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Wow, I recently passed through a few “big name” game stores and other than a few major titles there were hardly any PC games displayed. There was a good collection of new Xbox 360 and PS3 stuff, a ton of used titles (probably half the store), but maybe a quarter of a rack for PC games.
Sure, part of the reason has been the gold rush to the consoles, with a number of traditional PC developers walking away from the platform to chase the money. Sadly, another part is the PC gaming experience itself. You go out, buy new title X, drop it in your system and it spends 20 minutes installing. Then either some warning about DirectX or it just starts installing stuff. Then the inevitable driver hunt starts. One to two hours or so after the disk was put in the system the first signs of life out of the title. Not what I would write up as a great user experience.
My worst ever experience was recently with Batman: Arkham Asylum. After a long install process, It asked me if I wanted to install Windows Live, I said no. The installer told me I couldn’t save my games unless I installed Live. I don’t like threats and I don’t like force installed software, so I was already ticked off.
I don’t remember my XBox Live account password so I set up a new account. It took forever, forced two reboots of the system, installed a ton of crap and then, about an hour after I “completed” installing the game I was actually able to play. Brutal, just brutal.
The final part of the PC retail slide is piracy. Nobody has a really clear picture of how many sales are lost, but the numbers are pretty staggering. If the game is that much hassle to get legitimately, piracy actually seems the easier route. to my mind, iTunes has proven if you make it easier to buy content than pirate, the consumers will come.
On the other hand, I look at digital distribution and my poster title for doing it right, “Torchlight”. The Runic fellows crafted a great experience, built a good demo and skipped the retail hassle altogether. My experience was totally different, I see the title in a download store, download a quick demo, play the demo to the end and decide to buy the game. The game installs quick and I load up from the end of the demo and keep playing. Slick, well thought out and well executed. The PC can be a great platform and kudos to the Runic fellows for hitting it.
My whole reason for starting Beamdog was to re-invent the PC as a gaming platform and I’m pretty confident with a game development mindset, hard work and a strong vision to re-define the user experience we can be successful. As a long-time (15 years or so) game developer I have a massive loyalty to the fans who purchase games, as they are the air developers breathe.
I also have a strong loyalty to fellow developers and ensuring they can make an honest living off of the hard work they put into the titles they lovingly craft. I want to create a situation when all parties win and I think we are on the right track. We are closing in on our open Beta and I’m looking forward to sharing our approach with the world.
Regards,
-Trent
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You will receive silence :) we will agree to completely and utterly disagree.
I mean, it makes sort of sense, but it is strange.
Also, like I said a thousand times, piracy is a symptom of how bad the gamers are being treated, specially regarding the lack of demos, not accepting returns and the prices.
I don't see pirated games, as games that someone got from someone else instead of me, I see pirated games as games that I FAILED to deliver, games that I would never sell anyway if piracy don't existed.
In the first place we have to count ourselves lucky if a publisher permits the developer to make a PC version of their game at all in addition to chasing console money. Then we have to hope they choose to release the game at the same time as the console version. Then we have to hope that the port was complete.
And then we have to try to find the game. Those of us who prefer to have physical disks can forget about visiting any of the boutiques like GameStop -- even the clerks don't know where the tiny half-rack of the PC games is located in their store. (That is not exaggeration; it's what happened to me the last time I bothered to visit a GameStop.) Some Best Buys still stock decent selections of PC games, but who knows how long that will last?
If we opt for digital distribution, we probably still have to deal with the console world as even single-player games today are requiring an online leash, and that leash usually takes us to one of the multiple proprietary authentication sites. If it's Microsoft's, we then get to endure their "Microsoft points" scam in which the number of points you can buy never adds up exactly to the cost of the game.
Frankly, this is pretty much the kind of system you'd build if you wanted to destroy PC gaming without actually telling PC gamers to drop dead. And I haven't even mentioned the various onerous DRM schemes.
It's not all evil, though. I think there are some things that could help. One might be some sort of consortium to promote the PC as a gaming platform to compete with the hardware-selling Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft troika. I once heard there was such an entity, but the utter lack of evidence supporting its existence suggests otherwise.... (*cough*)
In the meantime, independent developers could choose to design their games with a base edition for free or a nominal cost, and plan to make money from frequent high-quality DLC that's keyed to the base game's registration code. This is basically how MMORPGs work, and I think we're already seeing the first stirrings of the model with iPhone games, but it should work for PC games as well. Not perfect, but it's not a perfect world.
All that said, good luck to Beamdog, and I look forward to seeing your approach.
Also Steam has always been wonderful to get digital games working. They do all the backend work.
I also recently bought Starcraft II digitally and through Blizzard and Battle.net the process was a breeze. Maybe not as simple as plugging a disc into my PS3 or 360, but I think the PC market is branching off into it's own very non-console space right now that I think will pay off.
But in my PC games... I can just slip into the flow. Computer screens attract much less attention than TVs.
Steam is little better. I have not yet tried battle.net mandated games.
Overall it is the mandated online components of PC games nowadays that is the single biggest obstacke to purchase for me.