Try finding a good MMO on PCs. I haven't...



Are you honestly trying to say that per-capita, console games are buggier than PC games? I mean, really?

There's evidence going back decades of initial releases of PC software being essentially unplayable until the first patch. I have yet to see a single console game that shipped in a fundamentally unplayable state, one that needed a day-one patch just to play it.



And? One game is one game. If GalCiv2 had been available on Steam, it would not have magically been "flawless" as opposed to the flawed product it was at initial release.



It all depends on the developer. HL2 was both a labor of love and an intent to profit. As were most of the great games.

Some developers/publishers are more risk averse than others. But others know that risk creates profit.

As a former Rogue/Nethack player, I'd say a better term would be "complex." They have little storyline, but complex gameplay. The levels were mostly randomly generated, with a couple pre-defined levels thrown in. It was rather frustrating how easy it was to die, though.



Yeah, the movie based games tend to be the worst quality, especially since the developers are pushed hard to release it the same time as the movie or DVD release. I found it amusing that the devs who made the Ironman game were boasting how it would "break the mold" and actually be a good game - then, after its release, the reviews come in and it's marginal at best, with a lot of complaints about repetitive gameplay.

However, when a commercial developer is not rushed and takes the quiet approach, they can indeed crank out some great games. I'm thinking Stardock, Valve and Blizzard.

There's always Well of Souls, a cartoony Share-freeware MMORPG with solo/LAN capabilities and mod capabilities, not to mention server (in free edition) capabilities.

However, in our mega-market sized world, Stardock and Valve are technically Indie. Blizzard just never releases anything until it's ready (wise policy). Try including id, they make decent games.

I'm not sure I follow: Isn't MMORPG a subset of MMO?



Okay, maybe this is a weakness of PC games - but not really enough to prevent PC owners from buying games.

This arises from a couple factors:

a) The console games are built for a limited number of hardware combinations. You know what the hardware is, its limitations, and likely most of its bugs as well. With a PC, however, all of the hardware is a hodgepodge of parts from any number of vendors, and accounting for all of the hardware variances is a lot more difficult.

You'll see this effect on the Mac as well: Generally, Mac developers have a much clearer idea of what hardware and software environment they'll be running on, so Mac software will often appear to be less buggy.

When the software is placed on a disk for a console, you're likely to never get a chance to patch it. So a lot more careful attention is (soon to be was?) paid to getting it right the first time.

Unfortunately, with the increasing connectivity of both computers and consoles, factor b is unfortunately starting to fade away: Since patches can be released, many developers are indeed getting lazier and releasing early with known bugs. It's sad to say, but you're right.

The question is: Is this what's really causing publishers to move away from PCs? These distinctions have been around for a long time - why move away from the PC now? Why didn't they do it earlier?



Stardock I could call Indie - but not Valve. I don't have any numbers on me, but it looks like Steam has made them a bit of a mega-publisher themselves.



Agreed, they make good quality games. I guess I just don't play their games much, for reasons of personal taste.

I think it's supposed to be. MMO's not really a correct term. It has to be MMOG.

Yeah, but if you get a really crappy console game, it's never remedied, but a PC game can be modded or patched up.

Yeah, Valve's large, but they do do their own publishing and development in one company.

I don't play many of their games either, but they're an example. Meh, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is a decent enough game.

Yes, my bad, By "made by hobbyists" I really meant "made as a hobby". I wasn't trying to imply anything about the skills of the makers of the games.





Popularity is a poor indicator of the user's opinion of the quality. I use a tonne of freeware apps. However, whilst they *are* often better than the mediocre commercial products, in most cases I know they are *not* the best available, because I have used the free trial periods of better products. I didn't buy them, because I didn't consider the improvement worth the money. Same with games. Very few of the best ones are going to be free, but that doesn't mean the best free games won't be better than some commercial products, or that somebody is automatically going to think the improvement in quality of a commercial product is worth paying for. (When I say "free" above, I'm meaning produced with no intent to profit, so I'm excluding the results of any business model for which free products are a deliberate component.)



I don't like the description most people use, which seems to be a pretty arbitrary reference to the size of the publisher involved. I personally look at the independence of the development, so class as "independent" any self-published title. Or, I suppose, any product which was completed before being touted to publishers (probably very rare)

Due to my unusual definition, I think we may have a point of some agreement - the publishers at the top end of the scale do tend to be *all* about the bottom line, and all about it *right now* because they have investors to satisfy. This *can* hurt quality *relative to what might have been achieved*. That's really very different from saying that it's the intent to make profit *itself* that hurts quality, though - without that intent on the part of the developers, it's unlikely the product would have even been made. It should also be noted that small publishers can be just as guilty of forcing premature release, though perhaps more often for different reasons (for example, because they simply can't financially afford further delay). We also perhaps shouldn't be so quick to lay the blame at the publisher's door...the developers, after all, will usually have failed to meet pre-agreed deadlines, and I'm sure in some cases it's the developers who force release.

In any case, this is the second generation of consoles to really support online access, and although online play is becoming more popular, it's still pretty young for the platform. The PC has had it a lot longer, and there are a large number of online games available for the PC. The future of online games, especially for consoles, should be interesting.



This is true, although that is changing with consoles going online now. There are advantages and disadvantages to being able to easily patch a game.



True, and I think that self development is really the way it should stay. I look at companies like EA and it's really quite a disaster when several game companies merge. If they leave the PC platform, I honestly wouldn't miss them. They've messed up every game company they've bought, including some of my favorites (fond memories of Westwood start to emerge).

Yeah, but console producers choose to take no accountability of their crappiness at times. For instance, I can't count how many broken, horrible console games I've seen. Sometimes it's just a matter of pride.

Yes, self development is the best. Communication and artistic style are more brought together when everyone has unity. Westwood made awesome games while it lasted. Now EA just makes arcade crap.

Speaking of system requirements, AMD wants to create a standard for gaming PCs. I've said it's a good idea as early as 2 years ago.

AMD's specs look expensive, but in fact they are pretty reasonable in price (less than one grand). The only thing missing is a sensible upgrade scheme.

http://game.amd.com/us-en/amdgame_testedconfigurations.aspx?p=1

I have an AMD laptop (Dual Core, 1.81 GHZ, nVidia GeForce Go 6150, 2 GB ram, 120 [HP, so 100] GB HD, and 17' monitor). So it has a fair deal of firepower (it *should* run almost anything with enough graphics downgrades), but it seems to dislike anything EA makes. Anything with more than sixteen players (given I could find that many, or find bots to play them) is taboo (NPC's ok, bots not), and I'd have to take up human sacrifice to play a decent racing game with city, police, and traffic dynamics (NFS, some other games).

Those specs are amazingly terrible, considering Phenoms are junk processors, nobody needs a 850W PSU outside of SLi/Crossfire systems, and their "Ultra" systems are somewhere around mid-range.

Interesting concept. Obviously, it's all AMD/ATI. If they really want to be serious about standardizing game systems, they will have to suck up some pride and market share, and be willing to cooperate a bit and include some of their competitors. I doubt you're going to convince a long time nVidia or Intel fan to buy one of those systems.

Problem is, they can't really enforce it, so we developers still have to deal with configurations outside of those listed on that page.

Just ran their little PC evaluation test, and my Core 2 Quad with 6 GB of RAM and a GeForce 9600 easily passed all three tests, including "Best."

My older setup with a 256 MB card and 2 GB RAM probably would've made "better."

. . . and I just realized, my older AMD processor, even though it was 2 GHz and worked fine for games, wouldn't have even made "good" on the list - of all ironies, it was upgrading to an Intel system that pushed my system to "best!"

They're all crap, as far as I've seen. Whether it's MMORPGs, MMOFPS, or whatever.



So, buying a product that might or might not work is acceptable?

This is the thinking of someone who has been trained to expect games (or other things) to not work.



It doesn't matter why it happens, so long as those factors aren't going to get fixed. What matters is that it does happen, it is happening now, and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future.

I suppose that's a matter of personal taste.



I've had very few software products that are so bad they are nonfunctional. And you bet I complain if I receive a product in such a poor shape.



This is the thinking of somebody who does a lot of programming himself and knows how human we are and how difficult it is to produce a perfect software product. Writing software is not an automated process that can be easily perfected. It's as much an art as it is a science.



If you want to force the PC industry to be homogeneous, be my guest. Don't be surprised if there's some resistance.