a counter argument to "they are dumbing it down for dem consoles!"

[mrdude2010]

I know some people have hot opinions on the skill gap of modern military shooters, but it never hurts to widen it a little bit, because that increases the margin of error for everybody online, and brings more spontaneity to competition, and its even why we complain about dlc, not wanting any pay-to-win to corrupt a match, like drugs in the olympics.

I personally think modern military shooters are fundamentally incapable of having a meaningful skill gap. Everyone moves slowly, everyone has low health, there's a ton of auto aim, and in general there isn't even a semblance of balance (akimbo 1887's anyone?). You want a game that takes skill to win, you have to look at arena shooters. For some reason, developers don't make competent arena shooters anymore, probably because people who are terrible at games don't like being told they're terrible at games.


OT: I don't mind if they spend extra effort trying to make the console version work, but I would like it if they made sure the PC version works well and has a good interface. The Skyrim and Far Cry 3 interfaces are ridiculously unwieldy given how many buttons you have available, and some ports, like Dark Souls, barely even work until people heavily mod them.

I also found Dishonored way more intuitive to play with a controller plugged in, but that may just be because I got my start on consoles, so for some genres it's more familiar.

 

[DoPo]

alright dude i was just talking from my experience, i guess i found the entire experience so utterly mediocre that the bad UI on top of it all was like pissing in the wind

And another thing that is directly opposing the initial point you were trying to make. So, it's a good thing an experience you find utterly mediocre exists as it is thanks to consoles. This just makes no sense.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

alright dude i was just talking from my experience, i guess i found the entire experience so utterly mediocre that the bad UI on top of it all was like pissing in the wind

And another thing that is directly opposing the initial point you were trying to make. So, it's a good thing an experience you find utterly mediocre exists as it is thanks to consoles. This just makes no sense.

i cant argue a game that has sold 20 million copies, has a metascore of over 90 points, is being played by over 40 thousand people right now on steam alone and has tons of positive steam user reviews, is bad

i dont like the game, thats a different thing from the game being bad because i can see im in the minority

 

[DoPo]

alright dude i was just talking from my experience, i guess i found the entire experience so utterly mediocre that the bad UI on top of it all was like pissing in the wind

And another thing that is directly opposing the initial point you were trying to make. So, it's a good thing an experience you find utterly mediocre exists as it is thanks to consoles. This just makes no sense.

i cant argue a game that has sold 20 million copies, has a metascore of over 90 points, is being played by over 40 thousand people right now on steam alone and has tons of positive steam user reviews, is bad

i dont like the game, thats a different thing from the game being bad because i can see im in the minority

Yet is your point not "it is the best it can be"? If that is the cap, I may not actually want it.

See, saying "it's good" is so one-sided it's wrong. Especially when the supporting example itself doesn't do much supporting. The thing is, going multiplatform is not good. It's not bad either. It is also good. And bad, too. Mostly all of these at once - different situations would expose different aspects of it.

In reality, Skyrim is the example of a bad side effect of going multiplatform and it's only so, because the game has such a big budget behind it. What you claim to be a good thing, namely, allowing more money to be funded into a game has a complex relationship with the actual resulting game. Just blindly pouring more and more money into a game does not necessarily make it better in each and every instance. If, in theory, you allocate an infinite amount of money to a project, that would not result in the best game ever. Chances are it would actually turn rather bad in a number or ways.

Why is that? Because of the project management triangle

Spoiler: This one here

With this diagram in mind, here is what happens - you introduce more scope in order to justify increasing the cost. However, the time cannot change as much - if it takes you 15 years to finish the game, all those features you've worked so hard to include would be outdated and the net benefit of including them would be none at all. Therefore, since the time is relatively tightly constrained (I doubt you can get a lot further than 2-5 years of development), you have to cut down on the scope. And since the introduced scope actually conflicts with some of the rest of it, guess which one goes first. In other words, if you make a game multiplatform, there most definitely would be an element of simplyfying it because it now has to run in multiple different environments. You simply cannot afford to make the assumption that you'd have X features/resources, when at least one of your target platforms has X/2 of them.

So, we can see that pouring more money can be harmful. But there is more: pouring more money has diminishing returns as well. Yes, it is entirely possible a game to not take a huge hit from going multiplatform. However, by increasing the budget, there is only so much you can do - you can try to decrease time or handle the complexity with the extra funding but...to do so, you'd probably need to hire extra people. And those mathematical problems of "5 construction workers build a wall in 2 hours, how long it would take 10" simply do not work like that. Going from having X amount of people to 2X would not cut time in half. It's The Mythical Man-Moth which very clearly illustrate this - adding more people to a project increases the complexity by increasing the lines of communication needed to get it done.

So not only can increasing the cost hurt the scope of the game, it could also hurt the time. But that's not always the case - putting more money at the expense of increasing scope can make a game better. But, perhaps a bit counter-intuitively, games with lower initial funding would benefit more. Skyrim is simply too big to meaningfully increase quality by being buried in money. Increasing the cost has diminishing returns and Skyrim is way past when it would be useful. Not that it needed that much more funding either. At any rate, a smaller game would only benefit from more exposure - especially if it's not going to take a significant hit in scope for it. Therefore, AAA titles benefit least from being multiplatform. Or rather, from being over-funded - being multiplatform is just the excuse for it. In fact, you can happily have a multiplatform game without, essentially, getting a big pile of money and setting it on fire.

In conclusion, your counter argument is not much of an argument as it is so narrow, it misses so many things. You were mostly equating quantity and quality which I simply can't agree on.

 

[Something Amyss]

skyrim wasnt dumbed down for consoles because without the console sales alongside with the PC sales, a game with the scope and detail of skyrim couldnt be funded, same with almost every other AAA game

Isn't that an argument for the opposite? That it was dumbed down, but for a reason?

And really, isn't that an argument for why games should be dumbed down? I mean, I know the PC elite want games that will run on ultra, but those are rigs significantly higher in spec than not only consoles, but also the average gamer's PC profile. Why should we pander to a minority, after all?

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

A console game can't be the same as a PC game. The best example i can think of this is the difference between Dragon Age: Origins or the PC and console and then what we got with DA:2. Dragon Age 2 was a more uniform 'console' experience across the board.

If you are going to make a PC style game then you need to make two different versions. There has to be a sacrifice if you want to make uniform experience across al platforms and that will come in the form of the lowest common denominator. I know console gamers would ***** the roof off in their games suddenly had to start conforming to work in Tablet platforms because "That's where the monies are"

Imagine having all of your games having to make concessions to touch gaming. That's what PC gamers experience when series obviously get adapted for consoles without having different versions.

thats a faulty comparison

the difference between consoles and PC isnt as big as the difference between mobile devices and consoles/PC, atleast at the moment

there are no mobile version of games comparable to the console version

except XCOM i guess

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

alright dude i was just talking from my experience, i guess i found the entire experience so utterly mediocre that the bad UI on top of it all was like pissing in the wind

And another thing that is directly opposing the initial point you were trying to make. So, it's a good thing an experience you find utterly mediocre exists as it is thanks to consoles. This just makes no sense.

i cant argue a game that has sold 20 million copies, has a metascore of over 90 points, is being played by over 40 thousand people right now on steam alone and has tons of positive steam user reviews, is bad

i dont like the game, thats a different thing from the game being bad because i can see im in the minority

Yet is your point not "it is the best it can be"? If that is the cap, I may not actually want it.

See, saying "it's good" is so one-sided it's wrong. Especially when the supporting example itself doesn't do much supporting. The thing is, going multiplatform is not good. It's not bad either. It is also good. And bad, too. Mostly all of these at once - different situations would expose different aspects of it.

In reality, Skyrim is the example of a bad side effect of going multiplatform and it's only so, because the game has such a big budget behind it. What you claim to be a good thing, namely, allowing more money to be funded into a game has a complex relationship with the actual resulting game. Just blindly pouring more and more money into a game does not necessarily make it better in each and every instance. If, in theory, you allocate an infinite amount of money to a project, that would not result in the best game ever. Chances are it would actually turn rather bad in a number or ways.

Why is that? Because of the project management triangle

Spoiler: This one here

With this diagram in mind, here is what happens - you introduce more scope in order to justify increasing the cost. However, the time cannot change as much - if it takes you 15 years to finish the game, all those features you've worked so hard to include would be outdated and the net benefit of including them would be none at all. Therefore, since the time is relatively tightly constrained (I doubt you can get a lot further than 2-5 years of development), you have to cut down on the scope. And since the introduced scope actually conflicts with some of the rest of it, guess which one goes first. In other words, if you make a game multiplatform, there most definitely would be an element of simplyfying it because it now has to run in multiple different environments. You simply cannot afford to make the assumption that you'd have X features/resources, when at least one of your target platforms has X/2 of them.

So, we can see that pouring more money can be harmful. But there is more: pouring more money has diminishing returns as well. Yes, it is entirely possible a game to not take a huge hit from going multiplatform. However, by increasing the budget, there is only so much you can do - you can try to decrease time or handle the complexity with the extra funding but...to do so, you'd probably need to hire extra people. And those mathematical problems of "5 construction workers build a wall in 2 hours, how long it would take 10" simply do not work like that. Going from having X amount of people to 2X would not cut time in half. It's The Mythical Man-Moth which very clearly illustrate this - adding more people to a project increases the complexity by increasing the lines of communication needed to get it done.

So not only can increasing the cost hurt the scope of the game, it could also hurt the time. But that's not always the case - putting more money at the expense of increasing scope can make a game better. But, perhaps a bit counter-intuitively, games with lower initial funding would benefit more. Skyrim is simply too big to meaningfully increase quality by being buried in money. Increasing the cost has diminishing returns and Skyrim is way past when it would be useful. Not that it needed that much more funding either. At any rate, a smaller game would only benefit from more exposure - especially if it's not going to take a significant hit in scope for it. Therefore, AAA titles benefit least from being multiplatform. Or rather, from being over-funded - being multiplatform is just the excuse for it. In fact, you can happily have a multiplatform game without, essentially, getting a big pile of money and setting it on fire.

In conclusion, your counter argument is not much of an argument as it is so narrow, it misses so many things. You were mostly equating quantity and quality which I simply can't agree on.

i never said having more money for a game was nessesarily a good thing, in fact ive said, several times now, that ive distanced myself from AAA releases in recent years, even from an objective point of view, we have seen AAA releases unable to make a profit because they poured so much money into the project they must now sell an unrealistic amount of copies to sell, we have also seem and unprecedented level of stagnation in the AAA industry because people are afraid of risks, they want to make sure they get their money back, so riskier, original ideas get thrown out of the window

what im saying is that, asking for a AAA to not be "dumbed down" for consoles is kind of pointless, because the reason why that game can exist in the first place is because it gets released on enough platform that it can make a profit

the bigger the production values your game has, the more copies it has to sell in order to make a profit, and going multiplatform is a sure way to sell more copies overall, atleast it usually is, and if you want to go multiplat, you gotta start programming from the lowest common denominator

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

skyrim wasnt dumbed down for consoles because without the console sales alongside with the PC sales, a game with the scope and detail of skyrim couldnt be funded, same with almost every other AAA game

Isn't that an argument for the opposite? That it was dumbed down, but for a reason?

And really, isn't that an argument for why games should be dumbed down? I mean, I know the PC elite want games that will run on ultra, but those are rigs significantly higher in spec than not only consoles, but also the average gamer's PC profile. Why should we pander to a minority, after all?

well i meant saying a AAA game is dumbed down for console is worthless, the game couldnt exist otherwise, yeah that sounds better

getting top of the line PC hardware isnt a bad idea tough, there are still more independent proyects that take full advantage of PC hardware, such as star citizen, and many devs put extra effort on the graphics and performance of the PC version of a game, such as the metro series devs, Project CD, blizzard, and to an extent, bethesda, among others

but bottom line is, if you want the game with the highest production values, which means, tons of graphics, orchestral music, top notch voice acting, multiplayer, etc, a multiplatform version will always be a necessity, the current costs of game development simply make exclusives on any one platform a far riskier endeavour

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

A console game can't be the same as a PC game. The best example i can think of this is the difference between Dragon Age: Origins or the PC and console and then what we got with DA:2. Dragon Age 2 was a more uniform 'console' experience across the board.

If you are going to make a PC style game then you need to make two different versions. There has to be a sacrifice if you want to make uniform experience across al platforms and that will come in the form of the lowest common denominator. I know console gamers would ***** the roof off in their games suddenly had to start conforming to work in Tablet platforms because "That's where the monies are"

Imagine having all of your games having to make concessions to touch gaming. That's what PC gamers experience when series obviously get adapted for consoles without having different versions.

thats a faulty comparison

the difference between consoles and PC isnt as big as the difference between mobile devices and consoles/PC, atleast at the moment

there are no mobile version of games comparable to the console version

except XCOM i guess

"Except X-Com i guess" Yeah... real strong argument there, sighting an exact example of something after stating that none of them exist. It can be done and it is done. They just don't make console games shitty mobile ports... yet. The reason why they don't do that is the same reason they shouldn't dumb down PC releases just because the console version exists.

The difference between PC and console IS comparable to the difference between Console and mobile. Just saying "Well it's not" isn't really a thing.

-Less buttons
-Different style of input
-Lower-powered

Yes it's a different system but it's a very good comparison: Consoles=/=PC just like Console=/=Smartphone. Trying to cram the gameplay styles of a simpler system into a more complex one makes games bad on that system, it dumbs them down for the other device. The reason you can't see it is because you think "Well no one would be stupid enough to compromise a full console game because smartphones exist". In a world where we aren't swamped by bad console ports people might think "Well why would anyone compromise a PC version just because consoles exist?"

you remind me of this gif

there is like ONE example, of a port that was made WELL AFTER the other versions of the game were finished


second

The difference between PC and console IS comparable to the difference between Console and mobile. Just saying "Well it's not" isn't really a thing.

-Less buttons
-Different style of input
-Lower-powered

i could argue the same thing about a game boy color and PC, it would be just as dumb, because im ignoring HOW MANY less buttons, HOW MUCH different styles of input and the DIFFERENCE in processing power

 

[MysticSlayer]

I think games are just moving in a direction of greater accessibility and more fair challenges, and along with the trouble in pulling off both of those, we're having even more trouble merging them with the depth of older games. I don't think consoles have a whole lot to do with it. At most, they've just been highly influential in an influx of new players, and those new players are probably the ones being designed for for greater accessibility. Still, I would much rather see the industry grow and offer enjoyment to more people than sit in smug satisfaction that I played much harder games when I was younger than a lot of people are today. Furthermore, we may even see our current design philosophy drastically improve so that we can offer both accessible and deep games. I'd actually say games like Civilization V and Dishonored have shown us that it is possible.

Besides, if anyone is in the mood for older games, there's plenty of indie titles that are offering retro-styled games, and we even occasionally get larger developers offering their own games that are sort of reminiscent of older games. It would be very hard to not get an experience that you want between all the AAA and smaller games that are catering to just about every interest. So even if you could say that AAA is "dumbing down" games, it isn't like there aren't non-AAA games offering experiences similar to what people are looking for.

 

[Callate]

Things like controls, and even limiting games to the hardware specs of consoles, aren't what come to mind when the term "dumbed down" is used regarding console and PC games.

What comes to mind is things like "Deus Ex:Invisible War", where one sort of ammunition is used for pistols and tranquilizers and rocket launchers, seemingly because the designers either thought multiple types of ammunition was too much for the console crowd to wrap their head around or they simply couldn't be bothered to make a UI for console that would handle such things effectively.

I'm a little annoyed that the mouse interface of Skyrim simply doesn't work at times, but I point the blame for that at the developers, not console players.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

For me it's less "dumbing-down for the consoles" so-much as it's "dumbing-down for the dumbasses", and that's is basically just happenstance that consoles are easier to install and thus more-likely to have idiots playing them. Though even that doesn't quite accurately reflect my thoughts on the matter, because by no means do I think that someone who exclusively plays on consoles is dumb. What I'm getting at is more that if gaming were the size it is today but exclusively on PC, we'd still be seeing games dumbed-down to mostly the same degree. The simple fact of the matter is that more people will pass on a game for being too hard than those who'll pass if they hear a game is too easy. In fact, very little word of mouth spreads when a game is easy, meanwhile everyone knows about Dark Souls even if only by its reputation as a balls-tighteningly hard game. It has a small budget though, so it can afford the label of "hardcorez only". As games get more and more expensive though, they're almost obligated to become easier and easier so that they can get more sales to recoup those costs.

No, the only thing I blame consoles for is developers who seemingly have no idea how to design for a PC. The UI in the first Borderlands was absolutely shameful, and obviously designed by someone who has no idea where people's hands are when playing an FPS on PC. Then there's several games that have virtually no graphics options, the most infamous case being Rage (that I think just had the resolution and a gamma slider in its graphics options). Oh, and let's not forget the infamous decision to remove the dedicated server option from Modern Warfare 2 that lead to threats of a boycott (with little follow-through), because it'd be easier to just use the coding for the console-style P2P system. Then there are games that... I don't know how to describe it (partially because I don't remember which games did this), but basically it is beyond clunky to try and play them with a keyboard/mouse to the point where thank God that I have a controller for my PC. Basically, games that were blatantly designed for the console first, and then had the controls very lazily ported for the PC version to the point that you would think no thought went into it at all.

So I guess that if you go based on the technical side of things, I would definitely argue that consoles have caused games to get dumbed-down. Thankfully, we're starting to see an end to that era. With platforms like Steam doing better and better, and non-Triple-A games starting to get a little more attention, it's starting to be less cost-prohibitive to put more effort into the PC version of a game. As far as difficulty of the games goes, I'd say it's less that they're dumbed-down for console users, and more that they're dumbed-down for casual players (who just coincidentally happen to mostly play on consoles).

 

[Kingjackl]

Are streamlined interfaces that big of a problem? The restrictions of a console (or more specifically, a controller) can enable developers to think more efficiently when it comes to controls, since it gives them necessary limitations. There are plenty of games that do it right; the new XCOM games being multi-platform meant they had to trim the fat from the older games famously unwieldy interface, and what we got was one of the best modern adaptations of an old game to date. It worked well on both console and PC. Similarly, the new Deus Ex had numbered hotkeys for the mouse and keyboard version's item select, while the controller version used a radial menu; respectively, the two most intuitive methods for those control schemes.

These guys clearly put the effort in. Maybe radial controls don't work as well on mouse and keyboard (anyone who played Mass Effect on PC could tell me if I'm wrong or not), but they work well with analogue sticks, just like numbered hotkeys work well on the keyboard. The thing is, if a game is ported badly, it's not the fault of the medium, it's the fault of the lazy bums who couldn't be bothered to make it work. Don't blame consoles for Dark Souls having a shite PC port, that's like blaming the television for having Fox News on it.

 

[Joccaren]

Not going to enter too much into the larger argument here, but OP, it seems to me that your argument is "Games aren't 'dumbed down for consoles'. If they weren't made 'dumb enough' [Using the 'dumbed down' sort of phrasing] for consoles, they wouldn't be made".

Which seems a bit less like they aren't being dumbed down, and more like they are, but we should/have to accept that as otherwise our games wouldn't exist.

Maybe radial controls don't work as well on mouse and keyboard (anyone who played Mass Effect on PC could tell me if I'm wrong or not)

They work Ok in Mass Effect, largely as they are only out of gameplay, and in conversations. Using a radial menu in a PC is generally clunky though, as we have to hit one button to open the menu, then put in additional input to get to our option, whilst we could just hit 1 button and be done with it. Additionally the Mouse doesn't have an "Up", "Down", "Left", "Right" and in between positions like a thumbstick does.If you want to select the bottom option with a thumbstick, you just pull the thumstick down. With a mouse, it depends on how its implemented, but generally you've got to fiddle a bit moving left and right to try and have the selection pointer land where you want it to.
It can be done well [Mass Effect, though after the first game that series had other problems with its porting -.-], and it can be done poorly. Largely depends on the implementation.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

Not going to enter too much into the larger argument here, but OP, it seems to me that your argument is "Games aren't 'dumbed down for consoles'. If they weren't made 'dumb enough' [Using the 'dumbed down' sort of phrasing] for consoles, they wouldn't be made".

Which seems a bit less like they aren't being dumbed down, and more like they are, but we should/have to accept that as otherwise our games wouldn't exist.

Maybe radial controls don't work as well on mouse and keyboard (anyone who played Mass Effect on PC could tell me if I'm wrong or not)

They work Ok in Mass Effect, largely as they are only out of gameplay, and in conversations. Using a radial menu in a PC is generally clunky though, as we have to hit one button to open the menu, then put in additional input to get to our option, whilst we could just hit 1 button and be done with it. Additionally the Mouse doesn't have an "Up", "Down", "Left", "Right" and in between positions like a thumbstick does.If you want to select the bottom option with a thumbstick, you just pull the thumstick down. With a mouse, it depends on how its implemented, but generally you've got to fiddle a bit moving left and right to try and have the selection pointer land where you want it to.
It can be done well [Mass Effect, though after the first game that series had other problems with its porting -.-], and it can be done poorly. Largely depends on the implementation.

i changed the OP, you are right, my argument isnt so much about "they arent dumbed down" anymore, they are more about "they HAVE to be dumbed down, they cant exist otherwise"

 

[Atmos Duality]

i changed the OP, you are right, my argument isnt so much about "they arent dumbed down" anymore, they are more about "they HAVE to be dumbed down, they cant exist otherwise"

For the bulk of the previous console generation, that was actually quite true from a business perspective.

Most AAA big budget games were made for consoles because that's where the big money was wouldn't get OK'd by corporate if they weren't. (How many PC centric AAA publishers are there? Like, two? The only ones that really fit are Blizzard and Valve)

So for all practical purposes, PC was little more than a 2nd rate market; a home for cheap ports done to make some easy extra cash. All the issues of "dumbing down" and shit optimization are a result of that.

There really isn't an argument against the practice because that's what the market, by popularity, wanted.
And for the businesses involved, it worked.

Of course, now that the next gen consoles are little more than shoebox PCs themselves, I suspect that practice is likely going to change somewhat, albeit very slowly; old habits die hard.

 

[The Lunatic]

Whilst it's said to be "Needed".

Let's take a look at a game that's just recently been released.

Sacred 3.

A large amount of people are saying this has been "Dumbed down", and it would appear to be the case. The game lacks an open world, many customisation features from the previous games, limited multiplayer and other such "Fun" aspects.

The reason?

The difficulty of programming for the Cell processor, and the (nowadays) lackluster hardware. This way, by having the hardest plattform to develop for as lead, a better quality can be assured for other plattforms.

Now, sure, I can see a lot of shooters need to be made more simple for the younger console audience, but, Sacred 3? A hack-and-slash dungeon crawler game?

The only platforms it is releasing on are the PC, the Xbox 360 and the PS3.

Now, which of those do you really think is going to get the most sales?

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

i changed the OP, you are right, my argument isnt so much about "they arent dumbed down" anymore, they are more about "they HAVE to be dumbed down, they cant exist otherwise"

For the bulk of the previous console generation, that was actually quite true from a business perspective.

Most AAA big budget games were made for consoles because that's where the big money was wouldn't get OK'd by corporate if they weren't. (How many PC centric AAA publishers are there? Like, two? The only ones that really fit are Blizzard and Valve)

So for all practical purposes, PC was little more than a 2nd rate market; a home for cheap ports done to make some easy extra cash. All the issues of "dumbing down" and shit optimization are a result of that.

There really isn't an argument against the practice because that's what the market, by popularity, wanted.
And for the businesses involved, it worked.

Of course, now that the next gen consoles are little more than shoebox PCs themselves, I suspect that practice is likely going to change somewhat, albeit very slowly; old habits die hard.

right now any one console doesnt bring significantly more cash than PC, in many cases PC has become the most profitable platform and its certainly the one bringing more cash to the table tahkns to F2P and such

however current AAA release usually cant limit themselves to one single platform, be it PS, XBOX or PC, they count on the combined sales of all platforms to make a profit

i dont expect this situation to change as long as AAA remains the money sink it is, in fact considering current consoles were designed to have a similar architecture to PC, is clear publishers have adopted this mindset and will work around it for the foreseeable future