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Is it me or did he keep his mouth shut until Borderlands came out? I mean I hear the game was good but not great, maybe he shouldn't be getting ahead of himself? | |
Can't this guy be quiet for awhile? Really..he made one good game and he has already bashed Valve, iD, Cryteck and whatnot. Oi Mr.Ptichfordn come back when you have made more than loot-whore 'r us games and expansion packs for another company. | |
I still don't know who the fuck Gearbox are... Gimme a second. *GOOGLE MAGIC!* Oh... "Portbox"... Just trying to get attention. Move along, nothing to see here, emo kid cutting his wrists, move along! | |
Pitchford is obviously a man searching for the spotlight, but he's right about the generation plus problem. We hit the point of diminishing returns with graphics hardware in ~2004, and at the same time CPU fabrication tech reached a plateau. So not only is it way harder to get the next 50% improvement out of the hardware, but the rewards for doing so are getting smaller and smaller. Worse, every new generation takes more manpower to make it go, and the EA layoffs show that the last thing we need right now is for development to get MORE expensive. | |
Is it me or is everything he is saying is being blown out of proportion? He used 'Crytek' as an example, considering everyone, even on the PC gamer side of the pond were wondering if you needed a PC from outerspace to play Crysis. Yeah, the game worked fine on my old computer, and warhead ran perfectly on the computer I upgraded. However, he is damn right when he mention that developers who try to go ahead of their time are risking something, specially if it's in the PC market. | |
He's just sad that they get more money than him and is trying to create publicity. BUTTHURT! | |
I didn't realize Crysis sold almost as many copies as Bioshock... learn something new everyday. | |
Yes it is a risk, but only by pushing the current boundaries of technology will we find new and exciting methods of entertainment. God i sound like one of them now :S | |
I'm 50-50 on this perspective. While it is far better to see the companies focus on the current system specs, some people do need to push the bar a bit. Emphasis goes on some though, because the specs they want fall into such a small niche that competition for it is the last thing a company can use in the market right now. | |
I agree with him in general, but we haven't yet seen Rage or Crysis 2. No matter what iD or Crytek say, the important thing is what they'll actually create. | |
Yeah. At this point things look beautiful and realistic enough as is even in this generation's lower engines, and the investment (in both development time and funds) required to go further is just... Overkill... IMO there are a lot more important things to improve or work on right now than graphics. Stories in game still have a shameful tendency to be ridiculous or written by 12 year olders, gameplay is starting to get really stale, and honestly the industry as a whole could really benefit from companies taking some time off graphics and dedicating it more to everything else. Hell, giving "less hardcore" PC gamers time to catch up hardware wise will do nothing if not wonders for their sales. Personally I'd set the bar around CryEngine 3/Frostbite engine (since they're developed already, might as well use them. Also they both bring interesting things to the table like procedural terrain destruction and in Cytek's case, triple platform coding at once) and propose everyone leaves graphics alone for a good long while. Still, I can't help but to look at...whatshisface from Gearbox as a 9 year old waving his arms around... Kind of kills his credibility. | |
Are these developers not dealing with the same RECESSION the rest of us are? Because per your quote, EA certainly is, and they're one of the biggest players. It would certainly seem like now is not the time to be getting all excited about the next console generation, when gamers aren't buying the games made for this one. I also feel the need to weigh in here because I am nothing more than a hardcore PC gamer who finally broke down and bought a 360 only because it was a third the price it was going to cost to make my five year old Dell run newer PC games at full spec. My brother-in-law continually does just that, and his custom PC is fantastic and runs everything perfectly, but cost 4 months salary and the tower is the size of a bass amp and runs like 8 fans. Meanwhile, I can carry my 360 in one hand and don't have to screw around with graphic sliders to get Fallout 3 to run well. And as far as pushing the graphical envelope in general - look at the Sims 2 and Peggle sales figures. Granted, they're at the very low end of the spectrum. But clearly there is a LOT of money to be made on gameplay over hardware taxing. | |
This is my opinion. I thought Borderlands was a step in the right direction myself, it looked good, but played well on a lot of computers and had a very distinctive look. I really do wish your man would shut up though, he's rapidly raising himself up there with Tim Langdell and Bobby Kotick in terms of arseholes in the industry. | |
I hate Pitchford, all he seems to do is run his mouth about other developers (who frankly I prefer). | |
Say Randy don't you have some, oh I dunno, GAMES to make? You still are the CEO of Gearbox right? | |
I can understand what he is saying and we don't know how long this generation of consoles will last selling 1 million copies may not be enough these PC games are very expensive to make looking too ahead could hurt Id and Crytek | |
id are stuck in the past and Crysis has more appeal as benchmarking software for new PCs than as an actual game? This is outrageous. I've never heard such controversial, attention seeking piffle! | |
Christ, Pitchford. Give it a rest. Yes we all hear you, yes we know you're there. Thanks for not removing dedicated servers from your game but don't start thinking you know what's best for the world of gaming. If id software stopped thinking one generation ahead, we'd never have Doom or Quake, and that means we'd never have Half-Life or HL: Op Force, the first successful Gearbox title that I'm familiar with. You also wouldn't have had a idTech engine for IW to base Modern Warfare around, which means you wouldn't have anything to be notable for complaining about, Randy. | |
Makes sense to me. Develop games that can only be run on cutting edge hardware, during a recession, and you're pretty much asking for low sales figures. | |
Excuse me, but why did he mention iD? They haven't made a cutting-edge game since 2004. And Doom 3 was only good, at best. | |
I think he just needs a nap and a juice box, not attention. | |
Just so you know, COD:MW2 sold LESS than 1 million. So beating COD:MW2 while STILL aiming for high end users, not a bad feat there. But Crysis was playable on quite a lot of PCs, just that you couldn't max it out. It was still prettier than the other games on the market. While I still find Gearbox Half-Life Opposing Force the best Expansion out there on the market. I'm not sure what to think of them now. Hmm 6 Brother in Arms games. 6 WHOLE games about WW2 alone O_O and they wonder why it sold bad. Borderlands? They need to patch things up before I'll really like it. | |
Only when you push the envelope do you advance. | |
I do have to question his logic on crytek and id considering their next games are multiplatform releases and thus are targeted and hampered by current generation consoles | |
Who the hell does this guy think he is? I didn't bother with it at first, but it seems like the guy thinks he's some sort of video game prophet. Hell, he's been at this how long? Yet little old Gearbox thinks they know more about making games than not just Valve, but id and Crytek? Are you kidding me? Seriously, are you? | |
true you can push the boundaries but how many are going to buy it??? People don't like to change so quickly let this generation have its turn and then move forward | |
I wish this lad could find another way to spend his free time instead of scratching his 3 balls and verbally bashing other people that are trying to do their job. Who the fuck is this guy? I did not even know him until last month. I appreciate the concern but last time I checked, you weren't in my list of people that I consider influential or part of my inner conscience. Simply make games. If you insist on playing counselor on other companies, then work for them. Or go shoot your mouth off. You got options. About 87 bazillion of them. PS. The fact that Crysis sold as many copies as Bioshock kind of makes me lose my fate to the gaming world. | |
"Pitchford could have a point, I suppose, but I'm inclined to think that it's just more noise from someone who clearly craves attention." Can I expect to see this sort of statement used to describe Newell the next time he bloviates? | |
um dunno how accurate it is,but wikipedia says MW2 sold 4.7million copies in the first 24hrs in the US and UK.I dont know were you got your info, but theres just no way a release that big shifted less than a million copies. | |
I'm talking PC sales here. COD:MW2 PC sales where pathetically low for a game like that. If they had supported things on the other hand it would be increase several times. | |
greatness =/= high sales, i'd rather see a company make eough money to be profitable, but not TOO profitable (AND I DO NOT ENCOURAGE PIRACY), so that the developer remains somewhat connected to their core audience. | |
heres the problem with his argument: hardware drives software development. its a fact. it wasant until the advent of consumer multi-core processors that developers started making their programs multithreaded even though several processors in the past had used simultaneous multithreading and the advantages of multihreaded applications were very clear. theres nothing wrong with developing for high end hardware, just as long as you at least make it capable of running on lower end machines, and this is exactly what developers, including crytek with crysis (despite the pervasive notion that it takes a super computer to run), have done. the other problem is that this is what id has been doing since doom and wolf3d, for over 17 years, and they are still around. id broke MAJOR ground with the quake 3 engine by doing away with software rendering and requiring a graphics card, and if id managed to survive that then how can making games for high end systems that push boundaries of what is graphically possible make them fail? this is also assuming that both developers make games solely for the pc, and while that was true of both companies in the past they are both now very much multiplatform developers.
the problem here is that while bioshock had what is one of, if not the, best, deepest stories in any game the actual gameplay (aka, shooting) wasant all that great, whereas crysis had a weak story but the gameplay/shooting was excellent. this is also taking into account the pc sales of bioshock only and NOT total sales which did exceed the number of copies that crysis has sold. | |
I didn't realize Crysis sold 1 million copies. Wow. I mean, I know it was pirated to hell and back but I didn't realize that many people bought it. I do actually plan on getting it because I really enjoyed Far Cry (one) (except the story, lol) and it just seems like more of that. :) I think id and Crytek will be okay, but I agree that they are sort of gambling with their consumers. I know wolfenstein and quake have huge followings, but they want to do a new ip, (since not enough post-apocalyptic games are out there I guess, heh) and certain projects of theirs should get more attention in my opinion (quake live, quake 4, doom 3) | |
Nintendo is profitable but yet they haven't done a single thing for the their core audience. Its up the people working at the company to have a connection. | |
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Gearbox Boss Says id, Crytek are "Risking Failure"
Gearbox Software boss Randy Pitchford is at it again, this time saying that Crytek and id are "risking failure" by developing games requiring highly advanced, cutting-edge hardware instead of focusing squarely on the current generation.
Randy Pitchford's been making a lot of noise about other people's studios lately. It seemed initially that he just had a bee in his bonnet for Valve, accusing the Bellevue boys first of putting the screws to the rest of the industry with Steam and then later of being anti-PS3 fanboys because of their refusal to develop for the platform. But he spread it around a bit in a recent outburst in Official Xbox Magazine, turning his attention to a pair of other shooter developers, Crytek and id.
Pitchford believes the two companies are setting themselves up for a fall by assuming that the current generation of consoles is going to last roughly as long as those of the past. "Anyone that built their strategies around the last generation timing, and is trying to employ those strategies today, is either being forced to adapt very quickly or is risking failure. This is going to be the longest generation we've seen in the last few of them," he said.
"Some people have invested a lot going to a place that's too far, and the customers aren't ready for that yet because they don't have the hardware for it," he continued. "I was thinking of Crytek, they couldn't find a market because they made a game [Crysis] that very few people could play. I'm not putting words in their mouth, I remember reading something publicly where they said they couldn't put this on consoles because of the hardware..."
id Software is making a similar mistake with Rage, he added. "We see the id guys talking continuously about this [with Rage], 'Well, Sony will have a Blu-Ray and I don't know what we'll do on the 360, maybe we'll have three DVD's... if the publisher will let us do that, maybe we'll errrrahh I dunno'," Pitchford said. "Because they're in this kind of 'generation plus' mode, and like nobody knows what the generation beyond this one is going to look like."
Pitchford could have a point, I suppose, but I'm inclined to think that it's just more noise from someone who clearly craves attention. Both id and Crytek have reputations for developing cutting-edge games that are more remarkable for their technology than their actual gameplay, yet both companies have done quite well for themselves, particularly id, which has been advancing FPS technology since the early 90s. His suggestion that Crytek "couldn't find a market" for Crysis is equally fallacious: The game sold over a million copies, no small feat for a PC-exclusive FPS based on a new IP and, perhaps even more to the point, roughly in line with sales of the PC version of BioShock.
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