Are Game Consoles Ruining DLC?

A round-table discussion at Gametopius looks into the state of downloadable content for games as it has evolved over the past several years, going from an occasional, welcome supplement to being a common marketing strategy for most of the industry, frequently causing irritation over pricing and availability. "All of the map packs so far released for the Call of Duty games have been $10 each to download on consoles through closed networks, while PC gamers could download those same packs for free off of FileShack or somewhere else. Valve's own Team Fortress 2 has received a significant amount of DLC that's been completely free on the PC. Xbox owners of the same game, however, have only received perhaps half of that content, and they have had to pay for it in $5 packs. Why is this? The idea of this kind of content delivery was scarcely heard of on consoles, so console gamers see no reason not to pay for it. But on the PC, these amounts of content are usually just considered parts of patches. Furthermore, why pay for a few extra maps and costumes when modders are making and offering new ones for free all the time?"

Comments

Different Audiences?

[blackraven14250]

I'd attribute this to a difference in intended audiences between consoles and the PC. Consoles tend to go for the lowest common denominator, whereas PCs have this remarkable ability to get everyone on board for something or other. Consoles have a proprietary system for publishing games, whereas with PCs you can go the normal route of publishing hard copies, or a paid digital distribution, or a free one. Consoles can only connect to one service, that of the console maker's choosing. PCs can do anything you can really imagine doing with electronics. Console users pay for a console, pay for each game, and have this "drop in the DVD and play" interface, whereas on a computer you have a much more complex, full featured one. Consoles are largely locked into what they are when they're produced; PC's are ever-changing, expandable, upgradeable, extensible, versatile machines. Consoles are a toy; PCs are a tool. Is it really a surprise that consoles pay for shit that PC users don't?

Re:Different Audiences?

[Brian Gordon]

Also TF2 on the PC is delivered by Valve itself through Steam, but on the xbox it's delivered through Microsoft. On the PC you downloaded the whole game in the first place and by running Steam you expect to automatically receive updates, but on the xbox you only buy a disk, and Microsoft can say "if you want extras you have to pay".

I don't even understand why people would buy TF2 on a console anyway. Updates are such a mess compared with Steam (and you have to pay extra), you have to play on a controller (useless for first-person shooters), and the community is small. Also you can't use the huge base of custom maps and skins and custom sounds and custom models that the community has built. And you play in some pathetic TV resolution, subpar even in HD. I don't have any sympathy.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Zalbik]

So basically your argument is:

Here are a bunch of reasons why I prefer PC's over consoles.
Therefore, publishers release the same items for free to PC's that they charge for consoles.

Your logic doesn't make any sense. The relative power / lack of power of each platform has nothing to do with the publishers financial decision to charge on one platform vs. the other.

My guess is the reasons are more likely one of the following:
1) If we charge on the PC, it's likely just gonna get pirated anyways, so lets not bother
2) The PC has a declining audience for games, let's do what we can to keep the last members of that audience interested.
3) Because historically, these types of things have been free on PC's and there will be a lot of resentment if we suddenly start charging for them. The largest demographic of console owners were NOT previously PC gamers, so they won't miss what they never had.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Brian Gordon]

The relative power / lack of power of each platform has nothing to do with the publishers financial decision to charge on one platform vs. the other

Yes it does. The PC is an open platform. You can do whatever you want. The console is locked down tight and you can only get content by paying Microsoft.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Mashiki]

Yes it does. The PC is an open platform. You can do whatever you want. The console is locked down tight and you can only get content by paying Microsoft.

That in itself would be the main reason I would never own a console these days. While I did have one back in the early days of NES before the cube, that's all cartridges. The problem is, you're paying for the same content that some are getting for free under the 'pass, clean, and then go' label.

While I realize that not all kids of today are the main console players, this form of stuff is just setting people up for the next generation of micropayments. It's not like it hasn't been tried with other stuff, eventually one of two things will happen. People will get pissed off over the lack of content, and start moving back to the PC en-mass, after all cheap gaming rigs can be made for sub $500 these days. Or, they'll try to nail PC users the same, in which case I'll hazard that PC users for the most part will go. Ho-Hum and ignore it like usual, because alot of us are crotchety, cranky, old asses who like our money.

Re:Different Audiences?

[blackraven14250]

Half of it. Combined with the fact that there's totally different audiences because of the differences in the platform, there will be a difference in the pay model. The people who use PCs to play games tend to be older, they tend to have the large amount of experience with free upgrades and mods, they tend to know that $10 is way overpriced for 3 maps and wouldn't pay even if the option was left open. Console players tend not to be as well versed as PC gamers in anything relating to electronics. For all they know, it takes a team of 50 people a month to make a map. They might not have ever even played a game on a computer other than solitaire, in which case they don't know about the free upgrades we've always gotten. They might not even own a computer. They probably don't use Windows Update manually even if they do. My first two sentences were there to highlight the difference in the audience; the specifics of consoles vs. PCs are there to show how they target different audiences. I hope this clarification helped you out.

Re:Different Audiences?

[tepples]

after all cheap gaming rigs can be made for sub $500 these days.

But how many "cheap gaming rigs" do you need when there's more than one gamer in the house? With a console, you just need to buy $150 or so worth of extra controllers for players 2, 3, and 4, but most PC games act like PSP games: they require each player to be using a separate PC and a separate copy of each game.

Re:Different Audiences?

[blackraven14250]

Yeah, PC users most likely wouldn't stand for that crap. At least not nearly as many as console users. If nothing else, PC users can get free games all over the place. Consolers don't really have that option at all (with a bare console. I know mod chips exist. but that takes a bit of skill.).

Re:Different Audiences?

[Alarash]

I attribute this to Microsoft's policy of not giving any DLC for free. As simple as that.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent is on the mark in some places, but it comes off that he is pretty squarely on the side of PC of the epic PC vs Console gamming debate.

With regard to one of his comments:

Console users pay for a console, pay for each game, and have this "drop in the DVD and play" interface

Whereas PC gamers pay for the PC, should pay for each game, and generally have a similar interface. Even with the rise of steam, console gamers have a similar interface.

It should also be noted that some of the "weaknesses" in consoles indicated above are actually strengths for the platform, such as the hardware consistency. Less time testing your application, more effort can be put into maximizing the output.

All the same, with regards to the extra cost, I think it's pretty clear: hosting costs, 1st party verification (by Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo), and similar costs that do not exist (or are controllable) on the PC. That's really the only difference here, and one of the PC's major virtues (cost per game generally lower).

Re:Different Audiences?

[silanea]

While you are correct for the situation where everyone wants to play the same game with or against each other, this advantage goes away when those gamers want to play on their own at the same time. In most households I know every gamer who has reached their teens already needs a computer for themselves. Upgrading that to reasonably handle games makes more sense to me than to buy an extra box. Plus then the kids do not occupy the living room TV.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Goldberg's Pants]

I own an Xbox 360 and a PC (obviously). If I can get a game on the PC I will choose that over the console usually. Stuff like TF2, L4D etc... I fail to see the point of them on the consoles. FPS games on a console are a big bag of fail IMO. Only people who defend them in my experience are ones who haven't spent years using the superior mouse/keyboard combination.

For the DLC, I believe Microsoft FORCE Valve to charge. Gabe (who looks more like Peter from Family Guy by the day) has said that they want to give it away, but MS won't let them. Not sure how much truth there is in that given Valve have recently turned to the dark side and taken this DLC to its natural conclusion and are releasing what should be DLC for Left 4 Dead as a full title.

The games I have on my Xbox are ones you can't GET on the PC, or ones that work best with a gamepad. Like Burnout Paradise. The PC version is out, but I'd much rather sit on my couch and play on my HDTV with my kids than sit at my desk and play it.

Though the situation with DLC is getting crazy. Two recent examples:

EA had DLC for Madden on release day! I bought Madden on Friday. (First time I've ever bought a Madden title within two years of its release.) Pop the disk in to discover there is already paid content to download. It amounts to super scouts for franchise mode and the ability to unretire players etc... And play as any player you'd like in Superstar mode... But again, release day and after slapping down $70 for the game EA go "Give us a little more."

Worse still is that it's already been announced what the first paid DLC will be for Beatles Rock Band. Game isn't even OUT yet and they've already basically said "You're getting an incomplete game and will have to pay again."

The whole DLC thing really annoys me. If it's something really does add to the game, like Big Surf Island for Burnout Paradise, then fine. (I bought the game used, so even with that the game still only cost me about $20). But announcing stuff you're going to have to pay for before the game is even released?! That is just despicable. But then I guess at least you have warning and can say "I'm not going to buy that." (Like anybody will actually do that.)

Companies now realise that instead of a full expansion for, say, $20, they can now put it out in chunks and make twice that.

The problem with DLC is it's a GREAT idea, but greed has, like with so many other things in life, ruined it.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Darkness404]

There are a few reasons why I am a console gamer (and actually was playing TF2 on the 360 the other day). For one, its cheaper, I tend to either buy used or really cheap computer hardware because I'm a student and paying more than $500 on a computer is a major purchase. I can buy a 360 for $200 and have a guaranteed life (so long as the thing doesn't red ring....) of 2-3 more years left. However, even a state of the art machine today will require expensive upgrades to keep it playing and I doubt I can get a good gaming rig for $350, the price of a 360, a HDD and a few accessories. Myself, I much prefer using a controller even for FPS games simply because I'm more used to it and its in general consistent, that is most games are easy to figure out even with no prior training, PC games seem to have unique control schemes that don't end up working as well and aren't as consistent. Also, each game is going to have the same experience no matter when you buy your console without turning down effects, etc.

In general, console gaming is cheaper, the games are in general cheaper due to the availability of older games, and you can have better local multiplayer without everyone lugging around their gaming rig.

Re:Different Audiences?

[kabdib]

> That in itself would be the main reason I would never own a console these days.

Let's see: Locked down ecosystem = no viruses or malware to worry about, pretty effective banning system for people who do manage to hack their consoles and do Bad Stuff to other people, decent quality bar for games, hardware that I basically don't have to worry about (short of sending it back to the manufacturer if it breaks -- yeah, I had a RROD; the world didn't end, a week later I had a better console).

I'm happy to pay for that.

And hey, it's not like someone said "You can have a PC, or a console, but not both." Sheesh, get some perspective.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Darkness404]

FPS games on a console are a big bag of fail IMO. Only people who defend them in my experience are ones who haven't spent years using the superior mouse/keyboard combination.

And there are a lot of people who don't want to spend that long to be decent. Yes, if you have used keyboard/mice for FPS games for a long time you will be good at them, for everyone else a controller is pretty good. Controllers are designed for gaming, most keyboards/mice aren't so unless you want to spend a week or so not enjoying the game because you are getting used to awkward, non intuitive controls if you haven't been playing for years with similar control schemes. Plus often times the controls that work great for some mice (such as having the scroll button to zoom in) is terrible on some other mice (such as on mine where the scroll button sticks out a lot).

And also, console games are much, much, cheaper in the long run if you don't have a lot of money to spend on an expensive gaming PC.

Worse still is that it's already been announced what the first paid DLC will be for Beatles Rock Band. Game isn't even OUT yet and they've already basically said "You're getting an incomplete game and will have to pay again."

I can understand DLC on games like that though, because they are like "level" packs ones that might have not been finished in time for the game, had tricky licensing to work out, or would have exceed the capacity of the disk.

But what really annoys me are the DLC to make games easier and then making the game so frustrating that you want to use the DLC to get past a point to make the game actually -fun- again, there are a few RPGs that seem to do this.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Goldberg's Pants]

If Point 1 was valid, Bethesda would not have charged for the many Oblivion addons. And Fallout 3 addons. Let's not forget all the stuff you can buy for The Sims franchise. And Spore etc...

Point 2 is the old "PC gaming is dying" argument that has been touted for at least the last ten years. It's utter bollocks. Yes, the consoles have a bigger audience, but the fact is PC gaming isn't going anywhere.

As for point 3... We've been seeing expansion packs released for PC games for over a decade now. So how is the DLC thing any different? PC gamers would accept the DLC model because they're just as stupid and gullible as their console owning brothers. They seem to like being parted from their money for stuff that in many cases should have been in there in the first place, just like the console owners they look down on.

If this wasn't the case, the market for expansion packs wouldn't exist. (One reason I wait for the inevitable "Gold" edition of a game which will bundle game and expansion, usually for less than the original game cost on its own.)

Re:Different Audiences?

[BikeHelmet]

For the DLC, I believe Microsoft FORCE Valve to charge. Gabe (who looks more like Peter from Family Guy by the day) has said that they want to give it away, but MS won't let them. Not sure how much truth there is in that given Valve have recently turned to the dark side and taken this DLC to its natural conclusion and are releasing what should be DLC for Left 4 Dead as a full title.

That's debateable. New engine, new art, new campaigns, new voice actors, vastly expanded team working on it. Most people arguing against L4D2 seem to be arguing because it's "too soon". It's like you guys would be happier if it were released in 2012, rather than 2009. And the irony is, the release date won't affect anything, because L4D updates are still going to come out as slow as they have been. It'll just give some extra content before the release, giving the perception that they kept their word.

Nah...no thanks. If they can churn out a quality sequel, and fix all those engine bugs in the process, I'll bite. I don't believe they're going to just ditch L4D gamers, and I don't think they should have to artificially delay release to satisfy foolish angry self-proclaimed non-customers.

Companies now realise that instead of a full expansion for, say, $20, they can now put it out in chunks and make twice that.

So what you're saying is, you're against the implementation rather than the concept? Me too. I'd be quite happy to buy extra L4D campaigns(well made ones) for say $4. That would be 5 campaigns in a $20 expansion.

$10 though is too steep.

But from Valve's point of view, it's far easier managing a unified platform, so they'd rather charge more for the game and just trickle out DLC for free forever.

Re:Different Audiences?

[mobby_6kl]

What kind of games one might want to play with multiple players per console, that can't be played the same way on a PC? You know, you could stick 1024 USB gamepads into a computer if you have that many "friends" over.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Pyrion]

I wouldn't call a gamepad "designed" for precision aiming in two dimensions. You will inevitably require some sort of computer-assisted targeting (we PC users call this "autoaim") to make up for the fact that you're approximating X-Y coordinates with a severely motion-limited joystick. Some games even go so far to include explicit target designation where the fun of playing a first person shooter is diluted down to the interactivity of a quicktime event. Select your enemy, press a button to fire, first person to get the timing right wins because your shots will never miss. It's bullshit. If you took those handicaps away from gamepad players and put them on the same servers as keyboard-and-mouse players, the gamepad players would ragequit in less than five minutes cuz there would be no contest whatsoever.

Re:Different Audiences?

[tepples]

While you are correct for the situation where everyone wants to play the same game with or against each other, this advantage goes away when those gamers want to play on their own at the same time.

One on the family's only computer, one on the family's only game console, one on a DS. Besides, consoles at least give the option "where everyone wants to play the same game with or against each other".

In most households I know every gamer who has reached their teens already needs a computer for themselves.

That would be fine if PC games had spawn installations like DS games, but they don't.

Upgrading that to reasonably handle games makes more sense to me than to buy an extra box.

By "upgrade" did you mean "buy a new machine"? Single mothers like my aunt can't afford that so easily.

Re:Different Audiences?

[tepples]

What kind of games one might want to play with multiple players per console, that can't be played the same way on a PC?

Platform fighters like Super Smash Bros. series. Minigame collections like Banana Blitz or Carnival Games or any of the dozens of similar games on Wii. The problem is that most PCs can't output to the CRT SDTV in the living room, and it's too hard to fit four people around the 19" monitor bundled with a new major-label PC. So if a "party" style game isn't exclusive to one console, it's multi-platform in the "both country and western" sense: on Wii+PS2 or on PS3+360, but not ported to PC because of the lack of PCs connected to TVs.

You know, you could stick 1024 USB gamepads into a computer if you have that many "friends" over.

Which gains you nothing if the game won't poll anything but the lowest numbered pad.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Anonymous Coward]

I own an Xbox 360 and a PC (obviously). If I can get a game on the PC I will choose that over the console usually. Stuff like TF2, L4D etc... I fail to see the point of them on the consoles. FPS games on a console are a big bag of fail IMO. Only people who defend them in my experience are ones who haven't spent years using the superior mouse/keyboard combination.

I played cs for years with a mouse and keyboard and I had no trouble adjusting to a controller when Halo 1 came out. I'm great at both cs:s and halo 3. Whats wrong with using a controller on a console? It's an even playing field since everyone else is using one.

Or can your brain not handle the adjustment to joysticks?

Re:Different Audiences?

[Pyrion]

And then you get to the cost of the games and the cost of the DLC and realize that either you'll be starved for content or you'll be paying out the ass anyways. So much for consoles being "cheaper."

Re:Different Audiences?

[Sir_Lewk]

By "upgrade" did you mean "buy a new machine"? Single mothers like my aunt can't afford that so easily.

Pfft, when I was a kid we used to get up off our lazy gaming asses, get jobs, and buy our own rigs and games.

In other words, get off my lawn!

Re:Different Audiences?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I don't know about the US (which is where I assume you're from), but right here where I live (EU), most households have one True HD TV on their living room, any semi-recent graphics card HAS digital output (dual-link, and usually two ports), and I have not seen any True HD TV that does not support direct DVI connections, and if they don't, you've got DVI to HDMI cables around, which they're bound to support.

All in all, the only REAL thing lacking from computers is a proper "wiimote"-like controller, although some people are pushing ahead and manage to make them work.

So yeah, port all the games you want for the PC, as long as we have the controllers (which we do, even if we have to hack them from consoles), and the games support multiple controllers, we're set.

Re:Different Audiences?

[hairyfeet]

What is so hard about WASD? My boys have been able to seriously kick my ass in FPS since they were 11. And before any nanny lovers have a fit, I actually taught my boys the difference between reality and fantasy. I showed them how to edit DOOM wads (remember those?) and how by using scripting you could change behavior, using an editor to write their names on the bad guys, etc. So by the time they were playing they could explain quite well exactly what was being drawn on screen and how it works. Of course when the oldest 'curses" the game it is very funny, because you here "Who wrote the levels for this thing? You can see seams everywhere! And this AI is worse than DOOM Hey you dummy DUCK ALREADY!"

It is DLC that will always keep me a PC gamer. It is pretty obvious by now that the console manufacturers are using DLC as yet another revenue stream, screwing their console buyers yet again, while we PC gamers get tons of stuff for free, year after year. Look at how many games have had their life extended thanks to DLC. I'll give some examples of my favorite games: Freelancer-I have tons of fully packed solar systems, new campaigns, ships, etc, and all for free thanks to DLC from modders. Look up "the nameless mod" for Deus Ex which was just released, that game is what...1998? And even the lame budget games can get new life. I am downloading the "Black Ops" pack for Delta Force Xtreme now. It was a budget title and just okay, but the modders have put out some excellent mod packs that make up for a lot of the game's shortcomings, all for $0.00. All it takes is a little time and 480Mb of bandwidth and I have dozens of new weapons, new campaigns, all for free. can't beat that for a title I picked up for $15 in a bargain bin!

In the end it just comes down to greed, pure and simple. And at least with PC games if the developers act like asses the community can just work around them. With consoles acting as gatekeepers they can screw their customers all they want, which I predict they will. I'm betting that more and more games will be released which are only "half games" because they have gutted it so they can sell the other half to use as DLC. And with all this crazy talk about how much "cheaper" consoles is, when I paid less than $600 for a monster dual core with 8Gb of RAM and a 1Gb 4650 GPU, it is just nuts. Hell my oldest is playing L4D on my 3.6GHz P4 hand me down. With a 7600GT I picked up years back for $100 L4D is smooth as butter. So for me and my money the PC is just a better deal, and DLC just makes it more so.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Anonymous Coward]

Valve's point of view, it's far easier managing a unified platform, so they'd rather charge more for the game and just trickle out DLC for free forever.

On steam Valve games are often cheaper then the console ports. This often because they have to pay to have it on the console as well as pay to put any content up.

Re:Different Audiences?

[badboy_tw2002]

I dunno, even if you just stick to the downloadable stuff on 360 it seems like theres a lot of stuff out there for pretty reasonable prices. They're putting the downloadable full game stuff up there now for ~$30 or so, and theres a good number of smaller indie titles for 5-12. Sure, if you want to get Madden or CoD on launch day there's a premium, but PC titles on launch day aren't cheap either - $40-$60 seems to be the norm.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have not had an antivirus/antispyware/useless anti-something bloatware installed on my computer for years. I do not have a (software) firewall. All I need to use is some discretion on which stuff to run, which boils down to: "If it reeks, don't run it.", and I haven't caught a virus/worm/etc in years. Last one I got I removed manually.

Banning system? It's pretty good. Wanna play online games? If you're playing a Valve game on official steam servers, hackers get banned, period. If you're playing on some dedicated server somewhere? It's the admins' responsibility to ban them. There are some games that have a 'black list' shared among some dedicated servers. These lists contain 'offender' IP addresses, which are banned from all the servers.

Hardware you don't have to worry about. Well, I will have to grant you that one, for most people, dealing with hardware sucks. It makes them miserable. That's why so many places have a "drop your computer, we fix it, you pay us, all's well."-policy. Some of us, however, like to deal with hardware. I get all excited when I buy this new awesome graphics card, or the latest powerful processor. It's part of the PC Gaming experience for me, and I wouldn't give it up for prepackaged PC's.

Anyone reading this must think I have a personal grudge against consoles or something, and they'd be right. I don't like consoles for personal reasons, though I do acknowledge why some people would like them, however, the fact that each day that passes more and more games that I find myself drooling at are console-exclusives kinda disappoints me.

Re:Different Audiences?

[ShakaUVM]

I own an Xbox 360 and a PC (obviously). If I can get a game on the PC I will choose that over the console usually. Stuff like TF2, L4D etc... I fail to see the point of them on the consoles. FPS games on a console are a big bag of fail IMO. Only people who defend them in my experience are ones who haven't spent years using the superior mouse/keyboard combination.

For the DLC, I believe Microsoft FORCE Valve to charge. Gabe (who looks more like Peter from Family Guy by the day) has said that they want to give it away, but MS won't let them. Not sure how much truth there is in that given Valve have recently turned to the dark side and taken this DLC to its natural conclusion and are releasing what should be DLC for Left 4 Dead as a full title.

Back my dad, we used to call DLC "modding" a game, and it was free, and there were large vibrant modding communities for all games that had explicit or implicit modability. The Team Fortress guys started as a bunch of guys sitting around in Australia hacking on the mod source code for Quake 1 (before even Quakeworld).

But for TF2, they've published no mod tools except map editors, and have instead been releasing their own, official, mods for it, such as alternative weapons for each class. And charging for it on the Xbox. It's a shame, really, that they've gone so far from their roots.

I'd love to bring CustomTF into the 21st Century, but (as far as I know) there's no way to easily mod the TF2 sourcebase. So everyone loses... even Valve, I guess, since modding greatly extends the life of a game. Quakeworld is still played even today because of the mods for it.

Re:Different Audiences?

[mobby_6kl]

I'd say that by now pretty much all PCs have an analog TV-out. I know my 10 year old laptop I keep in the kitchen does, as did my 9600Pro, GeForce 6600, and 8800GT. It seems like that's a standard even for onboard graphics nowadays. I agree that most people probably don't have their PCs connected to the TV, but that's not because anything is preventing that.

As for controllers, most fighting or sports games (basically, the only genres that aren't a huge pain to play with more people) support more than one controller. Something like the PC version of Street Fighter 4 lets you press a button on any of the connected controllers to assign that controller that player. I'd assume it works the exact same way in sports games, except with more total players. Anybody knows if the latest FIFA/PES supports 22 players simultaneously? If they don't that's just a design choice on the side of the developers, and not a limitation of the platform.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Reapman]

Huh? Are you saying that using a mouse and WASD is overly complex for the typical consol gamer? Seriously? I think you do console gamers an injustice. Mouse and Keyboard takes almost no time to learn. I spent longer figuring out the controller in Halo then the mouse.

Re:Different Audiences?

[an unsound mind]

They can't help but charge for it on the Xbox 360, because Microsoft charges them for updates beyond the first one.

On the other hand, on the PC side Valve has Steam.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Darkness404]

I pay no more than $30 for any of my 360 games, and on average I pay about $15. Even if I pay twice as much of the value of the game on DLC, I end up with about $60 which is the price of an average PC game. So the games are just as cheap if not cheaper than the PC counterparts.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Brian Gordon]

But announcing stuff you're going to have to pay for before the game is even released?!

Well it's not like the developers just wake up one morning a few months after release and decide to do DLC. If they have plans to sell DLC after release, why not announce it?

Also I agree that mouse/keyboard is a much better control scheme. "Hold the stick until the cursor gets to where you want it, then let go" can't even compare to the precision of directly mapping movement on the mousepad to movement on the screen.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Darkness404]

Its more instinctive. Its pretty easy to figure out how to move and shoot in a PC game, but how about ducking? Throwing grenades? Using items? All those things are much less instinctive and things are closer. For example, you can still move and move your gun around while selecting grenades or reloading and you don't have to take your fingers off the keys. Along with how its easier to figure out where buttons are on controllers than on a keyboard, even with a good knowledge of touch typing, there is nothing distinguishing about WASD, while you can fix that sometimes by mapping things to ESDF (most keyboards have a raised bump on F and J) so its easier to find.

Re:Different Audiences?

[JWSmythe]

    The way I look at it is this. For a PC game, you're hopeful it works on your hardware. Maybe it doesn't like your chipset, your video card, your sound card, or something that's running in Windows. You pretty much have to run Windows (or fight with Wine, for those that work).

    I like flight sims. I *WANT* to play MS FSX. On my laptop the video card isn't good enough to do much. On my PC, it's better, but crashes with a fairly common problem. I can improve it with different video cards, and multiheaded displays to get the full view that I really want. I want to see the gauges. I want to see the horizon. I want to see out the sides. The setups I've seen that do it well have a whole array of monitors, and some pretty beefy hardware to back it up.

    If I want to play another game, I may need a different video card, that's better supported for that game.

    Maybe one wants a different version of DirectX, or some other software to help out. Maybe it doesn't like the antivirus, so I have to disable that, but do I want to disable the antivirus while I'm online?

    I've been helping my friend's son try to play a game. It refused to work. I upgraded the drivers, and that broke another game, so I downgraded the drivers, and through a whole song and dance of driver versions for the video and sound, the original game works, but the second game doesn't render parts of it, and their site only suggests to upgrade to the current drivers. Blah. 6 hours wasted. One game is playable. The other game is partially playable, except parts don't render, so he won't play it.

    Now, a console game was written specifically for THAT hardware. You know it will work out of the box. If it doesn't, there's a problem with the disk. There's no "you don't have enough memory", or "your CPU isn't fast enough" or "you need a different video card." They developed it on that platform. They tested it on that platform. Every single user out there has exactly the same platform. I won't say that console games are bug free, I've run into a few.

    I won't buy a console. I'll just play when I'm at someone's house that has one. I'll take a day or three, and play through the entire game, so now I'm done. I've accomplished the goal, there's nothing else to do. I'm actually pretty good at games, even though I'm not a "gamer", so 2 player or online play can get boring pretty quick. I don't see the sense in buying a PS3, and spending $50/game to find out it sucks, or renting countless games from Blockbuster. I'll only play a game if someone else has it and I see it looks remotely interesting. I'll play it over a weekend, and I'm done. a $400 console and a $50 game isn't worth a weekend. I can spend $450 in much more interesting ways, usually taking a lovely lady out for an enjoyable weekend. :)

    It's not that I'm old. When I was 18, I did the same thing.

    I did at one point buy a PS2, before the PS3's came out. They were on sale. It was more of a community toy, not a personal one. It entertained 5 or 6 people who were around that played it, until it broke. For some reason, the colors went away, and games are almost impossible to play in black and white. It's a toy, and it never got replaced.

    I'll play the occasional old game, on my newer PC, because I know it'll work. They're always hand-me-downs, so I could care less how entertaining it is. If it's not worth playing, I hand it back. Even if it is worth playing, I spend a few hours on it, and then hand it back with a "Thanks for the distraction." :)

    I'm enjoying WipEout HD on the PS3. It's not my console, and not my game, so I spend a few hours mastering tracks. I still have to get my hours in on it to master the new release of it. Then I'll go online, and fly fast, and get bored with it again.

Re:Different Audiences?

[mog007]

It's not that Microsoft won't let them release it for free, but Microsoft will charge Valve for all DLC and patches that they make for the 360 version. They're only allowed one free patch, any subsequent patches require Valve to pay Microsoft. They're probably charging for the DLC to cover the fees that Microsoft imposes on them, after all, Microsoft's paying for the bandwidth.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Fallingcow]

That's debateable. New engine, new art, new campaigns, new voice actors, vastly expanded team working on it. Most people arguing against L4D2 seem to be arguing because it's "too soon". It's like you guys would be happier if it were released in 2012, rather than 2009. And the irony is, the release date won't affect anything, because L4D updates are still going to come out as slow as they have been. It'll just give some extra content before the release, giving the perception that they kept their word.

"New engine" is a stretch, IMO. Most of the actual content--new weapons, new campaigns, new enemy types--were supposed to be free DLC for L4D, according to interviews before L4D's release.

They were also supposed to have a real, full-featured dev kit for it so the community could do what it usually does with games like this, but they've been dragging their feet on releasing it. Probably worried that the community would just clone the stuff they have slated for L4D2, which is exactly what would have happened if they'd released it months ago.

This is the first time I've seen Valve act like a greedy corporate whore, and it's troubling because they're one of the few remaining PC developers who are worth a damn.

Re:Different Audiences?

[antic]

"FPS games on a console are a big bag of fail IMO. Only people who defend them in my experience are ones who haven't spent years using the superior mouse/keyboard combination."

Played FPSs on PC for many years but I'll defend them on console because it's a quick and easy way to get 4-8 people playing a FPS in a room as a social activity. No lugging around PCs, making sure everyone has the right version, stuffing around with networks, etc. Bring along a projector to add to a TV, a second Xbox and controllers, couple of copies of the game and away you go.

Aiming might not be as accurate, but everyone in the game is in that same boat.

Re:Different Audiences?

[ShakaUVM]

Back my dad

Back in my day...

Grr, I can't even do an old coot accent right online. =)

Re:Different Audiences?

[Reapman]

I disagree.. what's more instinctive about 4 buttons and 4 triggers arbitrarily located on a stick? I don't think the keyboard OR gamepad are instinctive btw. However the fact that all else being equal a mouse/keyboard user can kick the crap out of a gamepad user says something.

Besides, if it was THAT much better, why don't PC Gamers use gamepads? You can even buy a 360 controller for the PC, yet I've never seen a PC Gamer use a gamepad for playing an FPS.

Re:Different Audiences?

[TheRaven64]

Maybe you should take a look at one of the open source FPS engines that encourages modding? There are engines like Dark Places, which is based on the original Quake engine and has been updated to include a lot of modern effects. Because it's based on Quake, all of the Quake modding tools work and it has a number of enhancements. I've run unmodified Quake mods on Dark Places and they all worked, although the models and textures that they included look quite primitive by modern standards. Why not write mods for one of these games instead?

Re:Different Audiences?

[ShakaUVM]

They can't help but charge for it on the Xbox 360, because Microsoft charges them for updates beyond the first one.

Sure, but that doesn't explain their lack of dev tools for TF2/L4D beyond map editors.

Re:Different Audiences?

[RalphSleigh]

You can't mod the TF2 codebase, but owning any source engine game on steam lets you download the source SDK Base. This is a minimal source engine install you can add your own assets and code to for making mods based on the source engine. It included enough assets to load the Lost Coast HDR sample map and the Half-life 2 code. Using this base means your mod can be played by anyone who has a source game (so someone with just L4D can play with someone who only has HL2), but it does mean you need to provide your own content.

Re:Different Audiences?

[raynet]

Humm, when I play games on my PC, I rarely have to move my hand around the keyboard. My default keymap that I try to use and adapt to all games is:

S,Z,X and C for movement, left-shift run/walk modifier
D for jump and A for duck/crouch
E is for use/activate items/doors/etc
R reload, F flashlight
Q and W are for weapons modifiers, eg. switch between weapons
G is grenade
T,V,B,tab,left-ctrl and spacebar for custom stuff and finally
1,2,3,4...0 for quick selecting stuff, usually weapons or spells whatnot

I might be doing this wrong, but when I play FPS games on my PS3, I need three thumbs; left for movement thumbstick, right for aiming/view control thumbstick and third thumb to use those four buttons to fire/shoot. Driving games are usually better as I can use the left side buttons for steering, right side buttons for accelerator/brake. I really really loathe the thumbsticks, they are inaccurate and difficult to use.

Re:Different Audiences?

[drsquare]

FPS games on a console are a big bag of fail IMO.

Sales figures suggest otherwise. You'll find that only PC fanboys care about mice, keyboards, APMs etc. Most console gamers just want to have fun and don't care that much about 'pwning' thousands of players online with their 'leet skills'.

If I can get a game on the PC I will choose that over the console usually.

For some games, the PC version will be based on the PS2 version rather than the PS3/360 version, so you have to be careful there. Many times, the PC release is just rushed out to scoop up a few sales if possible.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Mashiki]

How does a gaming rig get virus/malware when not connected to the internet? I know half a dozen people who have two or more machines for just that, a few families with kids have gaming and work machines. And yet if you do decide to go that route, you have two options: Locked servers, and unlocked. Wow gee...imagine that, some people actually enjoy playing outside the bounds. The day of the expensive PC is over, and has been for years. The real barriers in a lot of cases are the OS at $largeamountsofmoney(see up $300/pop for the new Win7). Because no one wants to use a linux distro that doesn't work with their for games.

If a rig doesn't work, you can send it back too. Big shock, most kits have a 3 year warranty in Canada. If they don't where you live, sorry for you I guess. Yes please do get some perspective, it's called not taking it up the backside repeatedly for someone saying: "Well that map looks alright." Then again if you have more money then brains, I suppose it's not a problem.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Mashiki]

My video card from 9 years ago had analog out, so no question. The new card I got today has analog out, and HDMI out. There's sub $60 cards that have that on it now, and no shortage of motherboards in both nVidia and ATI flavor that have HDMI out as well for those who like it. At worst it may require a HDMI>analog converter box. But if you're going that far, you might as well just buy one of the fancy new 25" or bigger HDMI TV's.

Re:Different Audiences?

[drsquare]

I'd say that by now pretty much all PCs have an analog TV-out. I know my 10 year old laptop I keep in the kitchen does, as did my 9600Pro, GeForce 6600, and 8800GT.

So, your four graphics cards count as all PCs, ever? If you want to play an anecdote game, my 8500GT has no connectors in common with my TV. And they're in different rooms anyway. And my PC doesn't have bluetooth controllers, and I don't want games being interrupted by general PC error messages or dialogue boxes when I'm playing a game.

As for controllers, most fighting or sports games (basically, the only genres that aren't a huge pain to play with more people) support more than one controller.

You'll find that most sports games on the PC are really shitty ports.

Anybody knows if the latest FIFA/PES supports 22 players simultaneously?

Twenty in the latest Fifa.

Re:Different Audiences?

[StreetStealth]

And I do the same thing on PS3. I've bought one or two titles at MSRP because I wanted to take part in the launch excitement, but with everything else I've just kept an eye out for price drops and picked up a preferred title when it hit my price range.

It's funny, because the PS3 was my first home console -- I'd been one of those elitist PC gamers for years before that, but as things like buggy shipping builds, Starforce copy protection, and way too much user configuration began to choke out the fun for PC gaming, I headed off to console land dreading the "oh hey it costs more for next gen" $60 pricetags. And yet, I haven't paid over half that so far this year.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Sheik Yerbouti]

The argument that consoles are cheaper is compete bunk. You still need a computer right? So even if you buy a POS computer your going to spend 350-400 and your going top spend another 350-400 on a console too. So now your talking about 700-800 you can build a decent gaming rig for that and it can be upgraded over time for incremental cost. Also as is pointed out consoles are locked down like subsidized cell phones. They try to monetize everything from gamer icons to backgrounds to down-loadable content, to matchmaking and patch service like Xbox live. Oh and lets not forget after you PAY for update service and matchmaking service you get the pleasure of seeing ads that you cannot even disable on said service. It's a complete and total scam and a really bad precedent for gaming if you think about it for five minutes. Consoles are like Mussolini's Italy sure the trains run on time but you have no freedom.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Anonymous Coward]

I pay no more than $30 for any of my 360 games, and on average I pay about $15. Even if I pay twice as much of the value of the game on DLC, I end up with about $60 which is the price of an average PC game. So the games are just as cheap if not cheaper than the PC counterparts.

I pay no more than $30 for any of my PC games, and on average I pay about $15. And I since I don't pay for additionnal content, I end up with about $30 which is half the price of an average 360 game. So the games are just cheap if not cheaper than the 360 counterparts.

(You compare the price of cheap games (used or coming from country where they're sold cheaper) to the price of a new PC game and you conclude it's cheaper. That's stupid. They're is a used game market on PC too...)

Re:Different Audiences?

[Anonymous Coward]

    The way I look at it is this. For a PC game, you're hopeful it works on your hardware. Maybe it doesn't like your chipset, your video card, your sound card, or something that's running in Windows. You pretty much have to run Windows (or fight with Wine, for those that work).

    I like flight sims. I *WANT* to play MS FSX. On my laptop the video card isn't good enough to do much. On my PC, it's better, but crashes with a fairly common problem. I can improve it with different video cards, and multiheaded displays to get the full view that I really want. I want to see the gauges. I want to see the horizon. I want to see out the sides. The setups I've seen that do it well have a whole array of monitors, and some pretty beefy hardware to back it up.

Yeah... And a console can do that for you, right ?
Just plug it in, and it will oversize your TV to allow you to see outside your plane. If a videocard on a monitor can't do it, I don't see how a console will, so that's irrelevant.

    If I want to play another game, I may need a different video card, that's better supported for that game.

    Maybe one wants a different version of DirectX, or some other software to help out. Maybe it doesn't like the antivirus, so I have to disable that, but do I want to disable the antivirus while I'm online?

    I've been helping my friend's son try to play a game. It refused to work. I upgraded the drivers, and that broke another game, so I downgraded the drivers, and through a whole song and dance of driver versions for the video and sound, the original game works, but the second game doesn't render parts of it, and their site only suggests to upgrade to the current drivers. Blah. 6 hours wasted. One game is playable. The other game is partially playable, except parts don't render, so he won't play it.

lol... downgrading drivers... Better supported video card...
I'd like to know what game would require me to downgrade any driver, or would require an older version of directX. Your story is BS.

Re:Different Audiences?

[BikeHelmet]

This is the first time I've seen Valve act like a greedy corporate whore, and it's troubling because they're one of the few remaining PC developers who are worth a damn.

Now now, keep in mind that there's people behind all this stuff. Entire teams of dozens to hundreds of people.

Every team works a bit differently. Clearly the L4D team isn't so great at pushing extra content out the door, or fixing engine bugs. That doesn't change the company's philosophy, but it does mean we'll see this stuff pushed out to us at a much slower rate.

"New engine" is a stretch, IMO. Most of the actual content--new weapons, new campaigns, new enemy types--were supposed to be free DLC for L4D, according to interviews before L4D's release.

FYI, L4D is using the original HL2 engine. Not the Orange Box engine, or whatever they're working on now.

We may still see new weapons, but don't hold your breath on melee - that stuff is buggy. Best I'm hoping for new mounted weapons on the ground, and maybe a fourth T2 weapon or third T1 weapon if they can come up with a nitch to fill.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Anonymous Coward]

They are trying to get you to buy more and more PC versions because they have greater control of the resale of the game, i.e. no resale. In most cases, you can't resale the PC game unless you sell the account it is keyed to. Most console games you can sell to a used game store and recoup some of the cost. This is why you get DLC free on the PC and they (mostly) charge for console DLC.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Hadlock]

kick my ass in FPS since they were 11. And before any nanny lovers have a fit, I actually taught my boys the difference between reality and fantasy.

You don't even need to teach them that; they'll pick up on it on their own. Probably half the people on slashdot have been playing "violent" video games since they were 9, maybe earlier, and those people are well adjusted (at least as well adjusted as you can be, posting on slashdot) people in their 20's-mid-late-20s. Mortal Kombat came out what, in 1992? Yeah I guess church attendance is down but so is crime murder and violent crime in general. Anyone giving you BS for "exposing" your kids to mainstream media like quake or doom needs to get their head screwed on straight.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Hadlock]

FYI, L4D is using the original HL2 engine. Not the Orange Box engine, or whatever they're working on now.

Err, what? [citation needed] - TF2 engine (also the engine running DoD:S) might not be identical to what's used in L4D, but I'm reasonably sure you're at least half wrong there; the HL2 engine is pretty old, ancient technology; the HL2:Episode 2 and Lost coast engines feature tons of new lighting, particle effects, etc, in addition to a completely rewritten facial animation system (also used in the TF2 engine). TF2 was almost scheduled to use the L4D engine (which loads almost instantly), but they want to keep DX8 compatibility for people still running Windows ME computers. So they're very similar, and IMO much more closely related than to the original HL2 engine (Source).

Re:Different Audiences?

[TheRaven64]

Well, the nice thing about open source games is that you can, you know, give a copy to your friends legally. If you've got a community of people you play games with, give them copies of the game plus your mod and suggest they play it.

Nice troll account, by the way. I almost didn't notice the dot at the start of the username. The real Bruce Perens actually writes the:

Thanks,
Bruce

at the end of every message though, he doesn't put it in his sig. You might want to change that for future trolls.

Re:Different Audiences?

[ShakaUVM]

Why use DarkPlaces when you can use FTEQuake and keep compatibility with Quakeworld?

I like having shaders when I play CustomTF. =)

But no, the point of modding TF2 would be to offer alternative servers for the large numbers of TF2 players to play on. There's not enough players in Darkplaces for it to be worth the effort.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Anonymous Coward]

www.xim360.com

superior mouse/keyboard for console. I was a huge fan of FPS on PC. Now that I can use mouse/keyboard on console(with PC-like precision) I will never play a FPS on PC again I am sure. No see-thru-walls hacks, no broken ass punkbuster, no auto-aim bots. PSN and XBL friends lists make it much easier to jump in a game with friends etc.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Gandalf_Greyhame]

I might be doing this wrong, but when I play FPS games on my PS3, I need three thumbs; left for movement thumbstick, right for aiming/view control thumbstick and third thumb to use those four buttons to fire/shoot.

Yep, you are doing something wrong, because any FPS style game that I have played on any console (sorry, I don't have the time or inclination to set up a gamers rig) the top buttons (L1, L2, R1, R2) are the ones that fire. Most people would use their index fingers to do such, not their thumbs.

Re:Different Audiences?

[EXTomar]

The problem is these are all just "art assets". I'm not going to art and levels are cheap or easy or should always be handed out freely but these things aren't as advanced as new technology or new game play. So far everything they've been advertising could be done by dedicated modders out in the community today,

What Valve needs to do for "L4D2" is provide a demo to everyone. I'm sure the complaints wouldn't be so fierce if it was obvious what the improvements are. They need to show us what really is in the product that isn't just patch. Without this it just fuels the idea that "L4D2" only exists because the XBox 360 can't handle the aggressive patching necessary. There is a huge perception that a number of concessions were made in "L4D" that are undesirable for PC players. This behavior is doing nothing to dispel it.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Sehnsucht]

I myself use EASDF for movement, and surrounding keys

E / D for Forward / Backward
A / F for Strafe Left / Right
S for Sprint / Run
X for Crouch
Spacebar for Jump

The above lets me move in any direction combination and run faster or crouch without contorting. Obviously running and crouching doesn't work too well, but I'm not aware of any games where that would actually do anything.

Z for zoom or zoom in, C for zoom out or reset zoom (assuming these are applicable)
R for reload, Q for flashlight toggle, W for quick weapon switching to last weapon
G for grenades, V for secondary grenades
B for bandage/heal

I don't assign T to any chat due to accidental activation of chat sometimes
I move chat to Y and teamchat to U to get them out of accidental activation range

Then, I've got my Razer mouse with more buttons than I can generally put to use in a game :D
Mouse handles firing, alt firing, open/use, etc. PTT for voice chat is assigned here as well.

Re:Different Audiences?

[blackraven14250]

Honestly, if a company is going to completely add a new continent to a game (i.e. WoW), then that's fair game for an expansion pack. When you pull some shit like Microsoft did with MechWarrior 4 (5 new mechs for 15 bucks! They pulled this one TWICE!), you're on the other extreme. There's a very blurred, large gray area between these two. If you're going to add 50% more hours of gameplay, with 30% more new types of enemies, and a large smattering of new weapons and armor, you're probably in the clear for an expansion pack. It's when the expansion pack becomes tiny, doesn't add anything to the actual gameplay, and they charge an extraordinary amount of money for a little nothing of content that it becomes stupid. Let's put it this way: if you can build the content in a week on a moddable platform, it's probably not worth 1/6th of the cost of the game.

Re:Different Audiences?

[raynet]

It still is quite difficult, I cannot easily use L1 and L2 simultaneously and moving finger between them is slowish. And I still need the top buttons for jumping, grenades, reloading and other stuff.. Not very convenient, thus I don't play FPS games on consoles.

Re:Different Audiences?

[mobby_6kl]

I see how you could think that I'm claiming every single PC ever made has tv-out, that was poor wording on my part there. Of course I did not mean to claim that, just that most of the computers which can/are being used for gaming have tv-out. I'm not writing my thesis here, but I'm not just making shit up either; I'm basing that claim on my experience with the cards I listed, as well as the trends I see in new hardware. For instance, even in <$100 category, most cards have analog or HDMI output. If that still doesn't match the input on your TV, you probably need to get a better TV. Or an adapter to whatever video-in it has, that could also work.

Also, Bluetooth dongles are cheaper than dirt so that's not really a problem.

I can't really speak for sports games since I haven't played those in ages, but console ports are all shit by default, and I'm always surprised when one turns out not to be completely terrible in every way.

Re:Different Audiences?

[CronoCloud]

Or can your brain not handle the adjustment to joysticks?

I'm a console gamer and have a console-playing friend who has trouble using the right analog stick. He's been playing console games for years and he still hasn't got the hang of the right stick, let alone using it at the same time as the left stick. I gave him a cheap copy of the original PS3 release of Oblivion, it's without Shivering Isles, but it was only $10. Watching him play it was painful since to move and look around he'd basically move one stick at a time.

I figure there's PC gamers out there who also have trouble adjusting to them since they're not used on using their thumbs for fine manipulation in games.

Re:Different Audiences?

[CronoCloud]

I might be doing this wrong, but when I play FPS games on my PS3, I need three thumbs; left for movement thumbstick, right for aiming/view control thumbstick and third thumb to use those four buttons to fire/shoot.

Fire controls should be on the shoulder buttons.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your credibility began to dwindle with the use of the term, fail. After that, I could give two fucks what your opinion is.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guarantee your computer has aids.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Spit]

X-plane, multiplatform commercial flight sim.

Re:Different Audiences?

[ShakaUVM]

>>Using this base means your mod can be played by anyone who has a source game (so someone with just L4D can play with someone who only has HL2), but it does mean you need to provide your own content.

Right, and I have absolutely no interest in recreating TF2 from scratch just so that I can mod it.

I do know that there's work being done on it right now, but I don't know how powerful their tools are.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Behrooz]

Its more instinctive. Its pretty easy to figure out how to move and shoot in a PC game, but how about ducking? Throwing grenades? Using items? All those things are much less instinctive and things are closer. For example, you can still move and move your gun around while selecting grenades or reloading and you don't have to take your fingers off the keys. Along with how its easier to figure out where buttons are on controllers than on a keyboard, even with a good knowledge of touch typing, there is nothing distinguishing about WASD, while you can fix that sometimes by mapping things to ESDF (most keyboards have a raised bump on F and J) so its easier to find.

You gotta be shitting me, nubcake.

Mouse+keyboard >>> console shit controllers. Forever. No contest. That's why they don't have console players in the same universe as keyboard/mouse players, and you can't hook a mouse up to your xbox for halo. It's just a different universe, analog sticks and buttons can't compete.

If you want instinctive, try to convince me that all of the console games use the same control schema. They don't. No instinct, just fewer buttons and a narrow-bandwidth analog stream, divided however the clueless devs choose. Cry me an exploding river, and recognize that the console control scheme is inherently limited by the mechanics of the input device. It works for many things, and a lot of console devs use it brilliantly, but it's still a crippled input mechanism, and will not work in competition with a mouse in other fields.

It's done. Consoles do many things well, like working all the time at a standard display level. They do other things remarkably badly, like competing with PCs for input bandwidth and overall power. Use a console if you want, but don't even try to argue that they're superior from a technical standpoint.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Ihmhi]

The Rock Band DLC has never bothered me, because it has always been at a relatively fair price and worth it. Unlike a lot of DLC options you can actually cherry pick (download only songs you want), and they've been decent enough to arrange promotions and free songs (like "Still Alive").

Re:Different Audiences?

[WolfWings]

> What is so hard about WASD?

For those of us that learned on AZShiftX, about a half-inch of muscle memory.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Thanshin]

Probably half the people on slashdot have been playing "violent" video games since they were 9, maybe earlier, and those people are well adjusted (at least as well adjusted as you can be, posting on slashdot)

There's another Slashdot completely unrelated to this one?!

Amazing!

And they have at least one half of well adjusted population. I can't even imagine what they must talk about.

Slashdot2: News for well adjusted people, stuff nobody cares about.

Re:Different Audiences?

[CronoCloud]

You usually don't need to use L1 and L2 simultaneously, don't worry about that. Also if you're using the sticks, the joypad itself often serves as 8 more buttons. You just need to be faster, especially with your thumbs, you need to be able to move your thumbs very very fast and accurately. Don't forget L3 and R3, those are the buttons you get when you press in on the analog sticks.

It takes time to build those skills, remember, you haven't used your thumbs as a game control methodmuch at all. At first, you will suck. Imagine what it was like transitioning from an Atari 2600 style joystick to the NES's D-pad.

In fact, that may be another idea....play some NES games with a SNES pad to get used to using your thumbs and build up your skill in using them, then move on to a SNES pad with it's shoulder buttons, and XABY buttons in diamond position, then move to the Dual Shock with it's two extra shoulder buttons and two analog sticks.

Re:Different Audiences?

[MemoryDragon]

Actually you make a point, console manufacturers and game companies screw their customers over the accesories and games so much that in the end nowadays a PC is cheaper, it even is cheaper if you count in that in many cases you just have to upgrade the graphics hardware and at every second console generation the pc upgrade itself is mandatory.
Over its lifetime I have dumped more money onto my wii than I have done for my aging PC which simply got a new life by adding a decent graphics card.
The price difference of the games makes up for it.

Re:Different Audiences?

[X0563511]

Besides, if it was THAT much better, why don't PC Gamers use gamepads? You can even buy a 360 controller for the PC, yet I've never seen a PC Gamer use a gamepad for playing an FPS.

I do! (but only when I need to give the keyboard/mouse a rest due to long term strain related injury)

Re:Different Audiences?

[X0563511]

What games do you play? I try to stick to the 'standard' layout, since some of the things I play would be a royal pain in the ass to adjust.

I ask, also, since your scheme requires you to use your fingers to crouch and/or jump, limiting your fluidity (ie, strafing while changing stance) - also, you leave no way to lean.

My current favorite game - ARMA2 - has a hellish set of commands. Looking at the list, a given key has up to 5 different uses, depending on context! Hell, the game recognizes combinations AND the difference between hold, tap, and double-tap... but, it's fun as hell, and worth the challenge.

Examples:
W-hold - forward
W,W-hold - sprint
Shift-hold: walk/run (not same as sprint)
Shift,Shift (taps): toggle walk/run
Right Mouse tap: optics toggle
Right Mouse hold: zoom
Right Mouse hold (longer): hold breath

Re:Different Audiences?

[bmatt17]

Mouse/Keyboard is not superior to a gamepad, it's all about preference and the type of game. I've been PC gaming since the original Doom yet still prefer a gamepad for most games including FPS. For WOW and similar though keyboard/mouse>Gamepad

For someone who isn't used to mouse/keyboard, gaming on it is very difficult. Watching my neighbor try to play WOW was a painful experience, WASD, camera via the mouse and all your attack buttons on 1-9, space to jump, tab to target,m for map, b for inventory, hold down mouse button to strafe. For someone who can't touch type this is not an easy configuration to learn. And noobs like this will usually gravitate towards using the arrow keys for movement and mouse to select attacks which makes keyboard/mouse a horrible method of control.

On the other hand someone who only games on PC will have a hard time adjusting to a gamepad, which IMHO is why PC elitest claim the mouse/keyboard is so much better. Because that's what you're accustomed to.

Benefits to a console/gamepad: Wireless controller, yeah you can get a wireless keyboard/mouse but it's not very convenient and mouse precision on the arm of a recliner is less than ideal. You really need to sit at a desk to use a mouse/keyboard well.

Games just work. I'm sick of DRM, games that don't run well on your specific hardware, having to upgrade parts to play a new game.

Resale. Yeah, PC games may be cheaper initially, but you can't sell them. A $60 console game usually cost me about $30 after trading it back in. A $50 PC game cost $50 even if I only play it for a day

Number of games. PC's are pretty limited compared to the amount/type of games you can get on a console. FPS, RTS, MMO and RPG's are available on PC. For MMO's and RTS's PC reign supreme. Stuff like God of War, Ninja Gaiden, Assassins Creed are all better on consoles. Stuff like Call of Duty is up to preference. I prefer the gamepad, some will prefer mouse/keyboard. I have equal control on both so it strictly comes down to convenience.

Re:Different Audiences?

[GradiusCVK]

Anyone giving you BS for "exposing" your kids to mainstream media like quake or doom needs to get their head screwed on straight.

I seem to remember Duke Nukem 3D having a workable solution to this problem...

Re:Different Audiences?

[dangitman]

Consoles are a toy; PCs are a tool.

Isn't a PC that is only used to play games, just as much of a toy as a console is? And isn't a console that is used as part of a supercomputer just as much of a tool as a PC is?

Re:Different Audiences?

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually taught my boys the difference between reality and fantasy.

You don't even need to teach them that; they'll pick up on it on their own.

Human beings rarely pick up anything "on their own" if it's not directly related to their survival. Education would be a lot simpler if they did. In my (limited) world view, natural inquisitiveness needs to be nurtured to remain effective, beyond that it's just relying on discipline and authority.

Probably half the people on slashdot have been playing "violent" video games since they were 9, maybe earlier, and those people are well adjusted (at least as well adjusted as you can be, posting on slashdot) people in their 20's-mid-late-20s. Mortal Kombat came out what, in 1992?

Not that I disagree with you, but there is a significant difference between the action-shooters of the nineties (and earlier: Double Dragon anyone?) and current "war simulators": the degree of lifelike-ness. The fact that our 8-year old brains could discern between cartoonish gore and real life does not automatically extrapolate to current shooters aiming for accurate simulation instead of entertainment.

Re:Different Audiences?

[jotok]

Yeah, I have a weird setup...all my movement keys are laid out from SHIFT to B and the A-L row is for options (flashlight on/off, reload, whatever).

Re:Different Audiences?

[jotok]

I have yet to see this tested/demonstrated.

I know that before anyone discovered keyboard-and-mouse a lot of people were playing Doom with the gravis gamepad. IIRC it was Thresh who popularized pwning n00bs with WASD and since then nobody even thinks of playing a PC shooter with a joystick.

Keep in mind this was 1994.

Re:Different Audiences?

[MrAngryForNoReason]

Sure, if you want to get Madden or CoD on launch day there's a premium, but PC titles on launch day aren't cheap either - $40-$60 seems to be the norm.

The issue with console games isn't that the price is high on launch it is that for AAA titles the price never drops. CoD4 is still retailing for £35 even a year and a half after release. Left 4 dead is the same, still retailing for £35.

On PC Cod4 is now £20 and Left 4 dead was only £22 on launch.

The new 'Games on demand' store that has been recently added is even worse. Titles are offered for £19.99 despite brand new Xbox360 copies of the game being available for £10-15 online. So you end up paying more for a copy of the game that is ties to your Xbox so you can't lend it to friends, give it away or sell it when you are finished playing it.

Re:Different Audiences?

[ookaze]

I own an Xbox 360 and a PC (obviously). If I can get a game on the PC I will choose that over the console usually. Stuff like TF2, L4D etc... I fail to see the point of them on the consoles. FPS games on a console are a big bag of fail IMO. Only people who defend them in my experience are ones who haven't spent years using the superior mouse/keyboard combination.

You're right, and that's because these are really PC games, and because the HD consoles are not handled or even made like consoles, but like PC with DRM.
Most of their games are PC games too. PC games tend to be played alone in front of a screen that is dedicated to one player.

The games I have on my Xbox are ones you can't GET on the PC, or ones that work best with a gamepad. Like Burnout Paradise. The PC version is out, but I'd much rather sit on my couch and play on my HDTV with my kids than sit at my desk and play it.

Which is exactly the difference between console games and PC games. Consoles are usually meant to be played with several people behind a single screen, so with several controllers. That's why consoles always had the possibility to plug at least two controllers (those that didn't were failures). Console games are more worthwile on consoles, and don't work as well on PC. During Playstation reign, there were other uses found that worked well with consoles (like cinematics, as usually consoles were played on a TV).

Worse still is that it's already been announced what the first paid DLC will be for Beatles Rock Band. Game isn't even OUT yet and they've already basically said "You're getting an incomplete game and will have to pay again."

The whole DLC thing really annoys me. If it's something really does add to the game, like Big Surf Island for Burnout Paradise, then fine. (I bought the game used, so even with that the game still only cost me about $20). But announcing stuff you're going to have to pay for before the game is even released?! That is just despicable. But then I guess at least you have warning and can say "I'm not going to buy that." (Like anybody will actually do that.)

Companies now realise that instead of a full expansion for, say, $20, they can now put it out in chunks and make twice that.

The problem with DLC is it's a GREAT idea, but greed has, like with so many other things in life, ruined it.

The "problem" is that people accepted that. See MS congratulates itself for making their customers pay for their content at financial reports. And they're adding more paying content as it works for now. Why not if people are paying?
In this case, the consumer took the bait. Now they just have to manage their greed or they take the risk of wearying their customers.
This just shows that there's a big problem in the games industry, because most of the actors don't care about their customers: they see them as milking cows.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Anonymous Coward]

I could care less, but I agree per se.

Re:Different Audiences?

[neumayr]

Huh? You're saying art assets are easier to come by than new code?
How, then, do you explain the utter lack of high quality art in free games and mods, compared to the abundance of said games and mods?
It seems to me you've got it backwards, but feel free to prove your point.

Re:Different Audiences?

[geminidomino]

That's stupid. They're is a used game market on PC too...)

Not that stupid, just regional. In the US, at least, the used PC game market is all but dead. Any major source of used games will NOT sell used PC games: Gamestop, Amazon, Ebay... none of them allow it.

Re:Different Audiences?

[geminidomino]

lol... downgrading drivers... Better supported video card... I'd like to know what game would require me to downgrade any driver, or would require an older version of directX. Your story is BS.

Final Fantasy VIII PC. The engine actually used a bug in the old Nvidia drivers so that trying to play it on any newer driver causes rendering issues. This has been the case for some years since not long after the game was released(it's not a recent example, but it is a valid one).

Re:Different Audiences?

[geminidomino]

The argument that consoles are cheaper is compete bunk. You still need a computer right? So even if you buy a POS computer your going to spend 350-400 and your going top spend another 350-400 on a console too. So now your talking about 700-800 you can build a decent gaming rig for that and it can be upgraded over time for incremental cost.

And it won't have half the lifespan of the console. I build my spanking new gaming system in 2006 (and went whole-hog, spending far more than 800 bucks) because my best friend got me a copy of Oblivion for my PC. That christmas, my brothers got me an Xbox 360. I can play the newest games perfectly on the latter, but not the former.

Re:Different Audiences?

[geminidomino]

One on the family's only computer, one on the family's only game console, one on a DS. Besides, consoles at least give the option "where everyone wants to play the same game with or against each other".

Yeah, that works GREAT until the fistfights start. "He's hogging the computer! I want to play Half Life!" "Piss off, wimp, I'm almost at Shiro! Play the damn DS!" "There's no Half Life on the DS!" (Continues for approximately three more minutes before the vein in Dad's head bursts, the Xbox and DS end up in the trunk of his car, and he wipes the family computer and puts BeOS on it)

Re:Different Audiences?

[Clovis42]

The parent tried to make the point that essentially mouse/keyboard players simply haven't had enough time using a controller to do it properly. I guess he was saying that a controller is actually better than kb/mouse? Certainly for platformers this is true. But for FPS a mouse is definitely better. Actually a Wii Nunchuck/mouse combination would be best. WASD is ok, but I wish I could hold an analog thumbstick in my left (w/several buttons at my fingertips) to move around.

Anyway, Pyrion, you are bit incorrect too. Early FPSs on consoles were simply awful. The aiming was terrible and the games totally had to rely on autoaiming. This really isn't true anymore. Just watch some 360 addict play Modern Warfare online. They are almost as good as an average player with a mouse. There is no autoaim there. Sure, some crappy FPS might still use autoaim, and it shows up in games where FPS shooting isn't the point, like GTA. But the major FPS titles actually work pretty well with a controller.

In a multiplayer match the kb/mouse guys would win, but you might be shocked at how well the gamepad players actually do. I wish someone could actually make this happen. I think uber-elite XBOX users could actually beat an average group of PC players.

Re:Different Audiences?

[geminidomino]

The problem is that most PCs can't output to the CRT SDTV in the living room, and it's too hard to fit four people around the 19" monitor bundled with a new major-label PC. So if a "party" style game isn't exclusive to one console, it's multi-platform in the "both country and western" sense: on Wii+PS2 or on PS3+360, but not ported to PC because of the lack of PCs connected to TVs.

That's downright false. I told you that the last time you brought it up. Any video chipset sufficient to play games on the PC has a card that has it with the capability for TV out, and they're not even that expensive anymore. It's done, it's cheap, and it's easy.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Rosy At Random]

Before I say anything else I must admit that I'm not much of a gamer, although I have started playing stuff again thanks to new housemates with decent consoles and PCs.

Anyway.

A brief consideration of what I'd consider the ideal set-up, for FPS at least, has put the following idea into my mind:

Keyboard & mouse is great except for this problem of Where Are My Keys?, and the awkwardness of using mice for much more than a few main buttons.

So a good solution as far as I can see is to replace the mouse with some kind of one-handed motion-sensitive device, a bit like the Wii's. Not only would rotational (looking/turning) movement be fantastically intuitive but translational could be used to some small degree too (perhaps for quick dodging movements). If shaped a bit like a joystick, the thumb could have quick access to a few buttons/joypad/hat switch/scroll wheel, and the index and pointing fingers a button each.

The other hand can use the keyboard - specifically, the numeric keypad, cursor keys and Insert->Page Down grouping as these are all isolated, easily accessible and navigable, and should be sufficient for pretty much everything.

The only problems I foresee are expense for non-standard parts for the stick, and tiredness due to its use. I suppose a compromise might be a kind of mouse-mounted joystick.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Rosy At Random]

I have just thought of another problem: if using the stick to rotate, you either always have

* a preferred 'North', which would not work,
* some kind of North-resetting function, which could be awkward in the extreme,
* a separate rotational control for 'true rotation' (as opposed to head turning), which could actually work - perhaps a trackball for the thumb?
* angle of stick's inclination indicates speed of rotation - as opposed to position - in that axis, which I think would be rubbish

Re:Different Audiences?

[MozzleyOne]

On the other side of the coin, they have been saying that a lot of the new content relies on each other. I can easily see how it could - new weapons would obviously make the survivors more powerful, so to keep the experience balanced the infected have to get more powerful - so which of the new features balances out which new weapons? What map changes would need altering with the new area-denial boss infected? I think this would very be hard to co-ordinate in individual patches - seperating and pairing up buffs to both sides in an even fashion would take a LOT longer than bundling them all up in a sequel and releasing that. Think of all the playtesting required to balance each DLC patch if nothing else!

This expectation of major content updates to a game from the game developer after release seems a little peculiar to me - I know I get many more hours worth of playtime from multiplayer than singleplayer in my games WITHOUT content patches, yet for some reason there exists this expectation of content after release in multiplayer games. This is a recent phenomenon - how many content patches were there for Counter-Strike? Starcraft/Warcraft 3/Diablo 2? All the remaining multiplayer classics? I think there were 2 new weapons released in like 4 years of Counter-Strike (the new low-cost rifles), and they were very niche and not widely used - probably deliberately so, as then it presents no real balancing issues. Warcraft 3 added a few neutral heroes - again, not very widely used. Adding any of the new features slated for L4D2 would alter the gameplay to a large degree - adding new boss infected would really change up the gameplay dynamics, rendering *many* current strategies obsolete.

I see DLC as a relatively recent expectation, and not one I expect the developers to really embrace. TF2 is about the only major non-MMO game I can recall that has done this - it's had lots of new weapons and achievements added after release. While this obviously helps the longevity of TF2, would TF2 sales increase? How many people are still undecided about TF2 and think "You know, it's not quite there yet, but if they just add a few more weapons and achievements, that'll be enough!". My guess is very few - and the steady players aren't giving Valve any more money to develop new games. Obviously, you can say that investing in DLC for TF2 could be seen as increasing the potential sales of the NEXT Valve game - I guess we'll see how many people are relying on that incentive to buy Valve games with the sales of L4D2. My prediction - absolutely everyone playing L4D currently will fork out for L4D2. Games (especially multiplayer games) are really absurdly cheap in $/hr of enjoyment compared to basically ANYTHING else even without DLC.

You can call Valve greedy corporate whores, but in the end they're still just a company and have to focus the majority of their efforst on those activities likely to generate revenue. I can't believe ANY succesful company could afford to give away a years worth of development time just so .. what? The people who've already paid can keep playing?

Re:Different Audiences?

[tepples]

Any video chipset sufficient to play games on the PC has a card that has it with the capability for TV out

For one thing, capability in the chipset doesn't translate directly into capability in the PC; sometimes a video chip is soldered to the motherboard but the S-Video pins aren't brought out to a connector. Apart from this, I want to believe you, but I also want to confirm this by seeing a comparison of the Hollywood GPU of the Wii and the Intel GMA 950.

Re:Different Audiences?

[tepples]

For instance, even in <$100 category, most cards have analog or HDMI output.

A lot of PCs don't have a video card; instead, they have onboard video. One could buy a new PS2 for the price of such a video card.

If that still doesn't match the input on your TV, you probably need to get a better TV.

"I bought this TV four years ago, and it's already obsolete!?" A better TV costs as much as two consoles, which can output to the older TV.

Or an adapter to whatever video-in it has, that could also work.

I have one of these adapters (VGA to composite and S-Video), but I'd wager that most PC gamers in the United States don't know they exist because they are neither sold in U.S. retail chains nor advertised in the U.S. gaming media. Would it be the responsibility of a publisher of local multiplayer games for PC to promote these adapters?

Re:Different Audiences?

[Applekid]

This is the first time I've seen Valve act like a greedy corporate whore, and it's troubling because they're one of the few remaining PC developers who are worth a damn.

It's the first time they crawled into bed with EA outright since they split away from Sierra and into their own publishing and distribution system. What did you expect would happen when you cozy up to the same company that publishes Madden Year++ and The Sims: Another Shovelware Expansion?

Re:Different Audiences?

[chadplusplus]

The gamepad vs. mouse is moot because console players don't compete against PC users. Its like folks trying to say that Indy car drivers are better than NASCAR drivers. The tools are too dissimilar to make any reasonable comparison, but because all competitors in either situation use similar tools within their own respective environment, they are all at the same relative advantage/disadvantage. Admittedly, if all players (console and PC) played on the same servers, the console players would typically get pwned (with all respect given to statistical anomalies).

Back to TFA, I have played video games for 20 years now on both PCs and consoles. I played DOOM, CIV 4, Medieval 2 and the Half-Life series (among others) on PC. I own an XBOX 360. For whatever reason, I never downloaded any DLC for those PC games. On the other hand, I have downloaded DLC for Halo, Fight Night 4, Tomb Raider and others for my XBox. Weird, I know. (This may change though, if Santa brings me my new gaming rig.)

Additionally, aren't some PC games now requiring you to pay for DLC? For instance, WOW? Or am I not understanding things correctly?

Re:Different Audiences?

[tick_and_bash]

I agree consoles are a great way to get a bunch of people in the same room involved, but unfortunately almost everything released lately has no offline multiplayer. At best it has some sort of 2 player mode if we're lucky. The rest of us have to sit around and wait for their turn. My friends and I still play Red Faction 2 and Bomberman just because of that. All this pay to play DLC just annoys me to no end and keeps me from considering purchasing my own console. They're effectively just fleecing the consumers. Unfortunately, I don't see this revenue stream drying up since many console players are so diehard that they won't even consider a PC beyond a game of Solitaire. (At least my friends won't.) Is there no other option for people with consoles? Isn't there somewhere else they could just download the desired content for free and still play it? I know the PS3 has a browser, so I'm sure there's got to be somewhere they could go to get the same content.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Maybe you suck at shopping. Just saying but you can have a smoking hot system for 800 these days. And consoles don't age well they start looking like crap compared to the latest PC tech a few years after release. So while you can play the latest on consoles they start to pale when in comparison to the latest PC graphics (not that graphics are all that important anyway). Not to mention even if it was a few dollars more which it's not even really it's worth it for the freedom and openness a more open platform provides. And it's more than worth it not to completely be locked in to one companies corporate store. It's bad enough that if you want to game your stuck with Windows. It's even worse with Xbox because Microsoft owns your whole world and will micro-transact a whole LOT MORE money out of you in the long run your kidding yourself.

Re:Different Audiences?

[geminidomino]

For one thing, capability in the chipset doesn't translate directly into capability in the PC; sometimes a video chip is soldered to the motherboard but the S-Video pins aren't brought out to a connector. Apart from this, I want to believe you, but I also want to confirm this by seeing a comparison of the Hollywood GPU of the Wii and the Intel GMA 950.

I didn't say that the connector was there for every chipset. I said that if there was a gaming video chipset, then there is pretty much guaranteed to be a card with that chipset AND some sort of out-to-tv connector.

Re:Different Audiences?

[geminidomino]

Maybe you suck at shopping. Just saying but you can have a smoking hot system for 800 these days.

More likely, you have a lower standard of "Smoking Hot" than I do.

And consoles don't age well they start looking like crap compared to the latest PC tech a few years after release.

This has not yet manifested this generation, from what I've seen. 4 years after launch, current 360 games still look as good as current PC games.

So while you can play the latest on consoles they start to pale when in comparison to the latest PC graphics (not that graphics are all that important anyway).

True, graphics are not all that important. You also get a greater variety of games on Consoles, in my experience.

Not to mention even if it was a few dollars more which it's not even really it's worth it for the freedom and openness a more open platform provides. ... And it's more than worth it not to completely be locked in to one companies corporate store. It's bad enough that if you want to game your stuck with Windows.

You contradict yourself there. "Windows" is hardly an "open platform".

It's even worse with Xbox because Microsoft owns your whole world and will micro-transact a whole LOT MORE money out of you in the long run your kidding yourself.

Now that's just ridiculous. Microsoft owns Xbox Live, which is hardly "my whole world", and no one forces you to buy anything from them.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Anonymous Coward]

For the price of this new Xbox 360 + 100$, you could have upgraded your computer to today's top level; ready to serve you 2 more years.
Right now your stuck with a 3 years old gaming plateform.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Lumpy]

Yup I'll take the best gamepad player against medicore ol me any day.

I'll own them hard. Gamepads only work because the games have an aim helper turned on. get near the target and boink the crosshairs sit on the target and are somewhat sticky. Gears of War I and II are that way. no aiming skill needed at all.

it's why many online games have separate servers for the Xbox and PS3 crowd and the PC crowd is seperate. The PC guys will simply OWN the console players without effort.

Re:Different Audiences?

[geminidomino]

So then I could have a computer that cost essentially 4x as much as an Xbox360(the original, at age parity with the 360, give or take 4 months, cost about 1100)?

Not particularly convincing argument, considering I can still play the newest games on the "3 years old gaming platform."

It's a moot point anyway. I'm sick of shooters and RTSes, and Guild Wars meets my MMO urges, so there's nothing new on the PC worth playing anyway.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Lumpy]

Most console gamers just want to have fun and don't care that much about 'pwning' thousands of players online with their 'leet skills'.

Um yeah, that's why most console players RageQuit when they start getting their arse handed to them.

Xbox live is chock full of little babies that simply quit the game when they meet a player that is better than they are.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to a friend of mine who plays L4D on the console, the keyboard and mouse is way too complex and way too much effort to play.

This is why I'm a better gamer.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Fallingcow]

This expectation of major content updates to a game from the game developer after release seems a little peculiar to me

Well, they did it with TF2, then they said (to paraphrase) "hey, you know what we did with TF2? We're gonna do that with L4D. In fact, you can specifically expect X, Y and Z"

They then released the game, and it already had A and B, though both were buggy, and C was just missing. No one much cared that they'd payed $50 for an incomplete game, 'cuz hey, it's Valve, and it may take them forever to fix it, but they fucking will, right?

Months later, A and B are more-or-less fixed, then around the time C (which isn't just new content, it was missing content) finally comes out we are told that we should be excited because the entirety of X, Y, and Z that we were promised are coming out just one year after release... for a mere $50 more!

The expectation was there because Valve has delivered in the past, and because they said they would deliver this time. Looks like they won't, which is a first AFAIK. It's kind of annoying (to me, and many are far more pissed off) and it's troubling, because they were one of the few "good guys" left out there in the PC gaming world.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only people who defend them in my experience are ones who haven't spent years using the superior mouse/keyboard combination.

Do you realize the irony of this statement? It shouldn't take years for someone to realize that it is easier to aim with a mouse. Get out, play some paintball, shoot some real guns, then you'll realize FPS are a fail on PC's as well.

Note: I am not suggesting you actually go out and shoot people with real guns :)

Re:Different Audiences?

[Donkey_Hotey]

... I will never use any Microsoft product ...

That's funny, given Sony's history (can you say "rootkit?")

Re:Different Audiences?

[hairyfeet]

But the price of the games does NOT make up for it, which was my point! The price of PC games drop MUCH faster than console games, and I often find A and B rated titles in the bargain bin ($20 and under) in less than a year. The AAA rated games in about a year and a half. And much more importantly the modders give you a MUCH greater value for your dollar, often giving you new content for years after a games release and all for free!

Even games that were bargain bin on release, like the Delta Force series of games, can pack mucho fun thanks to mods that fix shortcomings such as weapon balance, mission difficulty, etc. Just the amount of extra content you are given for a game like Delta Force or Freelancer IMHO makes the PC leaps and bounds better than the console. you can buy a game for $29 or less and the modders will give you years worth of content to go with it, how can you even compare to the locked down, "Pay for every little bit of DLC" environment of the current consoles? Just check out sometime what a game like Freelancer gives you thanks to mods. I have more than 30 mods in my Freelancer Mod Manager (a great tool made by the modders) that give me more than 400 new ships, dozens of new star systems, new races and classes, etc. And with The Delta Force Xtreme Special Ops mod IMHO the mod turns a B list title into an A title, just by cranking up the fun.

Personally i think the manufacturers have just gotten too greedy with the current gen consoles. They get you with the consoles, with the price of the games, with the add-ons, with the DLC, etc. It is just a never ending revenue stream to them, fuck the fans if they don't pay up. You mark my words, now we will begin to see more and more console games released as "half done" where you pay $40+ for the game and then will have to shell out another $50+ to get the content that would have been included in the game last gen. Meanwhile PCs have never been cheaper, and you can get a tricked out Quad Core at Tigerdirect now for a hair over $600. Build it yourself and knock a hundred or more off that price. When you figure in the free content, games like FPS, RTS, and MMORPG that simply don't work on consoles, and finally the asshattery of screwing the customer by charging for DLC that would be free on the PC (can you even GET free DLC from Xbox Live?) then to me the console just isn't worth it.

Re:Different Audiences?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to set the record straight. Valve has released NO DLC for the 360 version of Team Fortress 2. There have been a few patches, but we have had no content downloads.

PC = No certification by a 3rd party

[Coopjust]

Whenever Valve or any other company wants to release DLC on the Xbox 360 or PS3, they have to pay either Microsoft or Sony to certify the content. They charge gamers to make up for the cost of this certification.

Of course, the fact that gamers will pay for downloadable content on consoles is certainly a good reason by itself...

Re:PC = No certification by a 3rd party

[Anonymous Coward]

And so the pendulum is affected by an opposite force and slows down until it starts swinging back. Thin client vs. PC. Central control vs. distributed control. Convenience vs. freedom. AOL vs. the Internet. Secure walled garden vs. diverse wilderness.

Re:PC = No certification by a 3rd party

[vux984]

Whenever Valve or any other company wants to release DLC on the Xbox 360 or PS3, they have to pay either Microsoft or Sony to certify the content. They charge gamers to make up for the cost of this certification.

How much do you think MS charges to certify a map pack? Its not going to be 10s of thousands. If they just wanted to make up for the cost certification, they could charge 50 cents and still turn a profit. (Of course, charging 50 cents ends up costing 25 cents in transaction fees, so make it 75 cents...)

Of course, the fact that gamers will pay for downloadable content on consoles is certainly a good reason by itself...

This. They can, so they do. The price is set based on what people will pay, not on what it cost. (If it cost more than people would pay, they wouldn't do it, but the set price really has very little to do directly with the cost, beyond determining whether its worth doing in the first place. Business 101.)

Re:PC = No certification by a 3rd party

[AmiMoJo]

I wonder what will happen when the XBOX 360 and PS3 are end-of-life and the servers get turned off. It could be a major turning point when people realise that all the DLC that they "bought" no longer works and all the achievements they racked up disappear. It's happened before, but never on anything like the scale it's going to in a few years time.

At least with some PC DLC you get an executable that you can backup and will work forever. I wanted the the new Monkey Island re-make, but it only seems to be available on Steam. I can play the original game I bought ~20 years ago, but will Steam be around so I can play the new one in 20 years?

Re:PC = No certification by a 3rd party

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever Valve or any other company wants to release DLC on the Xbox 360 or PS3, they have to pay either Microsoft or Sony to certify the content. They charge gamers to make up for the cost of this certification.

Of course, the fact that gamers will pay for downloadable content on consoles is certainly a good reason by itself...

Ineed. The main reason is just what you said, Microsoft wont allow free DLC on their system. Also because console players will pay for DLC, a PC gamer would not (the majority)

Look back at CoD1 (PC only.) Bocage, Neuville and Stalingrad were added along with the patches. Why? Back then the companies cared about their PC gamers. Now in CoDWaW- they're on their 3rd map pack. Why?

If 1 million people buy the 10 dollar map pack, thats 10 million dollars! As much as I hate developers for doing payed for DLC, I can see why they do it, the console players will buy it.

I think the reason they hadnt had the PC players pay for the DLC in CoD yet is because they know the PC gamers will never go for it. The PC gamers know its just a BS move to get quick cash.

Re:PC = No certification by a 3rd party

[Doctor_Jest]

I only object to the cost being prohibitive (for an add-on) or if the game is somehow missing something that becomes DLC later in the cycle to milk the franchise. (Add on missions are fine, but there's a limit to add-ons before they become something akin to "stuff we should've included at launch.")

DLC is going to become the new "DRM" to thwart the First Sale Doctrine. That is the direction _I_ don't want it to go. Dragon Age is going to have some free DLC if you buy the game new, but it'll cost $15 for those who buy used. No one has really said it out loud, but it'll only take a few bold moves by the EA sized conglomerates to make that DLC "essential", making the game useless without the one-time-only DLC. I wouldn't put it past them to try, and that is what makes DLC the potential crapfest it can become. We've come a long way since horse armor. :) Speaking of Oblivion, Shivering Isles was a perfect example of DLC that can be great but not essential to enjoying the game. (Not to mention the Game of the Year edition included it all, I think, after a while as DLC.) Shivering Isles gave some great new gameplay in an entirely new world, and it wasn't like Fable 2's short-short "Knothole Island" DLC.

Re:PC = No certification by a 3rd party

[ThePhilips]

If they just wanted to make up for the cost certification, they could charge 50 cents and still turn a profit. (Of course, charging 50 cents ends up costing 25 cents in transaction fees, so make it 75 cents...)

There are piles of other costs involved too, like operations, promotions DRM, bandwidth, etc.

The price is set based on what people will pay, not on what it cost.

So after all you understand it.

In the end it boils down to cost models.

Consoles are like TV and games are like movies and TV shows. And priced like-wise - so the attendance fee would make you feel privileged. (What I strongly believe is the source of the console gaming "hardcore elitism" syndrom.)

PCs are like ... PCs. With arrival of internet, establishment of solid gaming communities, many game companies found themselves competing against their own users. On PCs, you would find variety of business models. Not only game companies compete against each other - but also business models compete against each other. Existence of Stream and Impulse (and by now countless other DD stores) is the best evidence of that.

Consequently, PC content has to be priced more competitively than that of consoles. Often, considering competing distribution channels, modding communities and piracy - it's simpler to give it away for free and try to monetize the give away, (rather than charging for it up front).

On consoles the competition induced problem of PC market simply doesn't exist. That's why publishers charge pretty much anything they want. And how they way. That's why many 6+ month old PC game might be considered old and found in discount bin for $10, while most console games after two years might be found on the shelves with the same price as at the release.

Re:PC = No certification by a 3rd party

[Vancorps]

Why would the servers get turned off? I doubt Microsoft or Sony are going anywhere anytime soon. In the age where everything can just be a VM there's no reason to shut off servers entirely. When you upgrade to your new hardware you just migrate to the VM and then it's just a file on a SAN somewhere. Unless Microsoft or Sony go out of business this will be perpetual as the costs of maintaining are practically negligible. If the product is EOL then there is likely to be far less demand on the servers so you just keep it in a VM for availability of the remaining few who still play.

Re:PC = No certification by a 3rd party

[beelsebob]

How much do you think MS charges to certify a map pack? Its not going to be 10s of thousands.
Wanna bet? Sony charges $30,000 just for one developer to even look at the API they might use to write a game.

Re:PC = No certification by a 3rd party

[AmiMoJo]

The maintenance costs are far from negligible. You need to employ a team of people, supply electricity to power and cool servers, buy bandwidth and spare parts for them and so on, all for no return as the console isn't even being made any more.

It's actually worse than that though since you need to also providing billing services and deal with the game producers providing the content.

If you still have doubts, try to name one company that kept the servers going long after they stopped selling the product. Even relatively simple stuff like music licenses disappear within months of the product or store closing.

XBOX Live for 360 won't be around in 10 years, maybe not even in 5.

Re:PC = No certification by a 3rd party

[hedwards]

At that point, you just crack the protection. The DMCA does have a provision for that eventuality, it's hard to say how well it would hold up in court, but it should be a valid defense. And the actual software itself falls under 1st amendment protection, provided that it isn't actually cracked within the US' borders.

That aside, the DLC abuse was the last straw on MS getting anymore of my money. If they can't get that right and refuse to acknowledge that they can give refunds then I don't want any more to do with it. Especially since they've been blatantly lying about not being able to get the right number of points without leftovers.

Re:PC = No certification by a 3rd party

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder what will happen when the XBOX 360 and PS3 are end-of-life and the servers get turned off.

Exactly the same thing that will happen when Value fail. You're screwed unless you have an illegal hack.

Re:PC = No certification by a 3rd party

[silanea]

Remember MSN Music, the Yahoo! Music Store, the Walmart music DRM disaster and the row around Zune and PlaysForSure? Servers are turned off, established formats are phased out to push the next generation of a platform, and in many cases only a major PR debacle brings the companies to reason.

Re:PC = No certification by a 3rd party

[BikeHelmet]

You seem to be forgetting the ludicrous amount Microsoft charges for bandwidth.

If they charged $1.50 on an average update, they might be breaking even. But that still doesn't pay for the extra developers that have to figure out how the hell the game works with only some of the available DLC. $2.50 might be a better estimate.

Oh wait - Microsoft charges per download, so if you re-download DLC, ever, that costs money too. Might be best to add some padding to that figure, because I'm sure many players will re-download a few times.

Re:PC = No certification by a 3rd party

[Pyrion]

You're misrepresenting the facts here. Yes, they have to pay MS or Sony to certify the content, but what if Valve explicitly wants the content to be released for free? Sony and MS aren't going to go along with this, because Sony and MS want to charge money for it. Sony and MS would be fine with the updates costing a small amount, say, $5, because they'd still get a share of each sale. But a share of diddly squat is still diddly squat.

Re:PC = No certification by a 3rd party

[IKnwThePiecesFt]

I'm fairly certain xbox live for the original xbox is still around, and I'm fairly certain that when the 360 is last gen it's live will stay as well.

Re:PC = No certification by a 3rd party

[Wildclaw]

At that point, you just crack the protection. The DMCA does have a provision for that eventuality,

It may be technically legal to actually crack the game, but since the same DMCA laws makes it is illegal to manufacture or distribute the same crack, it isn't really practically legal.

Re:PC = No certification by a 3rd party

[mjwx]

Whenever Valve or any other company wants to release DLC on the Xbox 360 or PS3, they have to pay either Microsoft or Sony to certify the content. They charge gamers to make up for the cost of this certification.

Plus license fee's.

Take Fallout 3 for example, on PC its A$99 but on Xbox and PS3 it's A$119.

EB games is a complete rip off, going to JB hifi will knock A$20 of of each of these prices but the difference remains, you pay A$20 less for PC then for console. so for every four console games I could have bought 5 PC games. The good developers like Valve and Stardock will give you free content updates on a PC.

Simple answer

[ledow]

Simple. Stop paying for it.

If people pay money for something, that's because they think it's worth that money (eBay syndrome). If you get "more" for free on the PC, use a PC.

Re:Simple answer

[ArundelCastle]

Simple. Stop paying for it.

If people pay money for something, that's because they think it's worth that money (eBay syndrome). If you get "more" for free on the PC, use a PC.

I like consoles, I like the variety, I like the differences, I like the exclusives, and I'm picky about what DLC I will buy.
I like PC games, I like Steam as a distribution method, and I like retro gaming and emulators.

I did stop paying for it. I stopped paying for an endless upgrade cycle of PC hardware that wasn't worth the money. I may get more software for "free" on the PC, but I've paid a factor of 10 more on hardware components over the last couple decades, until I just threw the tower away and went for laptops and Macs. I can still play the games I bought in the 80s and 90s, but my Voodoo2 and AWE64Gold cards are just novelty pieces in a storage box now.

Super NES still works fine, still just as fun, don't care that the plastic is discoloured. Worst case is replacing a $3 save battery in a cartridge. Other than the Xbox 360 there hasn't been much in the way of hardware problems for major consoles, and almost none until optical discs came in. My PS2 lasers wore out because I used them as a DVD player too; buying a DVD drive for the PC was too expensive, at first. Same with my PS3 and Blu-Ray; early adopters pay through the nose, and I refuse to. I was not suckered into an HD-DVD drive for my 360. Console peripherals are doomed.

I respect that PC and *nix users in particular are do-it-yourselfers, and so they like the kind of control where you can replace or improve one part instead of losing access to your entire machine. My kung-fu was the best in the DOS days, when I was a geeky teenager and that was the most interesting way to spend my time. Now it's not. It's nice that some people get satisfaction out of updating and hacking their video card drivers, but I'd rather go out to a movie with friends, and send my gear to the shop when it breaks. It's not fun anymore for me.

It's not a value judgement, I'm not comparing the value of my time or my social activities to anyone else's choices, only to myself. It's a big enough world, and a big enough marketplace, that you can make those decisions for how best to spend your time and money.

One of my professors doesn't understand consoles at all, he thinks it's a con job to get people to buy new things all the time. I don't consider 5 - 10 years of practical & nostalgic life from a piece of hardware to be unreasonable. Especially when compared to a $500 video card that uses a motherboard interface that won't exist in 5 years. My attention span isn't so short, and my storage boxes are already full of cool unusable crap.

Re:Simple answer

[Aladrin]

Yeah, it really is that simple.

The problem is, there are -other- people willing to pay for it. All the people complaining about the state of DLC are the ones that aren't happy with it. The happy ones continue to funnel money into it.

So in the end, the problem is really that the complainers have absolutely no control over the happy people. And they hate that.

The biggest complaint I hear is about DLC that's already available on launch day. They think that content should have been part of the original package and that they are being screwed. They completely forget that -nothing- is free. They paid for what's on the disc and that's it, buy they are demanding more. If cost was -really- that important to them, they wouldn't buy on launch day. They'd wait until it's half price or less, and then play it.

But they think they can get their way by whining, so they do.

Re:Simple answer

[ledow]

Then your problem is early-adoption, not PC's. I don't buy computers, I wait until people give them to me (e.g. if it's cheaper just to buy a new machine for them) or they're so ridiculously cheap that people get me them for Christmas etc.

Why on earth you'd *ever* pay $500 for a graphics card, I have no idea. And ESPECIALLY not for a sound card. I was a gamer in the DOS days (23 hand-configured seperate config.sys configurations in DOS 6.22, for various games that were far too picky), I've been a gamer ever since but hell - I've never paid more than about £50 ($100-ish) for a component, certainly don't do that even three or four times a year and yet am more than happy with the 57 games on my Steam account. I bought a DVD-Writer. In fact, I still have every original CD or DVD drive I've ever owned still in one of my old PC's. The very first 2xSpeed CD reader that I bought second-hand YEARS ago still works perfectly, as do all the intermediates (CD-R, CD-RW, DVD, DVD/CD-RW, etc.) because I use them for convienent copying of CD's and as a mini CD-server when necessary. What the hell you do to wear them out I have no idea.

How do I do it? I stagger my entertainment. Want to play a game? Wait a year until it's on budget release and/or I have a PC capable of playing it (I don't buy PC's just to play a game, it's the last thing on my life). Save money on the PC, save money on the game, save money spent on worthless games (because they've been out for a year by then and everyone knows if they're crap).

Consoles work the same - buy them a year after release - cheaper, more games, no problems. Your problem is not console vs PC.. that's just a lifestyle choice of convenient vs hackable. Your problem is "MUST HAVE NOW!" versus "It's a game". I LOVE the SNES, I adore the games. So I emulate them on PC. Still have the thing tucked away somewhere but I gave up last time I tried to plug it in because my TV is a pig to re-tune. So I emulate those games on the same PC as I play Half-life 2, etc. It's just more convenient than a bunch of obscure, fragile consoles with stupid batteries in the cartridges.

Re:Simple answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple. Stop paying for it.

Just because you and I stop paying for tiny content additions to incomplete games doesn't mean others will. It takes a whole lot less people buying virtual clothes for The Sims for 3 dollars to make a profit then it does buying an expansion pack that took several hundred hours to make for 20$. They don't even have to please the majority in order to make money.

Re:Simple answer

[ledow]

"They don't even have to please the majority in order to make money."

Bing-bing-bing-bing. We have a winner.

So the company makes money because people *want* the content, and are willing to pay for it. That's your answer. You're not going to stop that until things change. So either: Don't buy DLC for yourself, buy it for yourself and live with it, or stop whining about it. It's like saying that the companies that sell cars should provide breakdown cover with them. Of course they *could*. But the majority of their customers are quite happy to buy the car without that and either not have breakdown cover, or to pay for their own. You can't expect the companies involved to make a loss-making decision for the sake of, as you point out, the minority of fans.

Rule #1 of paying for ANYTHING: if you're not satisfied with the terms, don't buy it. It's as simple as that. If you feel hard done by, boycott the company, maybe send them an email. If you want to buy the game but not the DLC, do just that. Of COURSE the company won't care, you're one person, but then you're giving that money to either yourself or to companies that DO operate how you want. You won't change the world, but you won't have anything to whine about and won't be supporting companies that "rip you off". Problem solved.

Re:Simple answer

[CronoCloud]

Consoles work the same - buy them a year after release - cheaper, more games, no problems.

Yep, that's usually a good idea.

I LOVE the SNES, I adore the games. So I emulate them on PC. Still have the thing tucked away somewhere but I gave up last time I tried to plug it in because my TV is a pig to re-tune.

Re-tune? Why would you need to do that, don't you have a composite or S-video cable for your SNES? You aren't hooking the thing up via RF are you?

It's just more convenient than a bunch of obscure, fragile consoles with stupid batteries in the cartridges.

The SNES isn't fragile, but that front loading NES's cartridge socket is. It's possible to replace the batteries, I had the battery in the original Zelda go bad, luckily the cartridge I had, had standard screws and not the later ones. My SNES cartridge batteries seem to still be fine.

PC vs Consoles

[superphysics]

Take that, you console-owning-PC-haters! :>

Re:PC vs Consoles

[ThePhilips]

console-owning-PC-haters

For whatever reason I recalled my mother who hates soap operas deeply, yet watches them every night.

Console gamers would always hate PC gamers - simply because we get more out of our games than their could ever hope for.

It could be compared to incompatibility between people who watch soap operas and people who'd rather go out for a walk.

Re:PC vs Consoles

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a console-owning-PC-hater, I'm a console-owning-PC-not-able-to-afford-er. It sucks.

Re:PC vs Consoles

[Anonymous Coward]

*Standing ovation*

Previously I didn't mind about console-owners paying for content: if they are to stupid to demand updates for free as the PC-crowd does, they deserve to be ripped of.

But since L4D and other cross-platform games, I fear this 'I'm an idiot and will apy for any minor update you throw at me' mentality will spread to the PC. I mean: Valve is screing up big time with extra content on L4D, and the console-crowd is still calling Valve is doing a good job! This way, Valve doesn't mind one group (the PC-owners, which HAVE a brain) isn't satisfied with their product: they still have a brainless cheering crowd of xbox-live subscribers...

Re:PC vs Consoles

[Toonol]

And what's the reason pc gamers hate console players?

Re:PC vs Consoles

[ThePhilips]

In my experience, PC gamers are too busy with their games - and with upgrades to their PCs - to actually notice console gamers.

Personally I'd advise to leave console gamers alone - in their eternal mushroom kingdom nirvana. It's impossible for them to learn that there is a choice.

Re:PC vs Consoles

[drsquare]

Console gamers would always hate PC gamers

Console gamers don't think about PC gamers at all. In fact, they're so rare these days, they probably don't even know that PC gamers even exist. When people think games, they think either consoles, or solitaire/minesweeper.

PC gamers hate consoles as they're marginalising the PC as a gaming platform. But don't worry, you'll still have a steady stream of identical fantasy MMOs to keep you busy, and maybe a few cast-off shitty ports six-months after the console release.

It could be compared to incompatibility between people who watch soap operas and people who'd rather go out for a walk.

I don't think the typical player of, say, WoW (the only modern PC game of any consequence) has time to go for any walks: those rats won't kill themselves.

Re:PC vs Consoles

[ThePhilips]

PC gamers hate consoles as they're marginalising the PC as a gaming platform. But don't worry, you'll still have a steady stream of identical fantasy MMOs to keep you busy, and maybe a few cast-off shitty ports six-months after the console release.

... thanks for the nice example of hate speak.

It's also nice to see the confirmation that average console gamers doesn't even try to see all the possibilities - because they are so used to be locked in singular console market. Having choices isn't for you. Making the choice - out of question.

Check Steam and Impulse for PC game development. Usual plethora of FPS, RTS, TBS, etc games. Got bored with standard package? Check out mods. Tired of that too? Check out indie/amateur games. You can come across a gem one in a while. Or even new genre progenitor. Tired of that too? Check all the piles of flash based games - you can play new game every day.

PC gaming can't be marginalized for one simple reason: this is where all gaming innovations are happening. When PC gaming dies, so would the gaming in general.

After all, innovations aren't happening behind closed doors by sales people - you need an open, competitive environment for that, filled with people who have a genuine interest. Console companies aren't fit for that: they are too busy coming up with next way to rip off their consumers (while engineering is way too busy to figure out how to map all the 100 of actions sales want in the game on the two buttons of a controller).

Re:PC vs Consoles

[Toonol]

In my experience, PC gamers are too busy with their games - and with upgrades to their PCs - to actually notice console gamers.

Not judging by most responses in this thread. I think there's a more general principle here, which I'll summarize: "I do [x], so [not x] is for LESSER PEOPLE. Any other conclusion would suggest I'M NOT SUPERIOR, and that's A BAD FEELING".

Slashdot selects from a heavily pc-centric crowd, hence the bias. Over at console sites, the console-centric crowd laughs at pc gamers. In truth, pc gaming and console gaming are both fine. Both have good and bad points.

Re:PC vs Consoles

[mjwx]

And what's the reason pc gamers hate console players?

Dumbing down good PC games.

There are other reasons but that will do for now.

Why should I pay for upgrades and patches?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Not only do I not understand the reasoning behind paying for upgrades, bugfixes, and patches, in this day and age of instantaneous distribution, I don't see why I should have to pay the same price for a game that I download over the internet vs one that comes on a DVD. Once the game publisher has recouped the cost of development and marketing, every penny after that is pure profit which, given today's copyright laws, means that these leeches will continue to profit of the backs of gamers for decades.

Since I am downloading the game, why shouldn't I get a discounted price? And if the game has already recouped costs, why shouldn't game companies be forced to lower the price subsequently? The value of the game at some point must reach zero, and I should at that point be allowed to download it for free.

As consoles become more PC-like, they too will need to re-evaluate the payment schemes for these bugfixes. And once the floodgates are opened, gamers will demand software freedom for the entire games, not just the patches and upgrades.

Re:Why should I pay for upgrades and patches?

[blackraven14250]

Lowering the price based on the number sold isn't a good idea. That essentially caps what a game company can make off of a given game.

Oh, and your 15 cent discount will go far. Use it well.

Re:Why should I pay for upgrades and patches?

[Anonymous Coward]

For the record, the game mentioned in the article is 66% off this weekend, and it's extremely cheap any other time. Is that what you meant by discount?

Re:Why should I pay for upgrades and patches?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that there are many different things done with revenue, right? For example when you mention the "costs" that are being recouped - sure, these are things like payroll, office space, artwork, media licenses, heating and cooling, etc. Then there is marketing. You also expect people to be able to create a new game later or keep producing these patches and updates. That also takes more payroll. The next game must be funded, and existing companies are going to fund initially from the profit stream on their current sellers. You don't think that each time a game is developed a new company forms, gets venture capital, produces a game and then folds up shop do you? The value of the game can't reach zero until such time as it is no longer getting updates and fixes and no longer getting any marketing effort. At that point it could indeed reach near zero assuming the downloads aren't using any bandwidth that the company has to pay for.

Re:Why should I pay for upgrades and patches?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Every game I've played with DLC has had incremental bug fixes free. I'm pretty sure I'd take up pitchforks to any game dev that wanted cash to fix bugs they made.

Re:Why should I pay for upgrades and patches?

[Brian Gordon]

You do get a discounted price, in the form of added value. Since we're on the topic of Steam, let's talk about that. Yes for the same price you can get the game on disk, but with the disk version do you get free updates forever? This is non-trivial; a huge part of the TF2 experience is the regular patches adding new content and tweaking the game. Check out the release notes for just Thursday's update. This isn't even a class update! Also you can leverage your

in this day and age of instantaneous distribution, I don't see why I should have to pay the same price

to download your games anywhere you want, as many times as you want, without carrying around a library of DVDs with you. You get further value added through community features too that you typically don't get from just buying a disk. Steam community lets you IM your Steam friends, see what game they're playing, join them on that server, join groups with similar interests, join group chat, see what your group-members are playing and join them, see gameplay stats for friends and groupmates.. and you can get screen-corner notifications if you want for a friend joining a game, or a group announcement, or a friend request.. and not only from the Steam application but also from the steam overlay app which can be brought up over any game.. these features cost money to maintain, and you get them for free.

Re:Why should I pay for upgrades and patches?

[gid]

Since I am downloading the game, why shouldn't I get a discounted price?

Not only do they not offer a discounted price for buying online, Valve traditionally charges more--see L4D, and pretty much any other game offered on Steam. Although after a period of time there's usually sales for the online store, but I'm pretty sure there's sales in real stores as well. Supposedly this is to make places like EB and Best Buy happy, so Valve doesn't seem to be directly competing against the retailers.

Re:Why should I pay for upgrades and patches?

[jjohnson]

There is no "should" or "shouldn't". There's what gamers will pay for and what they won't. And gamers haven't shown a lot collective intelligence in demanding anything.

Re:Why should I pay for upgrades and patches?

[Mr2001]

Since we're on the topic of Steam, let's talk about that. Yes for the same price you can get the game on disk, but with the disk version do you get free updates forever? This is non-trivial; a huge part of the TF2 experience is the regular patches adding new content and tweaking the game.

If you buy a Valve game like TF2 on disc, then yes, you do get free updates forever. The disc only saves you from having to download the game in the first place: once it's installed, it's just like a copy from Steam. But, in the stores I've checked, you'll pay around 50% more for a boxed copy of The Orange Box than if you just downloaded it from Stream.

Re:Why should I pay for upgrades and patches?

[Pluvius]

Yes for the same price you can get the game on disk, but with the disk version do you get free updates forever?

Yes. Of course, you got free updates forever on PC games even before Steam existed, but you do realize that you can register retail CD keys on Steam, right? Upon doing so you get the exact same functionality as with the digitally distributed version, but with the bonus of an official hard-copy of the game. There's no reason for games to be the same price on Steam as they are at retail besides the fact that the publishers can get away with it.

Rob

Just think about it for a second. Duh....

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what you get when you buy a console, or console games.

Think about it. The console is a much better business proposal for a company. Stable platform to develop against, and it's locked down so the can charge for all the extra stuff you would get on a PC for free. If you make the mistake of stepping into their preferred market (i.e. consoles) you get what you asked for. Whether or not you thought about it in advance (or at all) is your problem. Learn to think like a big corporation and you will no longer be surprised or disappointed by them.

Re:Just think about it for a second. Duh....

[Anonymous Coward]

the joke's on you. his mom has herpes. (trust me on this one)

Announcing DLC before game release

[douglasdoughty]

What really aggravates me is when game studios/publishers for consoles announce that DLC is going to be available and when it is coming out before the game is ever released! C'mon, guys -- don't rape us and force us to watch. Include the content in the game rather than releasing it later. Or, better yet, let us delete maps/non-needed extras from our game to trade out for other DLC.

Re:Announcing DLC before game release

[faffod]

DLC doesn't just happen. The dev team needs to stay on the project and work on it. If instead, that content was built into the game, then the game would have to ship later. So the choices are:
1) push the ship date out (that won't be popular)
2) put more content in, with less overall quality (that won't be popular)
3) put the time to develop the content, test it, certify it and give it away for free (that isn't going to happen)
4) Ship the game and make DLC available to those who want to purchase it.
I see choice 4 as being the reasonable and sane one. This isn't raping you, if you don't like it don't buy the DLC, if you really don't like it don't buy the game. If you think that the hand holding that a console gives you isn't worth the lock in, buy the PC version.

Re:Announcing DLC before game release

[TuaAmin13]

Unlock DLC irks me. You pay for what's on the disk, just a few dollars to unlock it.

Re:Announcing DLC before game release

[faffod]

I agree about the unlock "dlc" - if it's on the disk then paying extra for it sucks. That only works for shareware titles.

Left 4 Dead

[PhrostyMcByte]

Some people speculate that console DLC madness is the reason Left 4 Dead 2 is being released as a new game instead of as DLC for the original.

Re:Left 4 Dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Trolling - you're doing it wrong.

You need to at least have a snarky link handy for your "Some people" words and maybe some story about some people overcharging about a map pack for some game nobody cares about as the "DLC madness" link.

-1 Overrated for lack of effort.

Re:Left 4 Dead

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah it has nothing to do with the completely rebuilt AI 2.0, the procedural engine changes, the new dynamic weather system, the night/day light cycle, or the extensive improvements to the source engine. it's just because they want money. jesus, your a tard.

Re:Left 4 Dead

[Anonymous Coward]

The speculate that, but the reason basically boils down to lots of Valve's staff wanting to work on L4D2. Kim Swift, for instance. It seems gaben was initially critical of producing a sequel so soon, but the developers really wanted to do it, they had lots of ideas to add to the game and felt it couldn't just be added to the original and required an overhaul.

Re:Left 4 Dead

[BikeHelmet]

You have a valid point. I can't imagine what Microsoft would charge Valve for 4-5 extra campaigns, complete with a new engine and gigabytes of artwork. The download costs alone would be several dollars, and then you have certification, the chances of players re-downloading in the future, etc...

An expansion or sequel is clearly the way to go. I guess they chose sequel. Hopefully this means expansion campaigns will trickle out to us over the next few years, for free. (on PC)

Re:Left 4 Dead

[Anonymous Coward]

You have a valid point. I can't imagine what Microsoft would charge Valve for 4-5 extra campaigns, complete with a new engine and gigabytes of artwork. The download costs alone would be several dollars, and then you have certification, the chances of players re-downloading in the future, etc...

You have no idea. It's almost cheaper for them this way.

AC to avoid getting chaired at work

Closed vs Open

[0123456]

Consoles are a closed system where the owners have little choice about where they get content (sure, you can hack the firmware, but only a small fraction of owners will), PCs are an open system where owners can get content from all over. It's hardly surprising that users of closed systems get screwed.

This is why every tech company wants to own a closed system.

Re:Closed vs Open

[Anonymous Coward]

But on the upside; by their very nature, closed systems suffer less piracy - which is translated into cheaper games for the consumer, since the developers suffer reduced losses on these platforms.
For example, upcoming Wolfenstein is a reasonable £37.96 to pre-order from Amazon UK for the Xbox 360 and PS3, but a whopping £24.96 on piracy-rampant PC.
Upcoming Call of Duty - Modern Warfare II is an outrageous £34.99 on PC, but good value £44.96 on Xbox 360 and PS3.
Ermm...

Re:Closed vs Open

[Anonymous Coward]

>> But on the upside; by their very nature, closed systems suffer less piracy - which is translated into cheaper games for the consumer

Thats BS and you know it. Devs will charge what they think that they can get away with.

Re:Closed vs Open

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's funny and all, but your numbers DO correlate with the piracy thing - it's not that they have to raise prices to cover the sales lost due to piracy, it's that they have to keep the prices down to encourage people to buy it instead of pirating it. Conversely, on a console, it's not that they keep the price low because you're not likely to share with friends - it's that they can afford to keep the prices high, because they know your friends can't share with you!

Re:Closed vs Open

[BikeHelmet]

But don't forget the free evangelist marketing that takes place.

On Console, friends are evangelists, paying full price to spread the word about good games.

On PC, pirates are evangelists, paying nothing to spread the word about good games.

While you get less from the pirates (and thus have to keep your prices lower), you get more free marketing for good games, which should combine well with lower prices to make up a lot of sales.

But the console market is bigger, so you always get more sales there. It skews the results a bit.

Re:Closed vs Open

[Anonymous Coward]

Less Piracy = Less competition = Higher prices

Look at the prices of games and movies in places where copyright law is lax and piracy is rampant.

Console Gaming Bill Of Rights...

[Xin Jing]

Perhaps it's time for a "bill of rights" supported by a special interest group to advocate what is fair and what isn't. Gaming has become a multi billion dollar market and has repeated the same content distribution mistakes as other types of media. When you buy into a console market, you are essentially committing all of your loyalty at once, with the expectation of fractional returns in service and quality over time. Everything that goes on that platform passes through the approval process of the console manufacturer, opening the opportunity to be nickle and dimed. With a PC, if a pub or dev doesn't take care of you by charging accordingly for product support or add-ons, there are alternatives that don't invalidate the hardware.

Re:Console Gaming Bill Of Rights...

[jjohnson]

This has nothing to do with rights. When you buy a console, you're buying a particular type of premium platform: streamlined game delivery, dedicated controller, etc. It's no different than people who buy Apple products paying for common bits of software (or more for hardware) that PC users get for free because of the much larger market with far poorer quality control.

Quality control is one of the biggest advantages of console gaming, and it's long been a complaint of PC gamers that their versions of games are buggy because the studios don't put the QA time into them because they can always release patches, while console games have to be relatively bug free on first release.

Re:Console Gaming Bill Of Rights...

[Pyrion]

That's because the one thing studios just don't get is that QA on the PC is inherently pointless. You want good QA? Fire your QA team and let your devs run free open betas.

Re:Console Gaming Bill Of Rights...

[jjohnson]

Having worked with a good QA team, I have to disagree. An open beta gets you tons of feedback that's useless because it's mainly "I totally hit that guy but it didn't register" or "your class balance sucks" or "you should add a weapon to covers dudes in goo!" Very little beta feedback besides crash dumps matches up to the spec in any meaningful way.

Re:Console Gaming Bill Of Rights...

[Xin Jing]

Yes, yes, but all console manufacturers can make th same claim. Everyone can enjoy a more consistant gameplay experience because the games are played on standardized hardware. If the developer needs to recoup development cost, they can do it through the retail game price. Yet a recent Slashdot article http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8201332.stm (source link) referenced declining console game sales have fallen 29% and indicate a shift to more digital distribution and less retail physical media. That would be a great opportunity to bundle or repackage (gold edition, standard edition) bonus content with the core game download. It sounds like your saying the cost of poorly bundled incremental content after the initial purchase of the hardware is justified by the standardization and experience the hardware allows. The console manufacturer got their money when the unit was bought, they get a royalty for each games and they get revenue from points cards to download content. Everything after the decision to purchase the console and a game is in their favor. Couldn't they at least do a better job of bundling content, establishing tiered pricing and providing refunds for downloaded content that they sell through their storefront? With retail sales on the decline and digital distribution on the rise, the downloadable storefront needs to do more to mimic it's retail brother by providing more purchase options.

Re:Console Gaming Bill Of Rights...

[Pyrion]

So rather than getting tons of feedback about whether or not the game actually runs right is "useless?" Having worked with a good QA team, how many of your products were released to manufacturing only for a large number of your customers complaining in under a week that their newly-purchased assumed-to-be-done wondering-how-the-fuck-this-buggy-shit-got-past-QA product doesn't work?

Re:Console Gaming Bill Of Rights...

[jjohnson]

Where did I say that you shouldn't have an open beta? I said an open beta is no substitute for a good QA department.

All the products I worked with worked on release, and had bugs that got reported to us by customers. What demonstrated to me that the QA department was worth it was that after each release, most of the feedback from customers through Support was requests to add features, not bugs.

Re:Console Gaming Bill Of Rights...

[jjohnson]

You keep phrasing this in terms of right and wrong: "bill of rights", "justified", etc. This is entirely a market issue. My observations about premium content are a market rationalization that may or may not work over time, but if it changes, it'll be because of changing market conditions and the purchasing patterns of gamers. Sure they could do a better job, offering more for less. But the only thing that will make them do that is a spreadsheet.

Re:Console Gaming Bill Of Rights...

[Pyrion]

No, you said an open beta gets you tons of feedback that's useless. In effect implying that there's no reason at all to run an open beta in the first place.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but the inherent nature of the PC platform precludes releasing a perfectly stable 1.0 release that will run on anything and everything that could be called a PC, completely done, completely bug-free? So as far as the PC platform is concerned, "a good QA team" only serves to run damage control reports to the devs on what they found wrong, even though chances are, you're only scraping the surface of what's really wrong with the product and you can't possibly find out everything that's wrong until your customers get a hold of it. So why keep it out of their hands in the first place?

Incidentally, "adding features" and "fixing bugs" can be considered the same thing, since a feature that is commonly requested is for the product to actually work.

Re:Console Gaming Bill Of Rights...

[Pyrion]

Or they could just stop being cheap greedy bastards with how much you pay for games and additional content. I mean, for the sake of context, look at how much you pay for Fallout 3 DLC as opposed to the core game itself. It's disproportionate. You might get 30-50 hours out of the core game, and if you play through every bit of the core game, you'll easily get 120 hours out of it. The DLC? $10 each for a couple more hours at best.

Re:Console Gaming Bill Of Rights...

[jjohnson]

As any MMO dev will tell you, open betas do get you a ton of useless feedback. The trick to running a good open beta is learning to filter for the useful feedback. There was an infamous incident in the beta for Pirates of the Burning Sea, where some devs actually posted to the Beta forums that they'd stopped reading the forums because most of what they were getting there was useless to them.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but the inherent nature of the PC platform precludes releasing a perfectly stable 1.0 release that will run on anything and everything that could be called a PC, completely done, completely bug-free?

You can't release a perfectly stable 1.0, completely bug-free release on a console either. Perfectly bug free software is a mythical ideal. What you can do on both platforms is QA until you've eliminated the vast majority of bugs. On consoles that's more important because you can't patch, but there's no reason you can't do it on a PC either. It's not impossible to release good quality software on a PC, as I've experienced.

So as far as the PC platform is concerned, "a good QA team" only serves to run damage control reports to the devs on what they found wrong, even though chances are, you're only scraping the surface of what's really wrong with the product and you can't possibly find out everything that's wrong until your customers get a hold of it.

I'm not sure where you get this hate-on for QA. First, as a practical matter, if you eliminate QA departments, you've just shifted the QA function to the devs themselves, who have to do more testing of their code to make sure it works enough to be released.

But to be clear, you're wrong. QA does much more than run damage control reports. They test common and uncommon scenarios. They run through scripts that approximate user actions. They file detailed bug reports with full reproducibility steps, saving devs time from figuring out how a particular error occurred. You're not scraping the surface of what's wrong with the product--you're guaranteeing by directed trial-and-error that most use cases work as expected. If the software doesn't work properly, that's a sign of bad or missing QA, not QA's irrelevance.

I can't speak for other software vendors, but at my last employer, the software we released functioned properly for the vast majority of cases. There were bugs that needed to be fixed, but overall, customers were very satisfied with the quality, and that was, in part, to QA's credit. I knew some of the guys in QA. I saw what they did and how much useful feedback they gave to the devs.

Incidentally, "adding features" and "fixing bugs" can be considered the same thing, since a feature that is commonly requested is for the product to actually work.

This is just... I don't know what you mean, but I think you have very little experience with releasing commercial software. Most software released on PC does work for most uses for most people. But to be clear, when I said "adding features" above, I meant customers requesting features that the software didn't have.

Re:Console Gaming Bill Of Rights...

[Anonymous Coward]

Quality control is one of the biggest advantages of console gaming, and it's long been a complaint of PC gamers that their versions of games are buggy because the studios don't put the QA time into them because they can always release patches, while console games have to be relatively bug free on first release.

It should probably read "[...]while console games HAD to be relatively bug free on first release.". Nowadays two of the big three consoles comes with the ability to patch the games and do so regularly. Although I see the benefits I also see the dangers. Most games work out of the box, but I think it is just a matter of time until the console gamers consider patching as natural as the PC gamers think. I am sure time will prove me right.

Re:Console Gaming Bill Of Rights...

[master811]

Quality control is one of the biggest advantages of console gaming, and it's long been a complaint of PC gamers that their versions of games are buggy because the studios don't put the QA time into them because they can always release patches, while console games have to be relatively bug free on first release.

You realise right that the current generation of consoles no longer need this all important quality control for the big fact that any problems they can now send out patches to everyone (just you can on a PC). So many games now get realised before they are ready (take Socom: Confrontation for instance), incredibly buggy at start and as a result got really bad reviews, but has improved massively since then.

Seems a fair transfer of wealth

[Anonymous Coward]

Those yuppie console owners have always demonstrated a crass commercialism and willingness to overpay for carts and discs and online chotskies so it is only fair they should carry the weight for downtrodden PC users.

Re:Seems a fair transfer of wealth

[psicop]

Those downtrodden PC users have always demonstrated a crass communism and unwillingness to pay for carts and discs and online chotskies so it is only fair they shouldn't carry any weight for the downtrodden console gamers.

Fixed that for you. :)

Seriously, though. If you're going to talk transfer of wealth, then something needs to be done about at least the pricing scheme for the content. I don't know how many current subs there are to Xbox Live, but does a 4 map pack, *really* need to be priced for $10? (on top of initial disc cost, plus live sub fee, and having to re-up on points because you're 'a little short' from previous content...) And not to mention the eventual '4 more maps', then '4 moar' and 'Hey! Listen! Hey! Hey! 12 maps here! 1 ridiculous price...

Considering game development is just a mere 'division' of a larger "It shits money...and all we have is a 'copyright'" company. I find it hard to believe that these companies are really 'suffering' from the 'downtrodden PC users' stealing their games and music.

There needs to be more 'bang for the buck' as far as DLC goes when you have to pay for it. "Not paying for it" isn't a realistic option. (unless it's a theme or gamer pics) but maps, add-ons, and more content overall...

It gets pretty boring with the same min-maxed perks, loadouts, and grenade spamming on the original maps...or after you've already unlocked all the achievements, played all the difficulties, etc. PC users can at least modify their content...console gamers can just 'keep paying more...for the same pre-packaged content'

To each their own, but as a console and PC gamer, I can only ask "What can we -really- do about it?"

Re:Seems a fair transfer of wealth

[ToasterMonkey]

does a 4 map pack, *really* need to be priced for $10?

Does the next life in an arcade game REALLY need to cost $.50?
Apparently so, because enough people pay it.
When^H^H^H^HIf people stop buying it, it will drop to $4.99, then $2.99, watch.

Next up:
I don't want to pay a premium for lakeside view, because I hate water.

Followed by:
I demand my $.95 back because this soda only cost Coca Cola $.00X to produce.

DLC = modding in a DRM world

[Tei]

DLC is supposed to give to console gamers what we the PC gamers have. Stuff made by entusiast to enhance already good games with more maps, game modes, textures, models, etc..

Since that stuff can't be freely installed in a console, because a console is locked down hardware, to give that cool stuff companies make that stuff thenselves and need to sell it.

DLC is the DRM version of Modding.
 

Re:DLC = modding in a DRM world

[Pyrion]

Not even close. The end user can modify the game to his heart's content provided he knows how, with a PC. Good fucking luck accomplishing the same with the console. All you're getting with a console is "approved" content, ergo content that the publisher thinks is good enough to charge for.

This isn't "modding," this is "charging for updates."

Re:DLC = modding in a DRM world

[Spit]

To be fair, generating assets for a modern game and playtesting them requires a fair bit of investment. these aren't Doom WADs we're talking here. There is still the option to vote with your buck, you can treat the xbox like the PS2 and pretend there is no online or expansion available, and just play the game as-is.

If an item of DLC is quality and value, I will pay for it. If it's horse armour, then I won't.

Psychology

[superphysics]

It probably has a lot to do with psychology too. Consoles are generally used by richer people (children and adults) who, in addition to owning a computer, can afford to own consoles too (people who own consoles, in all likelihood, own computers before they own consoles).

These people are then less likely to be smiffed by a surcharge of a few dollars. Not that they like paying it, but they have fewer gripes. Companies, of course, home in on this very psyche.

The fact that consoles are closed also makes matters different, like so many before me have commented. But if the demographic it caters to failed, how would paid DLC ever have taken off?

Re:Psychology

[davidbrit2]

Consoles are generally used by richer people...

[citation needed]

Re:Psychology

[ImNotAtWork]

I respectfully disagree. Owning a computer and owning a gaming computer are two different things. I would argue the less financially off would order the cheapest computer he/she can for e-mail/surfing/facebook/etc. and a game console that can possibly play dvds or other media up to the tv. The less well off only want to buy one system that works and doesn't have to be upgraded.

Re:Psychology

[Pyrion]

Let's modify this a bit. Consoles are generally used by casual gamers, who own a computer but don't use it for gaming because they likely have neither the time nor the patience to learn how to game on it. Otherwise, why pay another huge sum of money for a gaming platform when you already have a gaming platform that can run just about anything? No, they buy consoles because they're idiots. They don't want to learn the system, they just want to play the games. Convenience comes at a cost, and they're fine with that cost up until finding out that those of us who bothered to learn how to game on PCs don't necessarily have to pay for the same content that they do.

Re:Psychology

[Hellhog]

Well, that's riotously offensive.

Re:Psychology

[Tacvek]

Indeed, and there are quite a few console exclusive games that could not be considered casual games. Also consider that some games like DDR, guitar hero, Smash Bros., etc. can be played either casually or not so casually. The expert levels on some of those games are at least as difficult as expert difficulty is some more traditional genres.

Re:Psychology

[Pyrion]

Then why's it such a big deal in the first place? You own a console, you pay for content, and when more content is released, you pay for that too. It's the nature of the platform, and you damn well knew that when you bought the console in the first place. Just like with the PC, you damn well know that you can get, for free, just about anything that rivals what you'd have to pay for, even operating systems, and no one entity controls everything that you have access to. Again, it's the nature of the platform. So I'll ask you again, why is this such a big deal in the first place? Why all the whining over having to pay for DLC on consoles and not on PCs? Isn't that the tradeoff for paying a fraction of what a PC costs up-front?

Re:Psychology

[Pyrion]

And there are quite a few PC-exclusive games that can be considered casual games. So what? The point is not whether the games are casual versus non-casual, it's whether the consoles themselves are casual versus non-casual. You sit on a couch in front of a television to use a console. Not necessarily so with a PC. You play games on a console, and that's pretty much it. Not necessarily so with a PC. You pay a small up front cost to get the console. Not necessarily so with a PC. You're stuck with whatever content the designer of the console wants you to have access to. Not necessarily so with a PC. You are trading functionality and freedom for convenience, and convenience always comes with an attached price tag.

Re:Psychology

[superphysics]

I could quote a study that compared gaming consoles owned to the job of the main earning member of the family. Problem is, it was taken by a print magazine in Pakistan (where I live), and I couldn't refer you to it. But I admit I may be wrong to generalize it for the rest of the world, particularly US.

Re:Psychology

[drsquare]

I don't know where you can legally require the Windows installation needed to play most PC games. Or where you can legally acquire games for free. Especially the ones not even released on the PC. Or the controllers.

DLC is used to fight second hand sales

[El_Muerte_TDS]

A lot of companies announce DLC for a game right after, or even before it was released. Buy doing this they hope people will not trade in the game, and thus reduce the number of second hand copies that are available.

Re:DLC is used to fight second hand sales

[Anonymous Coward]

I suddenly have the urge to not trade in my games.

Re:DLC is used to fight second hand sales

[RyoShin]

The article (or at least summary) is about how DLC is paid for on consoles, but often free on the PC. It can't be for fighting the second-hand market; in fact, charging for DLC would make a user more interested in giving up the game, especially if the developers take the sleazy route and make a short/crap game to start and then charge for the good stuff. $10/map pack, or $20 for another used game altogether?

It actually enhances the second hand market, as players will be able to buy a game for cheaper if they see DLC they want to buy as well (and are willing to pay for).

Valve has used the free downloads for TF2 (of which one was released this past week) to keep constant interest in the game; it both keeps players happy, as they'll discuss it and recommend it to friends, and make it more appealing to new players with every update. I know that on a video game forum I go to, at least three people have bought it because those of us who play it go crazy over updates, which piques their interest.

Re:DLC is used to fight second hand sales

[Anonymous Coward]

This is precisely the reason the studios love DLC on the consoles. You can take Fallout 3 back to GameStop for trade-in credit, but Operation Anchorage, Broken Steel, The Pitt, Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta are DRMitized to your 360. Just wait until the studios really start digital publishing. You'll see $60 games on Live that have all the DRM restrictions that any other DLC has.

Having played Oblivion on 360 and PC, I can't believe the difference in the games. I use about 10 mods on the PC that makes the game almost unrecognizable from the dumbed-down "horse armor" 360 version. I pretty much gave up PC gaming around when I picked up a PS2 and an iBook -- until I bought a core2 system last year. I was floored by what I've been missing out on. I'm currently playing Brother in Arms Hell's Highway, which IGN dings for having horrible framerate problems on the 360 -- it runs as smooth as butter on my 9800gtx.

Re:DLC is used to fight second hand sales

[Pyrion]

Valve isn't the only company that does this. Stardock has been doing this with Galactic Civilizations 2 for much longer than Valve has with TF2, it just doesn't get the same amount of attention because GC2 is a PC-only TBS whereas TF2 is a multiplatform FPS.

Re:DLC is used to fight second hand sales

[Pyrion]

You should play Fallout 3 on the PC, although after you're done modding it, you'll probably have to use editbin or some other tool to flag the executable as large address-aware to get the damn thing to stop crashing as easily. Throwing this tip out there because Bethsoft still doesn't get it.

Re:DLC is used to fight second hand sales

[Inda]

Probably true, makes sense anyway.

Why don't they understand price though?

I've been waiting for Assassins Creed on the 360 to drop below £10 second hand. This is the price I think it is worth and I know I can resell it for maybe £5 in a months time without issue. I can get it for £10 on eBay today. The local shops have it at £12, or £20 if you buy two games.

Just this week Live have the whole game on DLC for £20 with a resale value of £0.

Any child under 10 could tell you which is the best deal. Even if you explain the two day wait for a mail order purchase they'll understand. I'm nearly 40, so why do they take me for a mug?

Re:DLC is used to fight second hand sales

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should Bethseda give a fuck about your big titty anime mods?

Re:DLC is used to fight second hand sales

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably true, makes sense anyway.

Why don't they understand price though?

I've been waiting for Assassins Creed on the 360 to drop below £10 second hand. This is the price I think it is worth and I know I can resell it for maybe £5 in a months time without issue. I can get it for £10 on eBay today. The local shops have it at £12, or £20 if you buy two games.

Just this week Live have the whole game on DLC for £20 with a resale value of £0.

Any child under 10 could tell you which is the best deal. Even if you explain the two day wait for a mail order purchase they'll understand. I'm nearly 40, so why do they take me for a mug?

The local shops set the prices of the second hand games. They also incur more overhead costs for the physical shop than it costs for someone to sell the same thing on ebay. Additionally, there is typically a greater supply of the same video games, and more competition between sellers, on ebay than your local shops have.

This applies pretty much universally to any retail store, and has nothing to do with game companies. They don't make any money off second hand sales. This seems completely off-topic... Who modded this up?

Re:DLC is used to fight second hand sales

[stub667]

The free DLCs are also an attempt to reduce piracy and force registration. The Mass Effect DLC was released free with their first patch, but required registering your details and using your CD key to obtain a key for the DLC.

Sometimes its the other way around too

[Shados]

Prince of Persia Epilogue: Not available at all for PC.
Overlord's Raising Hell: came out on PC months late, through a very crappy channel
Overlord 2's DLC I dont think its even available for PC yet?

It depends on the game type. FPSs and stuff tend to be much more popular on PC, but DLC for other game types is often console exclusive, or at least tends to favor consoles by a lot.

Re:Sometimes its the other way around too

[Anonymous Coward]

More accurately: If it's out for PC it is out for free, but sometimes developers don't want to put it out for free so they do not put it out for PC.

Another example of free DLC would be street fighter IV: $10 for all the alternate skins, + some amount of money for training videos. Skins are free on the pc, and you can get much better sf info off youtube.

Re:Sometimes its the other way around too

[Anonymous Coward]

"It depends on the game type. FPSs and stuff tend to be much more popular on PC, but DLC for other game types is often console exclusive, or at least tends to favor consoles by a lot."

You'd be suprised. Halo 1, 2 & 3, Gears of War 1 & 2 and other top selling FPS dwarf the sales figures of PC FPS sales. Halo 2 and 3 are the joint best selling FPS games of all time.

The hardcore PC gaming market is actually quite a niche, it's much smaller than the PS3, the 360 or the Wii by themselves, let alone combined.

The PC casual gaming market is bigger than the hardcore console market, but the PC casual gaming market is not bigger than the console casual gaming market (i.e. the Wii).

Overall though, the PC gaming market is vastly smaller than the console market, not many people seem to realise this, but it's why PC games have dropped so drastically in price in recent years (from average of £34.99 down to average of £22.99). It's also why there's a lack of quality PC titles nowadays, whilst you get the odd good title, most are console ports that simply aren't anywhere near as good on the PC such as the Call of Duty series- it's effectively become an afterthought because it's not a market worth focussing solely on. Even Valve, perhaps one of the most successful PC game developers has had to branch out into publishing, and has been forced to finally start supporting the PS3 to keep afloat.

Your argument makes no sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if I accepted that PCs are tools and consoles are toys, why would that make it obvious that PC users don't pay for extra content while console users do? People pay for all sorts of tools and toys.

Re:Your argument makes no sense.

[Toonol]

And when you play a game on a pc, you're using a tool as a toy. You could even argue that something like "WiiFit" is using a toy as a tool.

I think that, primarily, the difference is convenience. I love the PC, but playing games on it is never hassle-free. You're never certain ANYTHING will work until you actually try it. You never know when a random update or new installation will break something else. Part of a console's convenience is the idea of living in a gated community. It's sometimes very nice (things actually work!), sometimes very irritating ($5 for new textures).

Most of my gaming is done on the console, mainly because of convenience. I'll reserve my PC gaming for small independent games, and games with significant modding communities... the PC's two strong points. Ok, and emulation. And abandonware. The PC's four strong points.

Re:Your argument makes no sense.

[sammyF70]

I completely agree with those four points : Small independent games, modding communities, Emulations, Abandonware and better graphics/performance after a short while. Wait... that's five points ...

Re:Your argument makes no sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Amongst its strong points are such diverse elements as: small indie gamges, modding communities, emulation, abandonware, better performance and nice fancy cases. Oh forget it, I'll come in again.

Re:Your argument makes no sense.

[Pyrion]

Because you're locked into only being able to use content that the console dev specifically wants you to have access to, meaning they make the rules, and if they want you to pay for DLC, then you have to pay for DLC. It could be the same with the PC (after all, Fallout 3 DLC also comes from Microsoft through GFWL) but that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be the same.

If you don't like having to pay for DLC, then bitch to Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. They're the ones making you pay for it. Don't whine about PC users not getting similarly screwed, because Valve and company control their own destinies on this platform and they're reaping the benefits of not being complete douchebags about it.

Re:Your argument makes no sense.

[blackraven14250]

I'd rather have the convenience of choosing any control setup, with any controllers, than have the convenience of plug-and-play. 5 minutes of setup for a better 20-hour experience is worth it.

Re:Your argument makes no sense.

[tirefire]

Whoa there. The predictable hardware and software base with a console may be an asset to its stability and overall ease of use, but it is by no means ironclad. Have you ever played Quake 4 on the Xbox 360, for example? Terrible frame rate. I don't have any consoles, but some of my friends do, and they're always complaining about how game X has some bug that prevents them from getting to the next level, or how their save got corrupted.

When a game is buggy on a PC, there is sometimes a community-made patch to fix it, or a modified config file you can download to solve it. If it's a hardware or software problem on your end, you have at least some chance of addressing it yourself.

With a console, you put in the disc, and it either works or it doesn't. You can't upgrade it or tweak detailed configuration settings.

Re:Your argument makes no sense.

[Goldberg's Pants]

What games are you playing that need five minutes of setup? Hardest to setup in my experience are race sims and setting up my wheel. That takes a couple of minutes at best.

Flight sims, with my analog stick, about the same.

Re:Your argument makes no sense.

[Goldberg's Pants]

As I said higher up, I don't mind paying if it adds something to the game, like Big Surf Island in Burnout Paradise.

But you get situations like Resident Evil. I think there was some DLC on release day to unlock something that was very clearly already on the disk. Lot of people got mad about that but, as always, the furore dies down and it returns to business as usual.

The problem is not whining. It's complacency. People get annoyed, angry, "I won't stand for this" and then after a few days it'll be situation normal and the business of gouging the player continues without so much as a word.

It only happens because the customer lets it happen. Want to see evidence? Go check out Xbox Live.

The new update that dropped on the 11th lets you buy, as in pay hard currency for, outfits and items for your avatar. Already in games like 1 vs 100 I'm seeing folk who have these new outfits. Outfits that cost 400 Microsoft Points. (Around $5 or so, depending on where you are in the world.)

If you ever needed graphic proof of people having more money than sense, there you go. These people are absolute morons, buying virtual clothes for a virtual character with REAL money!

Re:Your argument makes no sense.

[j_sp_r]

Strategy games is also another strong point. I wouldn't play Supreme Commander on a gamepad.

Re:Your argument makes no sense.

[Pyrion]

Of course it's complacency. PC users don't stand for this shit, because they know they have alternatives. If you don't want to pay for content that should've been in the game in the first place, then you're probably going to pirate it despite whatever protections the publishers think are going to prevent that from happening. They're slowly wising up to this: companies like Valve, Bioware and Stardock release updates/"DLC" for free on the PC knowing damn well that it's going to generate more interest in the core game, equaling more game sales.

Owning a gaming PC might be considered graphic proof of having more money than sense, at least until you start seeing just how fickle PC gamers are when it comes to what games they're buying and WHY they're buying those games. Console gamers, despite the argument that consoles are cheaper, will inevitably demonstrate that they'll buy just about anything available on the service because they're starved for content and don't realize (or care) just how hard they're getting screwed.

Re:Your argument makes no sense.

[Pyrion]

I wouldn't play Supreme Commander on a system with specs as outdated as a 360 or PS3. Hell, I had trouble convincing myself to play SupCom on a PC until I splurged on computer hardware that's way overkill for what the game requires.

Re:Your argument makes no sense.

[bluesatin]

Maybe he was referring to the large spew of console ports to the PC rescently, the last few I've tried have been pretty good but some are down right awful.

I got pretty used to the config files of the Unreal engine (since that's what most of them seemed to use), a lot of the time it was probably easier or only possible to change keys through the config files directly.

But most of the ports wern't even worth playing to be honest.

And WHY on earth has Slashdot stopped allowing line breaks with pure text, and ignoring the BR tag when I change it to HTML coding >:C

Re:Your argument makes no sense.

[Dutch Gun]

Well, if a console game performs poorly, it's pretty much going to perform poorly on everyone's machine uniformly. It means the developers / publishers knowingly shipped a sub-par game, and should get appropriately slammed in reviews. Likewise, if they shipped a game with crashing bugs, that means that they can't really blame any configuration issues or unstable drivers that they never tested.

So, no, nothing in life is "ironclad" guaranteed, except death and taxes. But overall, it's much easier deliver a stable, well-performing game on the consoles than on the PC (having developed games for both).

Re:Your argument makes no sense.

[masterzora]

I'm not sure where he starts counting, but it's easily over 5 minutes. If he's starting at installation, you can easily lose 15 minutes right there (though, fortunately, most well-designed installers are closer to 5, and usually even less than that). If he's counting from first boot, I usually have to go through all of the available options. Default graphics options are nowhere near as high as my system can comfortably handle, and most "automatically detect best settings" buttons fall short of what I can handle, too. The sound options usually default to low-quality stereo, so that needs boosting to high-quality surround. Minor gameplay changes, like enabling subtitles (seriously, why aren't they default?) and then going through and making sure the default controls don't suck, or changing them such that they don't. It's a lot of little things, but I find that they add up to about 5 minutes for most of my own installations.

Re:Your argument makes no sense.

[adona1]

Of course, on the flip side I'd point out the endless Sims add-on packs which choke the top positions of the PC gaming sales charts, despite the fact that there are large communities modding clothing, furniture etc for the game.

Re:Your argument makes no sense.

[blackraven14250]

For PS3 and 360, it takes about as long to install the games as it does on a computer. I was going for how long from main menu > options menu > all options the way I want > game started. For graphics, I usually hit their highest default level, and max everything, taking about a minute. Audio is usually only about one or two dropdowns to set up, and it's much faster than graphics. Controls I actually don't set up (most of them) until after I'm in-game, as it's hard to tell what exactly you need to have on-hand. Granted, WSAD is going to be handy. But, for example, in Aion I severely underestimated how useful having the spread and fold wings buttons very handy would be. I ended up putting them on the two side buttons on my mouse by my thumb (G5), but I couldn't have known about that until I actually played.

Re:Your argument makes no sense.

[dangitman]

Owning a gaming PC might be considered graphic proof of having more money than sense, at least until you start seeing just how fickle PC gamers are when it comes to what games they're buying and WHY they're buying those games.

But then you look again, and see how much they spend on hardware, despite them being gamers, and games are software. So, rather than pay for what they love, they'd rather pay some completely unrelated hardware company, rather than the software companies that make their beloved games.

Somehow, I don't think that's going to work out so well for them.

Re:Your argument makes no sense.

[j_sp_r]

It plays quite nicely on my laptop.

Include A Refund Disclaimer...

[Xin Jing]

I think the console manufacturer should take it one step further. Not only should it be disclosed that "your online game experience may vary" but they should also mention on the outside of the console package that "additional downloadable game content may incur a cost" and consider including a way to uninstall it for a full or partial refund.

Re:Include A Refund Disclaimer...

[tepples]

they should also mention on the outside of the console package that "additional downloadable game content may incur a cost"

Nintendo already does this on Wii games: "Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection Pay & Play".

Consoles are for n00bs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Suck it up console queers!

Implications

[tepples]

Include the content in the game rather than releasing it later.

Are you implying that publishers should delay releasing the game until all the DLC is finished? Are you further implying that publishers of music games like Rock Band, which depend on underlying works licensed from third parties, should increase the retail price of their products to cover the royalty payments?

Re:Implications

[Anonymous Coward]

Include the content in the game rather than releasing it later.

Are you implying that publishers should delay releasing the game until all the DLC is finished? Are you further implying that publishers of music games like Rock Band, which depend on underlying works licensed from third parties, should increase the retail price of their products to cover the royalty payments?

I think he was implying that the makers should stop stripping stuff out of the main game right before it ships just to charge people more for it later, as was the case in Gears of War 2.

Re:Implications

[FrostDust]

The implication is better reflected by Resident Evil 5.
Release multiplayer mode as a separate product, with it's own cost, a few days later?
Does anyone really believe they were so swamped they couldn't include it on the disc, and were able to code it in two days' time?
It's obvious they just removed content from the game, and released it as DLC, to milk money out of customers for something that was planned from the beginning.

Imagine if a racing game came out with only "Career mode" unlocked, then you had to pay $10 each for "Time trial", "Single Race", "Versus", "Practice", "Co-op", and so on, until a $60 game costs well over $100 for what was normally expected to be in such a game.

That is the type of bullshit parent is campaigning against.

Re:Implications

[Anonymous Coward]

Realize that there's a multi-month turnaround from finaling a game and to it hitting shelves. Release-day DLC could have multiple months of work put into it AFTER the game was done.

Unlike PC games, console games can use extra pads.

[tepples]

Consoles are generally used by richer people (children and adults) who, in addition to owning a computer, can afford to own consoles too (people who own consoles, in all likelihood, own computers before they own consoles).

There's a difference between owning a computer, singular, and owning computers, plural. A family of four may own one computer and one console. But unlike a console, a computer is probably not connected to a large monitor. So when one player is playing on a console, the other players can pick up controllers and join in, but when one player is playing on a computer, the others have to sit and wait. The way most PC games' multiplayer modes work, one would have to buy four PCs and four copies of each game in order to play the same game that one console, one copy of the game, and three extra controllers allow.

One possible reason...

[The Living Fractal]

Think of it this way:

If every single PC user of Team Fortress 2 was already part of an online 'e-tail' content delivery system with their credit cards hooked up to it, etc, then it would be much, much more likely that they try to release it only on that delivery method. As it is, that is really only found on consoles.

So, there you have it?

Re:One possible reason...

[VGPowerlord]

Think of it this way:

If every single PC user of Team Fortress 2 was already part of an online 'e-tail' content delivery system with their credit cards hooked up to it, etc, then it would be much, much more likely that they try to release it only on that delivery method. As it is, that is really only found on consoles.

So, there you have it?

Sllow me introduce you to Steam, Valve's content delivery system that every Team Fortress 2 player has installed.

Re:One possible reason...

[VGPowerlord]

Whoops, checked to make sure the link was right, but didn't check for typos after changing Let to Allow.

Discounts, Minimal or Bulk Incentives, Refunds...

[Xin Jing]

If the console manufaturer charges the dev and they pass that cost on to the consumer to recoup the cost, I suggest the dev take responsibility for the cost. Include a discount to promote future purchases and maintain loyalty. As I said elsewhere ("Console Bill Of Rights") the consumer is pretty much stuck after the purshase of the unit. It's not like they can use another service if they disagree with the status quo. Gamers need a special interest group to weigh in for them and insist on balanced service. If the system works by purchasing points and spending them through the MS or Sony storefront, your options are already limited. Why not include more tiered pricing for minimal and bulk bonus content and essential patch downloads. Include a refund option that returns points to the gamer within a deadline after purchase.

Why is this?

[nurb432]

Because the market supports it.

Why pay for a game you've already bought?

[Doug52392]

Something I've never understood about paying for DLC: If you've already purchased the video game, why would you want to pay more money for something that's not equivalent to what your paying?

On game consoles, the average just-released console game costs $60 (I believe the extra $10 is for licensing fees with the console manufacturer). Your average DLC pack costs $10 on Xbox Live or PlayStation Network. So your paying 17% of the original game's cost, but are you getting an extra 17% of a game? In many cases (Call of Duty...), your not.

Meh, it doesn't concern me though: I don't own a game console. Unfortunately, however, some companies have recently asked the question: If console gamers are willing to spend $60 on a game, why wouldn't PC gamers?

Re:Why pay for a game you've already bought?

[Anonymous Coward]

where did you get the $10 more for DLC pack being average? Any evidence to back this up?

I haven't done any real research in this area, but my empirical evidence suggests that the common (mode) price for new content is about $5, not counting songs/song packs, which generally come in at $2/song. The average price is, I'm sure, less than this, because there are a lot of free DLC extras, and not a lot of extras that I've heard about being more than $5. (large game expansions, maps packs being about the only things I've heard of).

You didn't buy that console

[holophrastic]

PC gamers purchased that PC. Often at thousands of dollars -- mine's just over $7K including the 30" LCD. When I purchase a game, I purchase the game.

Consoles don't cost thousands of dollars. Most consoles cost $300ish. The idea of the console industry is to lose money on the consoles and make it up on the games. So the game publishers pay the console makers. No one pays the PC makers except the person buynig the PC.

Lately, DLC has been an excellent way to make the games cheaper, because there is further revenue to be had on the DLC later on.

Remember, someone has to pay for that $1000 console. Congrats on paying the first $300 yourself. The next $700 used to come as $20 from the $60 games. Now it comes as $15 from the $40 games, and $5 from the DLC. Big surprise.

Stop wanting things for free. If consumers would look at things from the other side, things could be very different. Instead of wanting things cheaper, why don't you try to fund your favourite company, by paying larger prices, so that they have the money to build better things, and can then charge less for better. You don't want the same for less money, you want better for the same money.

But hey, most of my friends spend $20 per month on satelite radio. Because "it's a fine deal, for loads of content, blah blah blah". They forget that if they add up all of their entertainment dollars -- radio, television, internet, movies, restaurants, games, sports, et cetera -- there isn't enough time in the month to get the full value of all the money spent. It's not that satelite radio isn't worth $20/month. It's that television plus radio isn't worth $100/month.

But consumers are too busy budgetting dollars to know how to budget value. I find it interesting.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[0123456]

PC gamers purchased that PC. Often at thousands of dollars -- mine's just over $7K including the 30" LCD.

How many people pay $7,000 for a PC? I'm not even sure how you can spend $7,000 on a PC unless you get it gold-plated or insist on a terabyte of 15k SCSI disks.

Even a decent gaming PC shouldn't cost you much more than $1200 these days.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[Anonymous Coward]

no when you purchase a game, you license it!

Re:You didn't buy that console

[Comatose51]

Wish I had points to mod you up. The bit about "budget value" is insightful.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[Anonymous Coward]

Your argument doesn't work in reality. Putting aside the ridiculous $700 figure, you conveniently neglect Nintendo, who have no problem charging you $3 for a new pallet for Megaman, after they sold you a $200 console at a profit.

Sounds like you're whining. "Those poor multinationals, they GIVE you $700, you ungrateful bastard." Bullshit. If they don't want to sell consoles at a $700 (ha) loss, they shouldn't sell consoles at a $700 loss.

The reason they charge money for addons is simple: people will pay for addons. Want free addons? Don't buy games unless they come with free addons.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, you would be surprised at how pricey some pieces of hardware can be.
Believe it or not, but that "$1200" gaming PC is low-end. (for a gaming PC)

My friend was set a challenge to build the most expensive PC he could and got well over $13k.. actually make that £13k.
And this was without SSDs. SSDs, decent ones comparable to your average drive, made the price sky-rocket. (average being 320-500 at the time)

Re:You didn't buy that console

[RyoShin]

The idea of the console industry is to lose money on the consoles and make it up on the games.

Not quite; the common razor and razorblade model keeps the razor at a low, fixed cost. In the console industry, companies routinely lower costs to help boost their own profits (or lower losses) as well as to eventually drop the console price and lure in more buyers. Some companies just accept losses early on in order to build up a consumer base, and then will profit on consoles later in their life. (Except Nintendo, who rarely loses money on their consoles.)

Planned DLC wouldn't be so bad if the original game was released at a cheaper price. Say, $30-$50, I get a complete though somewhat empty/short game, and then I can get DLC to my heart's content.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[Anonymous Coward]

I very much doubt you know what you're talking about.

1. Nintendo has never sold any of its consoles at a loss. Each earns a profit, even the Wii. 360s have also been turning a profit for about a year now.
2. The major consoles don't cost 1000 to produce in large quantities. Yes, sure, maybe a lot of research and development went into the product, but the actual manufacturing cost of a console is usually close to it's price point. Even the PS3 didn't cost $1000.
3. Console games are still $60, depending on the title, and the console (wii games are $50). A company isn't making much for the sale of a DLC item, because the 1st party (MS, Sony, Nintendo) take a big chunk of the profit, and the income is most likely created to offset the cost of certificatino of the new product.
4. How the hell does anyone spend $7000 on a computer meant to play games? I highly doubt that you know what value is when you're spending 7000 on computer components (that'll be worth $3000 or less in a year).

Re:You didn't buy that console

[Anonymous Coward]

PC gamers purchased that PC. Often at thousands of dollars -- mine's just over $7K including the 30" LCD

You are an idiot then. My whole system including my Samsung LN46B650 46" LCD only cost 2500 my PC cost and is capable of playing any game at full 1080p. Example Crysis on Ultra High @ 1920x1080 average 31 FPS.

Way to fail.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[holophrastic]

it's not hard.
$2'600 LCD,
4 HDD totalling $600
$350 motherboard
$300 video card
$125 sound card
$300 OS
$225 TV card
$300 office suite
$400 blu-ray writer
$500 second monitor 22"
$300 for a few games
$250 UPS
$200 enclosure
$150 speakers
$95 keyboard
$85 mouse
$5 mouse pad
$3 mic
$25 IR remote
$50 quiet VGA cooler
taxes, deliveries
nothing crazy. just one full unit.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[holophrastic]

Thanks. Running two businesses really has me on that edge all the time. I get clients who want to pay less, not realizing how much more I'd be able to give them if they'd simply cover my bare costs on the extras. instead, I'm forced to give them things that are really less-than-good, because they've pressed me to being able to cover costs, and not being able to make sure that it's of any quality.

As opposed to my suppliers, who get extra money, and extra responsibility, to make sure everything is perfect, and to prioritize me as well.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[holophrastic]

You're nuts. Certainly Nintendo is the exception using older hardware that isn't as expensive for them (still great games). But you're forgetting that for them to get that DLC to you, the old hardware has to work. There's a whole network to maintain. An entire deployment system.

On the PC, when someone releases something via "fileshack", fileshack gets to deal with the costs. And they have an entire business with which to do that. But when Nintendo wants to release something DLC, they can't just put it onto a site. It gets to go through their networks.

And, might I remind you, Valve is not responsible for the security of your connection to fileshack. They aren't responsible for the anti-virus on your PC. And they aren't responsible for your accidentally breaking your copy of L4D when you install some third-party DLC.

But Nintendo is responsible for all of that -- including the telephone tech support to your grandmother who wonders why all of a sudden, everything's green with cross-bones.

Welcome to business. Much like in a restaurant, you aren't paying for the food. You're paying for the service.

That salad for which they charge $7.00 certainly doesn't have more than $2.00 of lettuce and vegetation. Those additional $5.00 go into the plate, cleaning it, purchasing it, transporting it, the waiter, the chef, the chair, the table, the rent, and some profit.

Run your own business and see.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[ThePhilips]

For $7k, the guy might be doing bit more than playing Crysis, you know. Like ... "work" and stuff.

Decent monitor x 2, workstation level graphic card and good RAID-10 controller with server grade drives - those alone could easily weigh more than $3k. Not required for games, but for some types of work is a necessity.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[0123456]

Believe it or not, but that "$1200" gaming PC is low-end. (for a gaming PC)

$250 for a graphics card, $250 for a CPU, $200 for a motherboard, $100 for a terabyte hard drive, $100 for a case, some RAM, a DVD drive and a few other odds and ends; that will play any modern game with decent performance. $1200 may even leave you enough to buy a monitor on top.

'Low-end' is an Athlon X2 with integrated graphics or a cheap graphics card; that won't cost you much more than $500.

Ok, I'd forgotten the Windows tax in both cases, so add whatever Windows costs on top... it's a long time since I've built a PC where I had to pay for the operating system.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[BikeHelmet]

Your point would be valid, if your dollar amounts weren't so ludicrously off.

First - most people don't have $7k PCs. I myself have an $800 PC. It plays new games pretty well on my 19" monitor. ;)

A console costs no more than $500 to make. Microsoft mass-produces millions of XBox360's. I'd actually estimate the parts cost to be between $200-300, but you have some hefty R&D costs to make up, which is why these companies can claim to be "selling at a loss". Even so, R&D can't be that much when split between millions of consoles. If R&D costs even $100 per console, then they spent well over $3,000,000,000 on R&D. I find that unlikely - but who knows with a huge company like Microsoft or Sony?

Re:You didn't buy that console

[Anonymous Coward]

You could have saved $300 by using OpenOffice

Re:You didn't buy that console

[JackAxe]

When did you build your PC? Even when I build a workstation, I'd be hard pressed to hit that price now days. When did you buy your 30"? I bought mine in 2004 when it was $3200 retail -- I only paid $2999, but now I can get a cheapo PC 30" for less than a $k.

I've never paid more than $1500 for a gaming PC and last year I paid less than $800 for a new rig that's way more powerful than any console. Consumer PCs are cheap, so if you paid that much for a consumer setup, I have to wonder which name-brand PC maker ripped you off?

Anyways, how about listing some components and when you bought them to help to clear things up. :)

Re:You didn't buy that console

[Wildclaw]

$300 video card
$125 sound card
$50 quiet VGA cooler

Basically, what you are saying is that you paid $475 for the gaming PC that heavily outperforms any console on the market.

Because all the rest of the list indicates crap that has nothing to do with gaming or needs to be gotten for the console also. And as your list indicates that you would have had to buy the computer anyway, for what you are really using it for, it represents a sunk cost.

If you had chosen video and sound that actually matched that of a console you would have gotten down under $300. So it is those consoles that are expensive, not the PC.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[Anonymous Coward]

Missed my point completely.

Yes, they can charge $7 for a salad, yes, there are other costs.

However:

No one's selling you hardware at a $700-per-unit loss.

Even if they did, the phrase "Congrats on paying the first $300 yourself" is downright dumb. If they sell you something lose $700 after selling you a console for $300, you don't owe them anything, and there's no "first $300" about it. It's the only $300. Do they hope you buy games to recoup their loss? Yes. Are you obligated? No. "Congrats" on feeling like you owe something to people who were free to set any price they like.

If you feel you owe them $700, you're a fool. If you bought a $7000 gaming PC, you shouldn't be lecturing anyone on spending $20 on radio.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[BenoitRen]

If you had chosen video and sound that actually matched that of a console you would have gotten down under $300.

And what do you know, that's the price point of the Xbox 360 Arcade (+ a cheap HDD) and the Wii. The PS3 is getting close to it.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[DaveGod]

It's true console makers don't charge what it costs to make a console. I guess it costs several hundred million dollars to make a console. OK, we all know that's a bit of a trope since they know in advance that they will make lots of consoles which share the overhead, so the cost of each and every unit shares a tiny portion of it.

We also know that as more consoles are made and time goes on, they get better at it, and the cost of the next unit falls.

So selling a console that costs you $1,000 to make for $300 is a loss, but it's worth it because eventually you'll be selling loads of $200 consoles for $250?

Wrong. From the start they know with quite a good deal of accuracy when and how much the costs are going to fall. For the same reason that the second unit costs the same as the first, the millionth unit also costs the same. Less cash may be flowing from the bank account than it did to make the first, but the first unit contributed towards discovering those cost savings and therefore both units costs the same (to put it another way, you can't have the millionth unit without having done the first).

They charge more for the first batch of consoles and incrementally decrease the price for several reasons, some of which may be:
- Firstly (foremost?) this is market skimming, a marketing technique to make the guys willing to pay up to $500 and those willing to pay up to $250 each pay their highest price.
- This tallys up with production since initially you want to be relatively low volume and you ramp up as you figure things out.
- It allows market positioning, so you sell $500 consoles to all the early adopters and you keep adjusting your position to appeal to each segment in turn (launch: $500 with Halo, then move on to $400 with Fable II, through to $250 with Netflix or whatever and so on). Shit, some people would rather spend $500 at the start and have a years' exclusivity over their neighbour.
- It also signals that the product is worth $500, and some of those $250 guys might pay $300 perceiving it to be a bargain.
- It gives room for error and tactics. You can adjust the price as a competitive reaction, or possibly a few cost-reduction milestones will be missed.
- the accounts don't take quite so bad a pounding since the R&D on learning-by-doing isn't ever going to be capitalised very well.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[BenoitRen]

The idea of the console industry is to lose money on the consoles and make it up on the games.

That idea is fairly recent. It started with the PSX or PS2. Before that, consoles were not sold at a loss. Nintendo certainly has never sold one at a loss, even today.

Lately, DLC has been an excellent way to make the games cheaper, because there is further revenue to be had on the DLC later on.

Except that the games have not become cheaper.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[Anonymous Coward]

[...]purchased that PC. Often at thousands of dollars -- mine's just over $7K including the 30" LCD. Consoles don't cost thousands of dollars. Most consoles cost $300ish.

I think you must get your math together. Now you are comparing Apples to Pears. If I include my 46" Full-HD in the cost of the console it cost a heck lot more than just my computer, so please think before you write.

And then, my computer can do much much more than my console since the computer is pretty much an all purpose tool. I could have spent less than half of what I spent on my computer, but I wanted that extra memory, hard disc space, etc that made it more useful to me. I don't think it is strange that a computer MIGHT cost more than a console. OTOH, the netbooks I bought for work cost LESS than my console and are still more versatile than the console, albeit slower when it comes to computation. So I'm not sure what you want to achieve with you broken comparison.

PS. I think you got ripped off when you got your computer... But you might like it anyway.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you use that for work (editing, I'd assume) or just gaming? I don't think I've ever seen someone with a rig like that who just built it for fun, rather than primarily using it to make money.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[misexistentialist]

I hope you have too much money, because otherwise you are going to regret that purchase.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[holophrastic]

We're never talking about manufacturing cost. We're talking about thecost versus nothing ever existed -- from cradle to grave.

Making a profit on sales after spending millions of dollars in development isn't profit -- it just looks like profit to the public. The frist unit sold isn't at a profit, put it that way.

And it's not hard to build a machine for $7K. One of my other posts here lists all of the parts. Just buy good parts, use the entire motherboard, and buy a really professional LCD.

I'm sorry you don't know how to how to calculate value. But waiting a year to save $3K isn't good. I profit from the machine -- by more than $3K per year. When you need it to do something, and that something costs an additional $3K, that $3K is good value.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[holophrastic]

Umm, you're an idiot, and don't know that a 46" TELEVISION is crap compared to a 30" MONITOR.

1080P is total shit compared to what I get. And my colour, precision, picture-quality, and colour quality is leaps and bounds beyond your crappy big television.

Look-up 4 megapixels in the dictionary, and you'll discover that my 30" is approximately TWICE the size of your 46".

Think harder boy.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[shutdown -p now]

Believe it or not, but that "$1200" gaming PC is low-end. (for a gaming PC)

I have a Core2 Quad 6600 with 8Gb RAM, GeForce GTX295, and a 24" flat panel. This all cost me about $2000, and lets me play GTA4 at 1920x1200 smoothly (which was among the design goals of the thing).

Now, can you please explain what you mean by a "high-end gaming PC"? 'cause I sure am at loss as to why my PC, which happily plays new releases at maxed-out settings, is not one.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[Anonymous Coward]

Believe it or not, but that "$1200" gaming PC is low-end. (for a gaming PC)

Are you dense? A perfectly acceptable "gaming pc" can be made for far less than you let on. Just take a look at one of the numerous Techreport articles on building a PC. 800-1000$ USD is the "sweet spot" regarding monetary value and ability to upgrade in the future.

You sound like a 13 year old looking at Newegg, buying a bunch of high end components with your father's credit card to make a "REAL GAMER PC". Or maybe you just like buying shiny toys from Alienware.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[holophrastic]

and customer service.
and technical support.
and returns.
and marketing
and deciding to make the product in the first place.
and employees (some people have jobs where they work for someone else, and those people expect to be paid for their work)
and buildings.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[mjwx]

PC gamers purchased that PC. Often at thousands of dollars -- mine's just over $7K including the 30" LCD. When I purchase a game, I purchase the game.

Youre doing it wrong.

My gaming PC cost A$2100. For that I have:

AMD Phenom II 955 (3GHz).
Gigabyte main board (cant remember model no.).
Geforce 285 GTX (1 GB).
4 GB DDR3 (1333) ram.
2 x 1 TB hard drives.
Coolermaster 690 case.
Thermaltake 600w PSU.

I'm still using the Samsung 22" monitor (sub A$300 when I bought it) KB and Logitech G5 laser mouse from my old box. This PC can handle anything you throw at it. The only time I've spent A$7000 on a computer is when I've bought a server.

Once you get to buying all the peripherals (and you cant use your old controllers on new consoles), new TV (HD), subscription to Xbox Live and A$20 more per game you are spending as much on Consoles as you are on PC and for this you get a limited machine with inferior graphics and DRM built into the hardware. The biggest cost difference is that the PC cost is all up front and the console cost is hidden. The Xbox is A$550 for the basic model and the PS3 is a whopping A$999.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[bigstrat2003]

You and I have entirely different definitions of "nothing crazy". That list has a lot of complete fluff in it, not to mention the stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with gaming (office suite? UPS? WTF?). Furthermore, it's dishonest to include games as part of the price comparison for a gaming system.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[holophrastic]

If it weren't awful, and no better than 10-year-old MS office, then yeah. Unfortunately, it's buggy as hell, and has a pretty well out-dated interface. It's perfectly good as a way to save money. It's not perfectly good as an office suite.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[holophrastic]

No problem. I did already somewhere here. Here we go again.

virtually one year ago today.

4 physical HDDs, 500, 500, 750, 1000. one of them was the WDVR (until it crapped out early). So that's $550.
Xeon 3550 quad 2.66 another $300
asus motherboard for another $300
tv card for $225
NEC LCD3090WQXi is and was $2'600. and it's absolutely marvellous.
ati 4870 another $300
vga cooler, $50
blu-ray writer $300
UPS $250
office suite $300
vista ultimate $250
speakers $50
keyboard $95
mouse $85
mouse pad $5
a few games $300
mic $5
IR remote $25
sound card $125
second monitor 22" IPS $500
taxes, deliveries

nothing crazy, just a good machine using all of the motherboard.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[holophrastic]

I think you've missed the enclosure, motherboard, dvd player and controllers part of the console.

oh yeah, and the marketing, customer service, some kind of operating system, NIC, distribution channels, and everything else that the console industry has to deal with.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[holophrastic]

You're incorrect. You do owe them the other $700. Not you personally, and not them Nintendo. You the console gaming market, and them the console gaming industry.

You see otherwise, it's very simple: you don't get to have console gaming.

Whether you personally are or are not obligated, feelings aside, if you personally want a console gaming industry, you need your market to pay the industry enough to sustain itself. You needn't pull your weight, that's very true. But you'd better hope that others pull your weight for you.

It's called "the race to the bottom" when consumer markets force industries to do more with less. You get low quality crap for low dollar amounts. And innovation goes away.

So now you're angling for a socialistic market to support you in an industry that doesn't innovate.

Someone has pay for manufacturing. And there are worlds of problems on the back-ends that you never see. For example when one fabrication "partner" quits, loads of dollars are lost. That needs to be passed along to the consumer. It's not the consumer's fault that Nintendo has to pay more because their supplier quit, and it may even be Nintendo's fault. But still Nintendo doesn't get to exist unless those costs are covered by the only people who benefit from their product -- and that's you.

You don't want it? You don't have to pay for it. But you get to run the risk of losing it or its quality.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[holophrastic]

Yes the games have become cheaper.

They have become more expensive to create.

Stop looking at cost. Start looking at value.

Many games cost more than most movies.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[holophrastic]

All true.
Still, a huge investment early on.
Still, interest on the money being spent out-of-pocket.
Still opportunity costs.
Still, the risk that it won't sell at all, and those that do become profitable need ot pay for all of the failed attempts prior.
still customer service, technical support, deployment, distribution, marketing, random returns, and general business problems. Also normal employees.

None of that exists in the PC world.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[holophrastic]

No, you're right. It's an all-business machine that I use for gaming because I spend all day working with a co-worker who does nothing but tell me I'm wrong, and who's always right.

I'm a web developer, that's the job. And if I don't spend some team-building fun-time with the machine, I won't be able to face it again tomorrow.

So no, I wouldn't have a $2'600.00 LCD for gaming. Although racing games like GRID are incredible on this thing.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[holophrastic]

Heh, I bought it wholesale in parts. I didn't get ripped off. I assembled a fantastic business machine -- that also plays games. It's a weird value proposition, but it works out great.

It's not that the all-purpose, or speed isn't something worth comparing, it's that this is a threshhold effect. It can't play games at all until it's a certain minimum level of speed.

PCs get to be all-purpose because it's a software world. Consoles aren't used that way, so we can't talk about purpose. It's single-purpose. There's no money to be made in calling your console "good enough to be all-pupose". No one actually wants a console that plays DVDs too. They tried. It's just not something that people around here consider to be a single device.

It's simply a matter of where the console-maker is going to get their money -- the money required to be in the console industry in the first place.

Your 46" television probably cost between $700 and $2'000 within the last year. But as you said, you already had it. You didn't buy it with your console. It wasn't a part of that purchase.

Netbooks go the other way -- it's useless unless it's mobile. And they sacrifice everything for that goal. And I do mean everything. But they've wound up with something that people consider a throw-away device -- which is exactly how it's been marketed. And as a result, you now have manufacturers like intel trying to differetiate their low-end laptop market from their netbook market, and finding that they wash together into a mess of low margins.

It's the "race-to-the-bottom" effect, and that's exactly what happens when consumer markets push lower prices instead of higher value.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[holophrastic]

See, there you go again. You see costs, but you don't see benefits. That means you don't see value. If I told you that the $7K in cost generates $7K in revenue every month, would it be a waste of money still?

Sure the additional 3 HDDs are not required. But if I told you that the first one died a horrible defective death after three months, and I lost nothing but six hours of time re-installing a few things, instead of half of my business, would you call the additional $500 of HDD a waste?

Sure the TV card isn't necessary when I can go downstairs and watch television normally. But if I told you that I can get a lot of work done by having the television keep me interested in staying at the keyboard. . .

The UPS, well, that just saves me from the random brown-outs having any effect whatsoever.

The faster CPU -- which I forget to include, a Xeon 3550 2.66 quad core -- doesn't need to be fast for my purposes, but the speed produces a reliability in what I do.

The enclosure, the shiny mirror-finish enclosure, well, that's a big waste 'cause who the hell cares. But it does make the monstrous thing vanish in a reflection of the hard-wood flooring.

The second monitor is crap. What I need is three more of the big guy. 16 megapixels would really make my day. But alas, my eyes can't see that much, and I'm having a hard time justifying $10'000.00 on monitors alone for just me. MAybe next year.

They keyboard could have been $10. But I'm a Dvorak kind of guy -- it's better to type on. And there just aren't that many to choose from.

Everything has a value, and certainly that value comes wiht a cost. But over-all, if I had saved everything that wasn't mostly necessary, I'd have samed some $2'500.00 total, and I'd have lost all of the luxury.

I just bought a car. Spent $41'244.34 over a span of 10 minutes driving between the bank and the dealer. And I wasn't thrilled about it.

I've been driving the car for over four months now. It's the best money I've ever spent. I had no idea a car could be this enjoyable to drive. The MX-5 and the NEC LCD3090WQXi are very similar in that way. They are each about three times what one needs to spend to get a similar product. And they are each half of what one needs to spend to get a comparable product.

That's value.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[holophrastic]

I'm not alone when I say wow. But I'm going to say that things are more expensive down-under.

In any case, I didn't stop at a gaming machine. I went for a real business machine -- and yes it's server-class -- that can also play games.

I effectively doubled most of your components (4 HDDs, 8GB ddr3, 800 psu, quad core xeon, tv card and other junk) and then tacked on a $2'600.00 LCD. So actually, we bought the same stuff, I just bought a little more, and then a crazy LCD.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[holophrastic]

oh, I included the games as a part of my purchase. But I didn't include it in the $7K. In fact, my list there doesn't include the Xeon 3550 quad core CPU, nor the 8GB DDR3 1333 ram. Don't worry, it's still $7K, I've got the bills.

And it's all on a $2K custom desk, which has allowed me to do some amazing things too.

But you're correct, it's a business machine for half the day.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[Chrontius]

Stop wanting things for free. If consumers would look at things from the other side, things could be very different. Instead of wanting things cheaper, why don't you try to fund your favourite company, by paying larger prices, so that they have the money to build better things, and can then charge less for better. You don't want the same for less money, you want better for the same money.

Stop putting words in my mouth. I can not afford a current-gen console and games to go with it; I do want the same for less money.

I could be giving you shit over budgeting, and you're giving others shit for same.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[Anonymous Coward]

colour quality? on a 30" TFT? ROFL.
seriously. put it next to a 22" refurb CRT, calibrate both (you DO have a colorimeter, right?), move your head around, cry.
4 22" CRTs + 2nd graphics card < $600
Did I mention 2048*1536 * 4 is 12 MP?
so a bunch of old CRTs is THREE TIMES the size of your $2.5k dick ...

Re:You didn't buy that console

[MemoryDragon]

The issue is 2-3 years into a console generations lifespan this does not really work out anymore. Even new PCs which are stronger than the console generation can be bought for around 500$, people who just upgrade are even cheaper in the entry fees.
With a handful of games the PC becomes cheaper with the average price difference of 10-20 bucks and the fact PC games will hit the bargain bin rather early. The worst I have seen was Bioshock 10 Euro for the PC and 70 Euro for the PS3. For 50 Euro I can get a new graphics card which is stronger than what the PS3 has to offer!

As for DLC dont expect games companies to make the actual games cheaper. The said once piracy was eliminated games could become cheaper, guess what games are cheapest on the piracy loaded pc, thd consoles which are not broken yet are the ones with the most expensive games.
DLC will just be another lame excuse to charge full price and then charge extra!

Re:You didn't buy that console

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the games arent getting cheaper, they still cost the same.

Oh, and chances are, they will go up in price in the near future, with even less content.

"$120 for rockstar hero! Features: DLC! In order to play this game, after the purchase of the license, you must by the model pack and the sound pack, then the scripting engine for the excellent price of $25 each!"

I'm half serious too. I wouldnt put it past one of the major two companies, Activision and EA to pull some shit like that off.

It's probably about half a decade away too. Just in time for the post 9/11 babies to become the target audience, who wont remember that you could once buy a full game, complete. Also, people who don't shell out tons of money in games will probably be slammed by peer pressure.

Though I should give people more credit, they probably wont be able to afford games, let alone food or clothing in 5 years.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[SeaFox]

$2'600 LCD,

He said it was a 30" screen. You can buy 40"+ 1080p HDTVs for less than $1000 now.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[Anonymous Coward]

Console pricing is actually pretty simple:

There is a fixed cost (R&D, platform marketing, etc.) most of which is sunk even if the console doesn't sell at all. And then there's a variable cost, most of which is tied up with manufacturing and selling the individual consoles.

It is /illegal/ in many places to import and wholesale foreign products for less than it cost to make them (called "dumping" it messes up the local economy if it happens). So in the period of the console's life when price is critical, both the wholesale price and the RRP will be tied to the manufacturer's factory price. Much less and there are problems with the law, any more and it turns off customers. For retailers this situation is a bit of a dilemma. Not carrying the console would drive away customers, but carrying an expensive product with zero margin could hurt your business. So they concentrate on selling "bundles" that are overall profitable by bundling higher-margin games and peripherals.

In this period the manufacturer IS NOT LOSING MONEY ON INDIVIDUAL CONSOLES. They can afford to sell 10 million, 100 million, or a billion consoles at this price. Sure, they're not recovering any of their fixed costs from the console sales, but that's fine, they have the entire lifetime of the product to recover those costs and every console sold is an opportunity to make further sales which _are_ profitable.

Did you know that more than 25% of the world market for MLM scams is in the US? US cultural values make it perfect for such scams. Americans tend to believe strongly in personal responsibility, the ability for an individual to make a success of himself without regard to adversity and so on. So they actively reject the message from scam warning sites - sure, 99% of people involved will lose money, but they're sure those people just lacked the will to succeed.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[Anonymous Coward]

You are, as others have tried to explain, a fool.

And a fool and his money are soon parted as you've described.

Vista Ultimate? You know that exists only for segmentation reasons, right? Buying it labels you "sucker"

A $125 "sound card" ? $225 on a "TV card" ? It's not 1985 any more, if you for some reason actually need analogue conversion, don't pretend that's part of your PC budget. You might as well throw in your house price, "needed somewhere to put the computer". But most likely you don't need this at all, you just have no clue what you're doing and bought the expensive product in the mistaken belief that more expensive = better.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[Anonymous Coward]

So there you have it from "holophrastic"

Nobody returns PC gear. They don't need any tech support. Those TV adverts for PCs from Dell? They don't exist. The companies making it have no employees...

People like "holophrastic" exist in your town. When you see one, ask if he can give you four $5 bills in change for a $10. They won't really miss the money, they have no idea what it's worth anyway.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[Anonymous Coward]

You want to add $$$ for a raptor or scsi drive so that level loading doesn't take so long.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[TheKidWho]

A $2,600 LCD isn't comparable to a 1080P HDTV for starts. Usually an LCD of that caliber will be 2560x1600 or twice as many pixels compared to the 1920x1080 monitor

Secondly a monitor that expensive is mainly for color reproduction, for people who do art work and require that the monitor accurately reproduces colors.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[holophrastic]

By wanting the same for less money, and by acting accordingly, you're ruining society. I'm a part of that society. You're ruining my society.

Don't you have a job? Doesn't someone employ you? How do you expect your employer to pay you more when their customers want to pay less?

Where do you think that money comes from?

Don't you realize that the epectations that you have for an industry gets translated directly into what those employers expect of their employees?

What would you think if your employer kept wanting to pay you less to do the same job?

Or better yet, kept firing you and replacing you with someone who'd work for less. Until eventually, no one will, and so laws are created to force a minimum wage, which of course still isn't good enough, and so companies start out-sourcing from countries without such laws. Then laws are created to limit that. So companies simply move to other countries entirely.

Every time you want to change the price of something, you need to think of that full circle, and realize that it always comes back to you.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[holophrastic]

Oh, there's no way I'm going to argue with you when you say that a CRT is better than an LCD. I fought that fight for almost ten years. I lost simply because they stopped making CRTs. When my third 21" CRT died, I had no choice.

And I hated every LCD. But I finally found this one, which is brilliant compared to all of the other LCDs. It's nothing compared to CRTs except big.

But I still get to recommend it to you for the day when you need to go LCD.

Now, if you sell CRTs, I'm right here, ready to buy. And I have a group of six colleagues ready and waiting too.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[Tei]

>$2'600 LCD,

you can get a good monitor (10'') for about $100

>4 HDD totalling $600

You don't need 4. One at $50

>$350 motherboard

WTF?, more like $50

>$300 video card

You can get cheaper, but 300 sounds like a very good one.

>$125 sound card

$0, is included in the motherboard.

>$300 OS

less than 20 for a OEM, and 0 if you already have windows (the license of your old pc)

>$225 TV card

WTF? is that a gamming machine or something else?

>$300 office suite

WTF? is this a gamming machine? OpenOffice for free. Google Docs for free.

>$400 blu-ray writer

WTF need that for gamming?

>$500 second monitor 22"

WTF? and second computer too ? are we talking about ONE machine?

>$300 for a few games

Are we talking about a machine? or about something else?
There are good games like Tremulous, Nexuiz, Warsow, for fre, also free FPS like Wolf Team, free RPG games, like Rune of Magic, etc..

>$250 UPS

WTF? is not a server, dude!

>$200 enclosure
more like 50

>$150 speakers

WTF?

>$95 keyboard

WTF?
>$85 mouse

Only if you want the best logitech

>$5 mouse pad

Good one! haha

>$3 mic

>$25 IR remote

WTF??

>$50 quiet VGA cooler

WTFLOL!!!!

You are crazy man. You can buy a good PC for around 400 / 500 . If you have already hard disk, monitor, etc.. for much less than that.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[Anonymous Coward]

It's probably a Mac

Re:You didn't buy that console

[holophrastic]

Again, learn to run a business.

Vista Ultimate is required when you create products for vista machines. You need to purchase the entire operating system in order to program for everybody.

A sound card, what's wrong with a sound card? I play games, and the on-board sound card is just crap. Sure it's fine for windows sounds, and sure it's fine for dinky shit, but for games and movies, it's just, well, not good enough. Better sound, why would I let $125 come between me and better sound?

$225 on a TV card, well, I actually tried the $45 version. It simply didn't do enough. This version has dual tuners, works with the coax coming out of the wall, and runs beautifully. And most importantly it keeps me at my desk working an extra two hours every day. That's real profit.

So I need you to learn that spending money in the right way allows you not only to contribute towards society -- my society -- but it also allows you to grow society when you can acquire additional revenue from it. I just hired another employee, and bought a $3'500 system for him -- along with an $800 chair. He appreciates it. That alone means he works better. It doesn't take long for him to earn me an additional $4'300.

He's worth it. So am I.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[holophrastic]

Umm, see, that's what happens when you read and don't understand. It's also what happens when I presume you have the intellect to understand, but don't. That makes me stupid. So congrats for making us both stupid. Let's try again together.

The returns and support in the PC industry are not the job of the gaming companies. Valve doesn't have to help you debug your computer, and doesn't take your computer parts back. As a result, they can be more specialized and focussed on just what they do -- and that's more profitable.

On the consoles side, the console makers need to do everything -- including dealing with the game makers. The separation doesn't exist the same way. That makes operation much more costly.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[master811]

Lately, DLC has been an excellent way to make the games cheaper, because there is further revenue to be had on the DLC later on.

You'd think that wouldn't you, in reality it isn't really the case at all.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[holophrastic]

Again. Yes it is. Games are cheaper now than they used to be -- they are more expensive to create.

Like I've said to many now, stop thinking about dollars. Start thinking about value. You don't want things to cost less -- that's the race to the bottom crap that kills industries.

Re:You didn't buy that console

[Brian Feldman]

Ah, the irony. You profess others do not know of "value" and yet bought a new Miata for MSRP?

Re:You didn't buy that console

[holophrastic]

Actually that's my point. You want to pay less? You get an auto industry that needs bail-outs. That's the same money, now in tax-dollar format.

And unlike a budget car, this car is wonderful -- says every single owner. You won't find a car with better referrals from owners.

I'd pay more for it now. Because it really is worth more. It's just that much fun to drive.

Value doesn't mean how far you can stretch yoru dollar in a given purchase. Value is how far you can stretch all of your purchases over your life-time.

You lose points for having most of your tax dollars go into bail-outs. You lose points for having a government that just prints more money to solve the problem, and hence de-values all of your dollars and investments. You especially lose points for shrinking an industry that provides a hell-of-a-lot of jobs, thus adding to your unemployment issues, and then dumping your economy entirely. You lose points for causing your own recession. You lose points for causing global recessions.

Now, in this case, there's a 91% chance that I'm not in your country. And this global recession actualy helps my industry. So my companies are growing well, and when you factor in the general economy, I'm growing by leaps and bounds ver the rest. Further more, my suppliers give me more and more for the same money because they've little else to do.

You see, I don't give them less, I give them the same. They give me more. My product is better -- that lasts well past the rebounding recession.

You lose points every time you turn a successful industry full of jobs into the ground.

Why do you think the MSRP is what it is? It's not a random number. Sure it's a lot higher than they require to stay in business. And sure it's a lot higher than they require to turn a profit. But where do you think that extra money goes?

Hmm, here we have two products. One we ask $100, we get $85, and that's ok. This other one we ask $100 and we get $100. Where should we put our future investments?

It's just possible that they'll choose the more desired product.

That's called investing in a product/brand/industry. You have to tell companies what you want. By paying less, you tell them what you don't want. How do you tell them what you do want?

But in the end, I own and operate two companies. I prioritize those clients that pay me more. I actually prioritize those clients that bother me more. Because the more opportunities I have to satisfy and to impress them, the more they'll pay for it because it'll be of greater value to them.

I actually keep them hooked by being available, free of charge, to their employees. When they think about getting rid of me, or finding someone else -- which they surely consider on an annual basis at least -- they discover that nearly every employee in their entire corporation has called me at least a dozen times. And they realize that they won't find anyone else to do that with any degree of confidence.

But that's my policy. It needn't be yours. You're welcome to make your millions any way you choose. I choose to do it by having everyone like me on all sides -- clients, employees, suppliers. I've found that the rewards are great -- and I feel good about it.

Oh, and for the record, I just got two clients in the last two months partially because of the car.

Lots of factors

[TuaAmin13]

My thoughts is that PC DLC would be pirated immensely. Also, since distribution is distributed, you don't incur massive bandwidth costs. WoW does bittorrent type patches, for most other games it's mirrored on a dozen sites. Marginal cost to the developer.

With consoles, you have to pay to get certified, and this includes any bugfixes you release. While the cost of DLC certification may be marginal, as someone else pointed out (Just assume $1 out of the 5 that DLC costs), you still have to certify all your patches, which are given for "free." DLC works to pad their expenditures in other areas in order to sell more copies.

Also, you can't really pirate the DLC from a closed network, so it's guaranteed that people pay for it. With every person that purchases DLC, you lock them into owning your game. If they bought it second hand, you now got revenue that you wouldn't have otherwise. If they bought it new, paying for DLC ensures they won't get rid of it, otherwise their DLC purchase will have gone to waste. Less used copies floating around.

Re:Lots of factors

[BikeHelmet]

Also, you can't really pirate the DLC from a closed network, so it's guaranteed that people pay for it.

Or that they won't pay for it.

In which case you're paying for patches, and getting nothing in return. I wonder what the numbers are for people paying for DLC, vs people just sucking up patches? Maybe they have a legitimate money sinkhole, thanks to Microsoft charging for that stuff?

Re:Lots of factors

[VoltageX]

It is. Currently the easiest way to get the Fallout 3 DLC on PC is to pirate it.

Why "Piracy" is good

[erroneus]

More stuff is free on the PC because more stuff is routinely copied and shared. They know that by giving certain things away, they are securing a customer for other things that are not free. With the game consoles, copying and sharing is a bit more of a challenge and so it is less frequent and common. They have their markets more tightly controlled and therefore the market will bear more.

Re:Why "Piracy" is good

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you nigsausage.

Grand Theft Auto 4

[C4st13v4n14]

What I'd like to know is, why haven't we PC gamers received the Grand Theft Auto 4 DLC - The Lost and the Damned? We're still waiting.

Re:Grand Theft Auto 4

[thetoadwarrior]

Because Microsoft paid out so you won't be getting it any time soon. Same goes for PS3 owners.

People are stupid.

[Zombie Ryushu]

People are stupid and willing to get screwed. Its that simple.

Console Gamers Shouldn't Complain

[WebmasterNeal]

Being a PC gamer of many years, I wouldn't complain about PC gamers having the advantage. It seems that gaming companies are giving up on the PC as a gaming platform and releasing buggy games to us now as an afterthought. So while we may be able to get DLC, your game at least works when you put the disk in the drive.

Re:Console Gamers Shouldn't Complain

[Hellhog]

So while we may be able to get DLC, your game at least works when you put the disk in the drive.

That's no more of a given for consoles than it is for PCs. Lots of games are released buggy and broken on any platform - hell, Action 52, buggy, broken piece of crap it is, sold for $200 and people bought it. (Anyone got a more recent example?)

Re:Console Gamers Shouldn't Complain

[thetoadwarrior]

That's because Microsoft gave console developers the ability to patch their games and PC developers are moving into the console space with their "release now, patch later" mentality. There is no reason to wait and fix it because they know they can patch it later. No one will complain. Reviews will no reflect the fact the game is broken.

They might as well just shove the game out and watch people eat up their broken rubbish. If the game fails don't patch it and you've saved some money on testing and development.

Re:Console Gamers Shouldn't Complain

[ThePhilips]

It seems that gaming companies are giving up on the PC as a gaming platform ...

PC as gaming platform is much more competitive. Doing business on consoles bears less risks.

But that also means that unless you restrict yourself to few franchises, you have magnitude more games to play. Install Steam and Impulse clients and check the catalog: there are more games on PC than some big publishers would like you to believe.

... and releasing buggy games to us now as an afterthought.

Moot point. Can't recall single PC game in past decade which was 100% playable without couple of patches.

Re:Console Gamers Shouldn't Complain

[dalmiroy2k]

I agree and the perfect example for this is Grand Theft Auto IV.
The only exception so far this year has been Street Fighter IV.

See my other comment

[tepples]

Even a decent gaming PC shouldn't cost you much more than $1200 these days.

That can be misleading; see my other comment.

Re:See my other comment

[0123456]

Maybe, but I've only ever seen one person who was set up to play multi-player games on one console with multiple controllers, and that guy was more than rich enough to buy multiple PCs without even noticing the cost; typically the console is for their kid and they play games by themselves.

Now, maybe the console-owners I know are a completely non-representative sample, but I suspect that, in reality, people who go out buying multiple controllers so four people can play a game at one time on a single TV aren't much more common than those who spend $7,000 on a PC.

You also ignore the fact that PCs can be used for many purposes other than games; of the five PCs we have in the house (average cost around $600) only one is used for more than occasional gaming.

Re:See my other comment

[Tacvek]

The Nintendo systems have always preferred local multiplayer. One of the reasons why GoldenEye was such a successful game was the local multiplayer, which I still see people play to this day.

Similarly the Smash Brothers series popularity is due almost exclusively to the local multiplayer.

How about the Mario Party series?

Hell, half the games for the Wii that are popular are popular for local multiplayer.

And that is not exclusive to Nintendo. I've seen 4 player local Halo often enough to know that.

Please keep in mind though that all of this is generally found only in college aged people or under. Older gamers tend to only do online multi-player.

Re:See my other comment

[BenoitRen]

You also ignore the fact that PCs can be used for many purposes other than games

And you ignore the fact that non-gaming PCs are generally much cheaper than gaming PCs.

Re:See my other comment

[CronoCloud]

Please keep in mind though that all of this is generally found only in college aged people or under. Older gamers tend to only do online multi-player.

Yep, us older folks like are online multi-player so we can play when our schedule allows. That's one thing that sucks about Nintendo, some games are designed with "schoolyard/dorm room multiplayer" in mind and aren't so friendly to adult (meaning age-wise) gamers. Pokemon for example, fun little RPG, but the trading and two-player battling aspects aren't as usable for those without a bunch of 10 year old friends playing it. You're couldn't get a Kadabra in the original Pokemon Blue/Red without trading, for example. What I did was find a cheap used second Gameboy to trade with myself, essentially meaning, I had to play the game multiple times if I wanted to catch them all. Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal was worse with that blasted clock, day/night differences and scheduled events that seemed designed for a kid-style schedule. Sure, you can keep futzing with the clock, but that's annoying.

I think it's the reverse

[metamatic]

DLC is ruining sales of games on consoles, at least as far as I can see.

On the PS2, it was pretty simple: The game was $40-50 new, or you could wait a year or so and buy it for $20 as a Greatest Hits release. Either way, you got the same game. Buying new, you'd pay $50 up front, play the game, sell it for $15-20, overall cost $35. Buying Greatest Hits, you'd buy for $20, sell for $10-15, overall cost $5-10. With buying the game at release costing you maybe $20 more overall, it often made sense to buy games on release day.

On the PS3, the game is released new for $60. A couple of DLC packs are released for $10 each. Then after a year or two, the entire game plus the DLC packs is released as a Game Of The Year Edition for $30. So if you buy new, you pay $60 + $20, but by the time you sell the game second hand it's worth $20 at best because of the GOTY edition at $30, so your overall cost is $60. Buy later, and you get the entire game plus add-ons for $30, resell for $20, overall cost $10. So now suddenly it costs $50 more to buy on release day than to buy and play later.

So basically, there's now a major financial incentive to wait for the Game Of The Year edition which has the DLC bundled in. For instance, I was considering buying Red Faction. However, I just saw on the PSN store that the first DLC has been released for $10. So now, I'd much rather wait and buy the whole thing in a year or two for $30.

Ultimately, I think the game companies are shooting themselves in the feet by penalizing early purchasers to this extent. I wonder if this might be why PS3 and Xbox 360 game sales have been down.

And if we're talking Valve, the way they've treated Xbox 360 owners is nothing compared to how they've fucked PS3 owners. There's no DLC for TF2 on the PS3 at all; we haven't even seen any of the fixes for the initial maps, which means that games tend to be ruined by glitchers. (Yeah, I know the "It's up to EA" excuse, but it's Valve's decision to let EA decide release policy, so ultimately they're still responsible.)

Re:I think it's the reverse

[Pyrion]

Bullshit. Valve can't force the issue on the PS3 if they're contractually limited to letting EA call the shots on it.

Re:I think it's the reverse

[Kyokugenryu]

That's silly, though. Valve is in control of fixing things and releasing DLC on consoles, not EA. Valve has REPEATEDLY stated they have NO intention of EVER patching or releasing DLC for the PS3 version of the Orange Box, and will likely never release another PS3 game again. The reason they haven't done so for the 360 are technical limitations with regards to storage (just look at the size of your TF2 folder today compared to on release day - and remember that most 360 users have a 20gb hard drive, some don't have one at all). It's not EA's fault that Valve simply has no interest in the PS3 or technical means to patch TF2 on the 360.

Re:I think it's the reverse

[Pyrion]

In that case, they probably have to pay the console companies to get their DLC "approved" in the first place. Knowing Valve's penchant for fucking things up so bad with every update that they have to release "fixes" for the updates sometimes on the same day as the updates themselves, it doesn't make much financial sense to support the game on a platform where they're going to get screwed each time they have to fix something that they broke with an update in the first place.

So again, blame goes to Sony and Microsoft for being greedy douchebags.

Re:I think it's the reverse

[metamatic]

Well, I could blame Valve for shoddy coding and insufficient testing.

But instead, I'll point out that I'd be quite happy if Valve released stuff on PC first, waited for the bugs to be shaken out, and then (and only then) released on console, so they could be practically certain they wouldn't have to do a bug fix to the DLC. (Assuming, that is, they're not changing the underlying engine.)

Re:I think it's the reverse

[Pyrion]

You could, but you'd just be preaching to the choir. Check out the Steampowered forums sometime, there's more than enough whining about Valve to meet anyone's quota.

And no, I guarantee you, if their track record is of any indication, they'd find something they screwed up and have to issue a day zero fix even if they've ironed out all the bugs in the PC release. Which they probably won't. They still haven't fixed facestabs and invisible players, and the latest update broke rocketjumping.

COD Nazi Zombies

[davro]

Mostly the cod gamers are paying for the Nazi Zombie maps !

Stunning.

[ToasterMonkey]

, they tend to know that $10 is way overpriced for 3 maps

What should a map cost? Do you know how long it takes to make a good one? One sunny afternoon I bet, right? Jesus.

The reason they are free on PC's is because preventing piracy would be nearly impossible. This is why for the most part, you only have free third party content, done by hobbyists.

For all they know, it takes a team of 50 people a month to make a map.

WOW, that is what it would take for you to pay $10? 50 people working for a month, and you'd pay a measly $10. So what, you get to decide where the publisher's break even point is now? You decide how many units must be shipped before someone is allowed to make a profit? What the fuck makes you feel so privileged?

We pay a dollar for a few cents worth of soda, but paying $10 for something that took a handful of designers a few months is outrageous, it should be free?

. They might not have ever even played a game on a computer other than solitaire,

So you belittle people who use consoles, and feel entitled to free content for PC games.. just because.

Console players tend not to be as well versed as PC gamers in anything relating to electronics.

You know jack shit about designing game content. Mind explaining how that's related to electronics? No, don't, you're fucking retarded and you don't have an explanation.

Where do people like you come from? Have you had a lobotomy?

Re:Stunning.

[Pyrion]

And the free third party content can be so damn good the game developers get permission from the modders to publish it as an official add-on. Anyone remember how CounterStrike started out? Garry's Mod? Day of Defeat? TF2's community maps? And that's just on Valve's end.

Forgetting the new type of DLC

[KiF1rE]

Theres a new type of DLC on game consoles that many people dont know about and its practice is becoming frequently used... Its basically where all the contents of the game and dlc are ALREADY on the game disc. but force you to pay to unlock new things that are fully on the disc... Some examples of this are Soul calibur 4... Darth vader(ps3) and yoda(xbox) were console exclusives xbox and ps3 however the code for them was fully on the disc along with all the costume packs and everything else. ALL OF IT WAS ON THE DISC when you bought it. yet they charged 5 bucks each for all the unlocks.

Re:Forgetting the new type of DLC

[ThePhilips]

Considering that you do not buy console games anymore - you license them - it's fine. Then DLC is simply extra license key for the extra content.

We might not like it, but that was and is standard business practice in some markets.

Seems now also on consoles.

Re:Forgetting the new type of DLC

[Anonymous Coward]

its not really new content, its content they already gave you. they already spent their resources developing a game and making all the content, then sold it for a price. then add on to that price with DLC they already gave you on the disk to effectively buy everything on your disk runs 20-30 dollars more than the game... Which is effectively making the costs of full games at around 80-90 dollars, with no extra cost to the developer as they already made the content...

Im supportive of DLC if its actually made as an addon and actually does something new, as opposed to give you something you already have for a price...

Re:Forgetting the new type of DLC

[ThePhilips]

Note, I like such practices as much as you do. I'm only trying to clarify that.

its not really new content, its content they already gave you.

They didn't gave it to you. You purchased a disk with content. Along with the disk came the license - yet it wasn't covering all of the content on the disk. To access remaining of the content you need to buy a licenses, which are called DLC in the context.

I guess precisely for the reason (to allow such practices) all console games now are not sold anymore but licensed instead.

You can think of it other way. Disk contains $100 of content. But that's too expensive. So they lock part of content and sell games with only $60 worth of content. If you want to access rest - you have to pay extra.

If you do not agree with such practices, buy a PC. Or STFU.

Re:Forgetting the new type of DLC

[Anonymous Coward]

One sentence: They didn't license it to you, you bought a working copy

Lawyers, Guns and Money

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what happens when the Lawyers and Finance people start making decisions about game content. They are utterly divorced from the user experience and only see a commodity that can be monetized. In their universe(s), content that CAN be monetized WILL be monetized. The reason they are focused on Console DLC is b/c it's relatively new, as opposed to PC DLC. Once they became aware of the possibility of Console DLC they just assumed it was a brand new concept, b/c to them.. it WAS.

As games and media content in general shift from disc based retail driven sales to downloadable, online driven sales - hopefully this issue will be sorted and an elegant solution will be implemented. I vote for maps, new levels etc to always be free and used as a loss-leader to charge (fair prices) for more peripheral items like new weapons. Additionally, scaled pricing would be nice. The more people buy something, the lower the price drops.... or start it out at .01 cent and then increase the price by .01 cent for every ten people that purchase it.

In short, they need to loop in the intern pool on decisions like this b/c those are the people in the house who are closest to the ass-end of the beast. Use them.

I for one like Downloadable Content

[tthomas48]

I realize there's some bad DLC, but you're not forced to buy it. The expansion pack to Pixel Junk Monsters was definitely worth $5, and I wish I could actually sell back many of the songs that came with Rock Band, and replace them with downloaded ones. Would I have paid $500 for Rock Band so it could included all the tracks I have now? No. The DLC was a selling point.

That said, I don't see the point of buying costumes for Little Big Planet, but apparently someone does. I think it would be wise to differentiate DLC that is essentially a patch, vs. DLC that adds to the game.

sounds familiar...

[hitmark]

anyone familiar with this?:
http://futureoftheinternet.org/

And this is why....

[Lord Bitman]

even though I use my XBox for gaming a lot more than my PC lately, I still consider PC gaming superior.
Modding will always be king, and until consoles open up and stop their ridiculous notion of content control, PCs will always be the superior option. And as PCs continue to be smaller, cheaper, and more connected, they'll eventually knock consoles right back where they belong- why have a console if you can send wireless video to your TV just as easily?

A better question would be

[Anonymous Coward]

Is DLC ruining Game Consols?

Re:A better question would be

[Macgrrl]

Or even - is DLC ruining Console Games?

It's because the 360 is NOT profitable

[thetoadwarrior]

Not only do you have to pay for downloadable content but that's on top of having a Gold membership for multi-player content.

No one seems to want to admit it but the business model that Microsoft employs for console gaming is seriously flawed. Sony's is a little better because at least you get onto the network for free.

Microsoft brags about their success but what they don't mention is that they need to over charge you for accessories (ie wifi adapters and hardrives) and they need to charge you for any little thing you do online.

One reason the 360 has no browser (and mouse / keyboard) is to stop them from being accused of trying to make their own closed PC. But I suspect the other reason for a lack of a browser (and therefore a lesser experience than all other consoles online) is to keep the system as closed as possible so they can nickel and dime you to death all so they can eek out tiny profits which they've only just started to do recently.

The Wii is the cheapest system all around and part of the reason for that is because Nintendo makes a profit on the hardware. They don't need to fuck you about to make up for selling unprofitable hardware. The Wii also has a browser which gives you access to free browser-based games. They do charge you to download new games from their shop but that's understandable imo and even then you get to earn points from buying games which result in free games to download. This is despite the fact their games are cheaper and yet they're still making money hand over fist.

The old system, which MS works under, doesn't work well when every system has some success. It relies pretty much on there only being one big success per generation to make great profits. Had Sony not cocked up in a few areas it would probably be worse for both them and MS with numbers being more evenly divided.

It's only going to get worse and that's why they want to move out of physical sales and into downloadable games. It'll make it much easier for them to jerk us around even more.

Re:It's because the 360 is NOT profitable

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no XBOX browser because they want to keep the system closed. Why would making their own closed PC be a problem?

There is no difference between Microsoft's annoying points system for downloads and Nintendo letting you earn points towards free downloads, other than Microsoft's version is annoying. When you buy MS points in discrete chunks, you have to buy more than you need for a purchase. Eventually, you end up with enough "over-buys" that you'll be able to get a "free" game with the excess. Nintendo is doing the exact same thing, they merely build the price in up front so you feel like you've earned it (rather than been screwed into it, as with MS). But don't for a moment think that Nintendo is benevolently "giving" you a free game.

Re:It's because the 360 is NOT profitable

[Brian_Ellenberger]

No one seems to want to admit it but the business model that Microsoft employs for console gaming is seriously flawed. Sony's is a little better because at least you get onto the network for free. Microsoft brags about their success but what they don't mention is that they need to over charge you for accessories (ie wifi adapters and hardrives) and they need to charge you for any little thing you do online.

It is only a flawed business model if noone is using it and it is not making money. I love the integration of XBox and XBox live. The integrated Voice Chat is indispensable once you get to use it. Log in, chat with a friend or group of friends, start a game, etc. All just works. In NHL09, which has 6 person positional team play, it is amazing. 5 friends can be finishing up a game, and I can come into the voice chat group with them in the middle of the game and coordinate on playing the next.

As for wifi adapters, etc, I prefer the way XBox did it. Why make me pay for it if I don't need it? Also, this way kids with less money can get the base system for Christmas and maybe the HD on their birthday. Not everyone can drop $600 bucks at a time.

Re:It's because the 360 is NOT profitable

[MemoryDragon]

Nintendo ripps you off on the Wii with their accessories.
Period, if you buy all the stuff needed for gaming and for a small family you are way more expensive than a PS3, on the other hand the XBOX and PS3 rip you off with games, and DLC.
DLC on the wii fortunately is mostly a no go for now due to the limits of the console!

Re:It's because the 360 is NOT profitable

[mikael]

Microsoft brags about their success but what they don't mention is that they need to over charge you for accessories (ie wifi adapters and hardrives) and they need to charge you for any little thing you do online.

Nintendo did that with the Ultra 64 - basic console had the single controller with Mario 64 bundled in. Want to play two player games? Better buy some more controllers. Want to play those RPG games with the huge levels? better buy some memory cards for the controllers. Want to play that racing game or shooting game? you need to buy the racing car controller or the light gun. I guess Nintendo learned from that experience - they got stung by the shift of the other console makers from cartridges to CD's and DVD's, who in turn got stung by the use of online DLC for PC's.

Re:It's because the 360 is NOT profitable

[thetoadwarrior]

Of course it's not totally free but if the game price hasn't changed since the last generation where I got no free games then I'm not really that bothered.

Re:It's because the 360 is NOT profitable

[thetoadwarrior]

The problem is that it's a complete rip-off to buy it in chunks and it ends up being more expensive than the PS3. That is definitely taking advantage of people with less money by selling them a handicapped system and then charging and arm and a leg bring it up to spec even with their high-end model.

If you can't afford the difference there is always saving money and waiting as unpopular as that is these days.

Re:It's because the 360 is NOT profitable

[thetoadwarrior]

You're living in imaginary land. The Wii is not moe expensive than a PS3 if you buy the system and 3 extra controllers. You even get a game with a controller if you buy Wii Play.

The balance board is in no way required but if you do want, that again comes with a game.

Nintendo will also allow you to use any company's SD card. So you can shop around for the best deal. With the 360 you can only use MS's over priced hard drive add-on.

The 360 is the one that is more expensive than the PS3 just to bring it up to spec with the PS3. There is no reason for the cost of their Wifi adapter when Nintendo can manage to put it into a cheaper system and still make a profit from day one on the hardware. Something MS couldn't achieve.

Re:It's because the 360 is NOT profitable

[thetoadwarrior]

Extra controllers are an understandable extra cost.

Memory cards had to come about because of disc based systems but in the case of the N64 they actually helped you save money in the long run because they could be used for numerous games. Carts were expensive to begin with but carts with saving functionality could be anywhere from $5 to $10 more. You only had to buy a couple games with the battery feature to effective pay for a memory card.

Nintendo also was decent enough to effectively give away the rumble pak by including it with Star Fox 64. That is not really ripping people off.

follow the money

[Peganthyrus]

Hey, wow, adding new chunks of content that are half the size of the original game for free sounds like a GREAT business proposition! Yeah, those console releases suck for wanting to be paid for something that took ~50-60 people several months to make!

Plus, we would've gotten tons of stuff for free from modders working for love if we had the PC version! ...so basically, "PC users are really really cheap" is the message I get from this piece.

EA is trying it with The Sims 3

[SmallFurryCreature]

If you go to The Sims 3 website and look at some DLC that was user generated and do the math on the costs in euros for say a colored funiture set... well, then you head over to the piratebay or whatever and download the extra's instead. Or stay legal and use pure-user created content from free sites that do NOT charge 10 dollars for a funiture set.

The problem is greed. The first sign is the POINTS system. Don't matter what you call them, they exist for one reason alone, to hide the dollar/euro cost.

There is NOT a single other reason for them, you can just say this DLC costs 10 dollars and not 2000 M$ (MS dollars).

BUT then it would be far to clear just how bloody expensive DLC is.

It wouldn't be so bad if DLC were like the old school expansions but often they are nothing more then an extended patch. Some extra maps, maybe a quests that didn't make it into the main game.

Take the DLC for recent Bioware games like Kotor and Mass Effect. It is nice but barely a fraction of the original gameplay, so why is its price NOT a fraction of the full price?

Mostly it is pure greed. Not just by the game publishers but by the console owners. ALL the console companies LOVE the idea of the media-center. They have a wet dream of the consumer hooked into their grid for their entertainment with their wallet hooked up as a constant infusion of cash. Watch a show, pay. Play a game, pay. Download a trailer, pay. Listen to music, pay. Download a ringtone, pay. Watch an ad, pay. It is the dream behind the AOL and all the portal ISP's that dreamed of selling you every bit of content and it is the dream of Sony (why do you think a hardware company has a media division?) and MS (MSNBC, X-box, media-center etc etc) and to a lesser extent Nintendo (they don't want to sell you media, just games).

The console companies are VASTLY different from the PC companies. You will NEVER see a console company release old titles for free just for the hell of it. It is not the way they work. The console companies and those that produce for them are USED to demand payment for everything and get paid for everything. Think just how odd it is that a game publisher has to pay a console company to be allowed to produce a game for its platform. That would be like the canned anchovy company having to pay the frozen pizza companies to be allowed to release their product. Decal makers to pay car manufacturers.

But that is the way consoles work and it is the reason that console owners pay often a HIGHER price for their games despite the fact that the producer saves himself a fortune for not having to test it on a hundred different configurations. Console owners pay the price for the system that allows consoles makers to reap fast profits on all fronts.

Remember, ID does NOT make a profit when their game forces you to upgrade your PC to the next generation. But Sony does make money if you upgrade your PS2 to a PS3 to play the latest EA game that EA is already paying them for. That is a nice deal!

The problem is that console makers have little choice. They picked a format that is produced by companies that want to milk every last cent from them.

PC gamers are on the whole not going to put up for it. We pay more for our hardware but expect a different attitude from our suppliers. So far it seems clear that a LOT of publishers understand this and we get the silly situation that Console owners pay MORE for their games, have to pay for any DLC and not get any user-made content while PC owners pay LESS for their games, get DLC for free and tons of free content made users.

It would be a real tragedy. If I owned a console.

A better question: Is DLC ruining games?

[HalAtWork]

Developers are starting to omit game content just to sell it back to you after the original purchase, increasing the total cost for the full experience. This also allows for deceptive pricing tactics.

Tired of waiting.

[tlaloc58]

As it stands, Team Fortress on the Xbox 360 is nothing but a demo. I bought the Orange box for the 360 when it came out. I still consider it a good deal for the Half Life series and Portal but in the case of Team Fortress I felt like an idiot for the endless updates and addons available for free on the PC version. I learned my lesson and got steam, had to re purchase TF2 but the advantage is that I can play it in any computer and after testing the new enviromets, I am afraid that the xbox 360 can't handle the demanding levels of physics and graphics of Team Fortress 2. Even with a limited number of players, xbox always looks laggy and the new maps are bigger and more complex. So the lesson here is that multiplayers from valve will ALWAYS be better on the pc, other non multiplayer titles like Mass Effect, Bioshock, or GTA with occasional updates are ok on the 360.

Child labor

[tepples]

Pfft, when I was a kid we used to get up off our lazy gaming asses, get jobs, and buy our own rigs and games.

When you were a kid, there probably weren't strict regulations against child labor. What kind of job should a kid take over summer vacation?

In other words, get off my lawn!

Don't tell that to the kid mowing your lawn.

Re:Child labor

[Sir_Lewk]

Uhm, I was a liveguard during the summer for several years, just 2 or 3 years ago... Most kids I knew worked as baggers at grocery stores or whatnot, it's really not hard at all for kids to find summer jobs.

Re:Child labor

[tepples]

Most kids I knew worked as baggers at grocery stores or whatnot

I looked into this, and grocery stores require employees to be at least 16 years old. Before that age, how should a child save up to buy his own PC or game console?

it's really not hard at all for kids to find summer jobs.

That might be the case once U.S. unemployment falls below 7%, but in this recession, experienced adults laid off from their last jobs are filling these positions.

What games would you recommend?

[tepples]

I'd say that by now pretty much all PCs have an analog TV-out.

My ASUS laptop didn't have an S-Video output. Neither did my cousin's Acer laptop or my boss's Dell desktop. What do these have in common? Intel GPUs, which show up in a lot of entry-level PCs. There is a fairly easy way to connect a PC's VGA out to a TV, but it involves a $40 adapter that is neither sold in stores nor advertised in the mainstream media.

I agree that most people probably don't have their PCs connected to the TV, but that's not because anything is preventing that.

Then what is preventing home theater PCs from becoming more popular?

As for controllers, most fighting or sports games (basically, the only genres that aren't a huge pain to play with more people) support more than one controller.

But there are plenty of multiplayer console games other than sport sims. What PC game would you recommend for fans of games like Mario Kart (4-player cartoon racing), Smash Bros. (4-player platform fighting), or the various 4-player minigame collections on Wii?

If they don't that's just a design choice on the side of the developers, and not a limitation of the platform.

If a given design choice is a limitation of the vast majority of games on a platform, then it's a de facto limitation of the platform.

Re:What games would you recommend?

[geminidomino]

I'd say that by now pretty much all PCs have an analog TV-out.

My ASUS laptop didn't have an S-Video output. Neither did my cousin's Acer laptop or my boss's Dell desktop. What do these have in common? Intel GPUs, which show up in a lot of entry-level PCs. There is a fairly easy way to connect a PC's VGA out to a TV, but it involves a $40 adapter that is neither sold in stores nor advertised in the mainstream media.

You know what else Intel GPUs have in common? They're generally shitty for playing games.

I agree that most people probably don't have their PCs connected to the TV, but that's not because anything is preventing that.

Then what is preventing home theater PCs from becoming more popular?

Blackboxes (Tivo, Comcast DVR,etc...) are more Joe Shmuckatelli friendly, even if they are less featureful. MythTV (to use an example I am familiar with) is powerful, but setting it up is not for the faint of heart.

As for controllers, most fighting or sports games (basically, the only genres that aren't a huge pain to play with more people) support more than one controller.

But there are plenty of multiplayer console games other than sport sims. What PC game would you recommend for fans of games like Mario Kart (4-player cartoon racing), Smash Bros. (4-player platform fighting), or the various 4-player minigame collections on Wii?

More importantly, how many Mario Kart/Smash Bros/Mini Game collections exist on the PC anyway?

Re:What games would you recommend?

[tepples]

You know what else Intel GPUs have in common? They're generally shitty for playing games.

I've never got a straight answer on this one: Is Intel's GMA 950, used in several entry-level PCs, shittier in general than the Hollywood GPU in Wii consoles?

MythTV (to use an example I am familiar with) is powerful, but setting it up is not for the faint of heart.

Then what is preventing someone from building and selling MythTV boxes? Is it just the MPEG and Dolby patents?

More importantly, how many Mario Kart/Smash Bros/Mini Game collections exist on the PC anyway?

For these to exist, there would have to be a larger HTPC market.

Re:What games would you recommend?

[geminidomino]

You know what else Intel GPUs have in common? They're generally shitty for playing games.

I've never got a straight answer on this one: Is Intel's GMA 950, used in several entry-level PCs, shittier in general than the Hollywood GPU in Wii consoles?

I don't know, but even if not, the market for PC games that look like Wii games(casual "flash" bejeweled-type games notwithstanding, since their needs are generally nil compared to even the lowest-end decade-old XP machine) is small to the point of statistical anomaly.

MythTV (to use an example I am familiar with) is powerful, but setting it up is not for the faint of heart.

Then what is preventing someone from building and selling MythTV boxes? Is it just the MPEG and Dolby patents?

Nope. It's been done. They are just extremely expensive compared to the big corp black boxes.

More importantly, how many Mario Kart/Smash Bros/Mini Game collections exist on the PC anyway?

For these to exist, there would have to be a larger HTPC market.

Typical chicken-and-egg issue then, but the problem is not technological. All of the problems with connecting HTPCs to TVs you cite, both HD and SD, are already solved

Bitch, bitch, bitch...

[Petersko]

Look, if you don't like what they're offering, or the price they're asking for it, or the terms under which their offer is extended, exercise your ultimate power.

Don't buy it.

If you REALLY don't like it, personally blacklist all products from that maker.

You have ALL the power. You just have to have the fortitude to exercise it.

Re:Bitch, bitch, bitch...

[MWoody]

Yes! And on a related note, if a politician or your country does something you don't like, for chrissakes SHUT UP about it. We don't want to hear your whining. Just vote for someone else the next time it comes up! There's no reason to go around discussing it like some animal.

Re:Bitch, bitch, bitch...

[Petersko]

"Yes! And on a related note, if a politician or your country does something you don't like, for chrissakes SHUT UP about it. We don't want to hear your whining. Just vote for someone else the next time it comes up! There's no reason to go around discussing it like some animal."

That's not related at all.

This isn't about who is going to run your country, and consequently part of your life. It's not about food, shelter, utilities, or about anything that you NEED to have. It's about pure entertainment products for comparatively rich folks (and if you can spend money on video games you are comparatively rich). Buy it, or don't buy it. You won't live one second shorter if you don't buy it. In fact, you might live a little longer if you used the time productively. Who knows?

Bitching about how you aren't getting quite as much as you think you should for your video game dollar is just pointless. If the deal sucks, don't buy into it. And if you DO buy into it, shut up.

Re:Unlike PC games, console games can use extra pa

[MemoryDragon]

With HDMI the connection issue is a thing of the past, you nowadays can hook up a PC to a HDTV without quality loss and computer monitors also become bigger over time (26 inch is quite cheap nowadays)
But I agree one machine multiplayer is not previvalent like it is on the console, but it exists.
But it is not as dominant on consoles either, it is mostly on sports titles and racers, and if you can find those titles on the PC you have the one machine multiplayer mode as well. Most console shooters do not have split screen multiplayer either.

to each his own

[gintoki]

I really don't have a problem with DLC....most of the time. For burnout paradise the developers gave us quite a lot of DLC for free. It was only recently that they started charging for it. Things like big surf island are worth the money. You can see that it was made after listening to what people would actually want in a DLC. It really pisses me off though when DLC adds a "feature" to the game that to be honest should have been present from the start. Its almost like as if that the feature had already been present on the disk but you had to pay extra to unlock it.

Console FPS == Multiple sclerosis simulator

[Anonymous Coward]

Played FPSs on PC for many years but I'll defend them on console because it's a quick and easy way to get 4-8 people playing a FPS in a room as a social activity. No lugging around PCs, making sure everyone has the right version, stuffing around with networks, etc. Bring along a projector to add to a TV, a second Xbox and controllers, couple of copies of the game and away you go.

Or they could all just bring their laptops and a mouse?

Also, please refrain from brushing aside control issues on console FPS's like it's a non-issue.

WAIT, HANG ON GUYS!!!! DON'T SHOOT!!! I'M TURNING AROUND!!! dead.

Re:Console FPS == Multiple sclerosis simulator

[antic]

Right, plus 8 copies of the game?

Seven of us played Halo the other night. One Xbox, TV and stereo were already on site. Brought the second Xbox and projector in a small bag. Quick to set up and everyone was in the game and killing away. Of those seven, maybe three of us would have laptops and probably two would've had copies of Halo 3. And who can't shoot and turn around at the same time in a console FPS?!

If you don't like it, don't play it - just wake up to the fact that console gaming is popular, there are reasons for that, and that FPSs can still be great fun without a keyboard/mouse combo (hell, for a long time back in the Doom/Quake days I would play without a mouse and generally win games).

Mountain biking is still a popular sport despite the existence of faster and louder motorbikes. *shrug*

Re:Console FPS == Multiple sclerosis simulator

[aj50]

Total cost of eight gaming laptops: £8000 (roughly)

Total cost of two 360s and two HDTVs: £1500 (again, roughly)

Control issues in FPS games on consoles are a non-issue, it's the same for everyone and part of the game. On CoD4 for PC you can spin around instantly and aim very precisely, on 360 turning round takes longer. You can argue that one is inherently better than the other but in terms of game balance and fairness, it's a non-issue.

Mod parent: DOWN. No new engine!

[Tei]

L4D2 will not use a new engine. Will use the very old now Source engine.

Valve need to retire this engine, and create a new one (Source 2)?, because Source is starting to look outdated.

I hate wen people "invent" new engines just to promote a game.

Here is my quake family tree:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Quake_-_family_tree.svg

--Tei

... or is DLC ruining consoles?

[Bones3D_mac]

From my point of view, large-footprint downloadable content for console-based games is both lazy and deceptive on the part of game publishers. Game consoles aren't generally designed for long-term storage of files in excess of a few megabytes per game. In the past, such content would have been packaged and sold as sequels. Nowadays, the publishers are foregoing the work and expense involved in manufacturing physical copies in favor of downloads tied to a single system.

Don't be fooled by the arguments that this is done solely to get the game out the door sooner and into eager players hands. Instead, DLC is merely the first stage in bringing modern game consoles in line with the phantom's locked-down digital only approach to game distribution. Next, we got smaller download-only games (Virtual Console, PSN, XBLA) to test the waters with content tied to the user. That was followed by publishers working in "exclusive" content included on the disc of new games but accessible only once by the original buyer via codes obtained from the retailers... again, tied to the user. Now, we're entering the fourth stage... full retail games repackaged as downloads at a "budget discount"... but still tied to the user.

There's only two stages left until we're fully in line with the phantom... simultaneous release of new retail games as downloads, followed by download only releases of new, big-budget titles.

This is all an elaborate effort to stamp out the used game market by making the only "used" games valueless "digital" copies tied directly to the user with no option to transfer ownership later on... all done under the guise of "added value" and "convenience".

Enjoy it now if you want, but just remember where that money all disappeared to a few years down the road, where having physical copies of those titles could be saving your ass from a night in a cardboard box.

A new spin on DLC

[jimbob666]

Microsoft have recently released an update for their Live service on the 360. This update allows you to buy 'clothes' and 'themes' for your avatar. That is what I don't understand...so I can get a Quicksilver themed t-shirt for my avatar (with MS spacebucks) and it will cost me?

But...it is just pixels on a screen that look like a Quicksilver logo?? I don't get it, why would I want to pay for that?

CRT SDTVs still exist

[tepples]

With HDMI the connection issue is a thing of the past, you nowadays can replace the CRT SDTV in your living room with an HDTV and then hook up a PC to a HDTV

Fixed that for you. The latest numbers state that two-thirds of TVs in U.S. living rooms don't have VGA or HDMI inputs because they were purchased before the late 2000s, when TVs with VGA or HDMI inputs became affordable.

But it is not as dominant on consoles either, it is mostly on sports titles and racers

Would you consider martial arts a sport? If so, what PC fighting game would you recommend for people who like the style of Super Smash Bros. series better than that of Street Fighter series?

Re:CRT SDTVs still exist

[MemoryDragon]

With HDMI the connection issue is a thing of the past, you nowadays can replace the CRT SDTV in your living room with an HDTV and then hook up a PC to a HDTV

Fixed that for you. The latest numbers state that two-thirds of TVs in U.S. living rooms don't have VGA or HDMI inputs because they were purchased before the late 2000s, when TVs with VGA or HDMI inputs became affordable.

Well those households are not really in for a modern console either, there is a load of games on new consoles which are almost unplayable on TVs because you cannot read the fonts.

But it is not as dominant on consoles either, it is mostly on sports titles and racers

Would you consider martial arts a sport? If so, what PC fighting game would you recommend for people who like the style of Super Smash Bros. series better than that of Street Fighter series?

This is not common on the consoles either, outside of Super Smash Brosh I am not really aware of a popular clones of that genre on consoles. Most fighters go the way of Street Fighter.

Re:CRT SDTVs still exist

[tepples]

Well those households are not really in for a modern console either

Are you saying Wii != modern?

there is a load of games on new consoles which are almost unplayable on TVs because you cannot read the fonts.

But even if someone did make a PC game in the style of Smash Bros., and the fonts were big enough that they'd still be clear at 640x480, most people 1. don't know that VGA-to-SDTV adapters exist, and 2. don't have a spare PC within 12 feet of the TV. If they do have a spare PC, it has a Voodoo3-class Intel GMA chipset. How can a microISV get around the SDTV problem on one hand and console makers' general aversion to part-time development on the other?

Re:CRT SDTVs still exist

[MemoryDragon]

We were talking about the PS3 and a shitload of games done for that console cannot be played decently on CRTs.
The Wii and modern, well yes and no, the hardware specs are clearly last generation (G3 like power PC relatively low ram no hd and a graphics processing power which was more or less PC standard 5 - 7 years ago). Add to that the fact that the highest you can get from the Wii is 480p and no hdmi/dvi. (Have one myself but I would not really say it is this generation, it is a fun console though)

Anyway
If someone would make a game like SMB on the PC (I am pretty sure such a game exists, I really should google for it) and you have a hdtv you easily can hook it to the TV :-)
Anyway the wii is out of question here, because I was talking mostly about the PS3 and the PC here and both dont suit very well to old CRT tvs!
But the PS3 or xbox360 dont have SSMB style games either, but at least the PS3 now is getting something along the lines of Mario Cart which looks very promising.

Nobody seems to address the last part of the story

[Anonymous Coward]

Taking a look through the comments, while not quite the focus of the story it is an interesting question in and of itself:

"Furthermore, why pay for a few extra maps and costumes when modders are making and offering new ones for free all the time?"

And it has a fairly simple answer: The extra maps and content generated by the developers is much, much better.

Take a look at some of the Left 4 Dead content that has been made by communities. There are some good maps don't get me wrong, but they often miss the subtle, but important design elements that make the maps actually fun to play and intuitive. Besides some buggy areas, the most common thing people don't seem to recognize is the fact that if you don't know where to go, follow the lights. This is one way you can tell a custom map from the official ones. The official ones have good paths that guide the players through the level, while the custom ones don't have such a well-defined path.

This is also true in many other games. TF2 has some very good maps, and to that end, some community maps have been added to the official content by Valve. However, these are very few and far between because of the issues of space in the area (can't be too narrow or too wide as to offset balances). And often, even in these community ones that are now official, the medpack and ammo placement is not optimal to the points of battle.

$5 for TF2 updates on Xbox... What updates?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking at the XBL Marketplace for ToB http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/media/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d8024541080f/ there are no $5 updates available. So what's this slew of $5 add-on charges for TF2 the OP mentions?

Having enjoyed TF2 on both PC and XBL, I can say that they are almost different games. They play differently, and have a different feel to them on each platform. XBL you get plopped into a match with a bunch of random people. PC you get to pick and choose servers with maps and mods that you like.

To simply pop in and play, XBL is better. To enjoy a broader experience with more variety and longer life, PC will always reign king.