It will be all good

[HRose]

There's an article written by Dean Takahashi (http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2006/12/what_to_expect_.html) saying how PC gaming will be great in 2007.

He lists all the new games in development that should be great and all the new possibility coming from new technology.

I'm a bit more skeptical. Just because you have quad-core processors it doesn't mean that we'll automatically get significantly better AI.

In fact my prediction for 2007 will be once again the display of inadequacy. Even with all the abstraction, DirectX 10, Vista and all the rest. The point is that only very few players (meaning game companies) have the competency to deal with all that properly.

So I believe that this year will show even more that you need good, solid programmers and a huge experience, because games are becoming more complex and less and less dev studios are able to keep up with these innovations. We are lagging behind in general.

We see less and less companies that can program engines properly and a rising importance of middleware. This means that the possibility to use all this new stuff is becoming more and more elitist. And it will be harder for the smaller studios to keep the pace.

The big titles will be more sporadic and significant innovations will be rarer.

After all this was the year of broken, unfinished products. A demonstration that the adaptation to all these new things isn't exactly easy.

[Mark Asher]

If Microsoft really wanted to get behind Games for Windows and make a statement to that effect, they'd release Halo 3 for both PC and 360. Instead, the PC market is getting leftovers, a Halo 2 port. That to me indicates where Microsoft's priorities lie.

[Malderi]

From a business perspective, though, that's correct. They make money when people buy 360 games. They don't when people play PC games. Okay, maybe they make a little when someone buys a new computer to play the latest Doom or Quake, but I doubt that's a big part of their profits.

[BobJustBob]

This should probably go in the Independent Games thread, but GameTunnel has posted its Top Ten list for 2006 (http://72.21.48.141/articles.php?id=569). Be sure and check out the genre and special awards lists at the bottom for even more games. I got 30 or so demos just from this. PC gaming might be dead but we can still molest the corpse.

[steve]

From a business perspective, though, that's correct. They make money when people buy 360 games. They don't when people play PC games. Okay, maybe they make a little when someone buys a new computer to play the latest Doom or Quake, but I doubt that's a big part of their profits.
You doubt that Windows licenses are a big part of Microsoft's profits? Yikes.

[Dave Markell]

From a business perspective, though, that's correct. They make money when people buy 360 games. They don't when people play PC games. Okay, maybe they make a little when someone buys a new computer to play the latest Doom or Quake, but I doubt that's a big part of their profits.

It used to be at least somewhat bigger, though. From the late 80's through all of the 90's, I would upgrade my entire PC every 18-24 months solely for games--and that meant a new OS sale for Microsoft. Now that PC games are somewhat eclipsed by consoles, my upgrade cycle is much longer. If there's a chipset or graphics card on the horizon that interests me, I'll wait until it arrives (even if that's a year or more further down the road) and hit the consoles harder instead.

[John Sansker]

There's an article written by Dean Takahashi (http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2006/12/what_to_expect_.html) saying how PC gaming will be great in 2007.

He lists all the new games in development that should be great and all the new possibility coming from new technology.
Don't know how serious I can take this guy if he considers Half Life 2 to be the only "big event" game of 2004.
No mention of Far Cry.(holy fucking shit, why the hate fuckers?)
1km draw distance+the ability to snipe and kill a target from said distance=fucking insignificant.

I'm a bit more skeptical. Just because you have quad-core processors it doesn't mean that we'll automatically get significantly better AI.
Yeah, hell, even right now, how many games actually take advantage of Hyper-Threading?
Few, if any.
See, to do that would cost extra, and, well, to be honest, it isn't worth the time or trouble to the game developers.
Look at how many "gaming" companies still insist on putting their games on multiple CDs instead of a single DVD.
In fact my prediction for 2007 will be once again the display of inadequacy. Even with all the abstraction, DirectX 10, Vista and all the rest. The point is that only very few players (meaning game companies) have the competency to deal with all that properly.


So I believe that this year will show even more that you need good, solid programmers and a huge experience, because games are becoming more complex and less and less dev studios are able to keep up with these innovations. We are lagging behind in general.

We see less and less companies that can program engines properly and a rising importance of middleware. This means that the possibility to use all this new stuff is becoming more and more elitist. And it will be harder for the smaller studios to keep the pace.
Even if a company has the people in place to use the new stuff, it won't be utilized as a cost-cutting measure.
I remember...what? 10 years ago or so, I got my shiny new Pentium 200 with MMX technology!!!
Bundled with said system was 1 complete game that had been optimized for MMX.
Rebel Moon Rising.
I played the MMX "enhanced" version and a "normal" version, and there were some differences, the MMX being slightly better.
Few games that came out after that, had the MMX enhanced feature? or whatever you want to call it.



The big titles will be more sporadic and significant innovations will be rarer.
Sad but true.

After all this was the year of broken, unfinished products. A demonstration that the adaptation to all these new things isn't exactly easy.
Not easy, no, not by a long shot. But, then again, any company wanting to be in the gaming biz should take steps to make sure that their product is finished and relatively bug-free before being released for sale.

[Ex-S Woo]

The whole games for Windows initiative is more of an extension of the XBOX platform than the other way around, I think...it's a way for MS to tout a much higher install base to both consumers and developers.

Once Live Anywhere is released (and if it works as advertised), I'm sure MS will start using combined 360 + Vista Installed PC numbers as its install base...pretty ingenious, really. This definitely isn't the MS from the late 90's anymore...

[bago]

Seeing as we have hit the silicon limit, threading is a core reqirement of all development these days.

[zx81-Amd64]

The bigger the divide between console+PC gaming the better i think. PC gaming has been suffering in part because of the modern trend of consolecentricism - and getting games designed with a console in mind foremost has its drawbacks. PC's will always provide a particular platform that better suits certain types of games.

I just look forward to when 'next-gen' + console gaming dissapear over the next hill ahead of me(along with much of the mainstream dev/publishers) - i think then we will see the rebirth of great PC gaming.

[DeepT]

The bigger the divide between console+PC gaming the better i think. PC gaming has been suffering in part because of the modern trend of consolecentricism - and getting games designed with a console in mind foremost has its drawbacks. PC's will always provide a particular platform that better suits certain types of games.

I just look forward to when 'next-gen' + console gaming dissapear over the next hill ahead of me(along with much of the mainstream dev/publishers) - i think then we will see the rebirth of great PC gaming.

Technology is like salt. Salt is not good food. However, it can make bland food a lot more interesting to eat.

So, better tech does not mean better games, it just helps brings out the flavors in the game. If developers / publishers still crank out crappy games, no amount of tech will make them a non-crappy game.

[metta]

The bigger the divide between console+PC gaming the better i think.

Not a chance. More and more, consoles are becoming 'computers' (media centre, VCR, music player, photo viewer, web surfer) and people expect a more console-ish experience out of their PC: insert disc to play game.

The gap between the two is only going to get smaller and smaller. Those days you pine for are over, mate.

Technology is like salt.

I have nothing to add to this. I just wanted to preserve it :p

[flyingelvis]

You doubt that Windows licenses are a big part of Microsoft's profits? Yikes.Exactly. Windows and Office licenses is Microsoft's cash cow. As they try to build market share in video games and systems, they have been losing money.

[DeepT]

I have nothing to add to this. I just wanted to preserve it :p

Just preserve the entire analogy.

[MrLipid]

My hunch is that Microsoft isn't terribly interested in games other than as a way to convince consumers to upgrade to Vista in order to play the games that require Vista's new flavor of DirectX. Not sure how many genres that might encompass or what difference it might make.

[Charles]

I'm a bit more skeptical. Just because you have quad-core processors it doesn't mean that we'll automatically get significantly better AI.

In fact my prediction for 2007 will be once again the display of inadequacy. Even with all the abstraction, DirectX 10, Vista and all the rest. The point is that only very few players (meaning game companies) have the competency to deal with all that properly.

So I believe that this year will show even more that you need good, solid programmers and a huge experience, because games are becoming more complex and less and less dev studios are able to keep up with these innovations. We are lagging behind in general.

Game development has reached the point where a bunch of people with BScs simply can't handle it anymore. We've reached the point where we need engineers in charge of engine development. Random joes who went to university don't have enough knowledge anymore.

What the game industry needs now is a split between technology and gameplay coding. Any schlub like myself can code gameplay of any quality, but for myself and many others, the engine technology is way out of my range. Game programmers are in the realm now where you have to specialize. Games are no longer a case where every programmer can do anything. There are people like me who've drawn a line in the sand, and it's becoming more and more common. In fact, in the past couple years, I've seen a huge surge of companies looking for specialty programmers. Gone are the days when you could get a job just by knowing how to program. Now, you have to prove you have a specialty in a field of game programming.

Anyway, licensed engines help with this split but they still aren't really what we need, as a lot of the existing engines are geared towards a certain game or system. I think we'll see almost every company take the move of keeping their technology separate from the games they make, and hiring a couple of real software engineers to create the core engine, and then keep building and reusing that tech base.

I don't think it's really reasonable anymore for a company of any size to truly start over without a ridiculously large investment.

[Talorc]

My hunch is that Microsoft isn't terribly interested in games other than as a way to convince consumers to upgrade to Vista in order to play the games that require Vista's new flavor of DirectX. Not sure how many genres that might encompass or what difference it might make.
Wont that just bring Vista sales forward? Eventually every serious PC gamer gets around to upgrading their rig at least every few years. Part of that upgrade process is eventually a new OS.

The first upgrade "cycle" I went through when XP was available, I didnt get it and stuck with Windows 98, as XP didn't offer me anything I felt except extra cost.

I did get XP the second upgrade cycle I had after it was available. Pretty much because Windows 98 was getting real long in the tooth.

If they didn't have the whole DX10 exclusive crap going on with Vista, I could definitely see myself skipping it in 12 - 18 months time when I will probably upgrade my PC again. But the upgrade after that I would have to get it.

So all Microsoft has done for me is brought my potential purchase of Vista forward by 12 to 18 months.

[MrLipid]

Wont that just bring Vista sales forward?

That's the idea. It's not about the games, it's about driving Vista into the non-business market segment. I'd still wait for a Service Pack. And, based on history, that'll take 12-18 months.

[John Sansker]

That's the idea. It's not about the games, it's about driving Vista into the non-business market segment. I'd still wait for a Service Pack. And, based on history, that'll take 12-18 months.

The only problem with that scenario is you'll miss out on some good games in the meantime.
Although, buying new games when they come out, in their bug-infested glory isn't so much fun.
The only game that I can think of off-hand that will "force" me to buy Vista is C&C 3, and that won't be til march or so.

[MrLipid]

The only problem with that scenario is you'll miss out on some good games in the meantime.
Although, buying new games when they come out, in their bug-infested glory isn't so much fun.
The only game that I can think of off-hand that will "force" me to buy Vista is C&C 3, and that won't be til march or so.

I don't know that I'll miss out on good games so much as I'll miss out on being a member of, as you suggest, the Retail Beta Test Squad.

[extarbags]

Wont that just bring Vista sales forward? Eventually every serious PC gamer gets around to upgrading their rig at least every few years. Part of that upgrade process is eventually a new OS.

Heh. Eventually, every serious PC gamer gets tired of spending a fortune to play buggy games, says "fuck it," and becomes primarily a console gamer ;).

[Midnight Son]

Heh. Eventually, every serious PC gamer gets tired of spending a fortune to play buggy games, says "fuck it," and becomes primarily a console gamer ;).

There be truth in your ;).

[mouselock]

Anyway, licensed engines help with this split but they still aren't really what we need, as a lot of the existing engines are geared towards a certain game or system. I think we'll see almost every company take the move of keeping their technology separate from the games they make, and hiring a couple of real software engineers to create the core engine, and then keep building and reusing that tech base.

Is it a matter of simply needing a software engineer alone, though? Aren't folks also going to need to start having (honest) graphics wizards to handle increasingly complex graphics technologies? Good physics programmers to handle physics? Etc..? Or is it a matter of all of that development simply ending up in an amalgamation of middleware providers? If the latter is the case, wouldn't game dev houses really just need to scrap the entire engine department, buy the best renderer out there, the best physics middleware, etc.. and then be okay with a couple of the more hackerly types marrying them?

[Charles]

I dunno. It's more that getting speed out of engines right now is a matter of multithreading, but you can't just put one thing on one core and say go. Graphics aren't that hard to do nowadays given all the tools and documentation. But getting it all to work together at speed? That's the hard part.

No one is making their own physics engine with stuff like havok and novodex out there, but a lot of the time getting multiple middlewares to play nice is not only difficult, but eventually results in far more problems than you'd expect. Which is why I don't believe people will scrap their engine departments. Because even if you are using a bunch of middleware, you need good people with really good engineering experience to not only get things to play nice, but to run fast.

It's at the point where you can't even simply license and engine and make a game. For the companies who can front the cash (EA, Ubi, potentially smaller places like Bioware), it makes far more sense to throw the weight of the company behind a single engine, spin it off with a tech group whose sole purpose is to make said engine work for all the projects the company is doing, and then keep that engine up to spec with the latest technologies.

The other huge benefit of doing that is that tools won't change much within your company so keeping the content pipeline flowing at 100% will save a lot of time and money, whereas if you are constantly using middleware you are at the mercy of companies like Epic when it comes to tools.

[unbongwah]

PC gaming might be dead but we can still molest the corpse.
"2007: The Year of Gaming Necrophilia"

Thanks for that image, BJB. So much for getting any sleep.

I remember...what? 10 years ago or so, I got my shiny new Pentium 200 with MMX technology!!!
MMX is a bad choice, as it was never really intended for gaming: it was a SIMD integer-only instruction set intended to improve audio/video (i.e., multimedia) performance; it was useless for 3D games, which depend heavily on floating-point performance. A better technology to point out is 3DNow! / SSE, which added FP SIMD instruction sets to the mix and were more useful to 3D gaming...but not as much as they promised.

The point is largely moot: DirectX 10 is a big deal and, barring the heat-death of PC gaming, it is where we're all moving.

[Midnight Son]

So all Microsoft has done for me is brought my potential purchase of Vista forward by 12 to 18 months.

They win, we all lose. Way to go!

[Rimbo]

Flash and web-based games are the future and present of PC gaming. The days of the heavy-duty fullscreen multi-gig game app are numbered.

[HRose]

Flash and web-based games are the future and present of PC gaming. The days of the heavy-duty fullscreen multi-gig game app are numbered.
Well, my money will likely go to the latter. When the right conditions are met for it to happen.

Aren't people loving Gears of War? The demand for that stuff will unlikely decrease.

[Rimbo]

Well, my money will likely go to the latter. When the right conditions are met for it to happen.

Aren't people loving Gears of War? The demand for that stuff will unlikely decrease.

You nailed it with "the right conditions."

People want more Gears of War, and as the price for the system required to play it decreases, people will buy more Gears of War. By that time, Gears of War will be relegated to the used/bargain bin.

Most games that try to be what Gears is don't succeed, as well. There's gotta be more than one must-have game to justify that $300 video card. You're better off, as a developer, lowballing the system requirements and trying to make the game look good with old tech; it means less development effort, and a much larger market; see World of Warcraft. (This is also what's hurting the PS3 so badly right now: The system is just too expensive, both to buy and to develop for.)

This is all part of a cycle to game development (not just PC games, not just video games, but games of all stripes) that's happened before. Games start out as nice little gadgets that people like. As the market grows, it supports more development time, and games get more demanding and intricate. The market chases the more intricate games, so the developers follow. Games get bloated. Public loses interest, while fewer and fewer devs spend more and more money trying to get the last crumbs of the pie. Then some homebrew games come along that are none-too-complicated, but capture folks' imaginations. The homebrew market expands as people realize the potential, and the cycle repeats again.

Last time it happened that I remember well was a while back. Think early 90's. The Apogee shareware catalog had a few dozen gems like Commander Keen, Duke Nukum (as it was spelled then) and the like. At the same time, Sierra was releasing the latest sequel to Dude Quest XIV; it took up 93 floppies and could be finished in 2 hours.

So while I think the flash & puzzle games are the future, it's really just the near future.

[Shadari]

at the same time that Sierra was releasing yet another Dude Quest XIV that took up 93 floppies and could be finished in all of 2 hours.
Haha!

To be fair, some of those Dude Quest games were pretty decent.

[Rimbo]

Haha!

To be fair, some of those Dude Quest games were pretty decent.

True, and not every bloated game was bad. I loved Wing Commander 2, but then, I had a system that could play it (most didn't).

And not all of the good new games came from non-standard publishing houses or ones that were on the rise. That was the same time where everyone on my dorm's floor would crowd around my keyboard playing the original Star Control melee.