No wonder Rockstar doesn't want to support PC from day one.

[Ash_735]

4 hours ago, Dryspace said:

It's not just the technical performance. There are many PC versions/ports in the last ~10 years that have had good performance, with many having aesthetic improvements.

 

The 'Great Consolization of 2008' refers to the fact that prior to that point, there were AAA games that were conceived and developed for PC HW and the sensibilities of PC gamers, as well as games conceived and developed for console HW and console market sensibilities. There were PC games ported to console and console games ported to PC, as well as true multiplatform games, whereas now AAA development = console development.

 

This means that, even in the rare cases in which the PC version gets a decent amount of attention, the basal tech level (AI, physics, game logic, etc.), gameplay philosophy, mechanics, controls, UI, etc. are all conceived and developed from the ground up for console HW limitations, console controllers, and console players.

A bit of a rose tinted glasses methinks, the "dark age" of PC gaming was from 2004 - 2007, yes you had games that were pc only and pc focused (and you still do) but then you must also consider that there was less games ported and those that were had many hoops, different launchers, weird port things (locked aspect ratio, set resolution, etc).

 

These days we have even more choice and nearly all games get a pc release, majority day one unless you're a crappy company like Rockstar.

[Dryspace]

11 hours ago, Ash_735 said:

A bit of a rose tinted glasses methinks...

Rose colored glasses have nothing whatever to do with the reality that I described. And it certainly couldn't apply to someone like me who didn't  build his first gaming PC until the end of 2008, and didn't even realize the Great Consolization had occurred until a few years later. I was wondering why the new games and sequels were so fundamentally different and disappointing compared to the games that had impressed me to the point of building a gaming PC. Not bad--just very disappointing--inferior and poorly designed in many ways. Eventually I discovered that it was because they were actually designed for the console market. Just as one example, F.E.A.R. 2 is a fun game. I replay it every time I replay F.E.A.R. and its expansions. But it was a big let-down to those who loved everything about F.E.A.R. Legend has it there's an ultra-consolized CoD game that was accidentally named "F3AR" or something like that, but that's something that's best forgotten.

 

I said nothing to the effect of "Games used to be so much better!". I simply explained the fact that AAA games are no longer conceived and developed for PC hardware and PC gameplay standards. Whether this is positive or negative depends upon individual perspective.

 

As far as 2004 - 2007 being a "dark age" of PC gaming, I can only say that you and I apparently have radically different viewpoints. Although I didn't discover PC games from that period until it had ended, I consider that period to have produced some of the best games ever made. The direction that things were heading was entirely positive. Half-Life 2, Portal, F.E.A.R., Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, The Witcher: Enhanced Edition, Crysis. Each of these is a superbly-designed game, and developed both for PC HW, as well as for PC gameplay standards. And then there were good PC Adventure games from that period.

 

Less games ported? For one, even as late as 2009, Fry's Electronics had a huge PC game section. But regardless of how many console games were ported to PC during that period, if the number of PC releases (whether port or not) was decreasing--which I don't know as I wasn't gaming during that period--it was only the result of the very reality I describe. The Great Consolization of 2008 didn't happen on one day of course. The reason I so named it is that 2007 was the last year in which AAA PC games were released--from 2008 on, every AAA game was designed either for console or--rarely--console and PC. This does not include MMOs, "AA/A" games, etc.

 

Different launchers? I confess I'm not sure what you're talking about, as one of the highlights of that era was game ownership, in which the only hoop one had to jump through was entering a key once upon installation. Some games required a one-time online verification of the key, others didn't. Steam was the only online DRM/launcher during that time, unless maybe you're referring to Games for Windows Live, which wasn't a launcher? Even though Steam existed, non-Valve games didn't start requiring Steam until ~2011. I purchased a boxed copy of BioShock 2 e.g., and it did not require Steam.

 

Locked aspect ratio? That's actually common to many post-2007 games: No matter what resolution you select, you are getting 16:9 whether you like it or not. Assassin's Creed (2007) was included with the GPU of my first gaming PC, and was the first time I encountered such a thing. Fortunately not all console ports force this limitation, but it definitely didn't go away.

 

You're actually illustrating my point: When PC gamers are relegated to playing console games, no matter how much good there is in the game, it is always going to come with compromises and limitations due to it being designed from the ground up for a different market with very different player preferences, very different viewing conditions, limited hardware, and a limited input device. Sometimes these drawbacks are wonderfully minimal, as with BioShock, whose only real giveaway as a console game is the gigantic and glowing usable objects. In fact, for at least a couple years after first playing I honestly thought BioShock was a PC game!

 

Sometimes these drawbacks are more annoying, forcing a PC player to fight the controller-based mechanics & controls and/or the UI, and/or the FOV, etc., and/or spend effort fixing the game he paid full price for himself. And sometimes they render a game extremely difficult or impossible to enjoy.

 

Let me point out that one thing that has no evidence behind it is the idea that AAA PC games disappeared due to financial necessity. The change did not occur because well-designed PC games were unable to generate a profit--it occurred because the publishers, who by that time owned the AAA studios and whose principals cared about video games only from a business standpoint, determined that console development was more profitable.

 

An unfortunate number of people to this day believe that Crysis is an example of why AAA PC games disappeared. For whatever reasons, they believe that Crysis was a financial failure. In fact, Crysis was a critical and financial success--something that most developers would be overjoyed to achieve. Cevat Yerli admitted that Crysis exceeded his sales expectations, even while he was complaining about all of his "lost sales" from piracy. The last time I checked, which was several years ago, Crysis had sold 7M copies on PC.

 

I'm using Crytek as an example for a reason: Crytek was a critically and financially successful PC game dev, but when its principal decided that he was willing to settle for mediocrity if it meant making Mo' Money, his switch to console development resulted in disappointing critiques and disappointing sales, and ultimately led to his demise.

Edited February 2, 2020 by Dryspace
Correction

[Ash_735]

So you didn't even build a pc until AFTER Steam rolled out their modern methods and yet you're trying to tell me gaming in PC was better back then? Dude, you've just wrote an article with zero experience, trust me as someone who played pc games in the late 90's, the early to mid/late 2000's sucked on PC outside of the big examples that you've listed, sh*t man, do you not remember the 5 different controller APIs which meant no game had a set standard so if a game had controller support AND worked with your controller of choice was a gamble, this is one of the few things Games for Windows Live at least pushed and fixed with XInput. Don't come at me when your experience just started in the era when the fixes and solutions arises and most are still around and used today. It wasn't always like that, that time period was full of shoddy ports, various iterations of DRM forced into your system, various APIs needing to be installed without proper driver support and then to top it off, it was a 20% chance of a game actually being ported to pc from consoles.

 

Things are much better today.

[Jason]

The mid to late 2000's were indeed the dark ages of PC gaming, some of it rolled into the very early 2010s as well. It was the success of good PC versions of a few AAA titles and the increasing success of Valve and Steam that turned heads at the publishers that got PC gaming to where it's at today. Ports back then were riddled with countless issues stemming from "consolization", which has been greatly reduced in the last 10 years and not the opposite, and invasive, complicated and just down right horrible DRM because publishers were deathly scared of piracy, resulting in some very famous industry quotes such as this. It is the overwhelming opinion of PC gamers, journalists and critics alike that followed and played PC games throughout that era that it was the some of if not the worst years PC gaming has ever had.

 

AAA development on PC is also alive and well, as was discussed on page 4 of this thread. An actual developer in the industry also refuted your claims in that thread.

 

PC gaming is the greatest it's ever been right now, there are brilliant made for PC indie titles that have been released in recent years and brilliant AAA made for PC titles that have been released - we've even got a new Half Life on the horizon and dismissing Valve as AAA would be like dismissing Bethesda Game Studios as one, or another similarly sized studio. That's not to say there still isn't some poor ports or poor PC support now and then cause there absolutely is, Rockstar's delayed PC releases come to mind, as does BioWare being incapable of making a game and a UI for keyboard and mouse and some games still coming out a hot when it comes to optimisation. But overall it is miles better than it was 10 years ago, lightyears even.

 

Even then, the lines between things like AA and AAA development have definitely blurred in recent years to the point that "AAA" gaming has lost a lot of meaning in my opinion. There are some absolutely brilliant teams out there making games for all platforms whether exclusively or not, such as ZA/UM and Larian who have made two of the greatest PC RPG's of all time in recent years, whose games match AAA levels of quality in virtually every area, often surpassing typical AAA games even, while not having the budget of what would traditionally be considered an AAA title.

[Dryspace]

3 hours ago, Ash_735 said:

So you didn't even build a pc until AFTER Steam rolled out their modern methods and yet you're trying to tell me gaming in PC was better back then?

With due respect, you're replying to me without paying attention to what I'm saying, which is a waste of your time as much as mine.

 

Again, I never said anything about "PC gaming being better". You're the one who misunderstood my point and substituted your own. The only thing I said was that prior to 2008 there was AAA PC development, and now there is not. The fact that AAA games are now developed for consoles results in very significant consequences. Whether those consequences are welcome or lamented depends, as I said before, on individual perspective. If a person:

 

* Plays camera-based games with a controller,

* Prefers cut scenes to in-game interactions,

* Prefers that excitement arise from heavily scripted "epic" events instead of dynamic gameplay,

* Doesn't mind huge markers telling him exactly where to go next,

* Doesn't mind QTEs,

* Doesn't mind "cover systems",

* Doesn't mind toggle crouch,

* Doesn't mind toggle run (and being unable to turn while running),

* Doesn't mind unnecessary contextual controls instead of explicit controls,

* Doesn't mind a complete lack of AI innovation,

* Doesn't mind a complete lack of physics innovation,

* Doesn't mind a complete lack of audio innovation,

* Doesn't mind having control of his character constantly taken away,

* Doesn't mind his camera direction moving without his consent,

* Doesn't mind playing at ~30 fps,

* Doesn't mind being forced to 16:9 aspect ratio,

* Doesn't mind mouse acceleration,

* Doesn't mind negative mouse acceleration,

* Doesn't mind non-rebindable controls,

* Doesn't mind low-resolution textures,

* Doesn't mind low draw distance,

* Doesn't mind pop-in,

* Doesn't mind being forced to use a keyboard in menus rather than a mouse,

 

...just to name a few things, then the Great Consolization was probably not a big deal. But all of these things (and more) are standard console practices, or common symptoms of PC being treated as an afterthought, and are starkly different from games that were designed specifically for the PC market. There are a lot of 2008+ console games that I like a lot, but I would like to also have new AAA PC games to play, and that is something that I must do without.

 

Quote

Dude, you've just wrote an article with zero experience, trust me as someone who played pc games in the late 90's, the early to mid/late 2000's sucked on PC outside of the big examples that you've listed, sh*t man, do you not remember the 5 different controller APIs which meant no game had a set standard so if a game had controller support AND worked with your controller of choice was a gamble, this is one of the few things Games for Windows Live at least pushed and fixed with XInput.

If a PC game was intended to be played with a gamepad, or flightstick, or whatever, then did it not include support? If not, it was obviously intended to be played with standard PC equipment: a keyboard and mouse. If you preferred to always use a controller, then I can understand your frustration, but I don't think it was legitimate to expect controller support to be standard in most PC games.

 

Quote

...that time period was full of shoddy ports, various iterations of DRM forced into your system...

Yeah, I know about today's probl--Oh, you're talking about back then! Yeah, I suppose these things were an issue back then too, to one extent or another.

 

Quote

Things are much better today.

If that's the case for you, then great! But that doesn't change reality, and it doesn't invalidate anything that I have said.

Edited February 3, 2020 by Dryspace
Correction

[Dryspace]

1 hour ago, Jason said:

It was the success of good PC versions of a few AAA titles

What are you talking about? I'm talking about AAA PC games, not "versions" of AAA titles. PC versions of AAA titles are what we are stuck with today.

 

Prior to 2008, there were studios who developed AAA PC games....for PC. From King's Quest in 1983, to Doom, to Fallout, to Baldur's Gate, to Unreal and Half-Life, to Deus Ex, to The Longest Journey, to Far Cry, to the greats I already named.

 

And now there are no games developed specifically for PC HW and the sensibilities of the PC market.

 

Quote

and the increasing success of Valve and Steam that turned heads at the publishers that got PC gaming to where it's at today.

Wha--what are you talking about? "That got PC gaming to where it's at today"? We had the entire history of AAA PC development that I outlined above, and then we have today--in which every AAA game is conceived and developed in whole or part around the console market. I just don't understand where you're coming from.

 

Quote

Ports back then were riddled with countless issues stemming from "consolization"

Well, that's one thing that hasn't changed then. I'll give you that!

 

Quote

which has been greatly reduced in the last 10 years and not the opposite

Even if that is true, you're saying it's better to have ports with fewer issues and no AAA PC games than worse ports but actual AAA PC games? At the very least, that's a matter of preference, if not an odd one...

 

Quote

and invasive, complicated and just down right horrible DRM because publishers were deathly scared of piracy...

Well, that's one more thing that hasn't changed then. I'll give you that!

 

Quote

AAA development on PC is also alive and well, as was discussed on page 4 of this thread. An actual developer in the industry also refuted your claims in that thread.

Even CD Projekt RED, the most scrupulous and arguably PC-friendly developer hasn't made a AAA PC game since The Witcher: Enhanced Edition. I really have no idea how you can insist on something so demonstrably false, unless you are working from assumptions that are invalid. If a AAA game is developed from the ground up according to the limitations of console hardware and controllers, and the preferences of console gamers, it is not a PC game. It's not a PC game, no matter what concessions may or may not be made for PC gamers. How can you argue such a thing?

 

The user you refer to isn't an "actual developer", he's a guy who claims to work in some capacity for a AAA developer, a claim that I choose to accept. He did not refute anything that I said. Instead of refuting my claims, his primary argument was "I work in AAA, therefore I'm right".

 

Quote

PC gaming is the greatest it's ever been right now, there are brilliant made for PC indie titles...

Indie titles have nothing whatever to do with anything that I have asserted.

 

Quote

and brilliant AAA made for PC titles that have been released

Such as? Remember, if the game is designed in whole or part around console limitations, console controllers, or console gameplay standards, it is obviously not a PC game, just like a PC game that is ported to consoles would not be a console game.

 

Quote

we've even got a new Half Life on the horizon

*Throws hands up* To use that as an example of a AAA PC game is ludicrous.

 

Quote

and dismissing Valve as AAA...

Surely you know that Valve stopped making AAA games a long time ago? Even though L4D, L4D2, and Portal 2 were developed and released simultaneously for the PC and console markets, their only concessions for consoles are basically UI design, so I'll admit that these could be considered PC games--close enough, anyway. But exceptions don't change the reality.

 

Let me quote what I said earlier: "from 2008 on, every AAA game was designed either for console or--rarely--console and PC. This does not include MMOs, "AA/A" games, etc."

 

Quote

Rockstar's delayed PC releases come to mind, as does BioWare being incapable of making a game and a UI for keyboard and mouse

Delayed releases and toss-porting of UI, control scheme, and controller code have been common since I built my gaming PC. They're absolutely not exceptions. As a matter of fact, I can't even think of a single AAA port since 2008 that has a mouse-based UI instead of the console UI toss-ported over. I think there are one or two--Mass Effect is one maybe? But we're talking the exceptions of all exceptions. As far as mouse acceleration, lazily mapping analog stick code to the mouse, etc. these things are very, very common.

 

Edited February 3, 2020 by Dryspace

[Ash_735]

Yeah @Dryspace all I can say is that I disagree, you're trying to convince those of us who actually lived through that era that it was better then compared to now whilst not actually having any experience of that era yourself, you've probably never even used puke green Steam all the things you've listed were also problems back then and more, to try and say that things like an FPS lock is a "modern consolization" is hilarious when a ton of pc only games are hard locked to specific FPS for physics reasons, even OG DOOM was FPS locked to 35fps and then scanned out at 70Hz.

 

It just comes across as you having no long term experience and just being one of THOSE types who want to blame everything on consoles.

 

Also bruh, you say The Witcher 1 is the last true PC game when the Witcher 2 has all these high quality "cinema" depth effects which still cripple cards at 4k as well as having built in super sampling at a time when it wasn't common, come on now.

[Jason]

Yea you've been told how it was, you've been given examples of PC AAA titles. I'd say it's just simply disagreeing with each other but it's not, there's a right and a wrong. What Ash and I are talking about is essentially historical fact.

 

The only thing I see here is moving goalposts everytime something is proven, which is something you are known for. Either that or ignoring points, evidence or just outright dismissing them with no retort or evidence your self, which again is also something you are known for. You also have a habit of responding to things by attempting to drown them in essays that either don't actually say anything, or are arguing nothing more than semantics. It comes off as scattergun arguing, you're firing a lot of unsubstantial nonsense at people in the hope that either some of it will stick or it'll drown them in so much rubbish that they'll just walk away. This also all becomes a bit of a joke as well when you criticise others for things when in discussions with you that you your self are far more guilty for.

 

Your knowledge of console gaming (and the games industry in general) is also showing, by knowledge I mean lack of, as many of the things you listed either originated on PC, have nothing at all to do with consoles, or haven't been a thing on consoles for the better part of a decade. To be frank, your opinions and knowledge reek of things you've heard from 4chan memes more than they do of actual personal knowledge and/or experience. You talk the talk but you don't walk the walk.

[Dryspace]

10 hours ago, Ash_735 said:

you're trying to convince those of us who actually lived through that era that it was better then compared to now

You keep saying this, lol.... I am describing reality. You are deciding what I think and responding to that, instead of responding to what I'm actually saying.

 

10 hours ago, Ash_735 said:

all the things you've listed were also problems back then and more

You might have some kind of point if I had ever claimed such problems didn't exist back then. If ports existed then, I'm sure similar issues may have existed. But I'm not talking about ports--my only point was that prior to 2008, there were AAA developers who designed games entirely around both PC HW and PC gameplay standards, which are not the same standards that console players have.

 

And yes, I did use puke green Steam From what I recall, the UI didn't change until 2009 or 2010.

 

10 hours ago, Ash_735 said:

to try and say that things like an FPS lock is a "modern consolization" is hilarious... even OG DOOM was FPS locked to 35fps and then scanned out at 70Hz.

I listed that as just one of many possible effects of a AAA game being designed for consoles. Here's why your example re: locked framerate isn't valid:

 

Let's say that the PC port of a AAA game has noticeably low-res textures. You're saying that it wouldn't be a problem, that it wouldn't have anything to do with it being a console game, because PC games used to have the same low-res textures years earlier?

 

Don't you see how that doesn't make sense? If a PC port is given the same textures that look acceptable on a TV at lower res and longer view distances, but noticeably bad on monitors at close viewing distances, what does that have to do with PC texture resolution 5 or 20 years earlier? Just because something used to be normal in the past doesn't mean that it's acceptable in the present

 

Another example would be parity between consoles. When a dev decides to develop to the limitations of one console, and then gives a more powerful console the same (say...resolution), it doesn't make sense to claim, "No! There's no parity, because other games have this same resolution!" You're talking about two unrelated things.

 

10 hours ago, Ash_735 said:

It just comes across as you having no long term experience and just being one of THOSE types who want to blame everything on consoles.

I'm sorry that you came to that conclusion, though I can't imagine how. Many of my favorite games are console games.

 

10 hours ago, Ash_735 said:

Also bruh, you say The Witcher 1 is the last true PC game when the Witcher 2 has all these high quality "cinema" depth effects which still cripple cards at 4k as well as having built in super sampling at a time when it wasn't common, come on now.

The Witcher 2 is a great example, though I'm not sure what "cinema" depth effects have to do with anything (screen-space effects like this are a trademark of console games, and were not standard in PC games)

 

The entire reason that TW2 has that built-in supersampling is because unlike The Witcher:EE which uses forward rendering, it uses a console-friendly deferred renderer that is incapable of multisampling. The reason supersampling wasn't common was because using it makes absolutely no sense when you have MSAA. That was the entire point of introducing MSAA--it does the same thing as supersampling, but it only does it to the pixels along geometry edges, instead of applying it indiscriminately to the entire screen. Supersampling is a massive performance hit that nobody would use if MSAA is available. It's better than having no true antialiasing at all, but it's an example of console-focused design.

 

While we're speaking of TW2, the entire UI is designed for console controllers. I have a very hard time understanding how someone can claim that a game is designed for PC when the entire interface is designed for controllers and is a pain in the mouse. In addition to many other things, its core gameplay is designed entirely around console gameplay standards, and is as far from the gameplay of The Witcher: Enhanced Edition as it gets. CD Projekt RED made the tactical decision to release the PC version ahead of the console version, in order to avoid backlash from fans of TW:EE. They definitely get credit for shrewdness. But for someone to base the entire case for PC focus on the fact that it was released first, and then ported to console is ignoring the blatant facts. Releasing the PC version first, even though it was designed around consoles, makes sense business-wise. Claiming that it's a PC game ported to consoles when the entire UI is obviously designed for consoles and is terrible on KB & Mouse, not to mention all of the other evidence, makes no sense at all. One has to take all of the evidence together.

 

As much good as there is in The Witcher 2, it was incredibly disappointing to fans of The Witcher who were looking forward to another PC game.

[Ash_735]

19 minutes ago, Dryspace said:

Supersampling is a massive performance hit that nobody would use if MSAA is available. It's better than having no true antialiasing at all, but it's an example of console-focused design.

BRUH, BRUHHHHHHHHHH, you clearly don't understand the tech at work here  

 

So basically, at this point, unless a game ONLY has a UI design that's made ONLY for Keyboard and Mouse then it doesn't qualify and is just a consolized port? You also realise The Witcher 2 was a PC ONLY title for well over a year before they ported it to consoles and did some heavy downgrading for it right? RIGHT? You're also stating The Witcher 2 was "incredibly disappointing" for the fans when it's often rated as the best in the trilogy?? Bloody hell you're grasping at starws man.

 

What about Deus EX: Human Revolution and Mankind Divided, on PC they have different UI's that it switches to if you just use keyboard and mouse, I look forward to what spew you come back with about how these are consolized games too. 

 

ALSO...

25 minutes ago, Dryspace said:

though I'm not sure what "cinema" depth effects have to do with anything (screen-space effects like this are a trademark of console games, and were not standard in PC games)

This shows how much you're chatting because you just described something completely wrong and don't seem to know what the PC exclusive graphical feature is on the game

 

Have you ever had to deal with game installations that require keys by the way? Ever heard of activation limits? Remember when OG Steam was a resource hog and clogged internet connections at random times? Ever had to go and pirate a game you've bought because you've ran out of the allowed install limits? Ever played games like Grand Theft Auto 1 (limited to a max of 50fps) or Stunt Track Driver (limited to 20fps)? You also complain about games these days only being designed for TV resolutions, you realise that's 4k now right? Majority of PC Gamers are still on 1080p, how about the fact that consoles have pushed ahead on features like HDR that PC was lagging behind? How about the fact that Nvidia have stagnated the market for years coasting by on "being the winners" and enjoying the mining era? Do you consider CPU's these days to be "consolized" since AMD have got help from Sony, Microsoft and Samsung? See I can roll off too, man it's just like you want a reason to be salty against the consoles and glorify the past of the PC.

[Dryspace]

5 hours ago, Jason said:

... Either that or ignoring points, evidence or just outright dismissing them with no retort ...

Well, your last post was almost nothing but false accusations, ignoring every single point in my previous post, and you have ignored my points in the past as well. I don't intentionally ignore points. I do my best to explain why a point is invalid, or admit its validity as the case may be. In order to address all points, I sometimes have to write "essays" as you call them. Damned if do...

 

I'm sorry to see the baseless claims you make regarding my behavior. Here's one thing that is demonstrable: In contrast to the type of person you paint me to be, I have a history in my less than 2.5 years on this site of admitting when I'm wrong about something, or apologizing when I've wronged someone. I can provide the evidence. Do you have any examples of such behavior? Or perhaps you don't because you've never been wrong, and have never wronged anyone?

[Jason]

You've not addressed any points, you've routinely ignored them OR dismissed them out of hand without any justifiable reason. 

 

"Half Life Alyx is not an AAA game" / "Valve don't make AAA games anymore"

 

The universal consensus of the industry is that it is, I simply googled "Half Life Alyx AAA" and found countless posts and articles saying just that. This isn't the case however, according to you, for reasons you've never given.

 

"And now there are no games developed specifically for PC HW and the sensibilities of the PC market."

 

When presented with a list of games in the Death Stranding thread that proved you to be factually incorrect your response was... nothing. You even dismissed MMO's in one of your posts earlier for again, no justifiable reason, which is nonsensical. If you're going to make a claim you can't just dismiss evidence that contradicts said claim for no reason. It's nothing more than moving goalposts.

 

I'm assuming your response to this is to either ignore it, or respond to some other aspect of this post and try and argue semantics over something unimportant to the big picture or the actual point. Either that or you'll dismiss all these examples as not being AAA for reasons you never explain. I'd like to be pleasantly surprised for once, though.

 

 

[Dryspace]

2 minutes ago, Ash_735 said:

So basically, at this point, unless a game ONLY has a UI design that's made ONLY for Keyboard and Mouse then it doesn't qualify and is just a consolized port?

No, what I said is that a game that has a UI that is designed entirely around controllers and is difficult to use with a mouse is clearly not a game that was designed for the PC market. You're disagreeing with this?

 

2 minutes ago, Ash_735 said:

You also realise The Witcher 2 was a PC ONLY title for well over a year before they ported it to consoles and did some heavy downgrading for it right? RIGHT?

I attempted to anticipate exactly this claim, and explained exactly why it doesn't hold water. You can't look only at the fact that CDPR released the PC version first and use that as proof that it's a PC game. You have to take all of the evidence into account, including things I neglected to mention, such as TW2 having a launcher-style settings menu, which is common on games designed for console (I already explained that TW2 uses a console-optimized deferred rendering engine). I've never played a PC game that didn't have an in-game settings menu.

 

2 minutes ago, Ash_735 said:

You're also stating The Witcher 2 was "incredibly disappointing" for the fans when it's often rated as the best in the trilogy?? Bloody hell you're grasping at starws man.

I'm grasping at straws? No, you're misrepresenting what I say. I said that TW2 was "disappointing to fans of The Witcher who were looking forward to another PC game."

 

2 minutes ago, Ash_735 said:

What about Deus EX: Human Revolution and Mankind Divided, on PC they have different UI's that it switches to if you just use keyboard and mouse, I look forward to what spew you come back with about how these are consolized games too. 

I've only tried HR, and yes--of course it's designed for the console market. At any rate, I'm confused as to what your point is here? Let me repeat what I said before:

 

"As a matter of fact, I can't even think of a single AAA port since 2008 that has a mouse-based UI instead of the console UI toss-ported over. I think there are one or two--Mass Effect is one maybe?"

 

So....you found one of them? What you didn't do is refute anything that I've said. I hope you enjoyed that "spew" by the way! I cooked it up specially for you. I'm not going to address the rest of your misunderstandings in order to avoid disappointing Jason with another essay.

[Ash_735]

7 minutes ago, Dryspace said:

I'm not going to address the rest of your misunderstandings in order to avoid disappointing Jason with another essay.

But that means you're doing what @Jason accused you of, ignoring facts with disprove your "theory", I could list many games that can be controlled only with a mouse but you'll write them off, and what's exactly wrong with games being designed with controllers in mind, you do know these days the majority (90%+) of PC Gamers game with a controller of some sort right? It's mainly just the FPS titles that still have majority K+M, you're acting like a game being designed with controller support in mind is some sort of a betrayal, you even refute how Dues EX: Human Revolution (which DOES have a separate UI for K+M as well as hot keys, etc) is also designed for consoles despite the PC version being brilliant. I don't get exactly what you're looking for is the point I'm trying to make. Again YOU'RE the one who said PC Gaming is worse now because it's all "consolized" and yet the PC Gaming market is extremely healthy, thriving, is in a position where most games come out on PC, it's easy to buy and install games in a simple manner most of the time, etc.

[Dryspace]

9 minutes ago, Jason said:

You've not addressed any points, you've routinely ignored them OR dismissed them out of hand without any justifiable reason. 

You literally failed to address every point I made in my reply before last to you. I tried my best to address your points honestly, and you ignored them. Is a mirror in order, lol?

 

9 minutes ago, Jason said:

"Half Life Alyx is not an AAA game" / "Valve don't make AAA games anymore"

For crying out loud! I'm obviously not talking about VR-only games that only work on VR headsets! Really?

 

9 minutes ago, Jason said:

When presented with a list of games in the Death Stranding thread that proved you to be factually incorrect your response was... nothing. You even dismissed MMO's in one of your posts earlier for again, no justifiable reason, which is nonsensical. If you're going to make a claim you can't just dismiss evidence that contradicts said claim for no reason. It's nothing more than moving goalposts.

This is how I know that the underlying issue is a misunderstanding on your part. I said from the very beginning that I don't include MMOs. Why? For one, because it has never been clear to me that the 'AAA' designation is applicable to MMOs, given their fundamental difference from other SP/MP genres. And further, because MMOs have never been made for anything but PC and can't be made for consoles. How could MMOs possibly have anything to do with the transition from PC and Console AAA development to only Console-focused development? MMOs have always stood apart. I'm always willing to discuss a point, but your attempt to paint me as dishonest simply because your assumptions are different is not appreciated.

 

In my opinion, it would be the same thing as claiming that one console isn't generally being held back by a lesser console, because these games that have always been exclusive to the more powerful console still exist.

[Jason]

 

Also btw, Final Fantasy (has had numerous console MMO's), Black Desert Online, Phanstasy Star Universe (been around for 15 years or so), DC Universe Online, The Elder Scrolls Online, APB Reloaded, Neverwinter, Star Trek Online, Tera... the list goes on. Some of these are MMO's released day 1 on console, some shortly after. MMO's have been a thing on console since consoles had online capabilities.

 

This is common knowledge, by the way.

[Dryspace]

25 minutes ago, Ash_735 said:

But that means you're doing what @Jason accused you of, ignoring facts

Oh, brother....the irony...

 

Quote

what's exactly wrong with games being designed with controllers in mind

Nothing, if they are camera-based games intended for the console market, or they are non-camera-based PC genres such as racing, flight, 2D platformers, etc.

 

Quote

you do know these days the majority (90%+) of PC Gamers game with a controller of some sort right?

I have no idea what the percentage is. I have multiple controllers, which I use for retro games, racing, and certain console games in which the flight controls are poor on KB & mouse.

 

Quote

you're acting like a game being designed with controller support in mind is some sort of a betrayal

I said literally nothing against a PC game or PC version of a game being designed with controller support in mind. I'm talking about a PC game or PC version of a game being designed entirely around a controller in camera-based games where KB & mouse are standard.

 

Quote

Again YOU'RE the one who said PC Gaming is worse now

(He keeps saying that!)

 

Quote

and yet the PC Gaming market is extremely healthy, thriving, is in a position where most games come out on PC, it's easy to buy and install games in a simple manner most of the time, etc.

I said nothing about the entirety of the market. My point is only about the hardware and market sensibilities that post-2008 AAA games are designed around. As far as the experience of installing and playing modern AAA games, mine is exactly the opposite of yours. Remember when I said that whether this is positive or negative depends upon individual perspective?

 

With the PC AAA games I first discovered, I had no problems at all--it was literally just install, set options, set controls, and go. But increasingly over the years I have had more and more and more trouble getting AAA games to a playable state, having to use third-party utilities, control panel workarounds, and just deal with things that I never had to deal with before.

 

There's no point in arguing this--I told you that perspectives vary. Because of the way I prefer to game, the modern AAA experience is anything but stellar. For you, it may be the opposite.

Edited February 3, 2020 by Dryspace

[Ash_735]

11 minutes ago, Dryspace said:

But increasingly over the years I have had more and more and more trouble getting AAA games to a playable state, having to use third-party utilities, control panel workarounds, and just deal with things that I never had to deal with before.

Let's hear some of these then.

 

Also,of course you're not going to see AAA pc only games these days, consoles are near enough the same now, there's no point in being PC only if it takes minimal work to then transfer the game over to consoles and also release them there.

 

On the plus side, I guess Star Citizen is the only game you're looking to.

[Dryspace]

10 minutes ago, Jason said:

Also btw, Final Fantasy (has had numerous console MMO's), Black Desert Online, Phanstasy Star Universe (been around for 15 years or so), DC Universe Online, The Elder Scrolls Online, APB Reloaded, Neverwinter, Star Trek Online, Tera... the list goes on. Some of these are MMO's released day 1 on console, some shortly after. MMO's have been a thing on console since consoles had online capabilities.

 

This is common knowledge, by the way.

I have always stated from the outset that I didn't include MMOs when I talk about the Great Consolization, because they have traditionally been designed for PCs, and are still a PC-centered genre.

 

I did not know that MMOs were designed for consoles as well as PCs. My point about the 'AAA' designation not clearly applying to MMOs persists.

 

What you're doing is latching onto individual points as "proof" that you're right, while ignoring any and all points that I make in response to you. I have no problem admitting when I'm wrong about something. If I insist that one point doesn't invalidate my argument, you'll claim that I'm moving the goalposts, even when that's not a valid claim. You do realize that a person can be wrong about a specific and still be right in general?

 

That's why I've done my best to respond to all points, whereas, again--even if I'm not perfect, I insist that you are very clearly ignoring my rebuttals to your points, and cherry-picking facts rather than genuinely taking into account the entire picture.

[Dryspace]

8 minutes ago, Ash_735 said:

Let's hear some of these then.

I assume you are referring only to issues of a technical nature, and not other problems resulting from console design, like gameplay, etc.? A partial list, in rough chronological order:

 

Assassin's Creed II

Batman: Arkham Aslyum

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Metro 2033

Fallout: New Vegas

Bulletstorm

Dead Space 2

The Witcher 2

Crysis 2

Batman: Arkham City

RAGE

Skyrim

Dishonored

Spec Ops: The Line

Alice: Madness Returns

Far Cry 3

Max Payne 3

Alan Wake

BioShock: Infinite

Dead Space 3

Crysis 3

Battlefield 4

The Evil Within

Alien: Isolation

GTA V

Ryse: Son of Rome

Mad Max

Batman: Arkham Knight

Dying Light

DOOM 2016

 

8 minutes ago, Ash_735 said:

consoles are near enough the same now, there's no point in being PC only if it takes minimal work to then transfer the game over to consoles and also release them there.

No, you got some bad info. Current consoles are fundamentally different than PCs, using a unified architecture. If console hardware was basically the same thing, then what you say would be true: A dev could simply toss a game over to the PC, perhaps with a few alterations, and the only difference is that it would run much faster.

 

Even if you don't understand the technology, there is plenty of logical proof. Batman: Arkham Knight being the starkest: something like that couldn't happen if the hardware was "basically the same".

[Ash_735]

1 hour ago, Dryspace said:

No, you got some bad info. Current consoles are fundamentally different than PCs, using a unified architecture. If console hardware was basically the same thing, then what you say would be true: A dev could simply toss a game over to the PC, perhaps with a few alterations, and the only difference is that it would run much faster.

Again YOUR lack of knowledge is showing because you're going from SET hardware to variable hardware, there's many factors that you can try and account for but there's also always some combination that will just not work which you can't know about until it happens and gets pointed out. Trust me, we know people who actually work on games, hell one of my friends works at a studio that's done loads of pc ports! If you don't understand the difference of that then why should we take any opinion from you seriously? Plus the fact that your list includes games that pretty much ran fine to perfect on PC where most problems originated via the DRM just again salts your opinion, seriously you think DOOM 2016 is technically flawed on PC? That motherf*cker under Vulkan is one of the best performing buttery smooth games out there on PC and is actually used as a reference for high refresh rate monitors.

 

What you keep trying to push is a point I brought up in the first place, publishers farming different versions out to the cheapest studio, Arkham Knight wasn't done by RockSteady on PC, it was handled by Iron Galaxy, smaller studios can only do so much in the time frame they're given, that's why it's important that the right studios get the job but a lot of the time the publishers seek the cheapest option and give them less time so you get a hatchet rush job which results in most of these issues you keep presenting.

 

You dodged my earlier notes by the way, where I mentioned things like how console games are designed with 4k resolution in mind when it comes to textures and what not, where as the majority of PC Gamers (roughly 72%) are still on 1080p, or how HDR is nowhere near as advanced on PC as it is on consoles due to conflicts by Nvidia and Windows unable to agree to a set standard, nor how Nvidia has stagnated hardware for most of the last decade. High frame rate support is brilliant, yes, and of course games should be designed with that in mind but again, according to the stats, roughly around 85% of PC Gamers are still only using 60Hz. Most things you're blaming on "Consolization" either originated on PC or has nothing to do with consoles and time and time again you've come out and said some utter bullsh*t, sorry to say, how old are you? You keep attempting to sound smart and "one up" but all you're putting forward is what you think and seem to spout as truth, which contradicts the actual past, goes against what myself and others have experienced and goes against what people working in the industry say.

 

There isn't much else to add here, yes be angry at developers and publishers who deserve it when they release rushed hack jobs, but there's no need to be angry at everything, go and enjoy this robust time period of PC Gaming, you don't want to waste your time being constantly sad and angry and overly cynical because you've set in your mind some weird impossible standards that no new game release will meet and yet you've deluded yourself into thinking games in the past did meet, because trust me, only the good is remembered from that era, there was plenty broken and in a much worse state than most games these days.

[Dryspace]

3 hours ago, Ash_735 said:

 Plus the fact that your list includes games that pretty much ran fine to perfect on PC where most problems originated via the DRM just again salts your opinion

You keep blatantly misunderstanding me or misrepresenting what I say. You seem to be assuming I'm talking only about performance, i.e. framerates, or maybe crashing. You are responding to the words you put in my mouth, instead of my own words. What did I actually say?

 

I said that increasingly I had problems getting games into a playable state. That includes many, many possible issues such as:

 

* Too-low FOV

* Mouse acceleration

* Negative mouse acceleration

* Mouse/input latency

* Inability to rebind keys or bind certain keys

* Texture pop-in due to streaming issues

* LOD issues

* No proper antialiasing

* Inability to adjust mouse sensitivity

* Improper mouse sensitivity on ADS

* Toggle crouch instead of hold-to-crouch (Toggle is designed for controllers)

* Etc., etc.

 

3 hours ago, Ash_735 said:

seriously you think DOOM 2016 is technically flawed on PC?

That depends on what you mean by "technically flawed"? If you mean broken, or a bad game, not at all. It does have a complete lack of true antialiasing though, which is a result of idTech switching to deferred rendering in order to accomodate the limitations of console HW.

 

DOOM 2016 is technically a good game beside the absence of AA, and much less of a problem than most other games that I mentioned. In fact, I'll even admit that I probably shouldn't have included it. I started having to keep notes on technical issues with games, and just quickly went through my files to get examples.

 

The need for AA varies depending upon resolution, display size, and viewing distance. Aliasing is not near as big of a problem in the console market, as viewing distances are typically much farther than on PC.

 

3 hours ago, Ash_735 said:

-SNIP- Bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with anything I've ever mentioned -SNIP-

...but there's no need to be angry at everything,

Lol, I'm shaking my head here. Would you like to copy/paste the text that you think demonstrates anger? What are you talking about?

 

3 hours ago, Ash_735 said:

you've deluded yourself into thinking games in the past did meet

You are something else, lol. There is no delusion. I know exactly what the PC games that got me excited enough to build my first gaming PC are like. I still play them every couple of years, just as I play my favorite post-2007 console games every couple of years. The differences between games that were designed specifically for the PC market and games that were designed for the console market are blatant and numerous. You are not interested in understanding the reality I'm describing though. You are only interested in pretending I'm talking about "how much better things were in the old days" when I wasn't even gaming then.

 

Get this: I never said anything about everything being better pre-2008 and everything being crappy afterward. If you want to talk about better, well then I'm talking about how much better things would be now if in addition to AAA games designed for the console market, we also had AAA games designed specifically for the PC market. As you're not paying attention to me though, I guess I will admit defeat.

[Ash_735]

4 hours ago, Dryspace said:

As you're not paying attention to me though, I guess I will admit defeat.

I mean since I'm apparently not the first person in this thread alone to not understand your galaxy brain posts, maybe, perhaps, you just suck at getting your point across? You type a lot of words to say nothing in an attempt to sound smart and articulate, which is fancy I'll admit but once again, as Jason said, you've dodge responding to actual points made and keep moving the goal posts. Whatever though man, keep up the practice and one day you'll be writing for politics

[Jason]

"whereas now AAA development = console development."

"And now there are no games developed specifically for PC HW and the sensibilities of the PC market."

 

This is the point I addressed, I haven't cherry picked anything to prove I'm right, that's what you are doing. What I did was link to the Death Stranding thread where this same conversation happened where I listed games and franchises that are made for PC and are generally considered AAA titles by the industry. AAA has no specific requirements, generally it's attributed to games to games with high production and marketing costs but it's not a case of "game must cost at least X much to make" or "game must be made by at least X amount of developers", the AAA description is simply given to games by the people in the industry if they believe it to classify as AAA, the games I listed are considered by most (if not all in some cases) of the industry to be AAA, therefore they are AAA. This is indisputable, hard fact, this is reality, as you like to say. So, that is one of your biggest claims dead in the water and it was made with my very first post in the thread.

 

Since then you've chosen to get off-track and cherry pick things to try and prove that you're right, while ignoring the evidence I have already given in my first post in this discussion.

 

You also dismissed MMO's from your "no AAA games are made for the PC market" belief for reasons related to console gaming, stating that they are not included because they are made for PC. I'm sure I've of course "misunderstood" this, but this to me says you've dismissed MMO's as an example of AAA games that are made for PC because they are AAA games made for PC. You are either unable to put together a coherent thought or, as Ash says, you have absolutely no idea how to get your point across.

 

Further, once I proved that they were in fact made for consoles too and have had a history of this since consoles had online capabilities, you then dismissed them again because "they are PC centered", which again is admitting they are made for PC but ya'know, moving goalposts.

 

When I presented an example of Half Life Alyx as an AAA PC title, you dismissed this for no reason. When pressed on it, your response was "that's an AAA VR title, I obviously wasn't talking about that!". This was never stated until I proved, with evidence, that the game is considered an AAA title. Moving goalposts.

 

If what you're actually saying is that there are no AAA titles made for PC that interest you then it is a very reasonable thing to say, if you are saying that there are no AAA titles made for PC period, you have been proven wrong on that. If you're trying to connect your statement that no AAA titles are made for PC to your idea of a "Great Consolization", the two are not mutually inclusive.

 

I really have no desire to argue it any further because it's nothing more than beating a dead horse on my end.

[Dryspace]

10 hours ago, Ash_735 said:

...maybe, perhaps, you just suck at getting your point across?

That's exactly what I'm thinking. Whatever else is true, I clearly have done a terrible job at explaining this.

 

10 hours ago, Ash_735 said:

you've dodge responding to actual points made...

Now, look! You've gone and broke your glass house! Tsk, tsk...

 

@Jason

 

There are several fundamental concepts that you and others are for whatever reason not understanding (and I promise I will stop at this post, as beside side-tracking this thread, I've failed to communicate my point):

 

* The industry change that I refer to as the 'Great Consolization of 2008' happened. I understand the name may trigger a reaction in certain people, but that is not my intent. It is a reality, regardless of any exceptions, and regardless of any mistakes or failures on my part to argue the point.

 

If I said something careless such as that no AAA games have been designed for PC HW and the sensibilities of the PC market, and that is false, that only means that I made a mistake--it does not magically invalidate the overall reality. When a person says something like, "Trucks are heavier than cars", and then stupidly makes the classic blunder, "You won't find any car that's heavier than a truck", the only thing he does is open himself to being proved wrong. What he doesn't do is somehow instantly invalidate his point.

 

A real change occurred, precipitated by factors such as misunderstandings about piracy, greed, and an arguably much more legitimate fear that the PC market was dwindling. It happened, and it had--and still has--very real consequences for the design and direction of AAA games.

 

* The very conception and design of games is affected as much or more by the sensibilities of the target market than by the nature and limitations of the target hardware. This is a key concept that the "developer" you refer to admitted that he did not understand at all:

 

" What does this even means? Sensibilities of PC market? You mean it works well with mouse and keyboard? Because that is literally the only fundamental difference between consoles and PCs."

 

He was arguing a subject he didn't even understand. Even between Playstation and XBox there is traditionally a well-understood difference in market sensibilities, mostly centering around the genres & gameplay styles that are favored and expected by either market. I'd say there's a greater difference between the Nintendo market and the PS/XB markets. And as I've said before, these markets clearly overlap to some extent.

 

The traditional differences between the PC market and the console market are (were) far greater than differences between console markets. The very genres that are favored, the camera perspective that is favored/expected for a particular genre, what is expected of the player, overall difficulty, the use of cover systems, the use of QTEs, etc., etc. And these are things that are separate from the many, many fundamental gameplay design choices that result from differences in HW and input device.

 

I just don't understand how you can insist that a change such as this would have little or no effect on the very nature of the games that are released. The same situation--differing only in degree--would exist if there had been a shift toward AAA development being focused on the Wii HW and Wii market, both of which were not the same as the HW and markets of the PS & XB. PS & XB gamers would start finding that games are fundamentally different: Gameplay that is obviously designed from the ground up for motion control and often controlling poorly with the standard input devices of the PS/XB, games not taking full advantage of their HW, gameplay being designed to cater to a demographic that is different from that of the PS/XB, etc.

 

The shift in AAA development occurred. Nothing, including my own failures, changes that.

[Jason]

Okay now you've just about chucked the idea of there being no AAA games being developed/released for PC out the window, just about anyway, that discussion is over. Dead in the water.

 

If we're talking was there a point since 2008-2010 when multiplatform AAA games, for the most part, were designed with console in mind to the detriment of the PC versions that is something I do not inherently disagree with, however I strongly believe it is an opinion that's about six or even years out of touch. One of the developers and game franchises that are universally regarded as one of the most influential games and studios of the past decade is From Software and their Soulsborne games, these are titles that originated on console and are famed for their difficulty, challenge, incredibly high skill ceilings and depth. These games have influenced the AAA industry perhaps more than any other game in the past decade as suddenly things like difficulty, deep and complex combat, in-depth itemisation, RPG aspects and level design have become a huge focus in games made by what you would typically refer to as the console centric publishers.

 

Secondly, the concept of "meta" in video games, ie using the absolute best combinations of skills, weapons, abilities, tactics and mechanics have accelerated to the forefront of all competitive games and even some non-competitive. This has happened due to the rise of things like Twitch, YouTube, reddit and various other social medias with what you would traditionally call the casual console audience, the people that the very same publishers were "dumbing" down games down for in recent years, to use a blunt term. Through these sites casual gamers have learned the best ways to play the game, leading to the general level of competitiveness in all competitive console games (sports games like Fifa, shooters like Fortnite and Call of Duty) sky rocketing over the past few years. We have been seeing controller based players compete with mouse and keyboard based players in shooters at the very highest level of competitive play in some games in recent years. This has led to an overall increase in complexity in player s vs player competitive titles in particular, but it is also something that bled into the above mentioned Souls game, as well as many other challenging titles that have become more and more common in the past few years.

 

The idea that things need to be "dumbed" down, changed, or just in any way simply catered to the console market to the detriment of the PC version/market in anyway shape or form is a once genuine and reasonable thought, but it has been all but defunct for years and I suspect in the upcoming generation, dead completely.

 

I will give you that Nintendo consoles absolutely do have a different market that you need to account for when developing games, but the lines between the PC, Xbox and Playstation markets have blurred completely in recent years to the point that it is simply not needed to decide what market you're aiming for when you're making games for the three mentioned platforms, if the game is good customers of all three platforms will purchase it, and this is one of the many reasons why AAA gaming on PC is in the best state it's been in a long time, because we are now getting (with growing frequency), multiplatform games that (in some cases proudly) play best on PC because of the control input options, higher resolutions, greater visual quality and higher frame rate.

 

To summarise, the idea of your "Great Consolisation", which is a name that I do not personally take issue with, is not something that I think didn't necessarily happen to a degree 10-12 years ago, it is however something that has been phased out of games developed for PC, PlayStation and Xbox and this has been proven by a large upsurge in new games that promote difficulty, complexity and depth in all aspects of the game, with many of them being some of the most successful, revered and best selling games on PC and console of the past decade.

[Dryspace]

20 hours ago, Jason said:

Okay now you've just about chucked the idea....

I promised I wouldn't post any more, but this is it. This is a real promise, unlike the last one.

 

Again, you're not right about my claim re: AAA games. I've always said--and can post proof from this site and elsewhere--that my claim did not include certain genres. You realize that you can legitimately disagree about whether those genres should be included--or that if I'm trying to acknowledge a difference, that 'AAA' is the wrong designation--but you can't claim I'm moving the goalposts? That would mean that my basal claim was refuted. What I did admit is that if I said anything like "no AAA games...", then I simply made the mistake of undermining my point by using hyperbole. And I admit that I've done a poor job of arguing, such that my point may have been confused/obscured.

 

I still hear a separate point being argued, along the lines of "things are better now", when that is not my point. I--and many other people, believe it or not--disagree with you. But that shouldn't be surprising, as the only thing I was explaining is what happened. I've never argued or insisted, "No, really...things suck now! You're wrong if you don't think they suck!". Obviously how you feel about the changes are a matter of preference. But they happened, and are still very much an issue for certain people. A person can still enjoy games designed for the console market while very much wishing there were still AAA games designed for the PC market

 

I don't see how you can say that PC & console markets have blurred completely. I do agree that there is a blurring for one reason: the simple fact that it's been so long since most of the major genres have had an actual PC release. In that sense, of course things are blurred, as there are people now who have only experienced a AAA PC FPS/TPS/RPG/Adventure game via ~15-yr-old releases. I would suggest that DOOM 2016 is a case in point re: market sensibilities. It's not a PC game of course, but a big reason it was considered so unique is its being far more designed around PC gameplay standards--a breath of fresh air for some people. The gameplay is still console market-borne in many ways, and it is significantly limited by its deferred rendering solution, console baseline graphics, and a complete lack of AA.

 

Unless we have AAA games that are designed for the PC market and also released on consoles (I don't expect "exclusives"), in addition to the opposite which constitutes the general post-2007 reality, then I don't see how the situation can be said to have disappeared, even if it may be alleviated somewhat. If this reality were a financial necessity, then I would have no cause for complaint. If you can't make money, that's the end of it. But that's part of what makes the entire situation so grating.

[Jason]

Well, I could write up another big post about how I continue to disagree with you, list more examples of titles that have been designed for the PC market that have excelled on console (namely, any of the current highly popular FPS and third person titles that aren't named Call of Duty, there are several).

 

But, for one reason or another, I think we could go on for weeks so, agree to disagree and all that.

[Dryspace]

9 minutes ago, Jason said:

But, for one reason or another, I think we could go on for weeks so, agree to disagree and all that.

I accept your admission of defeat. I mean agreement to disagree!

[Ash_735]

4 hours ago, Dryspace said:

I accept your admission of defeat. I mean agreement to disagree!

I mean stuff like this is what makes you look like an entitled asshole, sorry for being blunt but reading this even in a neutral stance you still come off as the weirdo who's experience in gaming is still relatively new. The fact of this is, most of the things you described as the great consolization are honestly just cinematic third person titles, which boomed during the seventh console generation. Whilst yes, you can dislike that genre and it's influence, you're blaming the wrong thing for that, popular genres and influences change over time, it's like blaming PC Gaming for the death of side scrolling beat em ups, or blaming handheld gaming for the death of arcade racers. Those fell out of fashion but the examples I'm blaming have nothing to do with it.