I'm a game industry cynic

[tb87670]

Personally, I think the game industry has gone downhill real bad real fast. I have more good PC games on my 500Mhz 98SE computer than I do on my XP machine, a AMD 3000+ with GeForce 7600GT. And, those old games look 70% as clear as modern games yet run fast on 1/5th the CPU and no video or sound card! Add on the giant book like manuals that come with those games (Heavy Gear and Diablo came with books practically) and I have evidence when compared to modern games that we are being ripped off more and more as time passes by.

Heavy Gear takes up a little over 100MB HDD space and Total Annihilation takes up 35MB, my 5GB HDD is still under half filled counting all the others like MechWarrior 2 and whatnot. Stronghold runs fast enough to be playable with slowdowns when 100+ units are on screen, but not bad enough to ruin gameplay. Tropico 1+2 are fun depending on your mood, be a South American dictator or Pirate Lord? Kick in XCom which is awesomeness in 10MB that I still play repeatedly. Now for the only good game Sid Meyer made: Alpha Centauri + Alien Crossfire expansion. No need to explain that one, Civ meets sci-fi and you got a badass game that isn't corny. Do I need to mention Starcraft/Brood War running flawlessly on my machine as long as I defrag it once every other month?

In the past few years when the XBox faded out of existence and the PS2 is now considered a 3rd World console, the XBox 360 and PS3 have taken over and I am reluctant to buy them. My cousin has a 360 and a buddy has a PS3. I am not impressed with any of the games they have bought or rented. Halo was awesome when it came out, and still is the best of that series, but Halo 2 and Halo 3 pissed on the original and ruined what could've been the greatest game of all time. It certainly had the greatest budget. Gears of War, Resistance, GTA4, all these games fail to stack up to being decently fun. There are many others I don't want to mention to save time. I don't want to buy any consoles because they suck now.

I stick to PC's because Indies make games cheaper for PC and the only good games still coming out on the market are on Impulse and Steam. I'm waiting only for Left4Dead and HL2:EP3 and saving up now for Space Rangers 2 Reboot from Stardock, that is a badass fix/expansion of SR2 a very good retro but new game.

The following sums up my feeling about the game industry as a whole:

They are boning us by making crappier games that need more hardware each passing generation and yet charging more for each game and console to unproportionate prices that exceeds compensation for the deflation of the US dollar. Essentially, worse products that cost more and take longer to develop. Anyone else feeling the same?

 

[E-Ann-Hilden]

I felt the same way for awhile, I was a pure PC gamer, but I grew tired of adding ram and spending $300 on a new video card to update a 2 year old computer. Also some the games never ran well due to firmware or bugs.

I rather than buy a new PC, just bought a Xbox360 and PS3. 1/2 the price of a good gaming computer. I enjoy the games for those systems and even the role playing ones are decent, not to the level of PC, but good enough. I am happy I made the choice to switch and still can play the older PC games you mention on my laptop.

 

[Legzman]

No offense but you sound like a raging teenage nerd. All that computer mumbo jumbo means shit to me. I play the games because to me they are fun. I have a 360 and I don't buy many games cause I'm picky about what I'm gonna drop $60 on. But I rent a shit load of games to check them out.

Gears of War is fuckin gorgeous. You can not argue that fact. By far, graphically, the most beautiful game I've ever seen to date! I agree with you however about the halo series. The first one was awesome. Halo 2 was...eh, and Halo 3 was just halo 2 with a few new vehicles and maps. Nothing innovative at all!

I have no experience with the PS3 so I'll refuse to comment other than the PS3 does have better hardware than the 360 and hence potential for far better games in the future, once that potential is fully realized.

I'm with E-ann with the PC thing. To much hassle to spend money constantly upgrading an outdated PC only to eventually end up dropping another few grand once you can no longer upgrade it. Honestly my computer is for getting information from the net and that,s it. Mostly video game info and porn. Other than that it's worthless. I don't use it for games and have no intention to do so. I enjoy my 360 and that's all that really matters to me!

 

[tb87670]

No offense but you sound like a raging teenage nerd. All that computer mumbo jumbo means shit to me. I play the games because to me they are fun.

Ok, I took that offense and saying that tells me you are a nerd and just calling me one to make you feel better. Putting that flame aside I play games only for fun. It's cheaper than paying for ammo for my .22 which is about $15 a box now and might get more expensive as time goes by. Do the math, 550 bullets or a game at their varying prices and how many hours they last. It's entertainment that's cheaper than most others. Earlier I woke up and was shaking off the beer from last night so I couldn't communicate it well, but I'm not happy that games are getting more expensive and less fun as time goes by.

They get more expensive with the newer hardware needed to run them and the price of the game itself. This can be prevented when companies focus on fun factor instead of graphics, but in reality that isn't the case. I'm not happy about that and soon I'll just give up on games if the trend continues. That's what my post is about.

 

[Torre82]

Ok, I took that offense and saying that tells me you are a nerd and just calling me one to make you feel better. Putting that flame aside I play games only for fun. It's cheaper than paying for ammo for my .22 which is about $15 a box now and might get more expensive as time goes by. Do the math, 550 bullets or a game at their varying prices and how many hours they last.

To run the risk of insulting you... if your choices are either shooting things IRL or shooting things on a screen, You Might wanna consider moving. Like, immediately.

Unless you really enjoy living in the middle of Shitsville, Nowhere and spending money on bullshit. Move to your nearest big city and get some better habits. Seriously.

 

[tb87670]

Ok, so tell me this, professional shooting isn't a sport even though it's in the Olympics? :thefinger

Oh wait, that's right, most people are dumb enough not to hunt their own food and live without electricity. And the pricks forget us farmers must grow their food for them. So, why run the risk of insulting me where instead you need to slap your mom for squeezing you out Torre82min?

So, a couple of idiots calling me a nerd and someone in shitsville nowhere (when I'm neither) aside, anyone wanna talk on topic or should I ask an admin to close this thread due to dickweeds with no life flaming on it?

 

[Funkwerkz]

PC games have been going nuts since 2003. They began to require hell a lot disk space and system, have so complex menus and gameplay feautres. I have never bought a pc game since 2003 although i follow the latest news in the industry. Last new game i played on my pc was Trackmania. It was pretty and made my pc halted.

I think consoles like PS3, Xbox360 and Wii are better than pc because with one console, you can play latest games for like 5 years. But with one pc (with the exact system components = no upgrades), you can play latest games for only a year or less. I got my pc in summer 2002 and bought Fifa 2003 which screwed my gameplay with quite annoying delays in movements and difficult to handle controls.

I am considering to get a console, i want to get Wii and PS3 together so bad. Xbox 360 console and games are so rare and more expensive than others in Turkland.

 

[tb87670]

After a bunch of research I found some games I want on PS3 that will come out soon, but for some reason I still have a knack for PC games. It's probably because I build each one I use since I was 12. Maybe it's the mouse and keyboard? Speaking of input, the Wii....... I don't like it really, you end up waving sticks around in the air like an idiot on the boxing game. It's probably great when someone is starting out on games, again Nintendo proves simple is best as is the case with the NES bricks

PC games have been going nuts since 2003

That's the year I've been trying to think of when it started to become GB's of space needed instead of MB's and video cards became a minimum requirement! I'll look up all the games from that year and see who started it, I bet EA did lol.

 

[ChefChiTown]

Ok, so tell me this, professional shooting isn't a sport even though it's in the Olympics? :thefinger

Jumping on a trampoline is an Olympic event and that's not a sport, soooo...:dunno:

If shooting a gun made you an athlete, than the LAPD has some sporty mother fuckers.

 

[tb87670]

Jumping on a trampoline is an Olympic event and that's not a sport, soooo...:dunno:

If shooting a gun made you an athlete, than the LAPD has some sporty mother fuckers.

Sigh......Well, that is a comment that needs to be followed up on.

I hunt for food, I'm not an Olympian. I was just saying that shooting has it's uses and one of those is for sport, another is for entertainment because shooting targets is actually fun if you try it. Hell, google Tom Knapp, sharp shot with a shotgun and can toss and shoot 8+ clay pigeons at a time no problem. No one wants to try it because like 15 kids in America each year kill themselves with their parents gun they find on accident. Oddly, double that number of kids die by drowning in 5 gallon water buckets each year in America. The countries who outlawed the ownership of guns have higher and much worse crime rates than countries that do, yet anti-gun activists stick to those 15 kids who die from negligent parents who don't put their weapons away. That's another reason to have and be good with guns, because there are muggings in my area and I live in a rural town, big cities I can just imagine the need for a sidearm on your hip at all times.

That comment on the LAPD was funny though, and they wonder why so many guys can just run and get away, but instead of sporty I'd say portly from what I see on TV

Games are related to this for me because the majority of games involve shooting in some form. Games are better IMO because you can fire many many rounds with only the initial cost of the game and console. When a decent rifle hits up for $400+ alone and 20 bullets for high caliber rifles go for $10 or so, I prefer games for the majority of my shooting entertainment since the recent increase in ammunition prices. But, games don't teach you how to shoot. You actually have to hold and fire hundreds of rounds from your weapon you will use to get proficient with it, and you must shoot the same ammunition you plan to use in the field or self-defense because different loads kick and aim differently in the same gun. So, I usually buy cheap .22LR ammunition when possible to keep myself practiced and sharp with my .22 pistol and rifle, and play games when I want to spray machine guns full auto and take out some bad guys :2 cents:

Now I need another beer. I noticed my posts are long when I got flammable blood in my veins..........

 

[B_S]

I feel the same way and agree with you most of the games you mentioned are favorites of mines, in fact I have been playing TA mods all this week.

 

[nickerdeemes]

I agree with most of what you are saying especially about PC specs, they are getting crazy. I have a PS3 and a WII (Wife wanted the WII) but I love the fact that I can download all the classic console games with it. The majority of the games are way too short for $60. I have 6 ps3 games and I was finished or bored with them within a week a piece. I used to get months out of games for the PS2 and the classic consoles (NES, SNES, Genesis). I think that game studios need to get back to focusing on gameplay not flash and glam.

 

[Spleen]

the XBox 360 and PS3 have taken over and I am reluctant to buy them. My cousin has a 360 and a buddy has a PS3. I am not impressed with any of the games they have bought or rented.

Some of the best games I've ever played have come out in the last few years and I own them all on Xbox360.

Gears of War, Resistance, GTA4, all these games fail to stack up to being decently fun.

That's too bad.
I happen to think GTA4 is extremely fun. But that's just my opinion.

 

[rockmandash]

gears of war is not even a fps......

its a third person shooter or whatever they call it now.....

i have Far Cry 2 and the game is simply perfect....

^_^

 

[tb87670]

Wish my PC could handle FC2, my bro almost bought it but I told him my 5yr old + pc can't handle it, anyhow my spare HDD kicked out and the IDE cables to the optical drives is shorted somehow so the PC is on the way out within the next few months. I'm currently on my Win98SE PC I found at a recycling yard, smelled like opium den but wiping all the parts with alcohol works wonders for that smell. Total Annihilation with both expansions is kicking it with no lag, so yay. Heavy Gear is running smooth too. I'm actually surprised how a 500MHZ CPU with a 0Mb RAM GPU chip can process flawlessly a game that looks 60-70% as realistic looks as a 2004-ish game with 6times the cpu and a GPU running at 580mhz clock (points to Battlefield 2142)

I was about to buy an NES and SNES on ebay but noticed there's so few games and the cartridges are probably worn to nubs by now that real consoles from early 90's won't be a good purchase. I'll just make a mini-pc with a TV hookup and a few usb controllers to be my emulation/easy use PC :

Barebone mini-PC - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856167032

USB controllers perfect for NES/SNES/Genesis games - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826127208

While the above mini-PC would be cool for most things, modern PC games need a dedicated jet-powered gaming machine.

I agree with most of what you are saying especially about PC specs, they are getting crazy.

Ditto. Not ripping on the PC game market and saying it should end, but why are games getting so ineffecient nowadays? Something needs to give. Is it because in 10 years we went from 64Mb Ram standard to 2-4GB Ram being standard on a modern PC? I coded a little and optimization was an important chapter in my book, wonder why it's ignored so often. Stardock is THE ONLY game/software company that I completely trust because everything they put up for sale and free works as advertised and I have gotten real people helping me to get some games running before with like 10 actual emails from them. All the other companies are shady to me at best and EA is just a no-go zone nowadays since the Spore fiasco.

I'm doing some research before I decide to buy $800+ plus worth of parts for a new full-sized gaming PC or just dump the money into a PS3 and trade-in the PS2 to help pay........considering if there's any new games that last longer than a week as Nickerdeemes pointed out, and I really agree with him on gameplay over gfx.

 

[B_S]

This thing looks meaner than my GT car engine and yet the $8,238 Core i7 965-equipped Mach V gaming desktop can only play Crysis ( 1920 x 1080 maxed out ) below 40 frames per second.

From: http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/03/intel-core-i7-equipped-falcon-northwest-mach-v-gaming-desktop-ha/

I should not have to pay thousands just to play a game maxed out, the software companies are coding these games like this for high end machines which I understand but it is getting outta of hand.

 

[Legzman]

I should not have to pay thousands just to play a game maxed out, the software companies are coding these games like this for high end machines which I understand but it is getting outta of hand.[/QUOTE]

That think looks insane!:eek:

I agree with you on paying all that money just to play a game maxed at a slower frame rate than the same or better game on a console. Tis why I stick with de consoles! That I don't know shit about computers except how to find any kind of porn imaginable! So I know the important stuff.

 

[tb87670]

Crysis is an extreme, they purposely made that game run like shit IMO. I won't ever buy it because I don't support that business model for game companies.

 

[sporty_carr]

I'm actually looking forward to more games than usual. There's Street Fighter 4, Mortal Kombat vs DC , Resident Evil 5, Gears of War 2, Left 4 Dead, Marvel Universe....not to mention all the good ones that just came out like Fable 2, GTA 4, Silent Hill Homecoming. I only own an Xbox 360 but Resistance and Little Big Planet look pretty good on the PS3.
In other words, I think the game industry is doing fine.