Cliff B Tweaks PC Gamers Over MIA Bulletstorm Demo

[Kyllian]

Valve also suckers people into buying items they can find in game for TF2 and makes them buy keys to open those crates. Most smart people leave crates alone but its the principal of the matter.

Perosnally I see the "buy TF2 drops" system as geared for those with a lot of money and very little patience
Hell, look at Farmville, it's a prime example of "for every dumb sounding idea, there's a hundred dumb people who will go for it"

As for those crates, if you don't want to spend the cash on keys, trade them with others who do. There's been quite a few crate hoarders

 

[shoptroll]

Perosnally I see the "buy TF2 drops" system as geared for those with a lot of money and very little patience
Hell, look at Farmville, it's a prime example of "for every dumb sounding idea, there's a hundred dumb people who will go for it"

I'm pretty sure that's what the intention was.

The achievement unlock path is for the hardcore.
Random drops were for casual people.
Mann Co Store is for the people with fat wallets and no patience. Also, a good way to compensate community content authors.

As for those crates, if you don't want to spend the cash on keys, trade them with others who do. There's been quite a few crate hoarders

Crates are great barter material.

 

[Northrawn]

Valve expands their market without splitting their communities by making Portal 2 (and maybe TF2/L4D2 in the future?) cross-platform on PC, Mac and PS3 including voicechat and friendslist.

Epic cant even be arsed to offer a demo for the PC-version of Bulletstorm.
And as if that wasnt enough they let their main front man piss in the PC players face on twitter

No wonder Valve gets my money these days.

And VALVe also gives a free PC/Mac-copy of Portal 2 to PS3 players (Buy it for PS3, link it to your steam account and own it there too)!!!! So, even in the console market they do fine and lead by example*.


*) And yes, I am aware of the fact that they can generate sales of others of their games that way. Well, at least they try to generate sales instead of scaring customers away (anymore) or insulting them.

 

[Miko]

Thats because PS3 is getting steam integration.
But yeah. Everyone who feels they have been omega betrayed by Epic should just quietly leave Epic do what they do. Anyone for Bulletstorm will buy it

 

[Kyllian]

Also, a good way to compensate community content authors.

Eh, I figure this is more the reason behind the "buy drops" system.
Either way Valve seems to give more back to the community with that cash than other companies using microtransaction models

Crates are great barter material.

I believe it. Those things seem like digital xmas presents

 

[Northrawn]

Everyone who feels they have been omega betrayed by Epic should just quietly leave Epic do what they do. Anyone for Bulletstorm will buy it

True. I love them for the UDK. But I don't like their recent games (but I don't feel betrayed). The last game that was huge for me (content and feature) was UT2004. But that was the result one not so well game (2003) polished for 1.5 years and stuffed with a lot of content mostly from contractors and and other companies.

 

[q_mi_4_3]

I hate to say it but a lot of people here who are calling themselves PC gamers are really making themselves look like fools to the public eye since people do read this material and either report it back to places they work or they laugh at everyone throwing huge fits.

So what if Epic wants to go and change its main focus to console games. Let them do what they feel is necessary to thrive as a company and don't be so whiney that every stereotype about PC gamers looks more true. We need to look at ourselves a momment here.

All the whining is going to turn devs away from the focus on PC platform because devs wont want to put up with the headaches PC gamers tend to give them for not making them first. Don't be so freaking spoiled over all the tiny little things just because you can. If we want people to focus on PCs as a platform we have to be alittle more respectful instead of whine until people flee.

As for Cliffs comment on twitter. A lot of us PC gamers had it coming.

PC gamers did try to stand for themselves without resorting to this kind of feedback. We had bought the good and worthy PC games like SC2, and it has had good sales.
http://gamrfeed.vgchartz.com/story/...s-18-million-copies-on-day-1-excluding-korea/
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=258264
http://news.bigdownload.com/2010/08/04/more-info-on-official-starcraft-ii-sales-figures/
But even after all the success good PC games demonstrates, companies like Epic still take smack about PC and gives us low quality service. So it does get frustrating enough for people to have to vent.

PC gamers don't need to be pampered and treated "specially", but we do expected to be treating equally as any other game platforms. If devs want to give us better service, all the better, but the only requirement is that the PC is given as much focus as the consoles. If the consoles can get good controller control, then PC should get good KB/M control. If the consoles get achievements, party chat, and skill based matchmaking, then PC should get customizable key binds, customizable video options, and dedicated servers. Each platform had their own different requirements, but the requirements for each platform should be focused on equally. That is what PC gamers want back, just some respect and focus on PC games.

Well, maybe you're just not understanding me. When I said "there's just a lot of history with PC gaming being the premier platform for shooters," I wasn't talking about the current state of gaming. I was explaining that the transition to consoles being the main target platform happened YEARS ago. I was saying cliff's comment was in reference to something that was no longer under debate. It's a done deal. It's history. It's abundantly clear that the money is in console development.

Somehow trying to say his "real persona" only came out recently is stupid. As a person, he hasn't changed. He hasn't all of a sudden changed into a jackass because the realities of the industry have changed. When PCs and consoles were both viable, he was PC only. Now that consoles are the only way to go for triple-A shooters, he doesn't have a choice. Cliff makes blockbusters. That's his thing.

To anyone who expect him to "stay true" to the PC rather than his own personal interests and those of his company, you're the jackass...

I haven't used the word Jackass on Cliffy, and I don't blame him for following the method to get himself more rich. What I hate is how the way he does it, by rolling over PC gaming and stomping on it. We all know the companies like Epic makes more money on consoles, but that is only because they choose to focus their efforts on console games. Epic didn't need to move away from PC gaming, and they could have had good games on all platforms equally. They choose to deliberately move away from PC, like signing exclusive deals on the Xbox and such. If the blame the PC market because there were no buyers, that's fine but the PC market still has lot of people willing to buy games. Epic simply doesn't makes games focused for the PC market, and then they blame the market when the response it bad.

I didn't say his real persona came out when in this quote for Bulletstorm, but his real persona came out in 2008 when he stopped pretending to care about PC gaming at all. If he was really a PC gamer like you said, I find it impossible that he can turn 180 so completely and become so anti-PC as he has become in the years since then. So there is only two conclusion, either he stuck with PC gaming back then because it was making the most money (but it did look like he liked it too), or he simply chases the highest gross money market at the expense of any other market (which does make sense, as Epic had yet to make a game for PS3 before Bulletstorm). Either way, CliffyB and Epic is still servicing the consoles over PC, and that's the main point I do not like (if he had not treated PC worse than the other systems, I would not have bother to care how he acted).

 

[Plumb_Drumb]

How many copies of Unreal Championship and Unreal Championship 2 did they sell?
I heard it wasn't very much, especially the second one, which was arguably the better game (more polished anyway).

That didn't seem to stop them though.

 

[UBerserker]

345.000 copies of UC2 were sold, unfortunately. I enjoyed it more (a lot more) than UT2k4.

 

[q_mi_4_3]

So, because Epic does little to put out high quality PC games and has been focusing more on console games makes them an obstacle in the way of proper PC gaming? Do you know how many other companies use Unreal Engine in their games? Why expect Epic to be the sole lead in PC gaming? Besides, you need to define what you mean, because there exist a plethora of PC games that are not console ports and of which are quite good and successful.

And calling Bulletstorm a console port is a bull**** claim, unless you have internal knowledge of their design documents.

True. I love them for the UDK. But I don't like their recent games (but I don't feel betrayed). The last game that was huge for me (content and feature) was UT2004. But that was the result one not so well game (2003) polished for 1.5 years and stuffed with a lot of content mostly from contractors and and other companies.

I have said it before a long time ago, but the only way Epic is helping PC gaming now is by the UDK. But the UDK puts the burden on other companies because Epic is unwilling to make a good PC game themselves. So essentially, Epic is put all the burden on other people to make good PC games with UE3.

Though this is a bad move, and it would have been fair for Epic to do what they want (like EA and their lack of PC demos), but then Epic has to go and BS about PC gaming. It would be similar to a racist who donates money to a racial equality fund, but then goes out and hits and verbally abuse people of minority in his own time. The UDK is like the good will Epic gives to PC, like the fund money it can potentially equal to great things, but the words and actions Epic uses against PC gaming can be painfully felt immediately. (No Epic is not a racist, that was just parallelism.)

Epic's inaction on PC gaming will not the the sole reason that hurts PC, but it can start a trend which becomes the precedence for how other devs and publishers treat PC gaming and the PC market. Just look at $60 MW2 PC, and then look at how Activision and EA are all release their high profile PC games at $60 at launch, even on Steam. The gaming market works in a snowball effect, and I believe Epic has already started a few bad things against PC.

 

[q_mi_4_3]

And calling Bulletstorm a console port is a bull**** claim, unless you have internal knowledge of their design documents.

I said it in an other thread, Epic may surprise and deliver a good PC port. I admit that will be possible, but it is just sad that Epic does not decide to focus their efforts on PC to the extent we know it is capable of (like they used to in the old times). Things like GfWL definitely does not help, and the lack of demos and information about the PC version may indicate that the PC port will more likely be worse than we think (but yes, I don't have proof, just making a reasonable assumption).

 

[shoptroll]

PC gamers did try to stand for themselves without resorting to this kind of feedback. We had bought the good and worthy PC games like SC2, and it has had good sales.

If Recettear can break 100,000 sales and Minecraft can shift over 1 million copies, then there's no reason to shun the PC as a viable sales platform for a decidedly mainstream shooter. Seriously.

Besides, for all the complaining they do about piracy, it's not like the consoles are worry-free. It's certainly harder but it definitely exists. At least on the PC they can't complain about used game sales because GameStop stopped carrying PC games a long time ago. Someone should get pre-used sales data from GameStop and combine it with the piracy data to see how rosy console sales really looks.

 

[Miko]

I have said it before a long time ago, but the only way Epic is helping PC gaming now is by the UDK. But the UDK puts the burden on other companies because Epic is unwilling to make a good...

Have you taken offense to something Epic did because you don't seem happy with Epic at all. They do what they have to.

I said it in an other thread, Epic may surprise and deliver a good PC port. I admit that will be possible, but it is just sad that Epic does not decide to focus their efforts on PC to the extent we know it is capable of (like they used to in the old times). Things like GfWL...).

You ever take into consideration that the main developer for this game is People Can Fly and Not Epic games? Have so many people shove this fact to the side that they have decision making power for this game as much as their parent company?

 

[Sir_Brizz]

Heh, good question... Is it possible for a company to technically sell more copies of a game than they shipped because of used game sales? I never really thought about that.

Miko, even if every decision is PCFs, it is still really sad. They made Painkiller.

 

[q_mi_4_3]

Have you taken offense to something Epic did because you don't seem happy with Epic at all. They do what they have to.

Yes they do what they have to. But what they do doesn't help PC, which is what I don't like. Seeing them go from the good PC devs from UT99 to the devs they are now with UT3 and GoW2, it almost seems like they are running away of their own choice. More focus on XBL and XBLA games, none for PC. Or in this case, just much much less. (They will probably show it around as a bulletpoint to say they "did" one PC game in recent days.) I mean they are suppose to be in the PCGA, I wouldn't be mad if they failed to do something to help PC, and less mad if they just didn't do a lot, but they went 180 on us and treat PC like second class and put some very far distance between themselves and PC. They were not forced to go to PCGA, so it not like they just go got fed up with it, they joined by choice and they couldn't even see it through. That is why Epic has disappointed me more than any other company.

You ever take into consideration that the main developer for this game is People Can Fly and Not Epic games? Have so many people shove this fact to the side that they have decision making power for this game as much as their parent company?

I know all about PCF's role in this, but I will not be surprised if PCF has taken the mentality of the parent company (Epic) because that is what usually happens in the business world when companies get bought out by bigger companies. And in personal opinion, I don't feel like PCF has done anything too sacred on the PC (Painkiller was good, and it has all the standards of a PC game, but nothing more) so I don't see why they would be free of the corruption of Epic. And if PCF really are just powerless against it all, then more blame should have been put on Epic for forcing them to comply to these conditions.

 

[DarkEmperor]

^^good posts man

 

[_Lynx]

I said it in an other thread, Epic may surprise and deliver a good PC port. I admit that will be possible, but it is just sad that Epic does not decide to focus their efforts on PC to the extent we know it is capable of (like they used to in the old times). Things like GfWL definitely does not help, and the lack of demos and information about the PC version may indicate that the PC port will more likely be worse than we think (but yes, I don't have proof, just making a reasonable assumption).

People Can Fly were behind PC version of Gears of War, which was excellent control and performance-wise.

wouldn't be mad if they failed to do something to help PC, and less mad if they just didn't do a lot, but they went 180 on us and treat PC like second class and put some very far distance between themselves and PC.

Epic done to PC a lot just by working on UE3 and releasing UDK. Now, with UT3 their error was giving a lot of promises and talking a lot about the game while it was at the design stage + awful UI, which was later fixed to a certain degree in patches. Still, gameplay-wise the game is solid, although it's a bit different than UT2004, but I've heard no less, if not more grumbling about ruined gameplay when UT2003 was out.
Then there was Gears of War 2 which was X360 exclusive, just like the original one, except here it stayed exclusive. And now comes Bulletstorm, which is blamed for not being PC-oriented just because it has no demo and uses GfWL. GfWL, while not the best middleware out there, is not the worst, and I had no issues with it. Demo? Yes there's no demo, but actually, look at a lot of games out there. How much of them have demos? Valve did a lot to PC with Steam, but they released demos for just 2 games - Half-Life 2 and Portal, and Portal demo was released way after the game's initial release. So I don't quite see where Epic went 180 on PC. They do pretty much what others do, and now one bad joke and everyone already got pitchforks in their hands, and are ready to torch both the game and cliffyb.

 

[ScHlAuChi]

If Recettear can break 100,000 sales and Minecraft can shift over 1 million copies, then there's no reason to shun the PC as a viable sales platform for a decidedly mainstream shooter. Seriously.

PC a viable sales plattform?
For every Minecraft theres 10000 failures that dont sell much at all.....

PC Gamers are in a comfortable position - they have zero risk when they complain - its the developer who has all the risk - they are the ones who invested all their money and go bankrupt when stuff doesnt sell.

Its those people here who complain that wouldnt give a **** if a developer dies eventho the devs took the risk and made a game for PC.
Ask the former Titan Quest developers how they think about this topic....

Games like Bulletstorm or Gears of War are ONLY viable because they sell a ****ton on console. If the console market didnt exist then no one would be able to finance those kind of games anyway and there wouldnt be a PC version either, as developing them would cost far more than they would sell.

I bet that not a single person on this board who complains about PC gamers getting the shaft would be willing to invest all their capital into developing a PC game, cause once the risk would be on their own shoulders they would completely change their opinion as it would be their own money that gets wasted!

 

[Sir_Brizz]

You're really ignoring the facts, though. The point is, if you make a game that has mass appeal (where Titan Quest fails plus it wasn't made by Blizzard) and is high quality and well polished, it tends to sell well. There are tons of examples of this.

Additionally, Steam sales show that lower PC prices tend to maximize your revenue. The holiday sale in 2008 had some games earning thousands of percentage signs more revenue than they did before they were on sale.

The problem you have on PC is 1) less people are likely to want to blow $60 on your single player only, crappy DRM/Middleware game as they are on console, and 2) more people are willing to wait for deep discounts because they already have lots of games to play.

The problem on the PC right now is not that money can't be made, it's that many developers/publishers don't know what they need to do to MAKE money on there or they are simply unwilling to. Valve doesn't seem to be going bankrupt.

 

[shoptroll]

Heh, good question... Is it possible for a company to technically sell more copies of a game than they shipped because of used game sales? I never really thought about that.

Even so, I thought they don't see a dime of the pre-owned sales which is why Mark Rein has bitched about them in the past and we now have things like EA's Project $10.