One more lucasarts says good bye to PC

Some points:
...
After all, how many years do you have to go back to play a PC game that was written as a PC game from the ground up?!

February 2009: Drakensang?

Sacred 2 was released in november 2008. Console versions are (will be available) but long after the PC version. Maybe that indicates a pc->Console port in stead of the other way around?

The Witcher in 2007.

A few non RPG's
Civilization: Colonization september 2008
Hellgate London 2007
Crysis 2007
Stalker: Clear sky 2008

These are the ones that comes to mind right now. Admittedly not that many, but you don't have to go back years to find PC-only games.
 
Crysis didn't sell because it demanded a PC most PC gamers didn't have. Games companies never ever blame their actions and when they get it wrong piracy often gets trotted out. Crysis sold 2.5 million and STALKER sold 4.5 million not because Crysis was pirated (why pirate a game you cannot play on your PC?), but because STALKER was a much more original and better shooter and ran on many many more PC's! What would your choice be? A $300 PC upgrade and then Crysis or just the $50 STALKER?!

Just because someone runs a games company doesn't man he's telling the truth, or for that matter doesn't know the truth but hides it to avoid embarrassment!
 
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@lghartveit, I meant AAA titles and companies. The EA's, the Bethesda's, the Blizzard's, etc. Because that's what we're talking about here AAA PC gaming. Not indie or casual.

And 2007 was years ago, as we are in the middle of 2009. And you are totally right when you say it's not a long list for nearly 3 years of PC gaming!
 
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@lghartveit, I meant AAA titles and companies. The EA's, the Bethesda's, the Blizzard's, etc. Because that's what we're talking about here AAA PC gaming. Not indie or casual.

And 2007 was years ago, as we are in the middle of 2009. And you are totally right when you say it's not a long list for nearly 3 years of PC gaming!

Sims 3, Spore?
How many games have Blizzard published in the last few years anyway? Just WoW expansions (all for PC). Same with Bethesda, a couple. EA is and has been tied to consoles for a while anyway.
Let's face it, nowadays AAA games have to be multi-platform. The costs involved are too high for AAA games (marketing, full voice overs, etc.)
 
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Sims 3, Spore?
How many games have Blizzard published in the last few years anyway? Just WoW expansions (all for PC). Same with Bethesda, a couple. EA is and has been tied to consoles for a while anyway.
Let's face it, nowadays AAA games have to be multi-platform. The costs involved are too high for AAA games (marketing, full voice overs, etc.)

Sims is already dumbed down and casual and Spore was totally dumbed down and turned out casual, so while on PC, they are console games to all intents and purposes.
 
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Not only rental, but used game purchases which is HUGE in the console world but almost non-existant in the PC.

No, it ain't non-existent. It's just ... Well, here in Germany there still is a decent marked for used PC gamnes, there do exist "second hand" gaming shops.

But I must admit that the market for used console games is much, much bigger, and most importantly: Much, much more stable ! You can still charge the same money for a used console game nowadays than you could do in 2006 ! Well, at least almost.

That won't go for the PC, because of the development cycles : The whole PC platform ages so much, much, much more faster than a console platform !

Not only hardware-wise, but also OS-wise ! You can't play quite an amout of games anymore that ran fine on the Wiin98 OS ! Most probably because MS doesn't want them to ! (See the whole Directx 10 thing for that.)

In fact, MS invented Directx to let games not be run on other platforms, like OS/2, on which some DOS games ran relatively fine, I heard, at least the less complex ones.
MS just wanted to exclude everyone else.

Now, what we have are the consoles - "exclusives" - and the fast ageing PC platform - also one kind of an "exclusive", which is currently beoing cannibalized by MS' xbox.

To me, this is a whole lotta mess.
 
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@Alrik Fassbauer, another quality post! Would just say that with the Virtual PC 2008 and DOSBox utilities, along with a Win98 OS disk, I can run any PC game from 1989 onwards! It's this ease of use that is helping PC retro gaming to go from strength to strength. I mean, with 10 million plus DOSBox downloads, it gotta be a huge market!
 
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Crysis didn't sell because it demanded a PC most PC gamers didn't have. Games companies never ever blame their actions and when they get it wrong piracy often gets trotted out.

Just because someone runs a games company doesn't man he's telling the truth, or for that matter doesn't know the truth but hides it to avoid embarrassment!

The quote included four other developers not just crysis. Of course you can think they are all trying to hide the truth but I dont think so.

These discussions never go anywhere - I dont see the point wasting time on them anymore. Majority of people dont give a crap anyways. Better just wait and see - in the end we will find out the truth.

P.S the star wars game sucked so no big loss for loosing the pc version
 
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Piracy is always brought up for PC, but it is much larger on console, because of rental. In any event, I cannot see how the PC games industry can complain about piracy and at the same time talk about Oblivion and Fallout 3 and STALKER and Witcher and others all selling 3-5 million units! That's as good as a decent hit on console! I don't see how those sales could be reached if piracy was so rampant!

I might be wrong but I think the Witcher lost money:( I'd argue that titles like Oblivion and Fallout bypass piracy by having an audience outside the tech-savvy part of the player population (not that it is very hard to pirate, but there is still a bar to pass).

How do you explain the delay of the PC version of Dragon Age btw?
 
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Most games are now written with multi-format 'engines. You put data into your PC workstation/server and you pump out 360, PS3 and PC working code. Then you 'tidy up' each version depending how much money you want to spend.

When a game is written with an engine....
I'm not getting this. Games aren't written with engines, they're written on top of engines, aren't they? Are you referring to the development tools that are provided with today's game engines?

Bear with me, I'm not a software guy.
 
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I'm not getting this. Games aren't written with engines, they're written on top of engines, aren't they? Are you referring to the development tools that are provided with today's game engines?

Bear with me, I'm not a software guy.

No. Most games nowadays are written with engines. They are no different, although a lot more sophisticated than editors that come with some games. They tend to be compatible modules, so graphics can be worked on in the graphics/animation engine, the sound in the sound engine and the data in the data engine. This code then gets compiled, after bug testing, into one module of data. Usually this run is made with the main machine involved. 360 title that will come out on PS3 and PC later, for example, will be compiled into the 360 module. It will then be sent to the playtesting section for secondary bug testing. Sometimes the engine comes with testing code as well. Once playtested successfully, that would be beta. At that point a video may be released. Coding then moves onto tightening the code, maybe re-compiling for tighter code and only then, when they can go 'gold' on the initial machine they begin work in any interface changes needed for the other machines, PC in particular. As we see from the wide variation of console to PC conversions not all companies spend the time or money on this 'machine specific optimization'.
 
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@lghartveit, I meant AAA titles and companies. The EA's, the Bethesda's, the Blizzard's, etc. Because that's what we're talking about here AAA PC gaming. Not indie or casual.

...

Why? If you want to discuss "the future of pc gaming", with claims that "Our world may be coming to an end.", why restrict the discussion to a few selected publishers? The games I mentioned are hardly indie games. As for casual games - you might say that the action-rpgs like "Sacred 2" belong to that category, while "The witcher", "Drakensang" and "Colonization" are not.

And I don't agree that 2007 is "years ago", we're only 1 year 5 months since we wrote 2007.
 
As for casual games - you might say that the action-rpgs like "Sacred 2" belong to that category, while "The witcher", "Drakensang" and "Colonization" are not.

I agree. It's THQs fault that Drakensang was marketed as a 2casual game" in the U.S. market.

It is not.
 
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LA are publishing a remake of Monkey Island for the PC, due out this summer!!
 
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And a new Monkey Island series by TellTale is in the works!
 
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LA are publishing a remake of Monkey Island for the PC, due out this summer!!
Woot! That's seriously good news. And they are staying -gasp- faithful to the original and didn't implement MI3's horrible style or something. You can even seamlessly switch between classic pixel look and improved version while playing.

I'm usually not a fan of rehashes and cow milking, but firstly, Monkey Island deserved it and secondly, this is looking and sounding good!

http://www.lucasarts.com/games/monkeyisland/
 
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Between the Monkey Island remake by LA and the Syndicate remake by EA, maybe we are seeing a trend to update classic games at last. Something gamers have been calling for for years! A few potential problems though, will enough PC gamers buy a Syndicate or MI remake? Will EA make the Syndicate remake another boring first person/third person shooter? Willeither of these remakes come out on PC?

The problem is nowadays, with almost any far off game, one of the questions is always 'will it be on PC'?
 
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Yes, the "retro" wave is rolling on, more and more.
 
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