Oh really? Why are there virtually no indie and no open source games that rank anywhere near the best of all time, then?

On whose list?

That's not the point. The point is that you can get a $400 computer and a $300 console, or you can get a $700 gaming PC.



I was talking about graphics drivers.



Now, let's assume that the Console gaming experience were equal to the StarDock/Steam-only gaming experience. That is, all SD/Steam games work instantly and nearly-flawlessly at the moment of release, just like Console games. I don't buy this for a second, but we're pretending.

If you limit yourself to only purchasing what comes out on those two PC platforms, you've basically limited your possible game consumption to a few genres and only a few games in those genres.

StarCraft II will not be coming out on Steam or SD Central. Ever. Neither will the next Total War, or any number of other excellent games. Now yes, Steam is a popular distribution channel. But it isn't all of PC gaming.

In short, you must limit yourself to only buying from certain companies or channels in order to enjoy the same experience you get with every console game.



There are innumerable bugs in Twilight of the Arnor; so many that I have refrained from purchasing it until I see a patch that fixes most of them. I was there for the initial release of GC2 as well, and to call it a beta release would be a statement of undeniable truth.

For a more casual player than myself, giving up on the game within the first few days of its release would not have been unreasonable. Few are the console games that shipped in a similar buggy state. Console games may be getting patches now, but at least the games (by and large) function. They have been vetted by someone outside the developer (unless the game is made by Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo) and pass basic tests of not crashing if left running for a day and UI qualifications.



A genre so niche and irrelevant that nobody who plays the games realizes just how fundamentally disfunctional the genre's core root gameplay is.

So D&D has fundamentally disfunctional gameplay? Have you ever played a roguelike with a graphics frontend?

I guss I don't either, really.

Okay, maybe we're not quite there yet, but the online markets for PC games are rapidly approaching the point where your arguments are going to be useless. Enjoy having the "upper hand" while it lasts.

Almost everybody's. And frankly, I suspect the only reason there are such games on *anybody's* list is because they're biased (most gamers are not...they do not care about the game's roots)



A genre almost nobody plays, and most people would hate (I'm *not* one of them) Incidentally, whilst I like the roguelike concept in theory, all the ones I've played, which is pretty much all of the supposedly best ones, have been quite poor. That's understandable given these things are produced by hobbyists in their spare time.



But are these games *better*? That, too, is a matter of opinion, but frankly I have a very hard time believing your opinion is based on anything other than your bias. It is certainly not a commonly shared opinion, which makes your claim that *quality* suffers when the intent is profit a pretty stupid one.

Thank you, erathoniel.

I needed a good laugh.

No, many people who are true hardcore gamers enjoy freeware or open source games. I know several people who I've handed shareware trials or freeware/open source games to enjoy them to the point where they play them almost exclusively.

Excuse me, but some freeware games are made by people who are professionals in the field. The roguelike concept is perfect, but you have to be willing to work with what's available. These things were made to run on console-interfaces, not GUI's, so they've got fairly simple graphics, but their gameplay is extremely deep. Ever played GearHead? Try it (1 is better than 2 right now).

No, I do find that games made for profit mainly suffer in quality a lot. For instance, most every movie game has very poor systems and gameplay presentation. However, free games do have a lack of quality control, but there are several free games that people will swear by and take over a commercial game. Granted, the commercial games have more resources, but it's easy enough to compare the experiences one would have with most of the commercial games on the market to a free or open source game.

As a former Rogue/Nethack player, I'd say a better term would be "complex." They have little storyline, but complex gameplay. The levels were mostly randomly generated, with a couple pre-defined levels thrown in. It was rather frustrating how easy it was to die, though.



Yeah, the movie based games tend to be the worst quality, especially since the developers are pushed hard to release it the same time as the movie or DVD release. I found it amusing that the devs who made the Ironman game were boasting how it would "break the mold" and actually be a good game - then, after its release, the reviews come in and it's marginal at best, with a lot of complaints about repetitive gameplay.

However, when a commercial developer is not rushed and takes the quiet approach, they can indeed crank out some great games. I'm thinking Stardock, Valve and Blizzard.

I'm not sure I follow: Isn't MMORPG a subset of MMO?



Okay, maybe this is a weakness of PC games - but not really enough to prevent PC owners from buying games.

This arises from a couple factors:

a) The console games are built for a limited number of hardware combinations. You know what the hardware is, its limitations, and likely most of its bugs as well. With a PC, however, all of the hardware is a hodgepodge of parts from any number of vendors, and accounting for all of the hardware variances is a lot more difficult.

You'll see this effect on the Mac as well: Generally, Mac developers have a much clearer idea of what hardware and software environment they'll be running on, so Mac software will often appear to be less buggy.

When the software is placed on a disk for a console, you're likely to never get a chance to patch it. So a lot more careful attention is (soon to be was?) paid to getting it right the first time.

Unfortunately, with the increasing connectivity of both computers and consoles, factor b is unfortunately starting to fade away: Since patches can be released, many developers are indeed getting lazier and releasing early with known bugs. It's sad to say, but you're right.

The question is: Is this what's really causing publishers to move away from PCs? These distinctions have been around for a long time - why move away from the PC now? Why didn't they do it earlier?



Stardock I could call Indie - but not Valve. I don't have any numbers on me, but it looks like Steam has made them a bit of a mega-publisher themselves.



Agreed, they make good quality games. I guess I just don't play their games much, for reasons of personal taste.

Yes, my bad, By "made by hobbyists" I really meant "made as a hobby". I wasn't trying to imply anything about the skills of the makers of the games.





Popularity is a poor indicator of the user's opinion of the quality. I use a tonne of freeware apps. However, whilst they *are* often better than the mediocre commercial products, in most cases I know they are *not* the best available, because I have used the free trial periods of better products. I didn't buy them, because I didn't consider the improvement worth the money. Same with games. Very few of the best ones are going to be free, but that doesn't mean the best free games won't be better than some commercial products, or that somebody is automatically going to think the improvement in quality of a commercial product is worth paying for. (When I say "free" above, I'm meaning produced with no intent to profit, so I'm excluding the results of any business model for which free products are a deliberate component.)



I don't like the description most people use, which seems to be a pretty arbitrary reference to the size of the publisher involved. I personally look at the independence of the development, so class as "independent" any self-published title. Or, I suppose, any product which was completed before being touted to publishers (probably very rare)

Due to my unusual definition, I think we may have a point of some agreement - the publishers at the top end of the scale do tend to be *all* about the bottom line, and all about it *right now* because they have investors to satisfy. This *can* hurt quality *relative to what might have been achieved*. That's really very different from saying that it's the intent to make profit *itself* that hurts quality, though - without that intent on the part of the developers, it's unlikely the product would have even been made. It should also be noted that small publishers can be just as guilty of forcing premature release, though perhaps more often for different reasons (for example, because they simply can't financially afford further delay). We also perhaps shouldn't be so quick to lay the blame at the publisher's door...the developers, after all, will usually have failed to meet pre-agreed deadlines, and I'm sure in some cases it's the developers who force release.

Yeah, but console producers choose to take no accountability of their crappiness at times. For instance, I can't count how many broken, horrible console games I've seen. Sometimes it's just a matter of pride.

Yes, self development is the best. Communication and artistic style are more brought together when everyone has unity. Westwood made awesome games while it lasted. Now EA just makes arcade crap.

I have an AMD laptop (Dual Core, 1.81 GHZ, nVidia GeForce Go 6150, 2 GB ram, 120 [HP, so 100] GB HD, and 17' monitor). So it has a fair deal of firepower (it *should* run almost anything with enough graphics downgrades), but it seems to dislike anything EA makes. Anything with more than sixteen players (given I could find that many, or find bots to play them) is taboo (NPC's ok, bots not), and I'd have to take up human sacrifice to play a decent racing game with city, police, and traffic dynamics (NFS, some other games).