Epic Games' Mark Rein: Consoles Taking Gamers Away From PC

[Trynant]

objective is for Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand sucks. Thus being objective suks.

Why would you rate a game TECHNICALLY if you were going to rate it objectively?

Because gameplay is subjective. Technical features are the only objective thing to grade. You can objectively grade the reaction people have to the game, however, and the overall reaction is "good." Although there are certainly a few major exceptions with (more or less) valid complaints.

Although, I've found that polish makes the difference between a decent game and a great game. Just look at any successful online PC game and you will see a degree of polish that sets it apart from others. And that polish extends from the core gameplay to the UI.

My thoughts are simply that the gameplay and graphics are polished (especially the graphics and optimization for that matter), but everything else...not so much. With Epics track record for continued support of their games, it's all-but-assured Unreal Tournament 3 will be improved upon. If they drop the ball they pick it up again.

Back to the topic at hand, consoles do have many, many more gamers than PC gamers. Do consoles steal hardcore gamers from the PC? I consider hardcore gamers the ones that play both consoles and PCs, so my thoughts are no, not really. Although I will say this: when a game comes out for all platforms, I buy the console version (with the exception of the keyboard/mouse-favored FPS, RTS, and MMORPG).

And finally, why the hell is there a debate on Mark Rein's comments? From what I've seen and read he says a lot of crazy stuff (2 weeks, Wii suxxors*, etc.), and most of what he says is right, just said in the worst way to say it

*this was a misquote anyways, point being is almost everything Rein says the press has a field day with.

 

[kafros]

@TA: I disagree with your complaints about the shield gun and the adrenaline. It is true that their implementation was favoring good players, but why not change it instead of removing it?

I would prefer having adren building up for ALL prayers at a constant rate, so that everyone would have a go at the adren combos. Shield could stay, but as soon as you pick a weapon you are no longer able to use it. I agree that the shoot/shield gameplay is not very fun. Shield should be around for spawn rape protection.

There is a saying in my native language that says something like "if your head ackes, cut your head (to get rid of the pain)". I feel that many gameplay features took this road instead of beeing fixed.

I think that UT2004 is the last of its kind. A very difficult to master but very rewarding FPS. Servers are empty even after the "great nerf". 99% of gamers are happy playing WASD(no dodge) FPSs, with 2-3 guns carried at any time.

Edit: I am not complaining. Just stating the (sad for me) truth. I am in a minority. EPIC is right (business like) to nerf their product (and as it seems they should have nerfed it a bit more, because ppl are not buying it). Gamers don't have 300 hours to sink into a game before they can score a frag ) . cu @ Euro-servers dino-ut-players

 

[Sir_Brizz]

But why are almost all other UE3-based games so much more stable than UT3? I mean, UT3 is basically GoW's engine with some relatively minor alterations, so why can that game run and this one can't?

I think all the people having problems running GoW would disagree with you. Honestly, I have had more problems running that game than UT3.

Honestly, though, many of the "issues" the game is having right now is pretty subjective. Things like showing player names on the server browser don't exist in most games, and many people just don't care about it. The lack of options in the menus? A lot of people don't care about that either. No WebAdmin? Same deal. Just because something is important to you doesn't mean that it is important to everyone who plays the game.

To truly objectively review a game is somewhat impossible, but I think ignoring certain parts of what makes up a game in order to try to be objective is pretty silly.

 

[Unknown Target]

I don't have GoW, I haven't heard as many complaints about it crashing as I've had with UT.

And honestly, UT3 would be fine with me if it worked and was stable. It's not, and it really hurts the game in my eyes. Once they patch it up though, I will definitely be playing/modding it.

 

[UBerserker]

UT3 crashed on my rig until I used that NVidia patch; still sometimes happen.

My PC GOW, in the other hand, is quicker at loading and never had any kind of bug (slowdowns as well).

So... GOW seems to be more stable, and that was supposed to be a port!

 

[Unknown Target]

I have an ATi, so god help me when it comes to UT3

 

[Sir_Brizz]

I only got crashing in UT3 when that dumb AMD driver that came with Gears of War was installed. Removed that, no crashing anymore.

 

[Selerox]

UnrealGrrl wins.

the obviousness of this whole mess is so 'in your face' its hard to imagine they didnt see this comming. the only real answers to this are:
a) they were blinded by the lure of console $money$ and didnt realize how far out they had gone in alienating the PC "bread n butter" customer.
b) they really dont care and are just transitioning to console only development (with the PC getting the afterthought ports of a few games here and there).
c) somehow through some agreement or deal (or just plain bad judgement) they were 'forced' to release the game early before it was ready for the PC audience.

My guess is A and C, with B as an incidental.

Epic have lost the support of their entire community due to arrogance and incompetence.

The sole direct reason for the death of the UT series is Epic Games.

 

[Jonathan]

I like GoW on PC, but the annoying Live ruins it.

 

[FuLLBLeeD]

Epic's commitment after patch 2 will determine whether or not I stick to this game. I'm not going to continue to support a company that ****s on its userbase, regardless of how good the game is.

 

[Continuum]

Who **** first?

 

[Grobut]

I only got crashing in UT3 when that dumb AMD driver that came with Gears of War was installed. Removed that, no crashing anymore.

Lucky you, i still can't play it.

All i have managed to determine is that it is probably not the vid-card that is crashing me, as i've tried it now with a 6800U, 7950 and 8800GTX, and a bunch of different drivers.

There's still alot that needs fixing with regards to hardware support.

 

[Scuzzbuster]

Anyone thinking that this article is some twisted way to address UT3 specifically is grasping at straws. There's nothing untrue about anything said. I think it's also a state of denial to think that consoles are winning the sales wars because game makers are deliberately ignoring PC games.

Facts are the facts. Consoles have been dominating the gaming market for a few years now. The advent of the HALO series has slowly brought the shooter genre with it to console as one of the last big hold outs. You guys think UT3 is the only next gen game with compat problems after release? Nope...and it's just one of MANY reasons that PC shooters are losing profitibility by the month.

I garuntee you that with every major cross platform game this year that was released for 360/PS3 AND PC, if the publisher were said they were given the chance of releasing PC only version or Console only versions, it would be the consolve versions every single time. There is no PC esclusive shooter released ever that could have made the sales numbers that HALO3 did on release...and really in the scope of action shooters, the HALO series is are sub par titles...but they are some of the better "console based" shooters out there.

The argument that people buy a game on console over PC because of the lack of attention or whatever is weak. It contradicts that argument that UT3 has the package/UI of a console game. If you had both platforms, you didn't buy the PS3 because of the UI or weak options of the PC version, you bought the PS3 version because most of your gaming is done on your console and that's where your gaming friends and your gaming community are. PC gaming will never die completely, but to ignore the fact that consoles have been beating it down for a long time before UT3 game is denial. UT3 isn't even a footnote in the PC/Console war.

 

[Plutonia_Experi]

There is no PC esclusive shooter released ever that could have made the sales numbers that HALO3 did on release...and really in the scope of action shooters, the HALO series is are sub par titles...but they are some of the better "console based" shooters out there.

Yes, but why has Halo sold so much?
Cannot be because of the advertising? I saw -A LOT- of advertising on TV for Halo, and for other console games. Never saw anything for PC.

Let me guess: let's say that the software houses earn more in selling a console game than a pc game [same number] (for example because pc version requires more work to be compatible with the most part of the systems).
Then they are trying to drive the market towards the consoles, as a long term stategy: they will lose some pc gamers, but in the end the market will be only console and they will have more profit working in only one platform.

In this way UT4/5 won't even have a PC version, and it will be much cheaper to make.

I hope the companies that produces pc stuff will make something about it, without games nobody will pay for upgrades.

 

[MonsOlympus]

Well you know I think this might also go to the attitude of some gamers, I have friends which wont touch UT with a 20ft pole just because of the name. Yet I'll play games like bf2, cod2 and tf2 but surely not as much as I play UT3.

What is causing people to see UT in such a bad light? Honestly I blame this trend in the industry which swept through everything from hollywood to london and beyond, its called pop. See I could relate UT to Punk and CS to Pop, thing is that alot of those Pop people arnt playing UT3 maybe its because they are too busy with CS which is kewl. What is not kewl is when someone boycotts a game for no good reason, just like my friends do with UT.

Im the one who gets called narrow minded because I dont spend 20hrs a week in crysis, 20hrs a week in a cod/bf game and 10hrs a week in a valve game. I spend most of my time in UT or quake like games or RTS games, I guess I just get frustrated with the whole state of things and this misconception people have about UT as a series. I just wish more people would actually play it, give it a decent go, perhaps this has something to do with the PC sales end and that perhaps PS3 peeps were more willing to pick it up because theres less competition be it direct or indirect.

Epic should really realize this after Gears of War though that marketing is key, even UC2 had some level of marketing but it didnt fair so well going up against halo. Similarly UT3 went up against some big name titles, in the state it was in at release not such a good thing no matter how much content it has in there vs something like TF2. What we need is people atleast trying the game on PC which might not happen because of peoples misconceptions, I dont blame anyone for not liking it after giving it a good run but not even giving it a chance is just lame.

So as people have been saying gameplay is subjective so much so that people are becoming narrow minded sticking to titles which follow the same formula over and over, then again UT is no different! Its just UT is in the minority now there is less of us to get people to try it and see if they do like it, getting hammered online doesnt help either.

 

[Plutonia_Experi]

UT is not meant to be a mainstrem product.
It relies in the competition. It relies in being a difficult game for a specialized audience.

If you're a good gamer you will love it, if you're not you will hate being bashed online, not being able to deliver a single blow, and you will hate the weird cartoon weapons so nerfed. You'll go back to your sweet M16 you can always make a kill with (and it's cooler).

So Epic must stick in its mind that making UT they have a small target audience, a niche market.

Of course it can be economic rewarding, because it won't have much competitors in that niche.

But Epic has screwed up big time, trying to make the game for a wider audience.
And here the attempt to put a plot, to put a single player thing, to make the game easier, and most of all trying to make the game for consoles (the quintessence of non-competitive player).
So they didn't get their UT niche, and didn't get the big market either because COD and others are very good in what they want to do.

So for me UT3 was ruined by the greed, by the mainstream, exactly like a lot of (music) bands are ruined because change their music to sell more records [Satyricon].

 

[MonsOlympus]

Yeah I guess you are right Plutonia_Experi but I still believe Epic could make more of an effort for getting people to try the game on PC, not that I want it to become mainstream but I would like for it to pickup more hardcore followers.

 

[DarQraven]

Lemme just tell you a real story and go all elitist on y'all. (Yes, I said y'all, sue me)

Last week I was at my faculty meeting some of my team members (project team, not clan) and because the tutors were late, we all had an hour to spend before we actually had to do anything.
So naturally, being tech savvy students, we whipped out our laptops.
One of them had CoD4, NFS pro street and GoW on it, another one had UT3, BF2 and Crysis on it. There were some others that are not relevant to the story.

The one guy started playing CoD4 in some pub server, and from the first minute I could tell he was the kind of guy that gamed every once in a while, downloaded all his games, and in short, was a newbie.
The other guy was also not very good, but he was playing UT3 against average bots (comparable to average CoD4 player intelligence).

Now on to my point: The people watching.

When they looked at the guy playing CoD4 as a totally unskilled player, they saw a tough marine hiding behind a crate, looking for prey, leaning out of cover, sprinting, proning, aiming through his reflex sights, and killing the b*stard. "WOW. That looked so freakin' sweet! Did you see how he just PWND that guy? That is one hardcore marine!"

Then they looked at the guy playing UT3.
They saw a tough sci-fi marine dude running around like an idiot, jumping like he's on acid, then seeing another pumped up marine dude, after which both started standing still in the middle of a courtyard spraying green plasma at each other (mostly missing), until one dropped dead. Rinse and repeat.
"dude .. what the hell is that? it's so stupid and brainless..."

--

My point is: Most popular FPS games, and console FPS games in particular, are made to look/be 'awesome' when played by a complete retard. Gears of War as an example. No matter how much you suck, you're going to look all tough doing your camera-shake-crouched-run into battle with your chainsaw revving up. Even if it takes you 10 minutes of strafing and missing with your shotgun(this is called an 'intense' battle in noob-speak), when you finally DO get that hit, you get to stomp the b*stards head on the curb and make it explode in hundreds of juice little bits.
The fact that you reach your peak skill after about 1 week of playing since the game is so dumbed down that you can't possibly improve after that is lost on so many people.

When you're playing UT3 as a retard, you're basically playing a chance-based RPG: whoever sees the other one first has an advantage, from then on it's a matter of luck if you hit more shots than the other. Huh? Dodge? What's that?

I think you see my point. People judge the game based on their own uninteresting and sucky gameplay, completely ignoring the fact that there are SO many cool ways to get frags, so many ways to avoid being killed, and that there is indeed more than non-moving stinger fights in the game.

It is in that light that I made my recent thread "Do your part to promote UT", which was met by some with witty remarks about how the game is not finished ... yeah .. we know. We've all been playing it.
I think that showing people what is REALLY possible in UT3 after you get through the initial "zOMG REDEEMER arena!!! phase" is what will get people to be interested in the game. And seeing as it's completely 'pop' nowadays to be pr0*, having national championships (or even larger than that) for a game will certainly pique people's interests.

(* Just look at counterstrike. Every other player with a K/D higher than 1 is pr0, and gets sponsored for $1000 a month ... until you start asking questions of course..)

 

[Unknown Target]

While I don't quite agree with the elitism, I do agree with the points A lot of times I'll be playing UT3 and people just won't be impressed with it, because all they can see is pretty much a blur, with me shooting with huge guns at tiny people really fast. And I'm not a bad player, I usually do well on pubs, which means that all they see is even more of a blur because I'm constantly whipping my mouse around.


Call of Duty 4, however, has something they can relate to (modern day), looks realistic and gorgeous, and is slow paced enough that passers by can see what's actually going on. I'm not saying either game takes more skill, but when people look at someone playing CoD4, they can at least tell what's going on and honestly, it's more exciting to watch (high level UT 1v1s are freaking boring, and general skirmishes are like watching skeet shooting on acid - and it's not just UT3, it's every UT game ever).

Those aren't the only reasons people like to watch CoD4 and get more interested in that, but it's some of them.

 

[MonsOlympus]

Okay on the heels of the MEPC announcement I went over and checked some of the comments.
http://masseffect.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=617396&forum=125

Originally posted by xsubtownerx
I'm working on a lawsuit as we speak. This is false advertisment if I ever saw it. Making me buy a 360 for a game that I was told was ONLY going to be for the 360 is wrong. If I had known I would have waited for the PC version. The game is good but not THAT good. I would have waited. I want my 500$ back. So see you guys soon..

Seems PC gaming is still strong and there are alot of dual gamers being created not out of platform preference but because they want to play "exclusive" titles. I had a fairly good idea GOW was gonna be on PC and titles like GTA3 series I knew were as well, seems alot of people didnt see this one coming.

I guess its good that not everyone will be suckered over to the dark side and will return to PC gaming once again