I don't disagree with you on the priorities of some developers/publishers, but there are still plenty of PC/Mac only games being developed first for computers. Usually sims or more in depth FPS granted, but I find those types of games much more fun than any console first-then-ported-to-PC game.

Consoles have their place, but they tend to lead to dumbed down gaming by their very nature (pick up and play for ten minutes type games), so control and gameplay tend to be simplified. It's one of the reasons they've had to enhance them by adding in achievements, taking a full clip of ammo to kill an opponent etc. That just isn't my play style.

There will always be good PC games in development where smaller dev teams can make good money. Sadly most of the big publishers are just releasing repetitive rubbish and charging extra for DLC that should have been in the original. I don't want console games being translated to computer games, they are normally not very good, especially FPS games. The quality of the big title FPS games has only dropped since the move away from PCs, IMO

I guess I just pine for the good old days of online gaming when devs actually cared more about the game than the money, DOD, CS and Red Orchestra to name three. Thankfully, a lot of those people still exist on PC games that support mods and put huge effort into their creations. Some mods make the likes of UBI and Activision look like amateurs, especially the bug fixing ones!

PC gaming isn't going to die off, it'll just shift away from the larger publishing houses to indies who'll put more effort and pride into their creations, in my opinion, the sooner the better. It's not as if they don't have an outlet anymore (Steam!).

Oh and my PC is plugged in to my 37" TV, far enough from my eyes not to cause problems. Easy to set up and actually boots faster than the 360!

Not a rant against console users, definitely a rant about publishers releasing half assed developed games with no soul

Problem is that games on Steam are usually no cheaper than buying from, say, Play.com

The other downside is that you cant stick the game on eBay...

Edited by deleted (Fri 08-Apr-11 21:35:27)

Issue with steam pricing is publishers set the prices, not valve.

But hey, they do 4packs and they do crazy discounts so its all good, its best to weigh up your options when buying these days, for example:

Portal 2 around and about the cheapest deal for the PC version is to buy it in a 2pack from steam working at 23.ish, next cheapest would be amazon or gamestation at 24-26 a piece.

Some games however use steamworks protection, meaning you activate the serial on steam, so even if you manage to get portal 2 cheaper retail wise its still activated on steam, same goes for homefront (25 retail 30 steam), civ5, duke nukem forever (27 from shopto with keyring, unknown steam prolly 30), etc.

Pays to shop about and look at the situation, but atm im getting to the point unless its on steam i wont bother unless its crazy cheap, steam is just far too much convenience provided the developer doesnt go full retard with 3rd party drm.

Edited by deleted (Fri 08-Apr-11 22:00:02)

Don't get me wrong i have enjoyed PC gaming in the past but as you get older i enjoy the simplicity consoles give me.

Some of my best gaming years were spent when game developers focussed all there efforts on brilliant PC games.

To nobody in particular but how come this has turned into a console bashing thread? Its been a long time since I had a PC for gaming and it looks like it might be a while yet! Just tried WoW trial and god my PC is slow, how can that possibly be, WoW is not taxing?? My AthlonX2 laptop with onboard GFX ran it better??? I mean [censored]

No console bashing as such, just publisher/developer bashing Can't blame them I suppose, they exist to make money after all!

As for why 'old' games won't run on an old rig, that's because they've been constantly updated and re-worked over the years as new technology appears.

One I play that is nearly ten years old now (Battleground Europe) was once playable with a voodoo GFX card and a Pentium 2, now an i5 with a mid range GFX card would struggle to get above 20 FPS in big battles! And their graphics aren't that great (gameplay and community above pretty imo ), though they've recently updated them, but it's a small dev team and what they have to do technically in game and server wise would make most other developers brains boil.

Edited by SamsonUK (Sat 09-Apr-11 12:31:51)

i really dislike steams patching system some titles dont get patched for ages on steam and the steam patch requires you to redownload all the game data rather than patching just the changed files

the old argument against pc gaming (having to constantly upgrade) doesnt really stand anymore apart from some parts that dont affect gaming nothing in my pc is newer than 2 years old and can run anything out today at max settings

another point i would like to make is how t2d is always going on about how playing on a tv in a comfy chair is preferable, maybe but i dont see why that requires a console the last 3 maybe 4 generations of gpu's had dvi ports that operate as a hdmi port hdmi can easily be run the distance to operate in a second room so your noisy pc isnt in your living room (and if you have a fat ps3 like me your pc might actually be quieter)

I wasn't actually talking about Valve games in retail store - I was thinking along the lines of Popcap games.

WoW got a revamp with the Cataclysm launch, pushing up the texture quality and spell effects.
So the minimum spec will have increased.

Yeah Popcap games are nuisance especially when they throw out bonuses to their own stuff, but thankfully theyre paying more attention to it now, bejewelled 3 and pvz were both released on there and given the appropriate discounts and stuff for preordering.