*** Split of from the main discussion about Steam distributing DOSBOx ***
Aye, Valve's awesome, despite some whiners' dislike of Steam. Just because it makes it so they can't steal the really good games isn't a reason to hate. 😜
The entire reason Valve is where it is today is because it listens to the community.
(Someone host the source!)
id Software have become cockier and cockier in the last few years - a while ago they announced that they would focus on consoles mainly while it was the PC that got them as far as they did.
wrote:id Software have become cockier and cockier in the last few years - a while ago they announced that they would focus on consoles mainly while it was the PC that got them as far as they did.
They blame PC piracy for it, and I belive that.
Not to say there's piracy on the consoles too, there is, but it's not as widespread as on the PC. When you make a game that cost over 20 million USD to make, then you want to get some money in return.
And the US usage of the consoles has grown a lot over the past 10 years while the PC pretty much stayed the same. In 1997 the PC had 47% of the US game market, and in 2004 it was less than 15%, and now I would guess it's less than 10%.
From a business standpoint, the consoles are the future. And it's only natural to want a piece of that cake.
wrote:id Software have become cockier and cockier in the last few years - a while ago they announced that they would focus on consoles mainly while it was the PC that got them as far as they did.
Not only that but their games have gotten substantially worse since DOOM III engine was foisted on us. Return to Castle Wolfenstien was a great game and really showed what a little effort could do with the Q3A engine but subsequent id games have typified the 'teh suck' experience on many levels.
wrote:They blame PC piracy for it, and I belive that. […]
wrote:id Software have become cockier and cockier in the last few years - a while ago they announced that they would focus on consoles mainly while it was the PC that got them as far as they did.
They blame PC piracy for it, and I belive that.
Not to say there's piracy on the consoles too, there is, but it's not as widespread as on the PC. When you make a game that cost over 20 million USD to make, then you want to get some money in return.
And the US usage of the consoles has grown a lot over the past 10 years while the PC pretty much stayed the same. In 1997 the PC had 47% of the US game market, and in 2004 it was less than 15%, and now I would guess it's less than 10%.
From a business standpoint, the consoles are the future. And it's only natural to want a piece of that cake.
Not true. I used to believe that myself, until I saw this article. PCs still trump consoles in game sales by a VERY significant margin.
wrote:They blame PC piracy for it, and I belive that. […]
wrote:id Software have become cockier and cockier in the last few years - a while ago they announced that they would focus on consoles mainly while it was the PC that got them as far as they did.
They blame PC piracy for it, and I belive that.
Not to say there's piracy on the consoles too, there is, but it's not as widespread as on the PC. When you make a game that cost over 20 million USD to make, then you want to get some money in return.
And the US usage of the consoles has grown a lot over the past 10 years while the PC pretty much stayed the same. In 1997 the PC had 47% of the US game market, and in 2004 it was less than 15%, and now I would guess it's less than 10%.
From a business standpoint, the consoles are the future. And it's only natural to want a piece of that cake.
I'll start by saying that piracy is an exagerated problem. The whole problem lies with the industry seeing that every pirated copy is a lost sale and focus the blame on just the fact that you can get games for free as the only reason why piracy exists.
In reality, this is just one of the many reasons. People will buy games that are good, full stop. Oblivion had NO protection (you could copy the DVD in Nero without having to do anything special and it would work) and it sold loads. The same goes for GTA San Andreas, etc. etc.
The real reason for piracy lies with many factors:
- a graphics card has become very expensive meaning that people often have too little money left to buy many games
- people get the warez version to try the game and decide it's not worth buying
- people don't have the money to buy the game in the first place
- games no longer give any incentive to buy them - you used to get big boxes with large manuals and often got freebies. Nowadays you get a 10 cent DVD case, a manual with 20 pages if you're lucky, and a DVD. Thats it. Hell, you can buy games on Steam for more than the store price and then you get f**k all.
So yeah, the industry is largely responsible for the situation now. When one graphics card is as expensive as an entire console, things are starting to get silly. Publishers want to skimp on every cent they can, and then tag on some hideously annoying and invasive copy protection (i.e. Starforce). The result is that people would rather download a warez version which has that protection removed (much easier not needing a DVD in your drive all the time), it's cheaper, and you're not missing anything because the retail version has a joke for a manual!
Also, comparing PCs and consoles directly in percentages is silly. You need to break it down to percentages per console since a console to console port is as much work as a port to PC. More so if it's a move from Xbox to PS3 (Xbox and PC are similar in architecture). if you break it down like that, the PC isn't doing that badly - don't forget consoles always get a boost right at the start of the new generation - the same happened with the PS2 at the end of the 90s.
Return to Castle Wolfenstein was not made by id but by Grey Matter. id Software "assisted" but I think it was mainly engine alterations (apparantly the Quake III engine had to be modified to be able to handle Wolfenstein's open areas).
id Software engines have always been rather weak when it comes to outdoor areas. Remember Doom? Quake? Quake II? Quake III? Doom 3? All those engines were largely made for in-door areas and that's why the Unreal engine proved more popular with games such as Deus Ex where large open areas were important. It's also why the Doom 3 engine did so poorly on the market - few companies wanted to license it when they were limited to corridor games. Look at Prey for example. The Source engine, while strongly based on the Quake engines, did better though.
You are probably right about those reasons for piracy but I am pretty sure sales are going down just because 90% of games made nowadays are UTTER CRAP. Period.
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wrote:id Software engines have always been rather weak when it comes to outdoor areas. Remember Doom? Quake? Quake II? Quake III? Doom 3? All those engines were largely made for in-door areas and that's why the Unreal engine proved more popular with games such as Deus Ex where large open areas were important. It's also why the Doom 3 engine did so poorly on the market - few companies wanted to license it when they were limited to corridor games. Look at Prey for example. The Source engine, while strongly based on the Quake engines, did better though.
What's Quake Wars, then?
wrote:What's Quake Wars, then?
Not anywhere near one of the listed engines?
wrote:Not true. I used to believe that myself, until I saw this article. PCs still trump consoles in game sales by a VERY significant margin.
Look at the top selling games on the PC. World of Warcraft, The Sims. Not exactly the market for hardcore gamers anymore. IMO, the PC has gone to the casual market. I love my PC games, but there just isn't much new for fun action titles on the PC these days.
wrote:wrote:What's Quake Wars, then?
Not anywhere near one of the listed engines?
How so?
Source fans tend to hide the facts
wrote:How so?
Source fans tend to hide the facts
🤣, this is just what I don't want to get in on, a 'battle of the engines' which none of us have had any hand in whatsoever.
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Nice use of Wikipedia linkage though. How exactly am I supposed to know that you didn't make that edit yourself for the purpose of making some kind of point?
Anyhow, it's pretty well known that GoldSrc was very heavily modified from the Quake engine by the time Half-Life was released, much less by the time Source came about; there's not really much to argue there, or here.
Certain revisions of certain game engines have had limitations. Whoopty shit. =)
Uh, the edit on Wikipedia claims that Half-Life TWO is in some way based on the Quake engine. It's not.
Half-Life ONE was. TWO was not. Hence the removal of the line.
Thought that but didn't say it.
Moleculor, the Source engine is heavily based on the old Quake engine - I thought everyone knew this. Or do you think it's coincidence that the Source engine can be used by the same editor? Even the in-game console commands remained. Valve probably altered the code enough to not having to pay id Software though.
For Quake Wars, the engine was modified again, just like they did for Return to Castle Wolfenstein:
"MegaTexture is a texturing technique, developed by John Carmack at id Software, that is used in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars that promises to eliminate common texture bugs and glitches found in previous games. This technology will allow maps to be totally unique, without any repeated terrain tiles. Battlefields are rendered to the horizon without any fogging, with over a square mile of terrain at inch-level detail, while also providing terrain type detail that defines such factors as bullet hit effects, vehicle traction, sound effects, and so on. Each megatexture is derived from a vast 32768 x 32768 pixel (1024 megapixel, or a gigapixel) image, which takes up around 3 GB in its raw form (with 3 bytes per pixel, one byte for each colour channel). Techniques such as DXTn exist to compress this vast amount of information down to a more manageable size."
red : That's only marginally correct. Source shares some very basic commonality with the Quake engine in light of BSP support but is far more advanced than Quake's engine in many areas including phsyics, lighting, networking, sound and now multi-core (which is currently being tested but will be in the commercial engine when Episode 2 hits).
Source's Hammer is not the same as it was for Quake.
wrote:red : That's only marginally correct. Source shares some very basic commonality with the Quake engine in light of BSP support but is far more advanced than Quake's engine in many areas including phsyics, lighting, networking, sound and now multi-core (which is currently being tested but will be in the commercial engine when Episode 2 hits).
Source's Hammer is not the same as it was for Quake.
Face it, Source is just Quake on D3d with crappy physics and soudn middleware shoved in. If you actually study the two engines together thoroughly you'll know it's Quake based. It's not just a coincidence that the tools are the same (Worldcraft = Hammer, same .MAP structures as before, etc)
Valve has been denying this in the press since their E3 showoff as it's a bunch of Gabe lies and hype, and unfortunately everyone believes that stupid 'from scratch' claim that was fabricated out of thin air from his mouth. It's still Quake at its core. IT IS NOT MADE FROM SCRATCH, PERIOD.
wrote:For Quake Wars, the engine was modified again, just like they did for Return to Castle Wolfenstein:
The only addition to the Q3 engine for RTCW was the model format being a new skeletal one (sort of an offshoot of their scrapped MD4 format). The 'big terrain' stuff has already been implemented in there since the Q3 engine existed (it's just a mapping technique with the bsp format. Unfortunately due to this, people are lead to believe that Quake 3 Team Arena is actually a new engine)
No need to yell, I didn't say it wasn't based on Quake engine I only it was more advanced and it is. Source reflects a natural progression in technology and integration of more modern techniques. As someone in that thread said "why reinvent the wheel?".
