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How To Make PC Gaming Better
New submitter RMingin writes "Bruno Ferreira at Tech Report has a number of suggestions that he feels could improve PC gaming. Some are quite thought-provoking. For example: 'When technology advanced [in the '90s], the industry came up with a certification specification to ensure punters didn't miss out—and consequently spent more on better PCs. That spec was called MPC, short for Multimedia Personal Computer. The first version of the MPC spec said, in simple terms: Thy computer shalt be blessed with a sound card and speakers.
Thou shalt be provided a CD-ROM drive in which to receive silver discs. Thy processor shalt not be completely crap. At the time, this spec meant a lot—and, to be honest, I think it worked marvelously. We need something like that again. People wanted MPC, everyone sold the better hardware, and everyone was happy. Let the powers that be come up with a new baseline specification. Call it MPC-HD or whatever acronym the marketing Nazgûl want to give it. I'm fine with whatever, as long as it gets the job done.' He also calls for an end to the unintuitive model numbers for GPUs and CPUs, and more consistent driver support."
Port everything over to Linux so we can ditch Wine and Windows.
Someone had to say it.
It's called Tablet App Gaming. Thy computer shalt have no native input device save the screen. You shall not have full control of the device. Some of your data must needs live in the cloud.
Those who finds model numbers unintuitive usually asks one of their geek friends to build a PC for them, those who don't even bother looking at model number but rather look up the benchmarks don't care about the model numbers.
The real issue with PC gaming is that a lot of games these days are shitty console ports with atrocious controls, awful camera and graphics that are still stuck on xbox360/ps3 level which are already outdated by just about any discrete video card, and there's no incentive for companies to change their "make console game -> port to pc to milk" agenda.
There's nothing wrong with it. In fact, it's miles better than any console. An I5/I7 paired with a midrange graphics card blows them out of the water. The problem isn't the hardware, it's the software writers who write for consoles and then port that back to PCs... Case in point, Skyrim, which has about the most awful interface ever inflcited on the keyboard & mouse using public ever. More first-person shooters that all look the same. No innovation any more. No, the problem is the game companies and their crap.
its not crappy console ports anymore.
its crappy PC ports of shitty console games.
These are so much better than the original article. I have a two year old computer that I put together new for about $500 that can run just about every game I've played on medium-high to high graphics settings with at least 30 fps minimum. While I don't play a lot of modern games, such as Metalfield 428 or Halo 9 or what have you, Planetside 2 is quite beautiful nearly maxed out.
These are the ways to make PC gaming better. The article has a handful of suggestions for manufacturers to make selecting a PC better, the level of quality being somewhere between obvious and pointless.
Article demands a spec for hardware. Windows 7 has a rating for hardware. It's called the Experience Index. It sucks, but so does any other spec you'll come up with because specs can't be as simple as "cd-rom drive and SVGA graphics" anymore. Peggle and Crysis won't have the same minimum requirements, ever. Linux does not have something like this because it hasn't been needed, both due to a lack of games and because I can only assume Linux users generally know what the fuck they're doing.
Article demands a spec for rating (benchmarking) processors. Author hates not knowing if another core is better than an extra 500 megahertz. Great. Problem is that the answer is (and always will be): "It depends."
Next suggestions are "stop letting the marketing guys name products cause they do it bad", and "drop the suck when you write your drivers". These are both fantastic ideas. Unfortunately, they've been the issue for about the last 10 years, or at least, when ATI first started building cards that required drivers (on the topic of bad drivers) and Nvidia's "Geforce If I have FX in my name, I suck regardless of my number".
And the crazy thing for me is that I feel like in the last 3-4 years, I've had a lot less fucking around with games/hardware to get them to "just work". For all of it's flaws, Steam is pretty magical. I feel like if this article would have come out years ago, I'd have agreed wholeheartedly. Now I just shake my head at Captain Obvious.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
CPU model numbers are fine.
i3 i5 i7.
Biger has more power.
220, 3470 etc... bigger is more power.
Quick, hotshot! Which has more power, a 5450,or a 4870?A 2700K, or a 3470?
The upcoming Steambox will hopefully be the new benchmark for software. It would be nice if they'd release a certification badge upon release that other hardware makers could use. I agree 100% with the comment about GPU/CPU naming conventions. They are even worse than cell phones. If there's one thing we can learn from the iPhone, let it be simple names.
I have to second this. Though I cherish my memories of playing the Ultima series in my youth, I find the games practically unplayable now. Sure, they had a very detailed world and story, but the systems while fairly fresh at the time, seem very primitive and unfriendly now. Granted the games did do a few things that I've rarely seen since (if at all - granted I haven't played every game in existence so I may be missing some things) that would certainly be welcome (by me) in a modern game.
I remember that the story in Ultima VI wasn't exactly linear, though you could follow cue given to you by NPC's and work your way through the game in a linear fashion, you could also avoid the major conflict with the gargoyles from the start and forge your own path through the game. Sure, some things could only be done one very specific way, other could be done multiple ways, especially if you got creative (and if you really got stuck somewhere, you could go the evil route and kill a few npc's or steal some goods to get what you needed, granted you could also make the game unwinnable this way).
I really don't think the state of PC gaming is in that bad of shape. I've also been hearing complaints about the state of PC gaming for almost as long as I've been gaming on a PC (1985). Sure, some companies do crappy ports, others just try to get some fodder out the door to capitalize on the current trend, and other companies cater to the PC audience even while courting the consoles and for others, the PC represents the vast majority of their output.
The first Borderlands runs and looks better on my tower than it's console version does, and can even be dialed down enough to be playable on my laptop (inexpensive laptop purchased primarily for school work, not gaming). I haven't tried to run 2 on my laptop yet, but it's still awesome on my tower. Skyrim? sure the menu system may suffer from consolitis a bit, but everything else about it is better on PC, and again runs great on my tower and can be dialed down to be playable on my laptop. That's not even consdering the mods (and support of!) available for the PC version.
Sure, there are plenty of games out there with poor PC support, barely playable on my tower due to poor optimization, lack of video settings or both, but I'm usually not surprised by those ones when I see who developed/published the game.
Of course there are also several genres that thrive on the PC and rarely, if ever see the light of day on a console (how many 4X games make it to consoles?) and certain games that hold a larger (or longer) PC following. How many people still play Morrowind on the Xbox vs. how many people still play it on the PC? Hell, given how cheap it is on steam, the various (new!) mods, and younger audiences being introduced to TES for the first time by the latest game in the series, I'm sure Bethesda still sees a fair amount of sales on Morrowind for the PC.
You have (and shall) never hear the term "console port".
The main problem with a LOT of PC games, nowadays, is they've been dumbed down, and lots of features stripped out or simply never done (or done right) in the first place. Simply to make it easier to share code-bases between a console port and the PC game.
DCUO is a prime example of this.
It's so incredibly limited, and the controls for the game absolutely SUCK. Why? Because they designed it with a controller in mind. They limited the game's models and costume options because most consoles just couldn't handle the sheer variety a full-blown costume/model system would have given them.
As a result, you have a console fighter game masquerading as a PC MMO. And it does NEITHER well.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
A game that costs $100,000 to make, but sells at $2/game has to sell over 50,000 copies to make a profit. A game that costs $2,500,000 but sells at $50 has to sell the same. Your first point is only valid if you're willing to pay a higher percentage of the cost.
Dear Indie Game Devs:
PC Gamers:
#1 - Don't make me obligatory xkcd you! ;) yeah, one solid standard is nice assuming it can be maintained properly. Unfortunately the latter part of that is pretty rare. Either not everyone adopts updates to the standard, or the standard stagnates, 2 or 3 potential replacements arise to take the torch and we're back to competing standards for awhile. Standards are awesome, but without a walled garden approach (and even then...), I have a feeling this will always be a problem.
#2 - I have mixed opinions on this. I'm not a big fan "virtual goods" sold by the service provider that make game play easier or progress faster as that gives the company incentive to do just as you describe, however I don't really have a problem with a player driven market exchanging virtual goods for real world cash as in most circumstances I've seen this in (MMO's mostly) it really doesn't affect my game play experience if I choose to not take part.
#3 - I totally agree, though I'm not really sure it would be feasible. I think a better option would just be a stipulation that if you are going to provide such services, that should you go out of business or suspend services you allow private entities (individuals, other companies, etc) access to the server side software and code so people may choose to keep the game going at their own expense if they choose and if the server side houses all player records, that those records be made available to the player so they can readily transfer them to a private server if they choose. Of course, re-reading your post, you do seem to mention this option ;)