RANDOM VIDEA GAME NEWS!

[alanschu]

 

We're focusing on a small segment of gaming here anyway, they're titles that could have been console exclusives in the past. PC gaming is bigger than console gaming, PC gaming in revenue has consistently rivalled consoles in terms of traditional sales of games (retail and digital), but with MMO and Free-to-Play PC gaming is the biggest player in "core" gaming, and has the biggest install base if you just count the amount of computers with discrete DirectX 10+ graphics.

 

Like it or not, the people that post here are the ones in that "small segment of gaming."  PC gaming may have the largest revenue in total, but it's so diverse.  Does anyone here feel that the PC gaming industry is a better place because some F2P Facebook game can rack up huge amounts of money?  Unless World of Warcraft is a "gateway drug" of a game that has people wanting to buy other AAA PC titles, do you or I really care that it helps WoW make absurd amounts of money and its contribution to PC gaming?  There's a huge influx of PC gaming rigs being bought in Asia, which certainly does help the install base.  But what types of games are they buying?

 

When dealing with the larger profile titles, consoles have historically been the more successful market.  PC gaming has historically an advantage in that it tends to be consistent year to year, whereas consoles have peaks that come and go with the generational changes.  Maybe that changes, but it's a bit silly to effectively just declare "Software developers are stupid in that they are neglecting the platform that would ultimately make them more money than the consoles."  It's easy to use logic and conclude that it must be the case (look at the PC install base!), but empirically it's not been the case.  Maybe that's changing now, but we won't know for some time.  Things like Kickstarters/crowdfunding certainly help appeal to us in that smaller niche, and the transformation to digital is a HUGE benefit for PC gaming's resurgence, but we'll see when the next waves come in where the biggest titles end up.

 

As a PC gamer, I do agree that PC gaming is certainly misrepresented as being a market that is not viable.  That's not true at all.  But the big money in PC gaming is not really in the types of games that a forum like this tends to want.

 

 

The one problem that big publishers have is that they have such a dependency on sales metrics (although I can certainly understand why) that there is always a degree of latency and over dependence on sequels and imitation.  If PC AAA gaming is now becoming the principal market for AAA games, they're going to be inherently cautious to jumping in too aggressively simply because of the risks and opportunity costs involved.  Unsurprisingly, however, someone (like Obsidian or Paradox) slides in since any "neglect" currently in the PC gaming space means opportunity since it's not like the market isn't there.

 

I'm betting Obsidian ran into just this.  They likely had a business model that would be profitable, but the opportunity cost of it wasn't ideal for a big publisher.  Which sucks, but fortunately other avenues are now coming to light.

[HoonDing]

 

 

 

Interesting news for all of you Suda 51 fans out there:

 

GungHo Online Entertainment, Inc. today announced it has acquired game development studio Grasshopper Manufacture INC., founded and led by legendary designer Goichi Suda, a.k.a SUDA51. According to the press release, SUDA51 and his team will continue to work as Grasshopper Manufacture, similar to the relationship GOE has with its other leading development studios including GRAVITY, Game Arts, and Acquire. Titles already in development at the studio before the acquisition will not be affected by the deal and will continue under their current publishing terms.

 

“We believe the strength of a publisher lies in its creative talent so with the addition of Grasshopper Manufacture and SUDA51 we are adding some of the most innovative talent in today’s gaming world to our stellar family of independently-operated studios,” said Kazuki Mori****a, President and CEO of GungHo Online Entertainment. “SUDA51 projects are known to put a unique spin on every game so coupled with our proven ability to support development with AAA resources including a tailored online experience, we believe gamers will benefit from this collaboration.”

“By joining GungHo Online Entertainment, we are aligning ourselves with a strong, established publishing force that will support our vision to further create inspired new games that appeal players across the world,” said Grasshopper Founder and Managing Director, Goichi Suda. “The Grasshopper team and I have many new ideas to share with our fans as we move forward so this union with GOE will help us realize our future plans.”

 

Source: GameTrailers

Great, when is Lolipop Chainsaw coming to PC?

 

[alanschu]

 

Because PC is the automatically better platform, not because I expect the PC to be treated differently.

In other words, you *are* expecting the PC to be treated differently (based on its status as a superior platform).

[TSBasilisk]

Okay, seriously, this is not a PC-vs-Console thread; can we please just focus on the actual topic? None of you are going to win this; nobody EVER wins this argument. It's taken up nearly half the posts in this thread; if you really want to debate it, just make a thread for it.

 

---

 

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/01/31/well-looks-like-thats-it-for-medal-of-honor-then/

You can stick a fork in Medal of Honor; it's done. Yahtzee will probably be relieved there's one less GargleSpunkWeeWee series for him to play.

Edited January 31, 2013 by TSBasilisk

[AwesomeOcelot]

Haha, you just defined 95 % of multiplatform releases on PS3. They seem to have put up with it just fine. :D

You're talking about something else. If we're going down the shader and performance road, PS3 hasn't got much to complain about compared to PC, but I wasn't referring to that, I was referring to basic functionality that's fundamental to the PC platform. I give some slack to developers on PC for this because they have to target a range of systems, and I give them slack for PS3 because its a bitch to develop for, and that's really Sony's fault.

[alanschu]

 

Okay, seriously, this is not a PC-vs-Console thread; can we please just focus on the actual topic? None of you are going to win this; nobody EVER wins this argument. It's taken up nearly half the posts in this thread; if you really want to debate it, just make a thread for it.

 

Fair enough.  I'll stop.

[Raithe]

How the Battle of Asakai Became One of the Largest Space Battles in Video Game History

 

 

It was pilot error that sent the Titan-class ship into enemy territory. But it was a cascade of alliances and grudges that turned the incident into a space battle involving almost 3,000 ships, one of EVE Online's largest conflicts ever.

 

There are several large player alliances in EVE Online, and they gather into larger alliances that can assert control over the game's economy. Such was the case with the TEST Alliance and Goonswarm, two groups that collaborated to control the flow of one of EVE's most valuable resources. They became rich like drug lords. And like drug lords, they had a falling out.

 

A tenuous peace was in place, with the groups occasionally raiding each other's ships, but agreeing not to make any large-scale attacks on the mining infrastructure that underpins both alliances' wealth. So it was not out of the ordinary for Goonswarm to be planning a military incursion using one of their Titans in a purely logistical role -– it has the ability to act as a warp bridge, sending other ships to the battlefront. What was unusual was the pilot accidentally warping the Titan itself into a TEST formation. Loose clicks sink ships.

 

Goonswarm's activities had not gone unnoticed, and nearby groups had called upon one another to offer support if and when the attack came. The following explanation from an EVE blog may be incomprehensible, yet it's awesome in that it sounds exactly like a news clipping from the future:

A Gallente Militia that was attacking said moon reached out to Pandemic Legion. DnD asked PL if they would be on standby if the CFC dropped capitals or supercapitals, offering to have a large number of heavy interdictors (HIC), the only ships that can warp scramble a supercapital in lowsec, on standby. PL agreed.

 

 

When the Goonswarm ship fell under attack, they called for reinforcements. So did everyone else. Goonswarm is part of a larger umbrella group called the Cluster **** Coalition (the only drawback to the coolness of this story is the juvenile names some of the groups have), and the battle soon became CFC against pretty much everyone else. Soon, the battle was so enormous it actually caused time to slow down.

 

EVE Online has had trouble with large battles in the past (in fact, one slightly larger than the Battle of Asakai happened in October 2012) – server lag can destroy the experience. To help, they use something called Time Dilation. When the server load gets too high, the star system where the battle is occurring is slowed down to as little as 10 percent of real-time. It's basically intentional lag. Battle slows down, but all commands and events are processed properly and in order, unlike the chaos of true lag. Because systems outside the battle are not affected by Time Dilation, it allowed lots of time for reinforcements to arrive in-system and join the fight.

 

In the end, the CFC was soundly defeated, losing 44 Dreadnoughts, 29 Carriers, five Supercarriers, and three Titans to TEST's six Dreadnoughts, 11 Carriers, and one Supercarrier. The Titan that started it all survived. Total losses are estimated at 700 billion ISK (EVE's in-game currency). What's really interesting is that EVE allows ISK to be bought and sold freely, so those loses can be translated into real-world amounts. In this case, estimates suggest losses of about $15,000.

What's even more interesting is the capacity for open-ended games like EVE Online to create emergent stories. Nothing was prescripted about the storylines that lead to the battle -– not the alliances, the mining conglomerate, the bad blood between the groups, or the events of the battle itself. EVE creates a set of economic and military factors and lets the players run loose. The stories (and battles) occur organically. Similar things have happened with other sandbox style games, such as Day Z, where your struggles to survive among ranveous zombies and hostile players can lead to bizarre, thrilling or even emotionally resonant stories.

[Raithe]

Heh, and for the other perspective on it, a comment from someone involved:

ilos

I was there. I was there and it was horrible. The game's developers have taken this unholy, all consuming black nightmare and turned it into a PR triumph, but let me tell you my perspective on Asakai.

By the time my fleet, a Goonswarm subcapital reinforcement fleet, arrived, maximum time dilation was already occurring; time was technically being made to pass in this solar system at one tenth the speed of normal time outside the system. Except all that was doing was alleviating the effect of the soul crushing lag enough to let us experience it fully in all its hellish detail instead of, for example, dumping people out of game or bringing everything to a halt. Time was actually passing hundreds of times slower. Actions that would normally take 5 seconds were taking ten minutes. Responses to control input that should be instant were taking 5 minutes. At one point an action that should have taken less than ten seconds to complete took 20 minutes.

Over the span of 5 hours, the actual fighting that took place would under normal circumstances have happened in about 10 minutes.

Then, because it was only happening in that system, the entire rest of Eve still running at normal speed had hours to speed across the universe, jumping system to system hundreds of times faster, to participate in or just to see this fight the likes of which have never been seen and had hours for breaking news of it happening to spread. So from the perspective of the fight in Asakai, endless waves of escalating reinforcements were joining a fight from the word go from across the universe, and from the Goonswarm perspective what had started as a reasonable looking fight with even numbers got vastly out of hand, only after our people were committed to the inescapable black hole of time dilated lag. They technically managed to escape after around 10 minutes of realtime fighting. Ten minutes stretched across 5 hours where we sat and watched everyone with a grudge against Goonswarm (many, many very stupid dull people) fill the system.

The game developers are full of excuses about it, such as that we should have told them this accidental monumental ****up by the original titan pilot - DBRB, we still love you, don't ever change - was going to happen or that we should be grateful they've improved things to where their servers didn't just explode in flames, which would and has happened in the past. But personally I'm pretty annoyed they've turned it into a promotional event when they really dropped the ball.

 

Time dilation as we here on io9 know should technically mean everyone there aged slightly less than the rest of Eve, but I felt pretty old by the time I managed to heave my ship out of that disaster in the early hours of the morning.

 

[Morgoth]

Mysterious Playstation teaser - PS4 announcement set for Feb. 20th?

[Morgoth]

Ten-hut!

 

Chris Roberts: "PC will still trump Next-Gen consoles"

 

 

"I think consoles will be there and they'll do decent business but I don't think that the next generation of consoles will be as big as the last generation," said Roberts.

"Essentially, I can build a high-end PC now that's much more powerful than the new consoles that will be announced this year."

 

 

Man speaks sense. Man makes money.

[cyberarmy]

Ten-hut!

 

Chris Roberts: "PC will still trump Next-Gen consoles"

 

 

"I think consoles will be there and they'll do decent business but I don't think that the next generation of consoles will be as big as the last generation," said Roberts.

 

"Essentially, I can build a high-end PC now that's much more powerful than the new consoles that will be announced this year."

 

 

Man speaks sense. Man makes money.

 

 

Especially when there is powerfull hardware than leaked next gen console hardware like he said. But still most people like to play on consoles (especially shooters which i don't understand....)

[HoonDing]

PC trumps next-gen consoles, and in other news: the earth revolves around the sun.

[AwesomeOcelot]

People seem to have short memories, when the Xbox 360 launched the GPU was equivalent to the high tier of PC GPU although people would mostly be choosing 512MB memory which is more than the total memory Xbox 360 had, and the PC GPU memory would be clocked higher. By the time the PS3 launched the PC was already ahead. There was no leap in graphics compared to PC, but there was quite a big leap from the previous consoles, and that's where maybe there are a few doubts this time around.

[Malcador]

 

Heh, and for the other perspective on it, a comment from someone involved:

 

ilos

 

I was there. I was there and it was horrible. The game's developers have taken this unholy, all consuming black nightmare and turned it into a PR triumph, but let me tell you my perspective on Asakai.

 

By the time my fleet, a Goonswarm subcapital reinforcement fleet, arrived, maximum time dilation was already occurring; time was technically being made to pass in this solar system at one tenth the speed of normal time outside the system. Except all that was doing was alleviating the effect of the soul crushing lag enough to let us experience it fully in all its hellish detail instead of, for example, dumping people out of game or bringing everything to a halt. Time was actually passing hundreds of times slower. Actions that would normally take 5 seconds were taking ten minutes. Responses to control input that should be instant were taking 5 minutes. At one point an action that should have taken less than ten seconds to complete took 20 minutes.

 

Over the span of 5 hours, the actual fighting that took place would under normal circumstances have happened in about 10 minutes.

 

Then, because it was only happening in that system, the entire rest of Eve still running at normal speed had hours to speed across the universe, jumping system to system hundreds of times faster, to participate in or just to see this fight the likes of which have never been seen and had hours for breaking news of it happening to spread. So from the perspective of the fight in Asakai, endless waves of escalating reinforcements were joining a fight from the word go from across the universe, and from the Goonswarm perspective what had started as a reasonable looking fight with even numbers got vastly out of hand, only after our people were committed to the inescapable black hole of time dilated lag. They technically managed to escape after around 10 minutes of realtime fighting. Ten minutes stretched across 5 hours where we sat and watched everyone with a grudge against Goonswarm (many, many very stupid dull people) fill the system.

 

The game developers are full of excuses about it, such as that we should have told them this accidental monumental ****up by the original titan pilot - DBRB, we still love you, don't ever change - was going to happen or that we should be grateful they've improved things to where their servers didn't just explode in flames, which would and has happened in the past. But personally I'm pretty annoyed they've turned it into a promotional event when they really dropped the ball.

 

Time dilation as we here on io9 know should technically mean everyone there aged slightly less than the rest of Eve, but I felt pretty old by the time I managed to heave my ship out of that disaster in the early hours of the morning.

 

 

Source for that ?  Haven't experienced TD firsthand, did seem like a cool way of handling immense loads

[Morgoth]

Seems like the PS4 announcement on Feb. 20th is for real

[Raithe]

Ah, that was one of the comments left on that article.

[Morgoth]

REDEngine 3 unveiled

[Malcador]

Ah, that was one of the comments left on that article.

 

Right. Does sound pretty horrible, but I guess there's not much alternatives.

[Nightshape]

Teehee

[Katphood]

 

Great, when is Lolipop Chainsaw coming to PC?

 

I can't recall any of the Suda 51 games ever being released on the PC, this one is no exception.

But you aren't really missing out on much to be honest. This is by far the weakest Suda 51 game I have played.

[TSBasilisk]

http://www.polygon.com/2013/2/1/3940546/german-consumer-group-sues-valve-over-refusal-to-allow-resale

 

A German consumer group wants Valve to allow resale/transfer of Steam game licenses. It'll be interesting to see which ruling the court decides to uphold.

[Mamoulian War]

I am really curious about the outcome, this could change a lot of things in the EU, whatever the outcome will be...

[Morgoth]

Alphabeard Gabe Newell talks - everybody shuts up and listens

[Morgoth]

http://www.edge-online.com/news/playstation-4-revealed/

 

 

 

It’s clear Sony has designed a system that, on paper, outperforms Microsoft’s next Xbox. One source familiar with both platforms tells us that in real terms Sony’s console is “slightly more powerful” and “very simple to work with”.

 

Edited February 1, 2013 by Morgoth

[Morgoth]

Now Microsoft has no choice but to make their announcement soon as well.

 

The butthurt console wars in the coming months will be bittersweet.

 

...

 

 

"Well I ****ing hope so!"

Edited February 1, 2013 by Morgoth