Valve Pimps PC Gaming

[Hell Kitty]

you're thinking of a war as a deliberate or planned thing.

 

The console war is a deliberate thing, it's companies competing with each other. It has always been this way. It's just business.

 

I'm talking about a war of quality; quality lost from the PC genre when the industry tries to merge two partially mutually exclusive market niches.

 

That just fits into my view that it's the gamers that make it an issue. This is nothing more than "my system is better than your system" nonsense people have been going on about since, well, forever.

 

Eh, but you don't believe that console games and gamers are any different to PC games and gamers, so it's moot.

 

Whatever helps you sleep at night. "Games" and "gamers" as a whole are all different, and lumping them all together as two distinct groups, console games/gamers and PC games/gamers, doesn't do anyone any justice. What a puzzle game player wants is going to be different to what an FPS player wants. What an adventure gamer wants isn't the same as what a wargamer wants. What a survival horror gamer wants is different to what a WWI flight sim gamer wants. What someone who only wants to play for an hour every so often is different to what someone who wants to be absorbed for hours on end wants. Hell, some Diablo 1/2 fans have started a petition because the colourful Warcraft style graphics of Diablo 3 isn't what they want.

 

Of course I've never seen you post anything that suggests you have any real experience with console games and gamers, so I can hardly take you view seriously anyway.

Edited July 1, 2008 by Hell Kitty

[Nick_i_am]

Real gamers play anything good without being jerks about the system it's on.

[Moatilliatta]

Real gamers play anything good without being jerks about the system it's on.

Are 'real gamers' accepted as existing now? I don't see why I'm any less of a gamer than anyone else just because I prefer my PC.

 

On the other hand I must admit to be a bit bigoted towards people who call themselves gamers because they play Wii sports.

 

 

Relevant:

Blizzard: Microsoft Could Do More To Support PC Gaming

[Humodour]

you're thinking of a war as a deliberate or planned thing.

 

The console war is a deliberate thing, it's companies competing with each other. It has always been this way. It's just business.

 

I'm talking about a war of quality; quality lost from the PC genre when the industry tries to merge two partially mutually exclusive market niches.

 

That just fits into my view that it's the gamers that make it an issue. This is nothing more than "my system is better than your system" nonsense people have been going on about since, well, forever.

 

Eh, but you don't believe that console games and gamers are any different to PC games and gamers, so it's moot.

 

Whatever helps you sleep at night. "Games" and "gamers" as a whole are all different, and lumping them all together as two distinct groups, console games/gamers and PC games/gamers, doesn't do anyone any justice. What a puzzle game player wants is going to be different to what an FPS player wants. What an adventure gamer wants isn't the same as what a wargamer wants. What a survival horror gamer wants is different to what a WWI flight sim gamer wants. What someone who only wants to play for an hour every so often is different to what someone who wants to be absorbed for hours on end wants. Hell, some Diablo 1/2 fans have started a petition because the colourful Warcraft style graphics of Diablo 3 isn't what they want.

 

Of course I've never seen you post anything that suggests you have any real experience with console games and gamers, so I can hardly take you view seriously anyway.

 

I'm sorry you're getting so passionate about it. I play Mario Kart and Halo all the time with my friends, and have played a good portion of both GTA4 and Assassin's Creed (enough to seriously consider buying an Xbox because it seems to have some decent games the PC doesn't). I used to have lots of fun losing spectacularly on Gold Eye 007 with my mates. Not sure how you jumped to the conclusion that I don't like console games.

 

I certainly don't like publishers trying to merge two disparate gaming cultures, though. I'm not going to repeat myself, but if you're actually interested in understanding my point of view as opposed to refuting it on principle, more here.

[Hell Kitty]

Not sure how you jumped to the conclusion that I don't like console games.

 

I never said anything about you not liking console games, but there have been numerous comments from you recently that suggest an ignorance of console games. GTA as a game about sex with hookers, infinite ammo in AP being an appeal to console gamers, that sorta stuff.

 

It's like when folks claim that regenerating health in so many games today is for the sake of console gamers, which makes no sense, being that life bars and the use of items to replenish them have been used in console games for as long as and as extensively as they have been in PC games.

 

two disparate gaming cultures

 

I already addressed this in the previous post. Gamers aren't made up of two distinct groups, it's many groups that overlap.

 

I'm not going to repeat myself, but if you're actually interested in understanding my point of view as opposed to refuting it on principle, more here.

 

But consoles are different; they're more about social gaming, frenetic pace, light-hearted & shallow story and cartoony graphics - obviously not all of these traits apply to every game, but on average they do so far more than they do computer games.

 

Same old stereotypical rubbish. Again, it just show an ignorance of gaming on both consoles and PC.

 

Heck I'd even be annoyed if they tried to make Diablo 3 multi-platform - it may not be deep, but there's a large degree of complexity to the game and its mechanics which you can bet they'd try to 'streamline' if they wanted to port it to consoles.

 

Actually, the original Diablo was ported to the PS1. The only changes necessary are, naturally, the controls.

[Nick_i_am]

Are 'real gamers' accepted as existing now? I don't see why I'm any less of a gamer than anyone else just because I prefer my PC.

 

On the other hand I must admit to be a bit bigoted towards people who call themselves gamers because they play Wii sports.

 

 

Relevant:

Blizzard: Microsoft Could Do More To Support PC Gaming

 

Just doing a third playthrough of Gears of War with Llyranor before Gears 2 comes out. Awsome coop experience and yet, there are people who would refuse to touch this game not because they don't like the genre (which would be fair enough) but simply because it's on a console. You could give them a KB/M and they'd still refuse. Yet 'I'm a real gamer!' they claim.

 

After Gears I went and played some Mechwarrior 4 (ahhh, memories) followed by Theme Park DS (again with the memories) so it irks me when people commit platform racism.

 

I'm not saying that perfering one platform is a bad thing, just being elitist about it on principle. Though Hades buying a 360 and Gabs admiting to enjoying a DS is a sign of the times I guess.

[alanschu]

I prefer PC games so I am a "PC Gamer." But I can acknowledge good games on the consoles as well. I get sad that games like Force Unleashed won't be gracing my PC

[Deraldin]

I get sad that games like Force Unleashed won't be gracing my PC

 

Damn Force Unleashed. I really dislike Lucasarts for that one. There are many reason I can understand for not bringing it to the PC, but don't BS me and say "If we did bring it to PC there would be so few people that could actually see what we want to do with it, because their computers suck" only to launch the stupid game on every other platform in existence. "We don't want to dumb it down for slow computers" rings hollow when it's coming out for Wii, DS, PSP, PS2 and the freakin' N-gage!

[Tale]

Valve is cool guy.

Edited July 2, 2008 by Tale

[Humodour]

Heck I'd even be annoyed if they tried to make Diablo 3 multi-platform - it may not be deep, but there's a large degree of complexity to the game and its mechanics which you can bet they'd try to 'streamline' if they wanted to port it to consoles.

 

Actually, the original Diablo was ported to the PS1. The only changes necessary are, naturally, the controls.

 

Which is fine. The problem is when a game is designed to be ported from the get-go, like say Deus Ex 2.

[Nick_i_am]

Don't worry, EVERYONE is bitter about DX2.

 

Man, <3 DX.

[Tale]

I'm not bitter about Invisible War.

 

Apparently Krezack thinks that Team Fortress 2 and Portal are bad games. Cause, y'know, they were designed to be ported from the get-go.

Edited July 4, 2008 by Tale

[Humodour]

I don't think Deus Ex 2 was a bad game, so I'm not sure where you're drawing your conclusions from.

Edited July 4, 2008 by Krezack

[Calax]

PC games will always have an advantage in certain segments: (imho) FPS's for the keyboard and mouse controls, heavy duty RPGs, and RTS's. While there have been attempts by the industry to make these genres work on the platforms (rather well in FPS's case) I still find that it's MUCH easier to control an RPG and RTS with the keyboard and mouse scheme as opposed to your traditional controller.

 

that said, certain games lend themselves to consoles, Fighting games, Platformers, and hack and slashers, more often seem to do better when you don't have to worry about the 80 odd other buttons on your keyboard. Also the standardized control scheme helps as it's easier to jump from game to game (this trend has since jumped to PC but theres always some variation between games over what buttons do what in the genres in PC)

[random n00b]

With the advent of USB input devices, that is not the case anymore. I play ssf2t (best 2d fighting game EVER) quite a bit on the PC with a PS2 controller this way. And, for FPSs, I guess it's a matter of what you are used to. I remember the first time I had to use a mouse to control a FPS, it didn't come quite naturally.

 

Of course, what dev wants to stamp "THIS GAME REQUIRES A GAMEPAD" on their PC game? O noes! It'll throw casual gamers off!

Edited July 4, 2008 by random n00b

[Nick_i_am]

Yeah, 360 controlers are plug and play for PCs, so once again, it comes down to the games.

 

PCs will always rule in cirtain genres (though apparently the controls for Supreme Commander and CnC3 'arn't bad' but they're still not KB/M) but that's got to require people to actually care about those genres first.

 

RTSs are about the only mainstream 'PC-centric' genre people are still actively working on, and even then Endwar and Halo-wars are trying to amend this.

[Tale]

Yeah, 360 controlers are plug and play for PCs, so once again, it comes down to the games.

Incorrect, you do need to install drivers. It's easy enough to get them from windows update, though. However, there's a tendancy for the PC to start thinking it's an Xbox and changing your sound settings to the Xbox headset.

 

It's kind of funny, places will charge you $10-20 more for the 360 controller for Windows, when all it does is have a CD with that driver you can get over Windows update.

[Nick_i_am]

Ah, must have already downloaded them without realising. haha

[Hurlshort]

I'm pretty sure Vista just recognizes it immediately without needing to install a driver.