Tim Sweeney: PCs Are Good For Anything, Just Not Games

[hanji]

Well.... think about it, what will we use to create IF PC Gaming died? Where will we get people who are familiar on mapping on Unreal Editor? Sure, bundle the Editor to install on PC, but would anyone that had bought a console game for their console, then proceed to buy/upgrade their PC just to do mapping. I don't see it unless a person would contain so much love for creating content for people, its one small step at a time for loving something for your whole life.... awww damn, going off topic now, lol.

Hey, maybe we will get upgradable game consoles that you can do everything with..... oh wait......
But then again, game consoles with upgradable parts from different vendors(more $$$$$ for Microsoft, Sony if they collect royalty), increase your FPS and QUALITY settings. Developers make the visual quality settings scalable for people who can or cannot afford the upgrade, I should stop here, sounds too much like upgrading a desktop PC now.

 

[Human1]

Consoles are not cheaper!

What's up with the myth being propagated that consoles are cheaper than PCs? They're easier, I'll give that, but cheaper? Hell no.
First, you don't have to have the greatest hardware right when it comes out. Second, if you shop around for PC hardware, you can find a lot of powerful stuff on the cheap. I've got a great rig, Q6600, 8000GTS, 4Gigs of RAM and it cost about $600 to build. But now you can get a good video card for only ~$100, and who really needs quad core for games? Right now I could build a great gaming system for ~$300, $350 tops.
Consoles are just as much, even more and they can't do all the things a good gaming PC can do.
Then there's the game prices. Why is UT3 $50 on PC but $60 on PS3? That's a 20% increase in price!!!!!!!!!!!! $10 may not seem like much but it freaking adds up pretty damn quick! If you but 5 games, you just overpaid by $50. Hell, that's half a good video card these days.

Take home message: Please stop pushing the myth that consoles are cheaper, because they're not.

 

[haslo]

He isn't saying consoles are better for playing games. He's saying consoles have taken over the gaming market. And you can't dispute that.

Quite true, however remember that the Orange Box sold more PC copies than console copies. It's a marketing thing, PC gaming is far from dead, and while the percentage of people that have a good gaming rig may be rather low, it still translates to a relatively big numbers of actual current-gen-game-capable machines.

Still, "Cheap PCs Are Good For Anything, Just Not Games" would be more adequate for what he actually said before that last sentence of his.

 

[RennyManJr]

oops, the and should have been an or

Oh, that's why it took me about 3 minutes to understand that phrase

nevermind

 

[Lostsoul]

I agree with the article.

 

[shoptroll]

This reminds me of some of my rambling (in retrospect I really needed to ramble a ton less) comments earlier about the "Alliance":

http://forums.beyondunreal.com/showthread.php?p=2085799#post2085799

http://forums.beyondunreal.com/showthread.php?p=2085666#post2085666

Granted, I have a much weirder way of looking at the same problems. I do think he is right in saying that the magnitude of difference in computing power between a low end and high end PC 10 years ago was much smaller than it is now.

The problem basically comes down to computing power on the low end of the spectrum. If hardcore PC Gaming wants to thrive someone needs to figure out a way to move in on the turf that the casual market thrives in: low end PCs that don't have a lot of horsepower in the graphics department. To the best of my knowledge the only games that do this are Sims, WoW and Counter-Strike. Not much of a shocker that they are also selling a **** load more units than anything else out there. I don't think this is a coincidence. Nor is the fact that casual games sell just as well.

The hardware problem needs to be solved. This needs to happen at both the hardware manufacturers and with the OEMs. Dell and the like need to quit marketing these high-end pimped out rigs so that people don't associate gaming pcs with $2,000+ price tags. At the same time they should shy away from the integrated video cards. If anything put lower grade cards to use or hell, put last year's video cards in the budget line PCs.

While this is going on, gaming companies need to quit putting so much focus on graphics. There's no point in targetting the 1% of gamers who can actually afford a system to play your game *cough* Crysis *cough*.

 

[-Jes-]

There are people out there still BUYING computers less powerful than my 2.5ghz OC'ed AMD Barton + fx5900... For MORE than that old rusty thing cost.
People out there expecting their LESS-powerful-than-my-desktop rig to run games such as Gears of War and Supreme Commander.

Because of people such as this, the inventors of "integrated graphics" needs to get stabbed repeatedly in the face.


NOT TO MENTION.. My cousin got a laptop by his half-brother as a birthday gift.. A Dell.. Cost roughly 16000 DKK, w/o any accessories.
It's ALSO slower than my old tower, which my 11800 + 2000 in accessories (13800 DKK total) laptop outruns at a ratio of AT LEAST 5 to 1 in overall fps!

Because of that, big companies like Dell need to shove off and drown in the nearest lake for their overpriced garbage!

 

[T2A`]

Blaming Intel and integrated graphics for the decline of PC gaming is a cop out. These game companies have been operating under the principle that a game with better graphics is a better game. Instead of creating new an innovative was to game on a PC, they enhance the graphics of an old game and call it a new game. Don't blame Intel if your game does not work on their GPU platform and you are using the latest, cutting edge, extensions and expecting the latest amounts of video ram. The fact that some of these companies are listing specific graphics cards as system requirements should indicate that there is a problem. At that point you are limiting your audience on your own. If you want a big audience, you should target machines with integrated graphics and then find ways to scale up when there is more power instead of targeting the latest and greatest and then complaining that you can't scale back to make it work. By promoting the idea that better graphics equals better game, they entered into a stupid race and they can only blame themselves.

I like this guy. Reads like that thread I created a little bit ago saying pretty much the same thing.

 

[haslo]

The hardware problem needs to be solved. This needs to happen at both the hardware manufacturers and with the OEMs. Dell and the like need to quit marketing these high-end pimped out rigs so that people don't associate gaming pcs with $2,000+ price tags. At the same time they should shy away from the integrated video cards. If anything put lower grade cards to use or hell, put last year's video cards in the budget line PCs.

Yeah, very true, particularly considering that it's possible to build a reasonable gaming system (maybe not for Crysis with settings on "high") with half that.

 

[LMN8R]

While Sweeney makes some good points, especially about the disparity between integrated graphics and dedicated hardware, the entire bases that "PC gaming is in a decline" is completely ridiculous and incorrect.

When a platform continues to grow stronger, year after year, including hardcore high-budget games, indie games, casual games, and more, isn't that the direct opposite of "decline"?


Yet another case of developers who should stay out of the business side of things trying to talk about the business side of things. Talk about the hardware if you want, but leave the discussion about the overall health of the platform out of it.

 

[«BuA»Lurker_71]

Ok, so Tim has good points.

Everyone else has their opinions of Tim's points, but there's still a small problem floating around that everyone seems to be ignoring;

No one is doing anything about it.

It doesn't matter who you think is at fault, because as much as everyone is talking about "making it better", who's really trying?

The past has shown us that big companies that are used to big profits are not thinking of the little guy... so talk like this is pretty meaningless unless someone plans to stand behind it and make a difference... let's watch to see who steps up.

 

[virgo47]

My English isn't that good - but title seems to be a bit misleading to me. Wasn't he talking about stupid office PCs with integrated graphics? I don't see anything like "(no) PC is good for gaming" implied there. Of course - he may think that the aforementioned salesman's behavior implies that PC as a platform is not good for gaming.

However... yes, Valve still shows us it is good enough.

 

[MonsOlympus]

The past has shown us that big companies that are used to big profits are not thinking of the little guy... so talk like this is pretty meaningless unless someone plans to stand behind it and make a difference... let's watch to see who steps up.

Yeah thats what I was saying, I tell ya I think intel would think twice if half of Epic walked through the door perhaps accompanied by any other developers they can get to go with.

I think it would make more of an impact than heaps of angry gamers ranting on forums to be honest. Thats pretty much all these comments do, link me to the petition against intel integrated and I'll sign

 

[dub]

No one is doing anything about it.

It doesn't matter who you think is at fault, because as much as everyone is talking about "making it better", who's really trying?

The past has shown us that big companies that are used to big profits are not thinking of the little guy... so talk like this is pretty meaningless unless someone plans to stand behind it and make a difference... let's watch to see who steps up.

Indeed. One would have thought the PC Gaming Alliance could do something in that regard, considering the size of the companies involved, but as a cynic you'd see the creation of the PCGA as nothing more than a PR stunt with no real power or focus.

I think it would make more of an impact than heaps of angry gamers ranting on forums to be honest. Thats pretty much all these comments do, link me to the petition against intel integrated and I'll sign

Honestly, ranting on a game forum is probably more useful than signing any petition you'll ever come across. Petitions do nothing. (except take up space and give people something to do for a few minutes)

 

[haslo]

My English isn't that good - but title seems to be a bit misleading to me. Wasn't he talking about stupid office PCs with integrated graphics? I don't see anything like "(no) PC is good for gaming" implied there. Of course - he may think that the aforementioned salesman's behavior implies that PC as a platform is not good for gaming.

Yeah, but while saying that he uttered a sentence at the very end of the interview that can be twisted into an attention-grabbing headline like that. Knowing how big media work, it was obvious that this headline was coming.

 

[Poker]

title seems to be a bit misleading to me. Wasn't he talking about stupid office PCs with integrated graphics? I don't see anything like "(no) PC is good for gaming" implied there.

Exactly right. The interviewer screwed him there, and got him to utter a line that could pique interest as a headline, despite it being taken totally out of context.

As anyone who bothers to actually read the article can see, what Sweeney was asked was, "Broken down, that means today’s mainstream PCs aren’t suitable for gaming?" ... to which he responded with the line that was quoted in the title of the article. He clearly was talking only about a subset of the entire PC market, and was not disparaging the entire platform as the headline implies.

This is the reason Epic stays as frustratingly tight-lipped as it does sometimes: because so many of the jerkoffs that come begging for interviews turn out to be no-good yellow journalists who will twist anything they say into something that will get clicks.

 

[Anuban]

Valve and many other companies are doing fine with their games on the PC ... and again this shows Epic forgets to add in all kinds of other numbers in terms of games sales (like Steam and other forms of Electronic Distribution). When Gabe Newell says that PC gaming is dying or dead then we will really have something to be worried about. Also tell that to the guys who make WoW with millions and millions of players worldwide that PC gaming is dead and get laughed it. I look at the year that just passed and see how well Crysis and CoD4 and The Orange Box and Bioshock did and I have to chuckle when I see these statements from Epic.

Anyway someone said they could build a PC capable of playing UT3 for under $600 and I say that is a load of crap. Maybe you can update an existing system for that but a brand new one from scratch with all the components, including a decent 19" LCD monitor with at least a 1000:1 contrast ratio is going to be a bit more. You have to include the hard drive, Power supply, Mobo, chassis and even the keyboard and mouse, sound card, Speakers ... so I don't agree that a computer capable of running todays latest games at at least the same visual fidelity as the 360 or the PS3 would cost less than either of these, and you don't need to buy a new HDTV nor do you need a HTS to enjoy it. Of course they make the experience better but for $400 a person could get either console and be set to play out the box and have a fun experience.

 

[Beelzebud (Satanas)]

The individual Epic employees make for good PCGA representatives.

LOL That pretty much sums it up.

 

[Syri]

Anyway someone said they could build a PC capable of playing UT3 for under $600 and I say that is a load of crap. Maybe you can update an existing system for that but a brand new one from scratch with all the components, including a decent 19" LCD monitor with at least a 1000:1 contrast ratio is going to be a bit more. You have to include the hard drive, Power supply, Mobo, chassis and even the keyboard and mouse, sound card, Speakers ... so I don't agree that a computer capable of running todays latest games at at least the same visual fidelity as the 360 or the PS3 would cost less than either of these, and you don't need to buy a new HDTV nor do you need a HTS to enjoy it. Of course they make the experience better but for $400 a person could get either console and be set to play out the box and have a fun experience.

you don't have to include the monitor actually. unless you're going to include the cost of the tv in the console's price. comparing the tower + input device costs to the console's cost is a fair comparison, as both will be a box that can play games when hooked up to a compatible display system.

 

[WarTourist]

This is the reason Epic stays as frustratingly tight-lipped as it does sometimes

Nothing is sometimes the right thing to do, but always a smart thing to say .