Unreal Creator Proclaims PCs are Not For Gaming

An anonymous reader writes "TG Daily is running an interesting interview with EPIC founder and Unreal creator Tim Sweeney. Sweeney is anyway very clear about his views on the gaming industry, but it is surprising how sharply he criticizes the PC industry for transforming the PC into a useless gaming machine. He's especially unhappy with Intel, which he says has integrated graphics chipsets that 'just don't work'."

Comments

TFA Clarification

[GWLlosa]

He's not saying that the PC is not a gaming platform, or that it shouldn't be. He's saying that there are 'high-end' PCs that can play games, and 'low-end' PCs that can't, and the gap between them is large and transparent to the average consumer (who doesn't realize that buying a PC with "Integrated Extreme Graphics" is the same thing as buying a PC that "can't play modern games").

Keyboard and Mouse

[tripmine]

I used to be a complete hater when it came to keyboard and mouse fanboys. But even since my friends and I started playing UT2K4 together about a month ago (yeah I know it's an old game shut up), I have seen the truth. FPS's are meant for the mouse. Until a console fully supports this, I will refuse to believe that PC gaming is dead.

Re:Keyboard and Mouse

[abaddononion]

Again with these posts. Clearly Im going to have to give up on pointing this out, but:

I cant speak for the 360 (I just dont know), but the PS3 already supports mouse/keyboards fully. It uses USB interfaces, so there's no difficulty finding a mouse or keyboard to hook up to it. If you want to go wild, you can buy an expensive bluetooth keyboard for it and save a port. Game support might be running a bit lower. I dont know about CoD4, but UT3 fully supports playing with the mouse/keyboard on the PS3. You have to set it up, but it's not a hard process and can be googled.

Im not sure what more people are looking for with this "I demand full support NAO!" thing.

Re:I'm not worried, because...

[Telvin_3d]

regarding the Wii; It's taking a while for the various companies to figure the quirks of the new control scheme. However, some are getting there. Drop a few dollars and rent Resident Evil or Metroid for the Wii for a weekend. I've seen it happen with a half dozen people now where they bitch about the controls for a hour and then everything clicks and away they go.

Re:If the consolers will get off their high horses

[abaddononion]

If M$/$ony will EVER gets some balls and support a mouse

Hmm?

Unreal Tournament 3 on PS3 can be played with mouse and keyboard just fine.

Re:Unreal Tourniment is a game?

[AKAImBatman]

Why the hell do EA men and Sweeney make the crapiest games and then complain about the gaming market?

In his defense, Tim Sweeney (and by extension, John Carmack) create gaming engines for a living. The games they put out (Unreal and Quake/Doom respectively) are mostly technology demonstrations, and not really games in of themselves. Tim expects licensees like Activision to produce "fun" games off his work.

Sooo... in the grand scheme of things, Sweeney has found himself a free pass out of the creative side of game development.

Re:I'm not worried, because...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a PC gamer and that's exactly what I do with my PC. I play the recent Valve games. Last upgraded the motherboard and CPU in 2004, and last upgraded the graphics card a year ago. It just works. It doesn't crash because I don't use it for anything other than gaming. The problems you list are myths I think, there is no need to be a "hardcore PC gamer" and continually upgrade. PC games are not so demanding.

I guess I am using the PC as a games console, but it's a games console with cheap games, decent controls and no software restrictions, and I can reboot into Linux. For me, that is a much better deal than the 360. I suppose another advantage would be that I could replace the parts myself if they failed, whereas if I had a games console I would have to send it back to the manufacturer (red ring of death?). However, this has not happened yet.

Re:for those 1337 3D games

[theaceoffire]

^_^ The funny part is that they are planning on releasing Crysis 1.5 on the PS3.
Not only will it be coming to the console, it will contain 50% more stuff.

http://kotaku.com/gaming/cry-on/crytek-says-crysis-for-consoles-possible-284534.php
http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2008/03/03/rumor-crysis-for-ps3-looking-probable-will-be-an-almost-50-n/

Re:I'm not worried, because...

[FredFredrickson]

However, I do have to agree with you about the performance fanboys. Most games these days (and consoles haven't been spared either) seem to be more like tech demos to show off better and prettier graphics, while sacrificing gameplay. Agreed! Look at CNC3. Just came out in the past year, but the graphics don't even touch games like crysis. So why is it such a good seller? Gameplay. It's proven time and time again, gameplay trumps graphics by far. I'd rather have a game I think is fun than a game that's got flashy graphics but is just another FPS.