What happened to the pc game industry?

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57 comments, last by Hodgman 12 years, 10 months ago

[quote name='Hodgman' timestamp='1305868797' post='4813336']
[quote name='Eurotic' timestamp='1305868377' post='4813331']Mouse + Keyboard just isnt made for games like FPS'
O_o
The mouse is the pinnacle of FPS input devices. I'd love to see an FPS match between pro-gamers using mice and game-pads.
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Did you ever play Shadowrun? It was on X-box and PC and I never lost to someone from PC, infact I found I was superior with the controller to all of them.
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Shadowrun is the most quoted example of why Console and PC players can't play FPS games with each other.
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[quote name='way2lazy2care' timestamp='1304945245' post='4808509']
[quote name='zedz' timestamp='1304925056' post='4808414']
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
According to Chart-Track, BC2 is the "best ever launch for any game released this early in the year." Interestingly, 53 percent of BC2 sales went to the Xbox 360 version, followed by 31 percent and 16 percent of sales for the PS3 and PC

http://www.joystiq.c...ng-of-uk-sales/


but again you come back to which is better, having 100% of sales when sales are 10% of what they could be, or 16% of sales when sales are 100% of what they could be?
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Aye, sorry I read that twice and I still dont understand what you mean :D

perhaps youre implying that even though the console sales dwarf the PC sales having those PC sales is better than not having them
OK on the face of it this sounds reasonable but also perhaps not, cause I can see the case being made if it was console only (where piracy is a lot less rampant, eg on the ps3 it didnt exist until a few months ago!) if ppl really wanted to play the game they would have to buy it for the console instead of pirating it on the PC.
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I do believe that piracy did play some part in driving the games market to the console but there were also 2 other factors that dwarf piracy in creating that trend.

1. The wide spread use of big screen TVs and wireless controllers. Its just a better experience to take a load off on your couch and play on your big screen TV. Even better if you have a good surround sound system. In comparison to sitting at a computer screen again, sitting on my couch and playing is a much more enjoyble experience.

2. Vista / Driver issues - Consoles are always easy. Turn on, pop a game in..and your playing in 60 seconds. Im tired of errors after updates on the PC. Then having to update my video drivers to ge things to work again.


There is a small resurgence in PC game sales thanks to steam but I suspect the total money spent on PC games compared to the whole industry is below 10%. With one caveat you have to discount money spent on WoW.

That being said I recently went back to playing on the PC...LoL has drawn me back. Although if it were available on a console Id go back to that in an instant.


Did you ever play Shadowrun? It was on X-box and PC and I never lost to someone from PC, infact I found I was superior with the controller to all of them.

Shadowrun is the most quoted example of why Console and PC players can't play FPS games with each other.
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I actually had a similar experience, but I think it was more attributed to the gameplay favoring dual analogue sticks. Shadowrun had very movement dependent gameplay, and with dual analogue sticks I think I could pull off some movements far simpler than I could with a mouse and keyboard. You probably still could do them with a mouse and keyboard, but they wouldn't have been as easy

Probably just as equally attributed to no good PC fps players playing shadowrun significantly.
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I would say it's the best one we've come up with so far. The keyboard is severely lacking as far as fps's are concerned though.


Belkin Nostromo. [/font]Not saying this particular example is brill, but keyboard (or equivalent) and mouse really is best, and if you find keyboards uncomfortable (let's face it, they were not designed with gaming in mind), there are more exotic alternatives. One potential contender would be the olde trackball system in terms of accuracy. Some still use them and prefer them over mice.

The Dual stick pad is a good all round controller (big fan of the 360 controller). A keyboard + mouse is less 'casual', I don't think the majority of console players would be prepared having to sit down in front of a keyboard / mouse just to get more accurate controls for their FPS needs.


[color="#1C2837"]It's actually interesting to note the movement pattern differences between people using the different controllers (mouse vs gamepad). I notice a lot of PC fps players tend to be much less careful about where they position themselves because they can compensate by turning quickly, where console fps players are often more careful about keeping their backs to walls while moving and pointing in the direction they are most likely to need to fire rather than necessarily the direction they are going as they have more directional freedom with their strafing.
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[color="#1C2837"]I find playing FPS games on joypads more claustrophobic and more restrictive. I love the freedom and responsiveness a mouse brings. I'd hate to play TF2 / Quake 3 on a joypad. Have fun rocket jumping with that one :)

[color="#1C2837"]PC games are here to stay. I don't have a console, and I don't find myself wanting for one. I have a 360 controller for console ports (3rd person, racing mostly), and play all the rest in glorious high quality 19200 x 1200, well over 60 fps. :) There's that too, where PC hardware will always be one step ahead of the consoles, and being a geek, I'm always following cutting edge technology (PC gamers bring big business). However, I exclusively buy my PC games on Steam. It's just so convenient, no clutter, games linked to your account wherever you are, less faffing about with copy protection...

[color="#1C2837"]PC gaming is moving to digital distribution, and consoles, I expect, will follow suite soon enough.

Everything is better with Metal.

[color="#1c2837"]PC games are here to stay. I don't have a console, and I don't find myself wanting for one. I have a 360 controller for console ports (3rd person, racing mostly), and play all the rest in glorious high quality [color="#ff0000"]19200 x 1200[color="#1c2837"], well over 60 fps. :)

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Please tell me you mistakenly added a zero... sad.gif

Do you have 10 monitors encompassing you in a circle? Or perhaps one of these?
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[font="arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif"]Belkin Nostromo. [/font]Not saying this particular example is brill, but keyboard (or equivalent) and mouse really is best, and if you find keyboards uncomfortable (let's face it, they were not designed with gaming in mind), there are more exotic alternatives. One potential contender would be the olde trackball system in terms of accuracy. Some still use them and prefer them over mice.

I would definitely say mouse>>right analogue stick, but the left analogue stick > WASD purely by the numbers. A 360 analogue stick can move you in 16 potential directions vs the WASD's 8. Keyboard shortcuts are good for games where you have a lot of weapons, but really in most games today you don't need them anymore. You have one main weapon, one secondary, and some grenade-like weapon. There's no reason you need a full keyboard for that.


Just looking at the reason why the keyboard was developed (for fast text input) should tell you that it is not the best option as a game control unless you're playing a text adventure. The mouse on the other hand, which was designed for rapid accurate traversal of computer interfaces makes the jump easily.


Personally I would like an accurate split motion controller with dual analogue (think a 360 controller cut in half where each half is a motion controller). I think that would be a serious contender against mouse/kb

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statistics, hey.

Everything is better with Metal.

what

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