ship to consoles and keep making games? And no "develop for both" is not a viable option.
Also, those of you saying how Brutal Legend would have made "buttloads" of money on the PC are in a hilarious need of a reality check.
(That being said, I do admit that doing x360 <-> PC cross development is far easier than any other console, if you plan ahead right. And would concede that indeed there might have been some profit in actually porting Brutal Legend to PC. However, the profit margin might have been slim enough for it to simply not be worth allocating the resources to make a port; they might have been better spent on another project with higher profits. As been mentioned, in today's industry, unless you are small and indie, it is rarely your call what platform you aim for. And its not only because of "evil publishers" but rather this thing called "economy" and "capitalism" that sometimes force you down a certain path. Sad, but true).
june gloom on 13/11/2010 at 02:35
What?
Just... what?
You are completely misreading me. I could fucking care less that a game is on some system other than PC. Depending on the game, I don't even care if it's not on PC. I don't feel 'betrayed' or any of this other nonsense you're pooping out. My entire fucking point that you're completely ignoring is that fkljadfl;jafdlja i don't care to repeat myself a third time just read my fucking posts CAREFULLY instead of just going hur dur it's a dethtroll poast ill just asuem hes sayin sumtin n' argoo wif dat
Xenith on 13/11/2010 at 10:24
It's not the fact that Brutal Legend or Gears Of War 2 didn't come on PC that pisses most people off, it's the completely insulting bullshit reasons that were given for that. So what if they stop developing for PC, at least don't call everyone that supports that platform a pirating mindless greedy whore that hates everything in life, since they can just simply state that their game is not coming for PC, period. Spicing it up with reasons like "controls don't work as right on PC" or "people will pirate it anyway so I won't sell it on PCs" just makes them look like complete utter morons and that is accentuated by the fact that they were endorsing PCs since day 1.
Kuuso on 13/11/2010 at 11:03
PC developing has changed quite much and maybe they actually think that Pirates are destroying PC gaming. Maybe they like developing to consoles. Dunno, I don't really care about being butthurt about this whole thing, I want to see him make a game. I wish I had played the original Psychonaut on Xbox, because it really felt like it wasn't made for PC.
Eldron on 13/11/2010 at 13:16
Quote Posted by Yakoob
(That being said, I do admit that doing x360 <-> PC cross development is far easier than any other console, if you plan ahead right. And would concede that indeed there might have been some profit in actually porting Brutal Legend to PC. However, the profit margin might have been slim enough for it to simply not be worth allocating the resources to make a port; they might have been better spent on another project with higher profits. As been mentioned, in today's industry, unless you are small and indie, it is rarely your call what platform you aim for. And its not only because of "evil publishers" but rather this thing called "economy" and "capitalism" that sometimes force you down a certain path. Sad, but true).
And in just about all stuidios you actually work on an internal pc version, since you can't run all the art tools, design tools and spend so much time transfering it over to the box every time you try it out, I can and will imagine all studios doing this or in case of handhelds running them on development emulators.
The costy part is having that development pc version actually run properly on all pc hardware, making the controls proper for keyboard mouse (since everyone sits with a controller plugged in) and remove every bug that wasn't needed to be removed since they were pc-related.
And every single performance issue since the game is optimized for the console version and no optimization work has been put down to make it run good as a pc game.
Yakoob on 13/11/2010 at 14:59
Aight, I misunderstood your guys point, my bad! Though I'd still side with "Tim didnt really have a call and he had to give *some reason* not to release to PC and the PR monkeys wouldn't let him tell it straight up." Which is actually kinda weird considering "we dont have the resources to port, sorry guys" sounds far more considerate and reasonable than "game no work on keyboad hurr durr." But then maybe there is some hidden psychological thing where claiming that actually makes people go out and by xboxes to play the game, I dont know...
CCCToad on 13/11/2010 at 17:36
Quote Posted by Eldron
The costy part is having that development pc version actually run properly on all pc hardware, making the controls proper for keyboard mouse (since everyone sits with a controller plugged in) and remove every bug that wasn't needed to be removed since they were pc-related..
Thats gotten easier in theory because the windows live platform and the xbox use the same platform.
In theory, of course. In reality that just seems to result in shitty optimization.
Yakoob on 13/11/2010 at 18:31
Quote Posted by CCCToad
Thats gotten easier in theory because the windows live platform and the xbox use the same platform.
In theory, of course. In reality that just seems to result in shitty optimization.
Aye, and I mentioned that in my post. It is actually relatively easy to get a game running cross win/360. That doesnt mean it will run
wellTake for example the latest game my studio worked on ((
http://www.microbotgame.com/) Microbot) - 99% of our development was actually on the PC with the 360 controller plugged in. But the game ran like crap on our beefy comps. And only on the nVidia ones - if you tried to run it on an ati it would flat out laugh in your face :|
Sulphur on 13/11/2010 at 18:32
Quote Posted by CCCToad
Thats gotten easier in theory because the windows live platform and the xbox use the same platform.
In theory, of course. In reality that just seems to result in shitty optimization.
You seem to have a few wires crossed. Xbox Live is a multiplayer service. GfWL is Microsoft's extension of that for the PC into a DRM/network service. Neither have much to do with developing a game or porting it except for giving the PC and X360 a common multiplayer framework and, in the case of GfW, a set of guidelines for PC games like DirectX and controller compatibility.
