All I have to say that this is nothing but a waste of resources as it can't and WON'T amount to ANYTHING.

What a bunch of tossers.

When will people stop putting those 2 games in the same sentence?

They were never meant to be.

Tell that to the developers who kept calling it the spiritual successor to System Shock.

Shesh guys, this is a good thing. Maybe PC gaming will move to the forefront once again.

pc gaming was never behind. it only looks like second to consoles (multiple platforms vs one) because of flawed statistics that made it look like it is lagging in sales. did you even read the article?

You're totally mistaken. Counter-Strike players are some of the most die hard PC loyalists. Ask a CS player what they think about Halo or GoW.

Something tells me it will be mostly unintelligible.

we walk the streets at night
we go where eagles dare........

Microsoft doesn't deserve to be in this "alliance"..he's a major contributor to the downfall of the PC gaming industry.
Intel is almost just as guilty, they don't care about gaming, they're just padding their pocket with our money while they pay the devs to jack the system requirements.
If they wanted to help the industry, they would start listening to gamers...

I threw up a little as this thought hit me, EA, for all their downfalls, knows a good game...and should be involved.
/gonna throw up now

> Ask a CS player what they think about Halo or GoW.

That doesn't mean they don't like the billion other adversarial games on the console. The only thing they prefer about the PC is they can cheat.

... all the mindless hordes who play CounterStrike are the same sort that would love consoles

You're totally mistaken. Counter-Strike players are some of the most die hard PC loyalists. Ask a CS player what they think about Halo or GoW.

Bioshock was good, though it paled in comparison to System Shock 2,

When will people stop putting those 2 games in the same sentence?

They were never meant to be.

we walk the streets at night
we go where eagles dare........

1. Inerior Hardware - For the price you can't beat it. You might be able to today but when the console was released the graphics it offered were not possible on a PC costing $400 and software continues to look better.

I don't have a $400 PC so I expect games that take advantage of my quad core and 8800. You cannot expect the same of consoles because their hardware is limited.

2. Inferior Control Scheme - I think it's fair to say that console games are less complex. Making a game complex does not make it fun and Consoles have found a way to maximize what people find fun and trim all the rest of the stuff away.

The key thing here is that keyboard and mouse enable developers to make complex games and there are many genres that benefit from it. Tribes doesn't work with a gamepad. MMOs don't work with gamepads. RTS doesn't work with a gamepad. STALKER wouldn't work with a gamepad. Flight sims don't work with a gamepad. Mech sims don't work with a gamepad. Quake doesn't work with a gamepad. There are many things you can do with a keyboard and mouse that you simply can't do with a gamepad.

3. Retarded Audience - Lumping everyone together who uses consoles is ignorant and inflammatory. There is as much variety there as anywhere else in the gaming community.

The fact that FPSes actually sell well on consoles is pretty indicative of the general intelligence level of console players.

CoD4 is a masterpiece in my opinion. So was Bioshock. The Orange box was great as well. All formly titles you'd only find on PC's and done exceptionally well on consoles.

CoD4 was okay, in my opinion. Highly scripted, highly formulaic and highly antiquated design philosophy (respawning enemies? Wow). Bioshock was good, though it paled in comparison to System Shock 2, a game you'd only find on the PC. Orange Box was designed for the PC first and foremost, so that's irrelevant example.

When you start considering the cons of the PC as a gaming platform both from a new users standpoint (cost, compatibility issues, stability) and from a developer stand point of trying to design software that runs on as many machines as possible it's easy to see why game companies want to design on a console.

Nobody is questioning why developers are favoring consoles. We are simply lamenting that they do so because it results in the castration and/or death of once great genres. This new PC Gaming Alliance is a complete farce and misses the point entirely. To PC gamers, the problem isn't with marketing or accessibility. The problem is that developers aren't making good PC games.

So are they fighting the Horde?

my god, I can't believe I just used a WoW reference.

off to the naughty corner.

/edit: Or better yet, the Empire? There, I feel better about myself now.

we walk the streets at night
we go where eagles dare........
This comment was edited on Feb 20, 16:41.

> (who uses the meme "M$" anymore?? what are you from the 90's???)

In his defense how is Micro$oft acting any different from the 90's? Vista and DX10 is a dog that is being forced down our throats.

This thread has no facts, a lot of rhetoric, a lot of whining & lots of BS. (what is this Slashdot?)

Shesh guys, this is a good thing. Maybe PC gaming will move to the forefront once again.

(who uses the meme "M$" anymore?? what are you from the 90's???)

Focusing on something doesn't mean disregarding everything else. Besides it isn't like he said he hates the PC and wants it to die as a platform and that he wouldn't develop for it, he said he thought it was in disarray. I guess that is one of the cool things about being an indep. dev, you speak your mind.

I welcome Epic to the team provided they start putting some of that quality co-op that I enjoyed in Gears on the 360 (it was what made the game fun for me) in PC games. I, for one, enjoy being able to play what would otherwise be a single player experience with friends. Now a big couch and a big screen split in 1/2 obviously lends itself to that better than PC gaming, but it isn't like we don't have LANs and the even the internet and voice chat.

They can pry my PC games from my cold dead hands.

Until consoles add keyboards/mouse and stop designing games for 12 year olds I will stick to PC gaming even with all of it's flaws.

The only problem is that an increasing number of companies are releasing extremely bad ports of console games on the PC. Microsoft and UBI are the worst criminals.

PC gaming has the potential to get better because all the mindless hordes who play CounterStrike are the same sort that would love consoles. I won't miss them at all, lol.

o rly? On what point? Care to explain?

1. Inerior Hardware - For the price you can't beat it. You might be able to today but when the console was released the graphics it offered were not possible on a PC costing $400 and software continues to look better.

2. Inferior Control Scheme - I think it's fair to say that console games are less complex. Making a game complex does not make it fun and Consoles have found a way to maximize what people find fun and trim all the rest of the stuff away. If you compare a game like Crysis with it's multiple weapon attachment interface in game and CoD4 which lets users customize their weapons before games (multiplayer) you can see similar things approached from different directions.

3. Retarded Audience - Lumping everyone together who uses consoles is ignorant and inflammatory. There is as much variety there as anywhere else in the gaming community.


PC gamers are on the defensive right now because the Consoles have basically muscled them out of FPS's, RPG's, and it's looking like RTS's and MMO's are next. And to add insult to injury they show no appreciation for the creation and growth of those genre's to the pc community. It wouldn't be that hard to build in Keyboard and Mouse support and allow people to re-map the controls but this hasn't happened yet. It's sad that that those games have basically been robbed from the PC platform but the console versions of those games are growing and improving.

I'll be the first to tell anyone that BF1942 and BF2 were worlds better than Battlefield: Modern Combat on the Xbox and 360. And so was BF2142 for that matter, but the state of games today is so much better. CoD4 is a masterpiece in my opinion. So was Bioshock. The Orange box was great as well. All formly titles you'd only find on PC's and done exceptionally well on consoles.

The gaming industry is changing and consoles are likely going to be the only place to buy big budget video games in the future. They offer an easy all in one package for new customers, a standard set of hardware to design on, protection from Piracy (this is a much bigger issue in companies eyes than it is to us), and a marketing/retail juggernaut to push the software. When you start considering the cons of the PC as a gaming platform both from a new users standpoint (cost, compatibility issues, stability) and from a developer stand point of trying to design software that runs on as many machines as possible it's easy to see why game companies want to design on a console.

Skulltrail... 2x quadcore processors... I'm still waiting for games to be natively coded to fully utilize 2 cores.

On another note, I find it immensely humorous that Epic is a member of the Alliance considering Cliffy B.'s recent statements about focusing on consoles.

The above quote is a text book case on how to mislead using statistics.

remember einstein's quote? lies, more lies and then statistics.

Best Buy: This is what is confusing about them, they have the floor space devoted to PCs, could easily market gaming PCs with demo machines and setups. oh well.

the pc section at best buy seems intent on isolating pc games. on at least 3 best buys near where i live the pc section is flanked by two long and perpendicular aisle. all the console sections are parallel to each other making it easy to browse. i hope this gaming alliance will fix that problem.

I could argue the point, but in thinking about my comment, I feel it does distract from the central issues here, so I removed it.

Stephen "Blue" Heaslip
Blue's News Publisher, Editor-in-Chief, El Presidente for Life

You can always put your views up in the comments section, it is for everyone after all
Looking back I can see how it certainly hasn't helped the situation. However I put the reason squarly on the consoles doorstep. Over the past decade they've slowly become more and more like a PC. All its missing at the moment is a word processing application and a printer and they're pretty much there.

you can blame M$ for the lack of support. it is coop money that buys floor space and display location. games for windows initiative from M$ (which controls all windows games regardless of dev/publisher) is not giving enough money to gain floor space. that is why circuit city is putting new release of pc games behind the counter. out of plain view.

Yep, and their love of the 360 at the moment pretty much pushes the pc to the back of the line.

This comment was edited on Feb 20, 15:11.