THQ Director Blames Piracy for Iron Lore Closure [Mar 03, 2008, 10:06 pm ET] – Share – Viewing Comments
GamesIndustry.biz reports on a post on the
Quarter
To Three Forums by THQ director of creative management Michael Fitch venting
his frustrations with the state of PC gaming following the closure of Iron Lore
Entertainment (story). The lengthy post outlines concerns about
rampant piracy, how Titan Quest's reputation suffered when pirates reported
crashes (which were caused by failure to properly crack the game's DRM),
complaints about hardware vendors creating compatibility issues, stupid users
and bad reviewers. He concludes trying to look at the bright side: "Alright, I'm
done. Making PC products is not all fun and games. It's an uphill slog,
definitely. I'm a lifelong PC gamer, and hope to continue to work on PC games in
the future, but man, they sure don't make it easy."
So apart from the endless stream of WWII shooters and thoose oh so stunning need for speed games what exactly has pc gaming lost?????
Vehicular combat games? Space sims? Mech sims? cRPGs? Shooters with depth (like DX or SS2) or incredibly quick, high-flying action (Quake, UT, Tribes)? How about actual tactical shooters?
I may be mistaken here, Jerykk, but I think you're saying that we've lost all these types games on the PC, right?
Vehicular combat games - Ehhh, what are these? I can't even think of one.
Space Sims - The X series is doing fine. Their next title was recently announced. And while few here care for his games, Derek Smart seems to be going fairly strong still. I wouldn't exactly call this dead.
Mech Sims - Fair enough, but we lost those a long time ago, back when only a few idiots were whining about how PC gaming was dead.
cRPGs - Witcher? Mask of the Betrayer? Two worlds? That's just what's been released last year.
Shooters with depth - What's wrong with Crysis? It runs like a one legged whore with a broken back but I'd call it a pretty deep shooter? Large open areas, the suit powers that actually make a big difference on how you play. And what about Bioshock? Giant underwater station that you can walk back and forth in plus plasmids plus ton of weapons plus upgrades plus being able to use the environment against your enemies not good enough?
or incredibly quick, high-flying action - It's funny because you mention UT, and we just had the umpteenth iteration of that game released. Also, Team Fortress 2?
So many once great PC franchises have been consolized and brought to ruin while new PC franchises are growing increasingly rare
I'm not so sure. Off the top of my head, 3 long time PC Franchises are actually being restored this year. Fallout, Starcraft and Deus Ex. Whether or not those games will be any good is another matter entirely. And I also think that, as largely veteran PC gamers, we've all grown into a terribly jaded lot. I'll take full blame for being a jaded asshole myself, but I'm far from alone in that regard. It seems there's very little that can still satisfy us.
For an excellent example in that, see all the bile that Fallout 3 brings to these boards. From what I see, Bethesda is really trying to make the game fairly authentic to what made Fallout great, but because it's first person, it will automatically suck.
Any and all talk of PC Gaming being in decline, while ignoring fantastic sales numbers for games such as Sins of a Solar Empire, Galciv2, the Witcher, Bioshock (and even Crysis, if we believe the 1 million mark), seems a bit doom and gloom to me.
PC Gaming will never die. Ever. As long as there are PCs, devs will keep making games for them, even if only for the very simple reason that they don't have to pay a licensing fee to develop for the PC.
And as long as we get the occasional great game (such as the Witcher, or Sins of a Solar Empire), I'll be happy.
Creston
Vehicular combat games? Space sims? Mech sims? cRPGs? Shooters with depth (like DX or SS2) or incredibly quick, high-flying action (Quake, UT, Tribes)? How about actual tactical shooters?
I may be mistaken here, Jerykk, but I think you're saying that we've lost all these types games on the PC, right?
Vehicular combat games - Ehhh, what are these? I can't even think of one.
Space Sims - The X series is doing fine. Their next title was recently announced. And while few here care for his games, Derek Smart seems to be going fairly strong still. I wouldn't exactly call this dead.
Mech Sims - Fair enough, but we lost those a long time ago, back when only a few idiots were whining about how PC gaming was dead.
cRPGs - Witcher? Mask of the Betrayer? Two worlds? That's just what's been released last year.
Shooters with depth - What's wrong with Crysis? It runs like a one legged whore with a broken back but I'd call it a pretty deep shooter? Large open areas, the suit powers that actually make a big difference on how you play. And what about Bioshock? Giant underwater station that you can walk back and forth in plus plasmids plus ton of weapons plus upgrades plus being able to use the environment against your enemies not good enough?
or incredibly quick, high-flying action - It's funny because you mention UT, and we just had the umpteenth iteration of that game released. Also, Team Fortress 2?
So many once great PC franchises have been consolized and brought to ruin while new PC franchises are growing increasingly rare
I'm not so sure. Off the top of my head, 3 long time PC Franchises are actually being restored this year. Fallout, Starcraft and Deus Ex. Whether or not those games will be any good is another matter entirely. And I also think that, as largely veteran PC gamers, we've all grown into a terribly jaded lot. I'll take full blame for being a jaded asshole myself, but I'm far from alone in that regard. It seems there's very little that can still satisfy us.
For an excellent example in that, see all the bile that Fallout 3 brings to these boards. From what I see, Bethesda is really trying to make the game fairly authentic to what made Fallout great, but because it's first person, it will automatically suck.
Any and all talk of PC Gaming being in decline, while ignoring fantastic sales numbers for games such as Sins of a Solar Empire, Galciv2, the Witcher, Bioshock (and even Crysis, if we believe the 1 million mark), seems a bit doom and gloom to me.
PC Gaming will never die. Ever. As long as there are PCs, devs will keep making games for them, even if only for the very simple reason that they don't have to pay a licensing fee to develop for the PC.
And as long as we get the occasional great game (such as the Witcher, or Sins of a Solar Empire), I'll be happy.
Creston
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