PC Gaming Alliance Officially Announced [Archive]

Chewbenator

02-20-2008, 10:36 AM

Well Piracy is, but I'll be interested what solution they come to.

Subscriptions ala MMOs do help against piracy, but can only be applicable for certain games. If they went with a subscription method for single and multiplayer games that are not MMOs I would be against it. But, with the Bioshock fiasco in hand companies need to be very cautious with what kind of piracy protection they go with. I think it would have been less of a big deal if they had included more allocations for different computers and could reasonably assure that if you reinstall windows or add/exchange components it would still work on the computer.

Also, systems like Steam (after they work out the kinks and everything ala the first years of Steam) are good ways to increase actual sales. If the PC gaming industry can pull ahead in a good way with digital distribution I think they can improve sales numbers.

saaya

02-20-2008, 10:39 AM

some great spoken words there..honestly:mr saaaya... (n+1 to what...24k232?)

+2 :moon: :D

schnulli

02-20-2008, 10:40 AM

u me toooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo :D german nazi kraut :P

Miwo

02-20-2008, 10:47 AM

How about lack of innovation, as well as ridiculous system requirements? It is FAR cheaper for the average Joe to buy a single console and never having to worry about upgrading hardware until the next platform comes around. PS2 lasted for what....7 years?
IMO, having to need to upgrade a video card every 2-3 years to play rehashes of the same old sh1t gets old quick :cough: Crysis...

schnulli

02-20-2008, 10:51 AM

SafeFire

02-20-2008, 11:06 AM

Miwo, you can't come to XS and expect people to not want to upgrade.
That's like posting on a football fanclub forum and argue that there is no point in going to matches in other countries when you could watch the club play on their home stadium near you.

schnulli

02-20-2008, 11:16 AM

or: it's like masturbating in front of a mirror...ups. :eek:

YukonTrooper

02-20-2008, 11:43 AM

Seems kind of interesting. I thought Epic just announced they were pulling out of the PC gaming arena?
Said they were putting it on hold. Obviously they are concerned about the direction PC gaming is taking, so it makes sense for them to join this "alliance".

schnulli

02-20-2008, 12:12 PM

no, epic did join the gfw party with gof; so now they are bound to the confession they do not wanna be count to?

JargonGR

02-20-2008, 02:21 PM

How about making all games cheaper? Especially the :banana::banana::banana::banana:ty ones..The must realize that not all of their games deserve full price (they do in sense through how fast the go to the bargain bin).

But honestly, piracy in PCs has become too easy..not that Wii and xbox360 don't have it but lets say that it is a bit more difficult to do it.

I am really not optimistic about PC gaming in the future. Just wait 1-2 console generations and watch die completely. In the future even game controls will be so evolved that a mouse and keyboard will be archaic and inefficient. And as consoles are becoming like PCs there will be little point in having an office tool for entertainment purposes unless they come up with solutions that integrate PCs with the main Home entertainment center (like HTPCs).

Secondly they need to make PC games more plug and play- I have seen a bootable version of Tomb Raider Legend (or Anivers..don't remember).

Finally they need a way to make piracy harder... maybe introduce an online hardware check system or a GAME BDR DRIVE for games only. I am just saying...

The key here though is convergence....of TV, Internet, Telecoms, Living Room, Movies, Music and Games, All in a nice digital living, smart home, e-shopping, e-entertainment with a nice fat subscrption to make all work.

I would not be surprise if gaming in the future is like electricity and comes as part of a bigger subscription integrated to a utility service that we all need.

Just some raw thoughts.

thephenom

02-20-2008, 03:17 PM

Drunner611

02-20-2008, 04:13 PM

Maybe they got tired of piracy?
Because that IS exactly what is killing the PC industry.

I would argue that the problem is that no one wants to play pc games these days because they can play them on a console instead. Games are simply being ported from console to pc instead of the other way around. If developers cared enough to make games strictly for pc, they wouldn't be in this sales slump.

Speederlander

02-20-2008, 04:21 PM

Practically every game for PC can be pirated except for a few pay-to-play. People can deny this has an effect all they want and people can claim that most people actually end up paying for their pirated games (which isn't the case), but the current thought process is that movies, music and software should simply be free because free is good and (insert pat excuse about bad recording, hating RIAA, getting even, etc. here). :shrug:

THE JEW (RaVeN)

02-20-2008, 04:29 PM

Nice to see all the big guys working together to see how they can continue the growth of PC gaming. As much as consoles are good, there's always something that makes PC better, just can't describe it.

The same rationale Mac users have when buying their products? ;)

And, yes, I'm being the Devil's Advocate to stimulate conversation.

ownage

02-20-2008, 04:51 PM

The only reason why the PC gaming platform has the most illegal copy's, is that you have full access to you're computer, while an console is restricted. It's much harder to crack the security of a console.

In my opinion the quality of games gets lower and lower. In the old days you had cool games like quake or Duke Nukem 3D. Now in these days developers hold an battle against each other to make the most graphical game. Most people look forward to a game title when they have seen high definition graphics. Crysis is a huge title and lots of people have been waiting years to play it, but Crysis never equals any big title from the old days.
Why buy a game like Crysis for 60 euro/dollars, play trough the game within 10 hours and trow the game in the corner of the room? I'm almost done with gaming, except for a few online shooters and MMO's. They have to make games better then they are now, otherwise pc gaming sure will die.

Imagine Crysis a bit less graphical and you would need 20 hours to play trough it?, that would be better. Lets have a look at Oblivion, still one of the most graphical games, but Berthesda Software managed to make missions for a 230 hour gameplay. If more games would be more like Oblivion people also would be more willing to pay for games.

thephenom

02-20-2008, 06:44 PM

The same rationale Mac users have when buying their products? ;)

And, yes, I'm being the Devil's Advocate to stimulate conversation.

haha, I totally don't mind.

I have a PS3 myself, and play with my friend's 360 from time to time, but I'm still more of a PC gamer myself.

I hate the long load time both console has, it's stupid when I need to wait like 3 minutes for a race to load in Forza, and pretty stupid if I need to wait a lengthy period of time to simulate a game in NHL 08.

Graphics, as much as PS3 supports 1080p, not very many games outputs at that resolution, so you're basically stuck with 720p on both console. I think I much prefer gaming at 1920x1200.

And of course, there's the whole controller vs kb/mouse issue. I played CoD4 on both 360 and PC, and I personally find the PC version more engaging.

I'm sure next gen consoles will offer improvements over the two, but these are some of the grudges I have against current gen and previous gen console.

STEvil

02-20-2008, 06:51 PM

I dont understand why people like Oblivion?

Its just Heroes of Might and Magic 7 (or whatever) that looks better with different races..

ferrari_freak

02-20-2008, 07:31 PM

I dont understand why people like Oblivion?

Its just Heroes of Might and Magic 7 (or whatever) that looks better with different races..

I've never played it, but according to a friend of mines who was addicted to it a while back, it is because it is so engaging while still having the graphics and eye candy offered by most other games. Most games today look pretty, but are not nearly fun enough, the player never feels that they are part of the action. And even when they do, it ends after a few hours (look at Portal). Ever wonder why Nintendo games sell so much even though they are nothing in comparison to what PS3/Xbox 360 have to offer in terms of graphics? There's more to it than them costing 2/3 the cost...

P.S. I own a 360 so I'm not backing the Wii, just throwing a point out there. And I hate the crap code that went into Forza 2...... but the amount of things I have to say about it is enough for me to create a new thread lol :rolleyes:

superbowtie

02-20-2008, 07:57 PM

You know it makes me sick to think that PC gaming might die. I know the community pushes for better graphics more then game play, but one think I haven't figured out yet, is how do I put my n64 cartridge in a PS3? Hell I can still fire up and play quake 3 with my 3870. :yepp: I'm not a big console guy so maybe I just don't know any better but is there ton's of mods to download for ps3 and 360 games? Do the developers offer editors to build your own maps/missions? In 2 minutes I can modify the shotgun in Crysis to blow guys 20 feet back!(single player)

Plus, when I play against my friends on my system that I built, maintain, and customize, there is a level of pride that comes with every kill that I can't feel when I pick up a controller. I think consoles limit creativity. And if they succeed in killing off the PC gaming world, I feel the prices will sky rocket on new console systems.

and Finally. Give me a mouse or give me a frag!:up:

adamsleath

02-20-2008, 08:05 PM

so what if pc games are only 15% of the games market.

the first and last console i had was the original atari :lol:

and piracy doesnt help

Speederlander

02-20-2008, 09:16 PM

and piracy doesnt help

I thought piracy was a birthright?

Kingcarcas

02-21-2008, 12:49 AM

Maybe they should experiment with a $30 price point. :confused: Somebody at the store will notice "Zomggzerz this game is half price on PC compared to consoles. Plus if i upgrade my PC i will have better graphics" :up: Piracy will never end, even with things that are cheap like CDs ($10)

G80

02-21-2008, 12:54 AM

Piracy will only slow down and maybe stop when people cant upload files to torrent and P2P sites. When even avarage joe can upload software without to much trouble. That says alot about how easily piracy operates, right infront of the creators. Much like a burglar sells your stuff infront of your house.

Neova

02-21-2008, 12:57 AM

I'm skeptical about the union of this:

It will focus on driving coordinated marketing and promotion of PC gaming,

Magazines, internet and others already does a great job at this. Will they pump money into "outside of the market" media to promote gaming = TV, radio, non-gaming mags, women and lifestyle mags, etc...?

Doubt it.

consistent and accurate reporting of PC gaming market sizing and research,

Good thing to monitor your sales and to determine the viability of the platform or not.

and creating forums for member companies to cooperate on solutions to challenges facing the PC gaming industry, such as hardware requirements,

Really do need to standardize the target minimum specs here to ease developers for all of their games:

Minimum - absolute mimimum specs to enjoy the game at low settings. No slideshow systems less than 25 FPS - Wii/Xbox/Ps2 level performance at ~ 720P or 1280x762 res
Medium - absolute mimimum specs to enjoy the game at meduim settings. XBOX360 and PS3 levels at 720P/1080i res or 1600x1200 res
High - absolute mimimum specs to enjoy the game at high + settings. 1080p or 1900x1200 res
Custom - anything the user can tweak between or above each setting.

Developers can optimize for these targets and have more consistant performance across the board for their games, than try to cater to every configuration. If the game runs too slow, users can set the game into any of the above settings and tweak again for balance of quality vs performance, but they at least can play the game!

anti-piracy, and more. PCGA will develop and promote guidelines and recommendations and foster information sharing between members to accelerate the PC gaming industry.

Wonder if they will really share their feedback with each other.

And why isn't EA, Blizzard or Valve involved in this group? They have collected so much info from user's system and feedback already that I bet are immensely valuble to help create standards right now. Well, at least Valve publishes their info publically. It looks like the industry players who don't know what their audience plays with are the ones grouping up.

Seems like the should just improve the game performance measuring tool from the "Games for Windows" website so the group can target the systems correctly instead.

RaZz!

02-21-2008, 01:13 AM

"Microsoft is a strong believer in the PC as a platform for gaming, and the formation of PCGA is a major step forward for our industry and for PC gamers [...]"

i found that sentence a little bit funny. it's quite obvious why ms pushes gaming on the pc. without pc gaming a lot of people would dump their windows and switch to linux instead.

nonetheless i'm glad these companies realized that pc gaming has lost a lot of popularity.
hopefully this will help both sides. :)

Jaivan

02-21-2008, 01:43 AM

i found that sentence a little bit funny. it's quite obvious why ms pushes gaming on the pc. without pc gaming a lot of people would dump their windows and switch to linux instead.

nonetheless i'm glad these companies realized that pc gaming has lost a lot of popularity.
hopefully this will help both sides. :)

That is so true pc gaming is one of the few things holding me to windows.

Syn.

02-21-2008, 03:47 AM

Piracy will always be there. What they need to do is offer us incentives to spend money on their games, i.e making a game that is actually worth the money.

I blame EA for rise in piracy. They where the #1 Publisher and at the same time all their games lacked quality and value. When most games that are released are so poor most people get pissed off so next time they release a game they will pirate it first because they feel that EA owes them for the last crappy game they paid premium for. To make matters worse the only thing they tried to do to combat piracy was release same poor games but with strickter DRM which in the end just annoyed the people that actually bought the games even more.

People will look for alternatives only if the current offering does not meet their needs. If a company is not meeting its customer needs then that company can not expect to be a healthy competitor in that consumer market. Its a simple business rule, meet the market demand. Currently the games market is overpopulated with poor games, you would think they would figure out that maybe there is strong demand for high quality games?

Today large portion of PC games market is supported by subscription based games, that figure is omitted from all market statistics. The other statistc that i am unsure of is online distribution like Steam, last two games i bought i got off Steam (TR: Legend and Audiosurf, Orange Box before that). PC gamers are still here, some might say in even higher numbers. The only difference is that we are still playing games from last few years, the ones that where actually made for our PC's.

I had a looked through PC release chart and i can say that out of 200 games that are to be released less then 10 peek my intrest enough for me to actually look into them.

Frontlines: Fuel of War, ET meets BF, made by guys that brought you the DesertComabat mod for BF1942.
Tom Clancy's EndWar, still waiting to see how it looks.
Age Of Conan, looks like a good MMO but the story is not really attractive to me.
Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway, moh and cod who?
The Wheelman, probably a game that will take over from the Driver series.
Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising, says it all.
Tomb Raider: Underworld, core is gone and TR is back, continues from Legend.

Now those i am quite sure i might buy but these not so sure.

FarCry 2
Tiberium
C&C Kane's Wrath
Spore
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction

i also came across a game called Overclocked (http://www.play.com/Games/PC/4-/5100634/Overclocked/Product.html) and got quite excited only to find that has nothing to do with overclocking.

SafeFire

02-21-2008, 05:37 AM

JargonGR

02-21-2008, 09:59 AM

You know, if PC gaming does shut down at some point, then it's not like pirates are going to say "oh well, that was fun, now lets go buy console games".
They're just going to start pirating console games instead, and pirating will go underground again, like it once was.

Unfortunately XBOX 360 and Wii copies are so easy to make (save for the chip in Wii and firmware flash in XBOX) even today. Not to the extend of making it mainstream but it is heading this way. Movies on the other hand are the mp3s of 2008.

Speederlander

02-21-2008, 11:23 AM

Syn.

02-21-2008, 03:17 PM

ROFLMAO, it's the game company's fault that we steal their stuff. :rolleyes:

Yes, would you like to tell why you think they arent?

superbowtie

02-21-2008, 04:37 PM

Well actually I agree with Syn. It's their greed but also my greed that is to be blamed for piracy. If games were not 50 bucks I'd be more inclined to buy.. Without check them out first. heck if they were 30 and had great game play like 20+ hours of COD4 but another campaign that tied into the current story line! Or How about Crysis but with an Easy map editor so a 10 year old could make maps and missions! Heck I’d shell out 60 bucks for two different games like that. I'd get my 40+ of playtime and they would make 10 dollars more out of me.

Honestly there should be some kind of board of review that preview the games and pick the price based on quality of the game!

Xbox was so easy to pirate, you rented games and could copy them to the hard drive with the right software. I never owned one but half my college friends did that. :rofl:

Speederlander

02-21-2008, 04:50 PM

snip

Anonymous Pirate on Internet Soapbox:
"It's the music maker's fault I steal their music. They have bad quality!
It's the movie studio's fault I steal their movies. They support DRM!
It's the game maker's fault I steal their games. They charge too much and they are making bad games!
It's the software maker's fault I steal their software/operating system/etc. It doesn't do what I need it to do and they have bad copy protection and I don't like them either!"

Same Anonymous Pirate at Home:
"Woohoo! Free stuff!!"

That's all it is. Nothing more, nothing less.

Syn.

02-21-2008, 05:14 PM

Anonymous Pirate on Internet Soapbox:
"It's the music maker's fault I steal their music. They have bad quality!
It's the movie studio's fault I steal their movies. They support DRM!
It's the game maker's fault I steal their games because they charge too much and they are making bad games!
It's the software maker's fault I steal their software/operating system/etc. because it doesn't do what I need it to do and they have bad copy protection and I don't like them either!"

Same Anonymous Pirate at Home:
"Woohoo! Free stuff!!"

That's all it is. Nothing more, nothing less.

So you are saying that people do not mind paying premium for a game that lacks quality, innovation, entertainment and value? A game which most drastic change to its predecessor is the number in its title?

Piracy has been and still is same as it was, the only thing that changes is its popularity. That means that there is a psychological element to factor in, customer satisfaction is one of most important psychological measurements that can be used. If people feel that the game is not worth their money they will offcourse get it for free.

Which means if you try and bring more value into the game more people will be inclined to pay for it then to pirate it. Do note that you have to also make it easier or just as easy for the paying customer to fully experience your game compared to the experience non-paying customer receives from getting a pirated copy. This offcourse means less intrusive DRM.

Currently people mentally believe that any game developer that uses DRM and moans about piracy is just after their money and do not mind selling the consumer absolute rubbish to get it. Game developers must first change public's opinion about piracy then just impose stricter rules on to those people that actually purchase the game.

Once they have achieved that you will find that Piracy will decrease even though nothing about Piracy it self has changed.

Speederlander

02-21-2008, 05:21 PM

So you are saying that people do not mind paying premium for a game that lacks quality, innovation, entertainment and value? A game which most drastic change to its predecessor is the number in its title?

Don't play it!!! Is this rocket science or something?

Those are silly excuses to justify stealing something, excuses either to make you feel better about it or to convince other people you "really aren't stealing" or both. If you are going to steal stuff, at least have the cajones to admit it and not hide behind lame excuses. You want stuff and you don't want to pay and it's easy to get. So you take it, you don't pay for it, and you make every excuse in the book about how you are somehow justified.

superbowtie

02-21-2008, 07:35 PM

Didn't say it wasn't stealing. I just gave some reasons why piracy has increased over the years. It’s Greed on both sides. Customers want to maximize their $ to fun ratio and companies see crack addiction in another form and want to throw out a product just to feed the need not the expectation of people. There will always be people who steal to steal. I'm tired of getting stiffed for 50 bucks only to find a game that SUCKS.

I guess you go buy a car without a test drive too. Probably use EBay to buy your next car. guess you've never drove a friends car to see if you like it huh?:up:

Speederlander

02-21-2008, 07:43 PM

I guess you go buy a car without a test drive too. Probably use EBay to buy your next car. guess you've never drove a friends car to see if you like it huh?:up:

Ok, let's run with your comparison.

Do you steal a car from the dealer lot for a test drive and then return it? Would that be ok? That's the equivalent, NOT your example of a simple "test drive". Further, are you honestly claiming that most of the people stealing games actually turn around and go buy a copy after playing it? I have a bridge to sell you...

No one is talking about going to your friends house to play a game, nor are they talking about borrowing the game from your friend to try it out. What we ARE talking about is cracking the game so thousands of people can play without ever paying a cent and sharing those cracked copies with as many people as possible.

superbowtie

02-21-2008, 08:26 PM

No the fact of the matter is I don't have to steal a car to test drive. A car dealer has enough foresight to let people TRY their product before asking for some cash. Game companies have us over a barrel on price to what they put out and anymore they don't care they have consoles to make games for if we don't buy their games for pc. Yes driving off after the test drive is stealing. :rofl: so on some aspects I think we have been in agreement.
I sort of view it like this some people do steal it cause they don't want to pay, some people download to try it out prior to purchase because the price for any game is so inflated due to the game companies Greed. Are both groups’ pirates? I don't feel so

Speederlander

02-21-2008, 08:37 PM

No the fact of the matter is I don't have to steal a car to test drive. A car dealer has enough foresight to let people TRY their product before asking for some cash.
And if they don't let you drive their car for whatever reason do you have a right to come back later and steal it out of the lot for a test drive? If a game company disapproves of people cracking and distributing their software (and to a company all of them do) that makes the people doing it thieves. End of story. No grey area.

Game companies have us over a barrel on price to what they put out....
Games aren't food, nor are they gas, nor are they medicine. You are perfectly free NOT to buy a game. It is not remotely a requirement for anything but you having fun. Therefore the game companies have no one over a barrel. Not a single person. You choose to THINK they have you over a barrel so you can justify stealing games.

...and anymore they don't care they have consoles to make games for if we don't buy their games for pc.
So you admit this activity kills PC games (or contributes to it) and drives the game companies to console. Nice. Well, at least you get what you want NOW, the future be damned. :up:

I sort of view it like this some people do steal it cause they don't want to pay, some people download to try it out prior to purchase because the price for any game is so inflated due to the game companies Greed. Are both groups’ pirates? I don't feel so
Of course both are pirates. By downloading you have acquired a stolen copy and additionally you are assisting and supporting the practice of distributing stolen copies. :shrug:

Thund3rb1rd

02-21-2008, 09:15 PM

I remember before mp3 was a household name, I was ripped entire albums off of NNTP. Then, when napster came out, I was like :shocked: , this is SO going to blow up in their (napster's) face! I knew from the first hour of using it.

I say that, to say this:

It's my opinion that the price point of games has not created the piracy, but only made it worse. People would have been pirating the games anyway, but they cost more than a lot of people are willing to GAMBLE on. Because: (1) they might not like (2) it might not have any replay-ability (3) their system might not be powerful enough to run it well. Demos of the game will only answer variable 3, demos can tell you nothing about 1 or 2. Now if all of those were false with every game at, and above, $50 I would have no problem paying outright for them. But, since more often than not one of the three exist, I'm going to test it first for it's value.

Now on to consoles. All I have to say here is. You're next! Better stock up on some AstroGlide. If PC gaming takes a dive, the hackers and crackers will need something else to fuel their desires. It is too easy to mod a console. I haven't owned one since the Super Nintendo, but I have seen solderless mod chips for ps2/xbox. Too lazy to google to see if any exist for ps3/wii. However, the more popular consoles become, the faster mods will be made.

Not saying it's right. Just saying, that's the way it is. :yepp:

RPGWiZaRD

02-21-2008, 09:37 PM

PC Gaming > the rest. If you want you can also play on emulators and there are even a working PS2 emulator today. :up:

I've been interested in emulation for a long time myself, remember when I first tried playing some nes roms back in 1998.

xenolith

02-21-2008, 11:59 PM

I sort of view it like this some people do steal it cause they don't want to pay, some people download to try it out prior to purchase because the price for any game is so inflated due to the game companies Greed. Are both groups’ pirates? I don't feel so

If your entertainment dollars are that tight, just wait three or four months. Most games go down in price by as much as 30% within that time. Heck, if you're just the least bit thrifty, you can usually find some pretty good deals immediately. I found Valve's The Orange Box for $37 (retailed for $50) @ Circuit City only five days after its release date.

And when your done playing your games, you can ebay them. I've been able to get at least half my money back that way.

There's always much better alternatives to stealing. I don't care if the gaming companies come to your house and kicks your dog or chokes your cat, there's nothing that justifies pirating.

Same Anonymous Pirate at Home:
"Woohoo! Free stuff!!"

That about sums it all up in a nutshell.

Syn.

02-22-2008, 07:06 AM

Don't play it!!! Is this rocket science or something?

Those are silly excuses to justify stealing something, excuses either to make you feel better about it or to convince other people you "really aren't stealing" or both. If you are going to steal stuff, at least have the cajones to admit it and not hide behind lame excuses. You want stuff and you don't want to pay and it's easy to get. So you take it, you don't pay for it, and you make every excuse in the book about how you are somehow justified.

You seem to keep misunderstanding me. I am not arguing that it is not theft or trying to justify it. I am trying to point out why people are more and more inclined into getting a pirated copy of the game instead of buying it. As said before Piracy is same as it always was, pirated games where always cheaper or completely free, but why has it become more popular over the years?

For my answer to that question you can read my previous reply but for now i just want to ask you this.

There are two facts that we know about PC gaming:

1. Over the last few years the Piracy levels have increased.
2. Over the last few years the DRM technology has become more complex and more restrictive.

Now if DRM was the solution to Piracy you would have believed that Piracy levels would have decreased as DRM's are developed further. But that is not the case, the one does not seem to relate to the other so something else is causing people to Pirate more then they did before.

Now here is one more fact for you to take in:

3. Over the years the overall quality and value of games has decreased dramatically.

The point here is not what is Piracy and whether we can justify it. The point that i have been trying to put across to you is why are people more willing to perform a criminal act then they where before.