Movie Bob gets called out by Chris Roberts on PC gaming

[TAdamson]

Well I will only play that Star Citizen game if it has a casual mode. Because it looks like typical PC-exclusive fare of being inaccessible to anyone who lacks a life outside of their PC.

Don't get me wrong, I would consider myself a PC gamer now as I own more games on it and have played more hours on PC than on console, but I like my games to be able to be played in short bursts without having to wade through screen after screen of menus and won't let me make even little mistakes or play sloppily without basically taking away days of progress.

Which is why I like how games have been "console-fied", but it seems no one wants to make the awesome, large-scale space game for us who are pretty good at games but not NEARLY dedicated enough to devote our lives to it in order to just enjoy it pleasantly without being stressed every second of the game.

I think that the Wing Commander games were pretty accessible. X-Wing/Tiefighter series needed a bit of a key map but it was managable.

And space combat sims have been pretty good at either allowing simple flightstick so I can't imagine why a game-pad thumbsticks wouldn't be allowed, thye'd probably be better to be honest -- You'd be able to yaw/pitch/turn as well as roll without needing a toggle key or foot pedals.

If you're using EVE and the X series as the starting point as accessibility then, yeah... Those aren't really games in my opinion, more exercises in frustration and boredom until you've invested enough time to have enough invested that you care about losing it.

About the best space combat sim recently has been Sol:Exodus and I find the mechanics in that just a bit tepid and un-varied.

I really want a game to come along that gives me the feeling that the X-wing series did of desperately pumping all power to engines so I can make it into range to get tone for my torpedos so I can kill those missile boats destroying the my frigate all the while evading fire from the fighters providing cover.

 

[Azaraxzealot]

Well I will only play that Star Citizen game if it has a casual mode. Because it looks like typical PC-exclusive fare of being inaccessible to anyone who lacks a life outside of their PC.

Don't get me wrong, I would consider myself a PC gamer now as I own more games on it and have played more hours on PC than on console, but I like my games to be able to be played in short bursts without having to wade through screen after screen of menus and won't let me make even little mistakes or play sloppily without basically taking away days of progress.

Which is why I like how games have been "console-fied", but it seems no one wants to make the awesome, large-scale space game for us who are pretty good at games but not NEARLY dedicated enough to devote our lives to it in order to just enjoy it pleasantly without being stressed every second of the game.

I think that the Wing Commander games were pretty accessible. X-Wing/Tiefighter series needed a bit of a key map but it was managable.

And space combat sims have been pretty good at either allowing simple flightstick so I can't imagine why a game-pad thumbsticks wouldn't be allowed, thye'd probably be better to be honest -- You'd be able to yaw/pitch/turn as well as roll without needing a toggle key or foot pedals.

If you're using EVE and the X series as the starting point as accessibility then, yeah... Those aren't really games in my opinion, more exercises in frustration and boredom until you've invested enough time to have enough invested that you care about losing it.

About the best space combat sim recently has been Sol:Exodus and I find the mechanics in that just a bit tepid and un-varied.

I really want a game to come along that gives me the feeling that the X-wing series did of desperately pumping all power to engines so I can make it into range to get tone for my torpedos so I can kill those missile boats destroying the my frigate all the while evading fire from the fighters providing cover.

Maybe I'll give em a try then. Thanks However I do NOT want to have to get a flightstick and all sorts of other expensive peripherals just to play it

I've always been in love with the idea of a Mass Effect style space game where the focus was more on the ship and crew than any one character. Just cruising around the galaxy in my ship, having random battles with space pirates and other spacey things.

I was using Sins of A Solar Empire as a point of comparison, for the record.

 

[Atmos Duality]

To be bluntly honest, the rest of the video is far more interesting than the small jab at MovieBob.

I do like the points they made about open space and "real time travel".
I've played both X3: Terrain Conflict and Evochron Mercenary, and both games make the same mistake in that assuming "massive area" and "complex" = "engaging". They have the framework of a classic game, but no personality or punch.

Wing Commander works because it has personality built on top of an already excellent open game.
And there is a greater sense of purpose behind Freespace and the X-Wing/TIE Fighter series.

I cannot count how many 20 minute skirmishes I played in X-Wing Alliance, toying around with all the various fighters. The scenario editor was limited by the tech of its time, but what you got was a legitimate blast to play.

 

[carlh267]

I'm actually still with Moviebob here and this guy doesn't change a thing.
*shrug*

Does the utter reversal of what Moviebob said change anything? (CRPGs making a comeback, the continuing reign of RTS and TBS with no good alternate on consoles, the sudden explosion of the indie scene starting with Minecraft and continuing with HumbleBundle and Kickstarter, the popularization of gog.com, blah blah blah Moviebob was all the way off base.)

OT: That wasn't a good critique. That was stapling on Moviebob because he was an easy target.

Err, tiny nitpick here, but the new XCOM was actually a good TBS on consoles. Unless you're not a big fan of the reimagining. Also, indie games like Minecraft also have console versions (hell, the Xbox Minecraft version has sold what, over 6 million copies now?), and many of the indie games on steam in the past few years originated on consoles (like the Xbox Summer of Arcade stuff) and were subsequently ported to pc. Indie games exploded on all platforms- mobile, tablet, console, and pc, not just the fourth option.

I do agree with you that him attacking moviebob was just aiming for the low-hanging fruit. Roberts just comes off as a pandering PC elitist whenever he talks though, so I'm not really surprised by the fact that he's doing so..

 

[Altorin]

And moviebob predicted in his video that Nintendo was going to come back. Pity about the WiiU's tepid launch,

Hey so long as he is called out on something I'm happy. Now somebody needs to do something on his BS White-Knighting that nobody asked for.

What white-knighting? Many are the charges to be levelled against Bob, but I can't recall any evidence of THAT one.

It's something that jerks say when they get called out for being jerks.

tepid compared to what?

the Wii?

I think everyone knows they couldn't do that again, but it's certainly not tepid compared to the PS3 and 360 launches.

 

[Therumancer]

Alright, to set the record straight. Bob Chipman, known here as MovieBob, also does a series called Game Overthinker. To put up a link of what I got when I did a quick search:

http://gameoverthinker.blogspot.com/2013/01/episode-81-let-this-be-end.html

To put it blunt, Bob *DOES* claim to be an expert on gaming. He pretty much claims to be an expert on all things geek, and to be honest he is for the most part even if there are a lot of points I disagree with him on. He's one of the few people I accept as probably knowing more about this crap than I do, and that's kind of scary in a way.

That said Bob is very passionate about what he likes, and what he does not like, and I think he gets a little too excessive when he takes it to the point of absolutes, and starts theorycrafting. Especially when his likes and dislikes have a political basis (but I'm not going to go into his politics right here). Given his apparrent taste for simpler games like Mario, I can see to an extent why the idea of the PC dying out is kind of appealing to him from a certain perspective, as would be a potential future largely dominated by app-type games. That said I am not an expert on Bob's gaming attitudes since I don't really follow Game Overthinker at the moment.

At the end of the day most of Bob's predictions seemed to be based on what he liked, as opposed to the practical, because really there is a world of differance between Kinect-like pointer gimmicks, and the control from a mouse, and at the end of the day a console controller only has so many buttons compared to what a keyboard can do. Not to mention the differance between a living room based "console" and playing at a desktop, which are two entirely differant feels and experiences. The sheer intended distance between you and the screen (which does come up in games) can be a big deal alone as well.

I think at the end of the day the truth is more that we're going to see PC and console gaming blend closer together, but mostly due to consoles becoming more like PCs for all intents and purposes, rather than replacing PCs. Companies like Valve are experimenting with trying to bridge this gap and create a "gamebox" that will play PC games while being simple and "idiot proof" enough for console gamers (as I understand things).

Truthfully Chris Roberts was probably not right to pick on Bob's comments though, to be honest his "enemy" has more been a matter of general industry trends. While it's true that casuals love their consoles and the simplicity theyp provide, and there are huge numbers of them out there, the shift away from PCs seems like it was mostly industry fueled due to paranoia over piracy and the like, not to mention the annoyance of having to develop games that will work with potentially thousands of differant hardware configurations, as opposed to with consoles where all of them use exactly the same hardware.

Such are my thoughts.

 

[keniakittykat]

All of you people seem to forget one thing: The original video was made THREE years ago!
Every single example of pc gaming doing well was not yet released..
Minecraft, Skyrim, Deus ex, Portal 2, dragon age 2, Diablo 3, etc. Was all released AFTER 2010.

Face it, 2009 and 2010 were very bad years for pc gaming. Played any Metro, bad company or Red Faction lately?
And yes, 2010 gave us starcraft and assassin's creed, but those weren't as much saving pc gaming at large, as showcasing consoles had caught up.
So, yes, it was easy to assume pc gaming would lose its superiority and popularity in the following years.
BUT history threw us a curveball and went into a completely different direction, making pc gaming great again with titles such as Skyrim, Minecraft, and many more.

Bob was wrong, sure, and only made wild assumptions in hindsight. He didn't know minecraft would become a thing, but I guess it's easy to call someone an idiot afterwards, huh.

 

[Vhite]

Ah yes, the video where MovieBob lost all the credibility for his gaming rants. I still watch his comic and movie videos though.

 

[Doom972]

Moviebob should stick to movies and comics - I appreciate his thoughts and opinions on them, because he seems to know a lot about them. As for gaming, anyone who watched The Game Overthinker knows that he doesn't know much about gaming. The fact that he spoke about FPS - a genre he doesn't even like, and adventure games on the Wii - while everyone who visited Steam in the last 5 years knows where they're being resurrected, shows how limited his knowledge is, which is why his opinions and thoughts on matters of gaming can't be taken seriously.

 

[Defeated Detective]

I really want to support MovieBob on this one, but if I have to be honest, MovieBob is jack of all trades, his covers numerous fields such as movies and gaming but he's a king of none.

For movies, I prefer Half in the Bag because Mike Stoklasa and Jay Bauman's background in film making and they actually deliver their reviews in the most fun way possible through presentation, they're sense of humor is amazing.

For games, there's TB, Yahtzee, Angry Joe and Jim Sterling, they cover each of fields quite well.

No offense intended, he does a good job, but that doesn't mean much against people who do his job better.

 

[AyaReiko]

Taken out of context the video moviebob made looks pretty ignorant but his real point in that video was about change. To be fair in 2010 PC gaming was going downhill as we saw very few PC games coming out besides indie games and fewer ports. However last year we started to see a revival of PCs in their dominance as new games and new technologies started coming out. Right now PC gaming look to rise to dominance once again thanks to some of the latest tools out there and some of the stuff on the horizon

I dont think moviebob was entirely wrong for the time (just partly wrong) but PC development has proven him wrong since

/facepalm

Starcraft II says hi.

So does ME2, Civ5, Fallout New Vegas...

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well they might have not included all the context but MovieBob's entire video was a raving fanboys rant against a platform he don't like, I just find it odd anyone would even take note of such nonsense at this point, especially when it comes from someone so poorly versed in gaming as MovieBob.

And this whole thing just aimlessly perpetuates the platform wars, I know it's easy to get sucked into it but so is throwing poo at people, have some decency and just don't.

 

[Ulquiorra4sama]

Who the hell is Chris Robert and why do i care about his opinion?

OT: Bob may've been jumping to conclusions there for a while, because while there were many signs back then that PC gaming was shrinking he could've said that what they needed was something to be the best at again. Over the past years they've certainly gotten that and i imagine it's fair to say the FPS has made a home in both consoles and the PC platforms.

What i don't understand is why certain gamers seem so commited to the idea that consoles and PC's can't possibly coexist. I play games on both and haven't caught fire yet...

 

[2fish]

a few thoughts before bed

1

Spoiler: why has no one posted this?

2. Is this the longest time for a response to an opinion on the internet or has there been a longer necro post?
3.I am not sure how close this is to the point of the video but I am tired and not going to break this down part by part to check.
4. Of everyone to choose that has said similar stuff or more extreme stuff why moviebob I mean that smells of picking an easy target. Have there not been industry people with similar ideas that might carry more weight in video game land?

I shall return later when the internet is done carpet bombing this thread, enjoy you flame war debates.

Spoiler

I mean a pc vs consol thread with movie bob and a bigish? pc game so many chances for people to come defend anything they like or attack that which they don't.

 

[Madman123456]

My own Stance on this reminds me of something religious: Nothing is going to "die". PC gaming and console gaming for that matter is going to change. Well, it is not going to stay exactly the same, it never did. I like some changes, i don't like others but PC Gaming has been dying since the very first Prince of Persia, at least that's the first time i've read that.

Yes i'm old.


Next time we have a big crossover thing like the Amiga People may say that both console and PC gaming will die because this is the future.
Apple computers may very well evolve into gaming platforms and "kill" PC gaming, again.

Here's my own decade old Forecast: i have a PC here, there will always be something to play for it that wasn't made as a short diversion or as a programmers first project or something. There will always be a "Gothic", erm, "Oblivion", erm, i mean "Skyrim".
By which i meant there will always be a market for big fat giant games because there are People who will buy them. Quite a lot of People if the sales figures of "Skyrim" are to be believed.
Actually, i do not really understand how People could say that anything is "dying" considering this trend towards openworld sandbox games. Nearly every big company has at least one big openworld sandbox franchise out there and with Bethesda we have this rather lucrative company who makes those exclusively.

 

[TAdamson]

And moviebob predicted in his video that Nintendo was going to come back. Pity about the WiiU's tepid launch,

Hey so long as he is called out on something I'm happy. Now somebody needs to do something on his BS White-Knighting that nobody asked for.

What white-knighting? Many are the charges to be levelled against Bob, but I can't recall any evidence of THAT one.

It's something that jerks say when they get called out for being jerks.

tepid compared to what?

the Wii?

I think everyone knows they couldn't do that again, but it's certainly not tepid compared to the PS3 and 360 launches.

Well if the new nintendo can hold it's own against the next generation of consoles that come out in the next year then fine. But the GPU that they're using is a little behind the 8-ball. I don't know what they're cost of development or cost of sales are but if they want to actually make money on this they probably can't just rely on the usual round of Nintendo exclusives....

Unless Microsoft commits suicide with this whole "always online" thing, or the development budget bubble we've seen growing for the last decade finally pops.

But I think they're at best going to return to be a niche thing for people who want to play the latest Zelda like they were with the Gamecube and 64.

 

[spartandude]

here's the moviebob video that was quoted if anyone is interested

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/2911-PC-Gaming-Is-Dead-Long-Live-PC-Gaming

correct me if im wrong but all i got from this is that PCs whill eventuall cease to be the giant boxes hooked to our monitors but will likely turn into more tablet and lap top like devices. i agree most will but i think there will still be a market for desktops and the way moviebob went around saying it was just terrible and flame baiting...just like he always does.
i mean usually i agree with about 50-60% of what he says (or what i think hes trying to say, or a possible point i think he made when i probably misinterpreted him completely) but they way he says these things and presents himself just makes me want to punch him in the face so very hard

 

[BrotherRool]

I tend to ignore anything Moviebob says about gaming, mainly because its outside his area of his main expertise of movies and to a lesser extent comics and TV series (hence his screen name being 'Moviebob').

Well his other internet nickname is TheGameOverthinker, does that make him qualified?

On a more serious note, name a game commentator who could say games are an area of expertise. (The Extra Credits guy is one). It's pretty rare, games haven't evolved much of a theoretical discourse side yet and for whatever reason most developers are making games or going to space or starting kickstarters and not writing about games (I do find it odd how few developers you see doing writing for people)

blinks

I have no contact with Moviebob's work outside of The Escapist, I didn't realise he called himself that.

I still personally hold that he isn't a game commentator, mainly due to his inbuilt bias of treating the medium rather like movies, (see his tweets about the ME3 endings to see why).

As for 'actual' game commentators I would choose people who either critique or develop games as their main 'job' rather than a side aspect of another gig they are doing.

I only found out because of Tv tropes, but yeah, he's been doing regularly game opinion pieces for Screw Attack for over 5 years as far as I can work out, which means he's actually being doing it almost as long as Yahtzee has. I only found out because people were bitching about him being a Nintendo fanboy on TV tropes
http://www.screwattack.com/shows/partners/game-overthinker

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I'm entirely all for calling out MovieBob on his regular BS spewing. That said, this was not the way to do it. Taking a rant and tangentially attaching it does not critique make.

I'd agree entirely. That said, there is nothing particularly sacrosanct about the platform but there remains one thing of note that ensures it will remain a viable platform for gaming through the next console cycle: the total overhead to develop and distribute a game on the platform is dramatically and develop is far more flexible than on any other platform.

Just look at minecraft - that game is built on Java. Making that run on the Xbox required a tremendous (and almost certainly expensive) effort. Just releasing that game to certification cost $50,000. The PC remains the low cost development and distribution platform. While Steam's Green Light isn't particularly well regarded for a variety of reasons, it remains a more viable route than tossing a game into iOS and hoping for the best.