A rant on PC fanboyism
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Uh huh... Entry cost is the combined cost of the bare minimum gear needed to get the experience. I use a 32" HDTV that cost around $100 more than the rest of my PC setup combined as a monitor but I wouldn't use it as part of the numbers for "entry cost".Vibhor said:
I'm not going to go into which is better. Both consoles and PCs have advantages and disadvantages.
Moreover, it is foolhardy to make the argument consoles don't have advantages while making the claim that developers are catering to them because of higher sales. Perhaps it is that you refuse to see its strong points?
Price is one. I don't care if you can build a gaming machine for only a grand, CryTek will go ahead and make games it can't run anyways. And if game companies don't do that, then the graphics advantage of PCs becomes a non-entity. This has been a reality for... oh... since VGA was invented. At least relent that part of the argument, stating that it costs you as much to PC game and then stating a price point higher than that of a console is... misleading.
As well, HDTVs do things other than video games. Like... watch TV. Strange how that works. "But monitors can do the same thing of you blee blee blah blah" Alright, so then you hook up a videogame machine to that then I don't care; the price difference between monitors and TVs is not important if they become interchangeable.
What it really comes down to is where PC gamers throw their money. If they want to be considered relevant they need to pony up the cash. Instead... piracy. Lots and lots of piracy. Not all PC Gamers do it... but enough that it dirties the entire business. Companies just don't want to cater to a demographic where a sizable number are stealing from them. The few exceptions to this always have a reason, like Torchlight seeing the game as an advertising vehicle for their MMO that'll be out later. But companies that don't have some business on the side do NOT want piracy, as it hurts them.
Moreover, it is foolhardy to make the argument consoles don't have advantages while making the claim that developers are catering to them because of higher sales. Perhaps it is that you refuse to see its strong points?
Price is one. I don't care if you can build a gaming machine for only a grand, CryTek will go ahead and make games it can't run anyways. And if game companies don't do that, then the graphics advantage of PCs becomes a non-entity. This has been a reality for... oh... since VGA was invented. At least relent that part of the argument, stating that it costs you as much to PC game and then stating a price point higher than that of a console is... misleading.
As well, HDTVs do things other than video games. Like... watch TV. Strange how that works. "But monitors can do the same thing of you blee blee blah blah" Alright, so then you hook up a videogame machine to that then I don't care; the price difference between monitors and TVs is not important if they become interchangeable.
What it really comes down to is where PC gamers throw their money. If they want to be considered relevant they need to pony up the cash. Instead... piracy. Lots and lots of piracy. Not all PC Gamers do it... but enough that it dirties the entire business. Companies just don't want to cater to a demographic where a sizable number are stealing from them. The few exceptions to this always have a reason, like Torchlight seeing the game as an advertising vehicle for their MMO that'll be out later. But companies that don't have some business on the side do NOT want piracy, as it hurts them.
Oh my god. This is completely true. Don't believe us? Compare Sims on PC to Sims on Console.Turtleboy1017 said:
And may I add, I, as a PC gamer do not care that you choose to play on consoles. Nor would I mind picking up a console and playing it for its exclusives. The question is, would a console gamer pick up PC to play PC exclusives?
What happened to the whole "don't rant for a rant's sake" rule? I seem to remember a very similar thread I started getting taken down when I ranted about HL fans, but it's OK to rant about PC fanboys? Whatever.
OT: I really don't know what you're talking about man. I haven't seen any of these threads you're talking about and for every one of those threads you listed I could point you to another 5 about how xBox is the only real way to game. Sure there's PC fanboysim here, but there's also Nintendo Fanboyism, Half Life fanboyism, xBox fanboyism, ect. Ya it's annoying and ya we all wanna ***** about it sometimes, but that's the nature of the community. Mods, please remove this waste of space thread, it's useless to anyone whose not a troll.
OT: I really don't know what you're talking about man. I haven't seen any of these threads you're talking about and for every one of those threads you listed I could point you to another 5 about how xBox is the only real way to game. Sure there's PC fanboysim here, but there's also Nintendo Fanboyism, Half Life fanboyism, xBox fanboyism, ect. Ya it's annoying and ya we all wanna ***** about it sometimes, but that's the nature of the community. Mods, please remove this waste of space thread, it's useless to anyone whose not a troll.
You need a tv to play a console. I don't see why the HDTV is not a bare minimum. You just cannot play the game without a television thus it IS a bare minimum.RhombusHatesYou said:
I mean I could buy a PC without a video card and it could still run lotsa games but you cannot buy a console without tv and expect to play anything.
You act like the PS3 and Xbox crowd don't do the exact same thing to people who don't use their system.
I mainly prefer my 360 because it is plug and play. PC is a very open platform though. However, an HDTV is NOT a necessity when playing on a 360, so pointing out HDTV costs won't really help that argument. However, consoles do get really expensive too. I know the PC is more technologically advanced and that mouses and keyboards are more open ended than game pads, i'm just tired of hearing it.
If they say that, look them dead in the eye, and say "So how's that Xbox Live workin for ya?"WaaghPowa said:
So now that this discussion is over, dang my PC tanked higher up than I thought. I could use some more RAM though, I only have 4GB and when I try to run Morrowind MGSO mod it kinda needs some tweaking.
A TV is a bare minimum. An HDTV is not. My small standard def samsung TV still works quite well for me.Vibhor said:
Dexter111 said:
The real problem with this sort of nuts and bolts level comparison is that they don't take into account that consoles run much more efficient operating systems because they're not designed to be general purpose systems (although, may change next console generation as console manufacturers try to shoe horn more extraneous shite into their platforms).
Also, as the Great Carmack Himself has said, having to program graphics via APIs for PCs is inefficient and somewhat 'awkward' but it does let them avoid a million and one hardware conflicts caused by varied configurations of the platform... which is, to Him anyway, one of the biggest drawbacks of the Windows family of OS.
the simple answer to gaming is this:
if you find it fun then great but telling people what to think is never going to work
and it just causes arguments
there is no future in running around telling people gaming on a calculator just as good as a xbox and expect people to agree they wasted £150+ on hardware when clearly a £40 calculator is all you need to be as powerful as a game-boy and have a nice gaming experience based on the game's mechanics
if you want to game on a calculator
( and you can, plenty of scientific calculators can be reprogrammed ... )
if you wish your brain to be blown, click here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculator_gaming
it really wouldn't effect me, in fact i'd be quite impressed.
essentially
what we learn here is to never play the price / performance war card because pebbles in sand pwns anything
( the simplest thing always wins because it's free. )
people love insane redundancy ( do you need 120 fps when playing command and conquer... not really but people love to think they are going to react one septillionth of a nanosecond faster and get their units out of range, but in reality.. they won't )
people love unexpected details
but then, seriously do you need a physics engine built into your game code for realistic modelling of how the buttons on your ui should click down and how they'd deform under your finger? no.
would it be a nice touch? yes.
that is what you get when you spend more money, insane things that don't really add allot to your game-play
but do in their own way add some fun and feel 'premium'
also the graphics issue,
and this is the one people always comment on..
yes you can build a pc that can display higher definition images than current gen consoles
it would be extremely difficult to match the price, due to how console sales work
it makes very little difference, because unless it's a pc exclusive game in the first place and therefore moot as to graphical 'difference' because a console wont run it without custom firmware anyway
all your likely to get is some shiny post processing, massively overkill aa and af for minutely sharper images with a tiny bit more atmospheric effect and if your very lucky some volumetric fog or improved physics or sun-shafts that EAT processing power the witcher 2 in your example has to be turned down to medium to run smoothly on anything but a high end over-clocked rig with at-least 3 terraflop's of processing ( 3 xbox 360's worth, fyi )
but few company's even bother, and just make straight ports so there is almost no difference but frame-rate, and sometimes even that is capped
now, you can 'force' on graphical effects on a pc with varying results.. generally there is a reason it isn't just included in the game files to begin with and alot of the time it's because the effect reacts badly with the game and causes massive slowdown or you end up with strange graphical artifacts, black-screens ect if you don't know what you're doing
it's really tough and go as to whether you can call this an advantage or not.. but if you care that much you can min max your game so.. yah, maby.
at the end of the day it's a people problem, and people need to learn to respect other peoples decisions, ideas, thoughts and feelings
someone may have completely legitimate reasons for doing something that is less efficient, or more or less expensive or time consuming than you, it also matters when they bought something, how much effort they are prepared to put into that something before it isn't fun for them anymore
and what gimmicks they like, do you want 3d-vision? do you want motion controls? how about compatibility with 6 different control input methods for several game types?
it's such a complicated issue that you cant really justify saying there's a winner anywhere just on features, it comes down to personal preference
this isn't just a console war it's a huge social problem, it's because people are people
if you find it fun then great but telling people what to think is never going to work
and it just causes arguments
there is no future in running around telling people gaming on a calculator just as good as a xbox and expect people to agree they wasted £150+ on hardware when clearly a £40 calculator is all you need to be as powerful as a game-boy and have a nice gaming experience based on the game's mechanics
if you want to game on a calculator
( and you can, plenty of scientific calculators can be reprogrammed ... )
if you wish your brain to be blown, click here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculator_gaming
it really wouldn't effect me, in fact i'd be quite impressed.
essentially
what we learn here is to never play the price / performance war card because pebbles in sand pwns anything
( the simplest thing always wins because it's free. )
people love insane redundancy ( do you need 120 fps when playing command and conquer... not really but people love to think they are going to react one septillionth of a nanosecond faster and get their units out of range, but in reality.. they won't )
people love unexpected details
but then, seriously do you need a physics engine built into your game code for realistic modelling of how the buttons on your ui should click down and how they'd deform under your finger? no.
would it be a nice touch? yes.
that is what you get when you spend more money, insane things that don't really add allot to your game-play
but do in their own way add some fun and feel 'premium'
also the graphics issue,
and this is the one people always comment on..
yes you can build a pc that can display higher definition images than current gen consoles
it would be extremely difficult to match the price, due to how console sales work
it makes very little difference, because unless it's a pc exclusive game in the first place and therefore moot as to graphical 'difference' because a console wont run it without custom firmware anyway
all your likely to get is some shiny post processing, massively overkill aa and af for minutely sharper images with a tiny bit more atmospheric effect and if your very lucky some volumetric fog or improved physics or sun-shafts that EAT processing power the witcher 2 in your example has to be turned down to medium to run smoothly on anything but a high end over-clocked rig with at-least 3 terraflop's of processing ( 3 xbox 360's worth, fyi )
but few company's even bother, and just make straight ports so there is almost no difference but frame-rate, and sometimes even that is capped
now, you can 'force' on graphical effects on a pc with varying results.. generally there is a reason it isn't just included in the game files to begin with and alot of the time it's because the effect reacts badly with the game and causes massive slowdown or you end up with strange graphical artifacts, black-screens ect if you don't know what you're doing
it's really tough and go as to whether you can call this an advantage or not.. but if you care that much you can min max your game so.. yah, maby.
at the end of the day it's a people problem, and people need to learn to respect other peoples decisions, ideas, thoughts and feelings
someone may have completely legitimate reasons for doing something that is less efficient, or more or less expensive or time consuming than you, it also matters when they bought something, how much effort they are prepared to put into that something before it isn't fun for them anymore
and what gimmicks they like, do you want 3d-vision? do you want motion controls? how about compatibility with 6 different control input methods for several game types?
it's such a complicated issue that you cant really justify saying there's a winner anywhere just on features, it comes down to personal preference
this isn't just a console war it's a huge social problem, it's because people are people
lol I may have exaggerated a little with 2 months but back in the days I played PC only, I had to upgrade every 6-7 months since I always wanted to have a top of the line rig and new stuff were showing up on the market left and right.00slash00 said:
Nowadays you can go without an upgrade if you build a rig with a nice i7 and Gtx570 and you're good to go for at least 2 years.
Hi I'm a PC gamer! You got some valid points but your dead wrong with your "PC Gamers blame consoles for everything" statement.Racecarlock said:
We usally complain to the Devs first when games aren't optimized for our platform and then have to put up with comments like "elitist" from the console crowd. I have nothing against consoles but when console gamers rock up on PC forums and call me an "elitist" for complaining becasue I paid for a game that has essentially become a coaster then I get pissed.
As for the PC Gaming Master race threads why shouldn't we? Nobody said there couldn't be a Console Gaming Master race?
Now for the Console port rant:
That is 100% the Devs fault, I've played some really good console ports and I've played some really bad console ports. The bad ones generally reek of a cash grab and half assed couldn't give a crap about coding the game properly on the PC.
But who says you nessecarily need an HDTV? My standard def TV works fine. Plus, you have to consider the fact that the person or family in question might already have a TV, standard or high def varying, so the console is actually comparatively cheap. However, there are cheap PCS out there too, so there's not really a better side here.Vibhor said:
hmmm.... Well the only console games (of this gen) I've enjoyed are Crackdown and the two Ratchet & Clank games. Meanwhile, in PC land, there are no distinct generations, and I've enjoyed far more games on PC in the last however many years the current consoles have been out. Just in the last few months I've enjoyed Minecraft, Witcher 2, and Portal 2, all of which are new releases. I liked far more of console games during the PS2, CG, xbox era. Consoles lost my interest when they stopped making games for me, in other words making games to my interest. My interests haven't even changed that much, I still like run and gun, old shcool fps.
Also, I never actually seen a "PC fanboy." People who like PC and think consoles are unnecessary, act on different level to the Halo fanboys, for example, who's posts I've read. The pro-PC crowd exhibits much less racism, profanity, immaturity, spelling mistakes, emotional rants and much more passive aggressive, condescending, sudo-logical arguments. I'd much rather read the latter.
Also, I never actually seen a "PC fanboy." People who like PC and think consoles are unnecessary, act on different level to the Halo fanboys, for example, who's posts I've read. The pro-PC crowd exhibits much less racism, profanity, immaturity, spelling mistakes, emotional rants and much more passive aggressive, condescending, sudo-logical arguments. I'd much rather read the latter.
