InXile's Brian Fargo Calls Steam PC Gaming's "Savior"

[Phlogiston]

I think cloud gaming is gonna be a long way off still in spite of claims from its advocats...Even with the best fibre a huge amount of the playerbase is gonna have unplayable input lag but then again that might just be me coming from a Quake background where searching for every millisecond reduction in input lag helps (BenQ monitors ftw).

I suppose it might take off sooner in RPGs and MMOs where the gameplay's somewhat slower

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

And I'll give you mine again.

ok, ill use your definition

lets put all the points in the table first

1) you consider people whose opinion can be bought, professionals

2) this is your definition of professionalism

"the skill, good judgment, and polite behavior that is expected from a person who is trained to do a job well"

now i ask

- how is a judgement that can be bought easily, good?

- when you give misinformed opinions because you were paid to, are you showing off your skills and vision as a game developer?

- is it polite, is it respectful, to lie in the face of the thousands if not millions of people who like your games, appreciate you as a developer and trust you?


each time i see a microsoft developer talking about how great the kinect is i can only see a sellout incompetent that has no respect for its customers, i dont see a professional, atleast one that acts like it

You are aware that there are many pieces of media (not just games, but lets just talk of games here) that receive good reviews from critics but sell practically nothing. Likewise there are games that get absolutely slated by critics, but sell loads due to people loving them.

yeessss...

thats why i was talking about customer feedback, i think ive mentioned now 3 times that steam allows its users to publish reviews which are then showed on the store page of the game its been reviewed

see, check my review of antichamber

http://steamcommunity.com/id/nuclearkangaroo/recommended/219890/

i dont there are many, if any game that gets slated by the customers but is still loved by the customers, makes no sense eh?


anyways id like to see from valve, something like, a personalized "you might like this" list of games on the main page of steam, these games would be selected for me, based on its tags, which would match some of the tags of other games ive played a lot and the games on my wishlist, and would take into account the number of positive user reviews those games got so my list only shows the best of the best

the list could get refreshed from time to time, and it would give games on sales a priority, so they are more likely to show up on this list

this solution could allow many hidden gems to resurface

that and everything in here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLNh5HPbQPo

I'm not underestimating them, I know their worth and I know they don't move units by themselves. And before you say it I am not talking about the PC, just consoles in the case of moving units. As I said they can get some timed exclusive DLC out of it, its cheap, and people may not have even been aware of it as not everyone knows every indie hit that is out there. If the customer likes the game enough they may well go out and get the PC version on top so its win win for everyone.

minecraft also sold well on consoles, very well, i imagine if it had been a console exclusive it couldve managed to move some units

but since sony is confortable playing catch-up it means they probably will never be able to get the next big indie hit before it entablishes itself on PC and sells millions there

 

[Strazdas]

Or its no DRM (GOG style)

GoG is a niche service. Not a serious competitor to Steam.

Steam was a niche service that wasnt a competitor to Direct2Drive in 2004. see what we ended up with.

i disagree man, 2008-2009 were particulary shitty times for PC, and even before that it was always a relatively nich market, i mean compare the number of ports we got from console games then and now

of course, even then it wasnt that bad, PC was no WiiU, but it wasnt the best time to be PC gamer

Damn accidentaly pressed home button and lost my reply. here we go again.

that period was when publishers were spreading a lot of FUD trying to kill the only market they couldnt control because they wanted to force everyone on their locked down playforms to give them financial staiblity during crisis. However since FUD was FUD this didnt work out for them. they werent actually bad years at all.
2008 [http://www.game-debate.com/games/index.php?year=2008]
2009 [http://www.game-debate.com/games/index.php?year=2009]
See how PC games dominate the list (light blue)?

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

Or its no DRM (GOG style)

GoG is a niche service. Not a serious competitor to Steam.

Steam was a niche service that wasnt a competitor to Direct2Drive in 2004. see what we ended up with.

i disagree man, 2008-2009 were particulary shitty times for PC, and even before that it was always a relatively nich market, i mean compare the number of ports we got from console games then and now

of course, even then it wasnt that bad, PC was no WiiU, but it wasnt the best time to be PC gamer

Damn accidentaly pressed home button and lost my reply. here we go again.

that period was when publishers were spreading a lot of FUD trying to kill the only market they couldnt control because they wanted to force everyone on their locked down playforms to give them financial staiblity during crisis. However since FUD was FUD this didnt work out for them. they werent actually bad years at all.
2008 [http://www.game-debate.com/games/index.php?year=2008]
2009 [http://www.game-debate.com/games/index.php?year=2009]
See how PC games dominate the list (light blue)?

whats FUD? i think that list has some mistakes btw, i dont think battlefield 1943 was ever released on PC

anyways i still think it was a bad time, many big name devs were abadoning the platform and i dont remember many particulary good games from small devs during that time either

oh yeah and the ports were horrid

 

[Strazdas]

whats FUD? i think that list has some mistakes btw, i dont think battlefield 1943 was ever released on PC

anyways i still think it was a bad time, many big name devs were abadoning the platform and i dont remember many particulary good games from small devs during that time either

oh yeah and the ports were horrid

Fear, uncertainty and doubt [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt]
Microsoft is especially accostumed to it.

It was a stagnation period i admit, but whole world economy was falling down at that time so that was not surprising. I think the reason some people consder it "Dark ages" is because they comapre it to the brightless of current enlightement period. The way i see gaming comapring to historical periods is that we had bronze age in the 80s with commodore and so on, golden age in the 90s, early 2000, some stagnation skipping dark ages, renaissance of PC gaming recognition and we are entering englihtment where PC is getting to be the big thing around people can no longer deny what with PCs outperforming consoles for same price and all the GabeN profphets spreading facts about PC gaming. Heck, even Xbox demos ran on PCs. They even used PCS to show their "cloud physics" demo and admited to doing so.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

whats FUD? i think that list has some mistakes btw, i dont think battlefield 1943 was ever released on PC

anyways i still think it was a bad time, many big name devs were abadoning the platform and i dont remember many particulary good games from small devs during that time either

oh yeah and the ports were horrid

Fear, uncertainty and doubt [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt]
Microsoft is especially accostumed to it.

It was a stagnation period i admit, but whole world economy was falling down at that time so that was not surprising. I think the reason some people consder it "Dark ages" is because they comapre it to the brightless of current enlightement period. The way i see gaming comapring to historical periods is that we had bronze age in the 80s with commodore and so on, golden age in the 90s, early 2000, some stagnation skipping dark ages, renaissance of PC gaming recognition and we are entering englihtment where PC is getting to be the big thing around people can no longer deny what with PCs outperforming consoles for same price and all the GabeN profphets spreading facts about PC gaming. Heck, even Xbox demos ran on PCs. They even used PCS to show their "cloud physics" demo and admited to doing so.

i guess thats one way to see

also after reading that article, you just made me hate microsoft even more, i think i should give linux another chance

 

[JET1971]

It's the best thing Valve ever invented and I thank them for it and the Portal series. As a company with only two good games to their credit they've done so much for PC gaming and I believe the main factor is sales. When they have things like their summer or winter sales I think many people, myself included, will even buy games we wouldn't normally because the price drops to something insignificant. I know some companies want those sales to end but I wouldn't doubt if they're responsible for selling a ton of games.

Your "only two good games" to their credit is massively biased. If you look at their games objectively the half-life series, Team Fortress 2, Dota 2, Portal series, Counter Strike series, Left 4 Dead series are all "good games".

Maybe it was only two games you enjoyed but if you look at the reviews and general sales performance of their games in general valve has far more than two good games to their name.

How many console games and other PC games have generated a meme like "The cake is a lie" and demand for a sequel like HL2 Episode 3 has generated. That's a massive fanbase that kept "Cake is a lie" alive and why any news no matter from what source that headlines "Episode 3" doubles the readers compared to other news on the same site even if it is not related to Half Life 2. If Valve games suck then there wouldn't be that meme or the fanbase.

Oh "Hats" is a going joke now too.

 

[Rozalia1]

ok, ill use your definition

lets put all the points in the table first

1) you consider people whose opinion can be bought, professionals

2) this is your definition of professionalism

"the skill, good judgment, and polite behavior that is expected from a person who is trained to do a job well"

now i ask

- how is a judgement that can be bought easily, good?

- when you give misinformed opinions because you were paid to, are you showing off your skills and vision as a game developer?

- is it polite, is it respectful, to lie in the face of the thousands if not millions of people who like your games, appreciate you as a developer and trust you?


each time i see a microsoft developer talking about how great the kinect is i can only see a sellout incompetent that has no respect for its customers, i dont see a professional, atleast one that acts like it

Judgement is having the good sense to know that coming out with emotional responses to not be a great career move. They have a job to do and they do it.

Part of the job, they exploit marks which is something you don't seem to get.

If you fall for it than you shouldn't be such a mark, simple. Again its just business.

Sellout == Successful. You see things too emotionally. Their job is always to exploit you not to provide you with fun, art, innovation, or whatever else.

yeessss...

thats why i was talking about customer feedback, i think ive mentioned now 3 times that steam allows its users to publish reviews which are then showed on the store page of the game its been reviewed

see, check my review of antichamber

http://steamcommunity.com/id/nuclearkangaroo/recommended/219890/

i dont there are many, if any game that gets slated by the customers but is still loved by the customers, makes no sense eh?

anyways id like to see from valve, something like, a personalized "you might like this" list of games on the main page of steam, these games would be selected for me, based on its tags, which would match some of the tags of other games ive played a lot and the games on my wishlist, and would take into account the number of positive user reviews those games got so my list only shows the best of the best

the list could get refreshed from time to time, and it would give games on sales a priority, so they are more likely to show up on this list

this solution could allow many hidden gems to resurface

that and everything in here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLNh5HPbQPo

User views are your critic reviews... you want Valve to read every piece of babble people put up and than decide based on the many user reviews on what goes on the front page.
What about the games that don't have huge attention from the get go? A couple of folk putting up positive reviews would mean nothing as many other games would have more positive reviews.

You may likes eh? Aren't they usually done by what people who bought the product, also bought in addition/recently? It'd make it pretty pointless if it went like that. Tags won't solve the issue either as what stops the devs abusing that? Valve I don't think would care much about such a thing.

minecraft also sold well on consoles, very well, i imagine if it had been a console exclusive it couldve managed to move some units

but since sony is confortable playing catch-up it means they probably will never be able to get the next big indie hit before it entablishes itself on PC and sells millions there

Sony is in competition with Microsoft so I don't think they really care.

How many console games and other PC games have generated a meme like "The cake is a lie" and demand for a sequel like HL2 Episode 3 has generated. That's a massive fanbase that kept "Cake is a lie" alive and why any news no matter from what source that headlines "Episode 3" doubles the readers compared to other news on the same site even if it is not related to Half Life 2. If Valve games suck then there wouldn't be that meme or the fanbase.

Oh "Hats" is a going joke now too.

Not sure if serious. Memes never come into the equation of game quality, or are you telling me Big Rigs is actually really good because it has a meme.

Your "only two good games" to their credit is massively biased. If you look at their games objectively the half-life series, Team Fortress 2, Dota 2, Portal series, Counter Strike series, Left 4 Dead series are all "good games".

Maybe it was only two games you enjoyed but if you look at the reviews and general sales performance of their games in general valve has far more than two good games to their name.

Are you kidding me, massively biased in his opinion? If he found most of their games crap than that is what they were to him. There are a torrent of reasons for why he may have found them bad.

 

[Phlogiston]

It's a good point and I'm not overly optimistic about it, but if it happens, it might be a logical next step.
As for performance it's like you mentioned, it'll likely not be shooters.

Besides, what's the last competitive shooter you've seen? Seriously. I don't recall any worthwhile shooter since Counter Strike that had any impact or held any interest. The genre has gone from seamless and intuitive with a good gameplay flow to "how can we make our game as brutally spec demanding, while showing as much brown and gray as possible?".

Bunnyjumping, double jumping, rocket jumping, grenade jumping, hyper twitch and random elements have all been replaced with semi-realism and persistant character progression models. It's truly a shame.

It's why I still play Quakelive. When id get around to making Doom 4/Quake 5 and if they make it well, I think it'll be very interesting in the current console/PC and stagnant FPS market to see a proper twitch shooter again. The interest in Titanfall showed that people are less interested in brown/grey realism imo.

Anyway, back to cloud gaming, I guess it's gonna kind of start with Steamboxes, streaming from one room to the next. Personally I can't wait for this functionality to arrive so's I can retire my main PC to a room of it's own for 'serious' gaming and then have a cheap 'console' build in the living room.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

Judgement is having the good sense to know that coming out with emotional responses to not be a great career move. They have a job to do and they do it.

Part of the job, they exploit marks which is something you don't seem to get.

If you fall for it than you shouldn't be such a mark, simple. Again its just business.

Sellout == Successful. You see things too emotionally. Their job is always to exploit you not to provide you with fun, art, innovation, or whatever else.

thats weird, i dont see anything about being a shill in here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_developer

if you want to be a cynic, thats fine, but if you want to discuss, then see thngs in an objective way not through your black tinted glasses

User views are your critic reviews... you want Valve to read every piece of babble people put up and than decide based on the many user reviews on what goes on the front page.
What about the games that don't have huge attention from the get go? A couple of folk putting up positive reviews would mean nothing as many other games would have more positive reviews.

You may likes eh? Aren't they usually done by what people who bought the product, also bought in addition/recently? It'd make it pretty pointless if it went like that. Tags won't solve the issue either as what stops the devs abusing that? Valve I don't think would care much about such a thing.

wow, you have literally no idea how ANYTHING Works on steam

a) valve doesnt have to read every review, they can meansure the recommended/not recommended ratio of each game and assign some sort of priority to the game according to the ratio, and with this priority in hand, develop an algorithm to show games you might like on the front page, the higher the priority of the game, the more likely it is to be shown

atleast thats what i think it could be done

and since this is a ratio, is doesnt really matter that much how many copies a game has sold

there are people who have bought games AND not recommended it

b) tags are assigned BY THE CUSTOMERS, NOT THE DEVS


jesus get your facts straight, atleast one

Sony is in competition with Microsoft so I don't think they really care.

if you say so

 

[Rozalia1]

thats weird, i dont see anything about being a shill in here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_developer

if you want to be a cynic, thats fine, but if you want to discuss, then see thngs in an objective way not through your black tinted glasses

Have you had a job? One that requires you to deal with people?

wow, you have literally no idea how ANYTHING Works on steam

a) valve doesnt have to read every review, they can meansure the recommended/not recommended ratio of each game and assign some sort of priority to the game according to the ratio, and with this priority in hand, develop an algorithm to show games you might like on the front page, the higher the priority of the game, the more likely it is to be shown

atleast thats what i think it could be done

and since this is a ratio, is doesnt really matter that much how many copies a game has sold

there are people who have bought games AND not recommended it

b) tags are assigned BY THE CUSTOMERS, NOT THE DEVS

jesus get your facts straight, atleast one

Professionalism is my response to your rude "you're always wrong" line. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones

So two people play a game and recommend it, to the top it goes? Easy manipulation if there isn't a minimum required amount. Also if the tag thing is already done...than why do you want to implement it?

if you say so

No idea why you find that strange/wrong.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

Have you had a job? One that requires you to deal with people?

yes, i did an internship for the biggest steel corporation in my country

are you done with the ad hominem? are you going to be objective?

Professionalism is my response to your rude "you're always wrong" line. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones

but you WERE wrong, and you talked about something you had no idea about, dont pretent to be the better man dude, a better man wouldnt have talked about something he didnt really understand

So two people play a game and recommend it, to the top it goes? Easy manipulation if there isn't a minimum required amount. Also if the tag thing is already done...than why do you want to implement it?

yes i know a mininum is required, look that was only my proposition, im a programmer ive studied and helped design some systems before (admitedly pretty simple ones), so that was just the basics of it all, Valve would have to work on all those things with the information they have

more than implementing i say they should data mine the information steam already have access to, number of recomendations a game has, total play time of its customers, tags the games have, etc, and based on the information they can collect from all this, they provide personalized recommendations to each player on the main store page


steam already has a recommended section, but its not on the main store page, its very outdated and i dont think it has ever been good, a new system using the new information steam has now could make a huge difference and give hidden gems some more spotlight

No idea why you find that strange/wrong.

because i consider PC a competition to any other gaming platform, if not now, in the very near future with the introduction of the steam machines

 

[Rozalia1]

yes, i did an internship for the biggest steel corporation in my country

are you done with the ad hominem? are you going to be objective?

Ad hominem would have been attacking you, I merely asked a question. Fact of the matter is that there are things that you have to do that aren't on your job description. If your boss wants you to kiss arse to not piss of a major benefactor, or someone they want to deal with it...than you do it.

but you WERE wrong, and you talked about something you had no idea about, dont pretent to be the better man dude, a better man wouldnt have talked about something he didnt really understand

And like this guy you put it in exactly the wrong way. You can say I'm wrong without saying that I'm always wrong.

yes i know a mininum is required, look that was only my proposition, im a programmer ive studied and helped design some systems before (admitedly pretty simple ones), so that was just the basics of it all, Valve would have to work on all those things with the information they have

There are always reasons for why a company doesn't do something. Perhaps when their numbers go down they'll try and implement new things to solve the issue, but if they don't than it'll be a very slow process, if they even bother.

because i consider PC a competition to any other gaming platform, if not now, in the very near future with the introduction of the steam machines

So premade PCs are in competition with Sony now? You know those exist already and they aren't, right? In addition to this are steam machines going to be sold (and heavily advertised) in the major retailers, and game shops? Hey I could be wrong but steam machines aren't going to change much of anything. PC gamers won't buy them, and its too expensive to be appealing to console gamers...also isn't there like 13 variants or some nonsense? You would have thought they would know better than to mess up the "low, med, high" model.

If steam machines are consoles (and thus in competition) than its going to resemble the N-Gage.

 

[Phlogiston]

You would have thought they would know better than to mess up the "low, med, high" model.

I'm guessing they'll only have one category:

"Better than PS4"

Starting from $500 or so

EDIT: To clarify, if it's able to play all multiplat games, then that's all the consumers need to know and most multiplat games in the future will be limited at the lower levels by the system specs of current gen consoles.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

Ad hominem would have been attacking you, I merely asked a question. Fact of the matter is that there are things that you have to do that aren't on your job description. If your boss wants you to kiss arse to not piss of a major benefactor, or someone they want to deal with it...than you do it.

you are right that wasnt ad hominem it was red herring

your job can require you to kiss asses, it might require you to launder money, etc

this of course depends on where you are working, so its ridiculous to base your definition of whats professional and whats not on that, what you consider professional in one place can be very unprofessional in another, so lets be OBJECTIVE and go by the profession description eh?

And like this guy you put it in exactly the wrong way. You can say I'm wrong without saying that I'm always wrong.

when it comes to steam you seem to be always wrong

There are always reasons for why a company doesn't do something. Perhaps when their numbers go down they'll try and implement new things to solve the issue, but if they don't than it'll be a very slow process, if they even bother.

you are assuming they have already thought about this

So premade PCs are in competition with Sony now? You know those exist already and they aren't, right? In addition to this are steam machines going to be sold (and heavily advertised) in the major retailers, and game shops? Hey I could be wrong but steam machines aren't going to change much of anything. PC gamers won't buy them, and its too expensive to be appealing to console gamers...also isn't there like 13 variants or some nonsense? You would have thought they would know better than to mess up the "low, med, high" model.

If steam machines are consoles (and thus in competition) than its going to resemble the N-Gage.

premade PCs, with an OS pre-installed meant for gaming... you know, LIKE CONSOLES, except less closed

im gonna trust the ones with like more than 15 years of experience making games and owners of the best digital distribution around, somehow i dont trust your credentials

 

[Fayathon]

Well I will say this, either as a PC person I either spend $300 on a console and then $60 per game that I can't mod, or I spend $500 every 2 years on upgrading my pc but get games for $6 or $20 dollars with steam or the humble bundle. I think I choose the PC if only for the comfortability factor.

Friendo, you either upgrade for the sake of upgrading to have the best of what you can have, or you're overestimating your prices/times on a rebuild.

I'm looking at rebuilding my computer and it's going to be about $500, but I built this machine about four and a half years ago. PCs have a much longer shelf life than people tend to give them, so long as you're not completely anal about playing at 'ultra' settings on everything all the time. Hell the only reason I'm even looking at a rebuild is because I can't run Dark Souls 2 on my vid card, and if I'm going to swap that out I may as well drop a chunk and get this thing back up in the upper echelons of mid-tier performance. (Mid-tier meaning I'm not running my shit in six monitor Eyefinity or some such other nonsense, just playing on High makes me happy.)

Also, praise be to Gaben and all that shit, may PC gaming forever be dying.

 

[Rozalia1]

your job can require you to kiss asses

Which their job does so that is that.

premade PCs, with an OS pre-installed meant for gaming... you know, LIKE CONSOLES, except less closed

im gonna trust the ones with like more than 15 years of experience making games and owners of the best digital distribution around, somehow i dont trust your credentials

When I tell you the company knows best, I'm wrong. When you tell me the same, you're right?

All the failed products in the world should tell you that it doesn't matter who you are, your product can very much fail.
Besides what does making games, and having a distribution storefront matter in regards to calculating if the public will eat up your branded premade PCs? Sony had many years of experience in running a storefront, and developing electronics across a huge spectrum of devices and the PSPGO still bombed.

Who does that machine attract exactly? PC gamers who buy pre built PCs and can't download the steam OS? That such a huge portion of the market?
Do regale me on how successful http://www.dell.com/uk/p/alienware-x51/pd is if you really believe its some huge game changer.

 

[Phlogiston]

Rozalia1: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamuniverse#announcements/detail/1927838910223830657

Might clarify some things for you...like the fact Valve aren't making the boxes themselves, 3rd party companies are (including Dell/Alienware amongst them)

EDIT: The ces data sheet has a ton more info on pricing etc as well as some pretty funky looking boxes: http://media.steampowered.com/store/steammachines/SteamMachinesBroc_WEB.PDF

 

[Rozalia1]

Rozalia1: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamuniverse#announcements/detail/1927838910223830657

Might clarify some things for you...like the fact Valve aren't making the boxes themselves, 3rd party companies are (including Dell/Alienware amongst them)

Yes there are 13, Alienware amonest them (which while typing I noticed you said the same thing in brackets). Anyway that is why I said branded as that is what it is. Such machines already exist.