Why PC gamers aren't okay with the changes to MW2

[ZombieGenesis]

I think the aggression over this issue comes from two main concerns.
One, the PC gamers who are angry that the qualities they enjoy in the game have been removed at their expense. Which is fair really.
And secondly, people who see this as a company reducing the quality of their product and then increasing the retail price. Also fair, and this isn't restricted to PC gamers. I'm a console player and I think this is incredibly distasteful of IW, and I should hope that standards and practices steps in at some point. Though with the sales forecast being what it is, I heavily doubt this will be an issue.

I can understand why the benefits of PC multiplayer are being missed, I've never been one for the multiplayer FPS scene myself, I just wish people would stop bringing other issues into this. Like how this issue has sparked talk of PC games becoming more like the 'inferior' console FPS's. I can honestly say I've played CoD:MW on both PC and console, and I found the 360 version so much more comfortable to operate. This is just personal taste, and I don't see what it has to do with the marketing decisions of IW.

One thing is for certain though, this will not affect the reviews. I can guarantee that even if they stripped out 90% of multiplayer content (some may argue they have) it will still recieve scores that put Ocarina of Time to shame. This is just how game ratings work nowadays, with Gamespot and IGN giving top marks to the games that are known to sell- because then they get more advertising and endoresement as well as press favour. So if anyone is hoping this contraversy will convince them not to do the same in future... no such luck I'm afraid.

 

[Vault boy Eddie]

These are quotes from the chat transcript where they addressed the issues.

maniac1969
Vince, there are 178,000 voices that say you need dedicated servers for the PC. COD4 is the bigest online game in history! Why in the world would you take away dedicated servers and change the whole MP experience for us? And Mackey, the PC version with dedicated servers is already the best experience the way it is!

Vince-IW
All I can say is that we changed it to make it a better and easier experience. Also, not all of the names on that list are legit.

IW_has_failedus
Will PC Players be able to play online WITH xbox 360 players? Like in the game shadowrun? Because that would be totally badass. =D Maybe something we could see in the future of the franchise? Also has Future warfare ever come to mind?

Vince-IW
no, not something we think is a good idea currently

So first they say that not all signatures are legit, focusing on the WRONG part of his question. Second, if they wont allow us to play with 360 players then why force us to play the game there way? Is it because the people that say FPSs aren't good on PC will start complaining that PC gamers have an advantage with the mouse?

 

[Pingieking]

Well you know what...if you don't like it then you don't have to buy it or play it (sorry if you don't want to hear that but I'm afraid those are your options).

You have plenty of other games avalible so why does it matter if one doesn't quite live up to your expectations? (I think that all of this fuss around MW2 confirms what myself and a few others have often said in that PC gamers are no longer the center of attention or master race of the gaming world anymore, your significance in the greater scheme of things has gone down)

I normally don't care about the differences between PC and console games (in my opinion, I like both platforms but don't like the players) but the points that have been made supposedly elevating the PC above the sonsole make me ask the following:

If the PC has such a vast superiority when it comes to shooting games then surely the downfalls in this one should be inconsiquential? You should (in theory) have a vast collection of other games that you can choose from and choose to ignore MW2 altogether.

I'm not going to buy it, but I'm still going to voice my displeasure with the crappy product. Your argument makes sense, but it's an argument for us not buying it, not an argument for us to stop complaining about the game.
The downfall of MW2 is very consequencial; not for me personally, but for the industry. The gauranteed success of this game basically gives the big name developers a free pass to not preform their jobs up to professional standards. I am going to ignore MW2 altogether, but that won't really help when this market presidence is set and developers/publishers feel that it is ok to cut features from every version of game as long as it's a sequal to a GotY.
PC had not been the master race of gaming for a long time. Since the beginning of the century I would say. The problem is that, in IW's point of view, PC ha ceased to be a platform.
In my opinion, IW's take on MW2 was simply to make the PS3 version, which happens to have the least amount of features because the PS3 doesn't have as nice of an infrastructure, and then prompty do a direct port of that version to everything else. Of course, adding some awesome stuff like XBL capabilities to the X360 version and some of mouse+keyboard support for the PC version. So nice of them, including the mouse and keyboard support. I, as a PC gamer, wasn't really even expecting them to go thorugh the trouble of adding a control scheme for our version of the game, seeing how we're no longer the masters of gaming anymore.

 

[Dys]

how are any of these changes supposed to change piracy? no lean? P2P? no mods? no clans? 9 v 9 max? no kicking? how exactly does that have anything to do w/ piracy?

you know 360 is also very prone to piracy too (the game has been leaked for like a week or 2 on it already).

That's got nothing to do with preventing piracy just costing for it. What its about it the cost returns of PC optimisation. Why spend the development time and money when half the consumer base will just try and steal it anyway.

http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_4.html

This article has figures showing the scale of piracy on the 360 is approximately 10% of the that of the PC in terms of total numbers. Given the actual sales figures:

Of the overall figure, North American sales of the Xbox 360 version accounted for 3.04 million. The PC version, meanwhile, only sold 383,000 units at North American retailers, though that number does not include sales made through digital distribution platforms such as Steam.

So treating these as non-realistic but indicative comparative figures:

360 Sales: 3.04 million
360 Piracy: 59,000 (in a one month period)

PC Sales: 383,000
PC Piracy: 566,000 (in a one month period)

Is it really a shock that the IW have seen its returns forecast and looked at the cost of re-tweeking for the PC, and decided, fuck PC gamers?

Spoiler: wall of text

Not including digital platform sales such as steam? Surely then you shouldn't be counting console games sold via a disk....

I think of my self as a pretty generic PC gamer, in the past three years (since I bought my PC) I've only bought a handfull of games. The count as of right now is 7 steam games (I also have 2 or 3 impulse games) and 8 hard copy games (presumably those bought over the internet, which would be 3 of them wouldn't count because they were bought on an online platform, also that count includes guild wars, call of duty 2, tony hawks pro skater 2 and red alert 2 which are all far older so really there's only one title that you'd count).

In real terms, the overwhelming majority of PC games are bought over online platforms which makes that statistic completely irrelivent (steam, direct2drive, playasia, impulse, are all sucessful business, does that not give a hint?). Quoting that statistic reminds me of a newspaper article I read recently claiming that full license holders should have their BAC lowered because probationary drivers (who are not allowed a BAC of above 0) were some 25% more likely to crash in a racing simulation, the relation being that neither prove anything or bear any relevance.

I'd also like to be the take the time to point out that you can't measure piracy at all. 59,000 Xbox 360 pirated 360 games in a month? How the fuck could you know that? Do they install spyware on every singe computer with a burner and moniter how many copies are burned? Do they scour open markets counting how many pirated games a sold without taking any action to stop it? What a pants on head retarded claim, that number is in no way an accurate indication of the number of xbox games pirated. Far more likely it is a number based on torrent downloads on popular torrent sites, which proves somewhere between "sweet fuck all" and "nothing", it's probably worth mentioning that a portion of those downloading the games are probably running modified consoles that they are wanting to create content for (there is a console modding crowd, however relatively small next to the PC modding crowd it may be).

Presumably the PC games pirated simply tick every 'snatch' on various torrent sites as well, does it count as piracy if they user has purchases the game? as many no doubt have? Far more legitimate users modify their games so as to not require a CD/DVD for play than illegitimate. A completely unkown (but relevent) portion of these 'pirates' are, in fact, not pirates at all, and again, do we have people scouring every DVD burner, every stall in ever market monitering how many pirated PC games a sold?

Both claims are beyond retarded, it's little more than justification for over the top DRM and executives trying to justify poor performance of lackluster games (especially on the PC platform), funny how so many games with minimilist copy protection exceed projected profits where big title games fall short. Yes piracy is a problem, and yes it is probably more of an issue on the PC than consoles (even though the DS, PSP, xbox 360 and wii are all pirated from here to hell nad back) but the cold hard facts are we have no way of knowing with any degree of accuracy.

OT: Yes, fans of the franchise have every right to be annoyed, this is the equivilent of a halo or...ok I can't think of any generic PS3 online franchise right now, being released without adequate support. It is a gigantic step backwards. It is incomparable to the left 4 dead 2 boycott (which some people seem to think it should be compared to), had left 4 dead 2 removed key gameplay elements in favor of a more simplisitc, "casual" approach it would have been dead in the water, it didn't. People were just shitty that it was being worked on before the prior game was finished up to their expectations. completely different scenarios. I mean, seriously, no ingame console? No custom settings? Had I ever had any interest in the game I'd be avoiding the PC version at this point (I'm spoilt as I have an xbox 360 and PS3 as well).

 

[Pingieking]

"Waaaaah! Infinity Ward isn't treating PC gamers special anymore! Don't they know we're better than everyone else?"

PC gamers, get over this and yourselves. If it were console gamers who go a feature or two taken away, you wouldn't be fighting for them. And I know for a fact that if it were Valve doing this, a lot of people on this forum wouldn't be complaining. After all, how many mocked the Left 4 Dead 2 boycott? You're telling me you have legitimate complaints and they didn't?

That's actually exactly what I'm telling you, though I didn't bash on the L4D2 boycotters.

These are two completely different situations. L4D2 boycott was started because Valve seemed to have stopped supporting L4D, which means that all the customers who purchased the game expecting several years of support were being royally fucked up the ass. No features were removed from L4D2; the boyott had nothing to do with the product quality of L4D2. I thought that the boycotts were legitimate up to the point where Valve assured people that they won't stop supporting L4D. I dropped my pitchfork and torch then.

In this case, IW is removing features from a game, after they promised us that those features were to be included. A few months back IW said that the PC version will have all the features that it use to, and now we're down to features that barely passes for a game from the 90's (probably doesn't even pass for that, since it doesn't have console commands anymore). This uproar has everything to do with product quality of MW2, and thus is completely different from the L4D2 uproar. If valve was doing this, I'd be considering suicide bombing their headquaters.

PC gamers should be treated differently than consoles; not because we are better than you, but because we are different from you. We (at least the PC gamers that I know) don't consider console gamers to be inferior, we just don't like to game on a console. It has nothing to do with what is better (since that's subjective), it has everything to do with what we like. Why shouldn't we complain about IW taking everything we like out of a beloved franchise?

"If it were console gamers who go a feature or two taken away, you wouldn't be fighting for them."
Do you realize that you've basically critized yourself? Of course most of us wouldn't be fighting for you, but why should we? Your console doesn't concern us. The thing that we shouldn't (and hopefull won't) do is exactly what you're doing now, which is shouting down dissent. If you and your brethern console gamers are going to pull the dick line of "If you don't like it, don't buy it and STFU", then I am going to pull the dick line of "If you don't like it, don't read it and STFU".

 

[Cpt. Red]

how are any of these changes supposed to change piracy? no lean? P2P? no mods? no clans? 9 v 9 max? no kicking? how exactly does that have anything to do w/ piracy?

you know 360 is also very prone to piracy too (the game has been leaked for like a week or 2 on it already).

That's got nothing to do with preventing piracy just costing for it. What its about it the cost returns of PC optimisation. Why spend the development time and money when half the consumer base will just try and steal it anyway.

http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_4.html

This article has figures showing the scale of piracy on the 360 is approximately 10% of the that of the PC in terms of total numbers. Given the actual sales figures:

Of the overall figure, North American sales of the Xbox 360 version accounted for 3.04 million. The PC version, meanwhile, only sold 383,000 units at North American retailers, though that number does not include sales made through digital distribution platforms such as Steam.

So treating these as non-realistic but indicative comparative figures:

360 Sales: 3.04 million
360 Piracy: 59,000 (in a one month period)

PC Sales: 383,000
PC Piracy: 566,000 (in a one month period)

Is it really a shock that the IW have seen its returns forecast and looked at the cost of re-tweeking for the PC, and decided, fuck PC gamers?

Something that is worth noting is that in Europe there are generally more PC gamers then console gamers... Also if one downloads a game it doesn't mean they haven't bought it, e.g. while waiting for the game to be released over here, something I have done with allot of games I have pre-ordered...

EDIT: And that the numbers for downloaded games aren't just for the US...

 

[rossatdi]

OT: Yes, fans of the franchise have every right to be annoyed, this is the equivilent of a halo or...ok I can't think of any generic PS3 online franchise right now, being released without adequate support. It is a gigantic step backwards. It is incomparable to the left 4 dead 2 boycott (which some people seem to think it should be compared to), had left 4 dead 2 removed key gameplay elements in favor of a more simplisitc, "casual" approach it would have been dead in the water, it didn't. People were just shitty that it was being worked on before the prior game was finished up to their expectations. completely different scenarios. I mean, seriously, no ingame console? No custom settings? Had I ever had any interest in the game I'd be avoiding the PC version at this point (I'm spoilt as I have an xbox 360 and PS3 as well).

"Key" gameplay elements? Que?
As far as I can tell the 360, PS3 and PC version are shipping as essentially the same game. So what exactly did they remove? If something is in MW1 but not in MW2 that doesn't override the fact that MW2 has been made as a package. Why should PC gamers get more than console owners?

They certainly don't pay more.

 

[Captain_Caveman]

OT: Yes, fans of the franchise have every right to be annoyed, this is the equivilent of a halo or...ok I can't think of any generic PS3 online franchise right now, being released without adequate support. It is a gigantic step backwards. It is incomparable to the left 4 dead 2 boycott (which some people seem to think it should be compared to), had left 4 dead 2 removed key gameplay elements in favor of a more simplisitc, "casual" approach it would have been dead in the water, it didn't. People were just shitty that it was being worked on before the prior game was finished up to their expectations. completely different scenarios. I mean, seriously, no ingame console? No custom settings? Had I ever had any interest in the game I'd be avoiding the PC version at this point (I'm spoilt as I have an xbox 360 and PS3 as well).

"Key" gameplay elements? Que?
As far as I can tell the 360, PS3 and PC version are shipping as essentially the same game. So what exactly did they remove? If something is in MW1 but not in MW2 that doesn't override the fact that MW2 has been made as a package. Why should PC gamers get more than console owners?

They certainly don't pay more.

Actually. PC is $60 too. And IW/Activision don't have to pay licencing costs for PC. So they're making about $10 more profit on every PC copy sold. So yes, we are paying them more.

or would be if i was actually going to buy the game, like i WAS before they decided to try and bend us over.

 

[Dys]

OT: Yes, fans of the franchise have every right to be annoyed, this is the equivilent of a halo or...ok I can't think of any generic PS3 online franchise right now, being released without adequate support. It is a gigantic step backwards. It is incomparable to the left 4 dead 2 boycott (which some people seem to think it should be compared to), had left 4 dead 2 removed key gameplay elements in favor of a more simplisitc, "casual" approach it would have been dead in the water, it didn't. People were just shitty that it was being worked on before the prior game was finished up to their expectations. completely different scenarios. I mean, seriously, no ingame console? No custom settings? Had I ever had any interest in the game I'd be avoiding the PC version at this point (I'm spoilt as I have an xbox 360 and PS3 as well).

"Key" gameplay elements? Que?
As far as I can tell the 360, PS3 and PC version are shipping as essentially the same game. So what exactly did they remove? If something is in MW1 but not in MW2 that doesn't override the fact that MW2 has been made as a package. Why should PC gamers get more than console owners?

They certainly don't pay more.

I wasn't aware that "different" instantly correlated with more. I was also led to beleive that console gamers are not getting a lean feature, which has been featured (and critical to gameplay) in every call of duty game to date. The user created maps of also been very popular in ever PC version (obviously mod tools don't work on consoles, thus they aren't included).
Console gamers get:
-instant play (no installation or fucking around necissary)
-garunteed working game with no need for patching or OS driver updates. this obviously removes the need to modify settings, the game will have decent performance and the right settings without have to toy with a configuration file
-workable 'friends' list with decent party matchmaking (well, I actually hate the system, but I've been led to beleive that it's far more usable outside of Australia), this includes a peer to peer system that doesn't pause for up to 5 seconds everytime the current host leaves or encounters connection issues (again, this is a real killer for Australian, and probably various other international, gamers who have poor internet options).

PC gamers generally get:
-freedom to set up their profile and configuration how they like (not in this case)
-Dedicated servers and the communities built around them (not in this case)
-Superior graphics on top end systems (this is largely due to user optimization, probably not present in this case, out of the box the visuals are notable inferior to the console counterparts)
-the option to have disruptive players kicked from servers as well as admin control (not in this case).
-An aloof sense of acheivment when they get everything running properly (not in this case, or many of the subpar console ports that flood the market lately)
-free user created content (worth noting that this is not actually possibly on consoles and has been a cornerstone of the CoD multiplayer community since Call of duty, if I recall POWCAMP was a user created map that was used on regular rotation on all major servers).

So, in basciall the platforms cater to people with different needs and wants. If you feel that one platform gets "more" than another, that's the platform you should be using. Bitching that "PC gamers want/get more" means you simply don't understand the market or the two different gaming communities at all, there's a reason why PC gamers and console gamers like different games y'know....

 

[Woe Is You]

"Key" gameplay elements? Que?
As far as I can tell the 360, PS3 and PC version are shipping as essentially the same game. So what exactly did they remove? If something is in MW1 but not in MW2 that doesn't override the fact that MW2 has been made as a package. Why should PC gamers get more than console owners?

Here's the thing, though. The dev console isn't something that costs anything to make, dedicated servers would actually cost less than running their own Xbox Live -esque infrastructure for the game and the cost of letting players run servers with more players on them? Basically zero, again.

None of the moves (sans choosing not to provide map editors and such) IW made make any sense from a cost perspective. In fact, IW actually said that the system they put in place is one of the most expensive investments they've made. Surely just doing what PC games have done for ages (and essentially letting players run their own servers) would've been much cheaper than paying to set up a wholly unnecessary infrastructure that can go down basically the moment Activision decides they're sick of paying for the thing.

It's the same thing with Battle.net, really. If you're tying all your game's multiplayer functionality into your own system, the guys who want to play multiplayer after you (or your system) have gone belly up are SOL.

 

[rossatdi]

Spoiler: wall of text

Not including digital platform sales such as steam? Surely then you shouldn't be counting console games sold via a disk....

I think of my self as a pretty generic PC gamer, in the past three years (since I bought my PC) I've only bought a handfull of games. The count as of right now is 7 steam games (I also have 2 or 3 impulse games) and 8 hard copy games (presumably those bought over the internet, which would be 3 of them wouldn't count because they were bought on an online platform, also that count includes guild wars, call of duty 2, tony hawks pro skater 2 and red alert 2 which are all far older so really there's only one title that you'd count).

In real terms, the overwhelming majority of PC games are bought over online platforms which makes that statistic completely irrelivent (steam, direct2drive, playasia, impulse, are all sucessful business, does that not give a hint?). Quoting that statistic reminds me of a newspaper article I read recently claiming that full license holders should have their BAC lowered because probationary drivers (who are not allowed a BAC of above 0) were some 25% more likely to crash in a racing simulation, the relation being that neither prove anything or bear any relevance.

I'd also like to be the take the time to point out that you can't measure piracy at all. 59,000 Xbox 360 pirated 360 games in a month? How the fuck could you know that? Do they install spyware on every singe computer with a burner and moniter how many copies are burned? Do they scour open markets counting how many pirated games a sold without taking any action to stop it? What a pants on head retarded claim, that number is in no way an accurate indication of the number of xbox games pirated. Far more likely it is a number based on torrent downloads on popular torrent sites, which proves somewhere between "sweet fuck all" and "nothing", it's probably worth mentioning that a portion of those downloading the games are probably running modified consoles that they are wanting to create content for (there is a console modding crowd, however relatively small next to the PC modding crowd it may be).

Presumably the PC games pirated simply tick every 'snatch' on various torrent sites as well, does it count as piracy if they user has purchases the game? as many no doubt have? Far more legitimate users modify their games so as to not require a CD/DVD for play than illegitimate. A completely unkown (but relevent) portion of these 'pirates' are, in fact, not pirates at all, and again, do we have people scouring every DVD burner, every stall in ever market monitering how many pirated PC games a sold?

Both claims are beyond retarded, it's little more than justification for over the top DRM and executives trying to justify poor performance of lackluster games (especially on the PC platform), funny how so many games with minimilist copy protection exceed projected profits where big title games fall short. Yes piracy is a problem, and yes it is probably more of an issue on the PC than consoles (even though the DS, PSP, xbox 360 and wii are all pirated from here to hell nad back) but the cold hard facts are we have no way of knowing with any degree of accuracy.

If anyone can find the digital distribution sales figures for Call of Duty 4 then they're doing better than me. I doubt its at 50% right now, and even if it was at 75% (which it clearly isn't), then the total PC sales would still be comfortably below the 360 sales.

If we assume to double it to 1.6m copies vs the 360's 3m copies then there's still a big gap here. Seeing as the drop in sales from not supporting dedicated servers, etc etc, is unlikely to be substantial (you just watch, I bet you all this bitching won't show in the sales figures) then I can't see how IW have done anything except follow a sane business model.

The pirating figures are from measure torrent downloads. The figures aren't of successful piracy but intended thefts. And the number of PC users trying to download an illegal copy of CoD4 was tenfold. Explain how that's not a relevant figure? Its an indication, rather than cold realistic figures, because those are hard to achieve. What is clear is that these are comparably fair statistics.

If you'd actually read any of the article which I'd linked to you'd see that.

If any of the following points are wrong, enlighten me:

1) Console sales exceed PC sales.
2) Piracy rates are higher amongst PC games.
3) The development cost of having PC specific game features (lean, larger maps) and dedicated servers is larger - and IW must have made a profit based judgement call that they would not lose sales equating to the difference by not including them.

 

[rossatdi]

OT: Yes, fans of the franchise have every right to be annoyed, this is the equivilent of a halo or...ok I can't think of any generic PS3 online franchise right now, being released without adequate support. It is a gigantic step backwards. It is incomparable to the left 4 dead 2 boycott (which some people seem to think it should be compared to), had left 4 dead 2 removed key gameplay elements in favor of a more simplisitc, "casual" approach it would have been dead in the water, it didn't. People were just shitty that it was being worked on before the prior game was finished up to their expectations. completely different scenarios. I mean, seriously, no ingame console? No custom settings? Had I ever had any interest in the game I'd be avoiding the PC version at this point (I'm spoilt as I have an xbox 360 and PS3 as well).

"Key" gameplay elements? Que?
As far as I can tell the 360, PS3 and PC version are shipping as essentially the same game. So what exactly did they remove? If something is in MW1 but not in MW2 that doesn't override the fact that MW2 has been made as a package. Why should PC gamers get more than console owners?

They certainly don't pay more.

Actually. PC is $60 too. And IW/Activision don't have to pay licencing costs for PC. So they're making about $10 more profit on every PC copy sold. So yes, we are paying them more.

or would be if i was actually going to buy the game, like i WAS before they decided to try and bend us over.

That's profit to them, not cost to you. And according to amazon prices its exactly £10 cheaper for PC.

 

[Woe Is You]

3) The development cost of having PC specific game features (lean, larger maps) and dedicated servers is larger - and IW must have made a profit based judgement call that they would not lose sales equating to the difference by not including them.

The cost argument for dropping dedicated servers would make sense if it weren't for IW admitting that their own system is the most expensive investement they've made to date. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/95594-Infinity-Ward-Responds-to-Modern-Warfare-2-Controversy] Also, while lean is a feature that would cost, the amount of players on any one server is merely an integer that can be changed.

 

[fix-the-spade]

The figures aren't to be taken as actual but indicative of scale. A huge number of people, comparably, try to pirate games in the PC market. Even doubling the figure sales figures from the PC the 360 version alone out sells it four times over, without the PS3 sales being taken into account!

Except the numbers aren't indicative at all, it needs context to indicate scale, 800'000 dl's against how many sales of MW4?

We don't know, nobody is counting the actual figure, just the sales from a few specific retail stores. They make no mention of digital dist, sales to rental companies (for consoles), how many are deliberate sabotaged torrents and how many of those torrents are of disc images (which means they will probably get paid for, seeing as the other option is to use a crack and never play VAC servers again). It also discounts hard copy piracy, most console pirates just pass and copy around a single disc, or buy from China.

Tweak's article is fairly even handed, but it's still a very shallow look at the problem.

IW are shooting themselves in the foot, MW4's at or near the top of the steam chart for nearly two years. That equates to millions of games sold even if no-one's publishing the actual figure. They are cutting themselves out of a huge chunk of money by being lazy (and it is laziness), the whole piracy and control issues they highlight are, frankly, bollocks. It's very clear that they see this as an opportunity to make quick savings, the assertions that it's costing them more than it made back in sales is wrong too, it's a small team near the end of production, it's not expensive. Especially measured agaist the MASSIVE cost of IW net they've already admitted to.
They are just desperately massaging the figures to back up their claim.


This is getting like Spore, they are effectively asking PC players to pirate because to pay is to get the inferior product and give up things that have been taken for granted since the mid nineties.

 

[infinisynth]

Ah I remember the good old days of being a pc gamer. I too had the mentality that I was superior to console gamers. Luckily I grew out of that.

 

[rossatdi]

I wasn't aware that "different" instantly correlated with more. I was also led to beleive that console gamers are not getting a lean feature, which has been featured (and critical to gameplay) in every call of duty game to date. The user created maps of also been very popular in ever PC version (obviously mod tools don't work on consoles, thus they aren't included).

Lean wasn't in CoD4 on the 360 as far as I'm aware. I've certainly never seen it used during the 3+ days of multiplayer and two campaign run throughs I've played.

Console gamers get:
-instant play (no installation or fucking around necissary)
-garunteed working game with no need for patching or OS driver updates. this obviously removes the need to modify settings, the game will have decent performance and the right settings without have to toy with a configuration file
-workable 'friends' list with decent party matchmaking (well, I actually hate the system, but I've been led to beleive that it's far more usable outside of Australia), this includes a peer to peer system that doesn't pause for up to 5 seconds everytime the current host leaves or encounters connection issues (again, this is a real killer for Australian, and probably various other international, gamers who have poor internet options).

PC gamers generally get:
-freedom to set up their profile and configuration how they like (not in this case)
-Dedicated servers and the communities built around them (not in this case)
-Superior graphics on top end systems (this is largely due to user optimization, probably not present in this case, out of the box the visuals are notable inferior to the console counterparts)
-the option to have disruptive players kicked from servers as well as admin control (not in this case).
-An aloof sense of acheivment when they get everything running properly (not in this case, or many of the subpar console ports that flood the market lately)
-free user created content (worth noting that this is not actually possibly on consoles and has been a cornerstone of the CoD multiplayer community since Call of duty, if I recall POWCAMP was a user created map that was used on regular rotation on all major servers).

So, in basciall the platforms cater to people with different needs and wants. If you feel that one platform gets "more" than another, that's the platform you should be using. Bitching that "PC gamers want/get more" means you simply don't understand the market or the two different gaming communities at all, there's a reason why PC gamers and console gamers like different games y'know....

You seem to have gotten this wrong. There are two things the PC market has that the console market doesn't.

Spoiler: 1.

Mouse

Spoiler: 2.

Keyboard

And it's the only major thing of interest except for modding.
http://bashandslash.com/index.php?Itemid=89&id=236&option=com_content&task=view
And it seems most of the mods for CoD4 were just gameplay tweeks.
Its not like your losing the source code or something.

From a few years playing CS:S the whole dedicated server thing might as well as been translated as: pre-game hunting for a decent match.

I'm sure there will be some from of clan tagging or friend system to allow you to play with your clan mates.

 

[Danny Ocean]

In terms of costs, fully pimping the PC version would cost a lot more than the sales increase they'd get for it.

How much is IWnet costing them? I mean literally in terms of budget, not in terms of sales lost.

 

[Captain_Caveman]

OT: Yes, fans of the franchise have every right to be annoyed, this is the equivilent of a halo or...ok I can't think of any generic PS3 online franchise right now, being released without adequate support. It is a gigantic step backwards. It is incomparable to the left 4 dead 2 boycott (which some people seem to think it should be compared to), had left 4 dead 2 removed key gameplay elements in favor of a more simplisitc, "casual" approach it would have been dead in the water, it didn't. People were just shitty that it was being worked on before the prior game was finished up to their expectations. completely different scenarios. I mean, seriously, no ingame console? No custom settings? Had I ever had any interest in the game I'd be avoiding the PC version at this point (I'm spoilt as I have an xbox 360 and PS3 as well).

"Key" gameplay elements? Que?
As far as I can tell the 360, PS3 and PC version are shipping as essentially the same game. So what exactly did they remove? If something is in MW1 but not in MW2 that doesn't override the fact that MW2 has been made as a package. Why should PC gamers get more than console owners?

They certainly don't pay more.

Actually. PC is $60 too. And IW/Activision don't have to pay licencing costs for PC. So they're making about $10 more profit on every PC copy sold. So yes, we are paying them more.

or would be if i was actually going to buy the game, like i WAS before they decided to try and bend us over.

That's profit to them, not cost to you. And according to amazon prices its exactly £10 cheaper for PC.

He said "they certainly dont pay more". But we are paying them more (or would be if we bought it, which i'm NOT NOW). That's the point. He's saying we dont pay extra so they shouldn't put any extra effort into the PC version. However we are paying extra. $10 more than a fair price, because consoles have that $10 added for licensing costs. If the console version was $70 then he would be correct. But it's not. The MSRP for PC is $60, the same as both consoles.
http://www.gamestop.com/browse/ProductMerch.aspx?groupid=445