• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

'PC development has skyrocketed,' GDC survey finds: 80% of developers are now making games for PC, more than double the number working on PS5 or Xbox.

DoubleClutch

Gold Member
"Make better games" means spending more money on the games or the marketing.
Spending more money means higher budgets.
Higher budgets means the risk of not earning back that money is alot higher.


Come on now, you cant be that naive - games are a business!
The ones who give a shit are the publishers investing the money!
Do you think they would still do that if there is no market for those?
Where are all the big PC only AAA games that arent Star Citizen or Live Service?

Epic Games fully funded Alan Wake 2.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
How is VR/AR at 114% of devs? Suppose to say 14%.

Xbox GP is a weird platform to choose. How many games are GP only? Any? Pretty sure you can buy the game on platforms too.
 
Last edited:

squidilix

Member
When you make a game to PC, is easy to port on other support.

But you have more shovelware on PC too. I mean, "Sex with hitler" is this kind of "new project" I suppose...

People read "OMG 80% of video games is AAA on PC"... the reality you have 60% of indie and trash game exclusive to PC and 20% AA / AAA budget coming on all support.
 
Last edited:

ScHlAuChi

Member
You’re wrong. The PC market is only growing and becoming more accessible.
Yes the PC market is growing, but not with high end AAA games.
It is indies and Live Service that is growing it.

The user base and demand will always be there. It’s not like people without an Xbox are suddenly going to quit gaming. They’d just move to PC.
The problem is more complicated than that.
The number of people on Steam that have a PC that can run the latest AAA games is tiny.
Publishers want to reach the biggest audience, so they make games for whatever the lowest common denominator is.

Just admit that everything is becoming a PC. It’s better for everyone.
The consoles are already PC´s but their markets work completely different than PC.
Consoles are a fixed base that devs can rely on, on PC no such thing exists.
 
Last edited:
Makes sense as PC kept getting bigger over the years. This ain't like the PS2 days or before when there were lots of good exclusives on consoles for PS2, PS1, XBOX, N64.

Most of the good games launches on multiplatforms. Even a lot of exclusive are timed exclusives and the true exclusives aren't good enough on their own. Plus people usually have their PC on whenever they're home while most people leave their consoles in the dust for weeks or even months until another decent game comes out. Made the jump to PC during the Wii and PS3 days and got no regrets.
 
Last edited:

HogIsland

Member
And who exactly will finance all those big SP AAA projects then when there is no more consoles?


Wrong - money and time are limited resources that companies compete for.
More competition = lower chance that your product will succeed.
Rising risk is not good for business or profits!


The only people who have a problem are those that dont understand that most AAA PC ports wouldnt exist without consoles to begin with!
Why do you think PC only AAA games have died off?

PC != gaming on a desk

future consoles just are PCs that look and act like consoles.
 

ScHlAuChi

Member
Epic Games fully funded Alan Wake 2.
They did, but that game was not PC only - it was a multi plattform game that barely made its investment back even with console!
At the same time Fortnite made them billions, so why exactly should Epic invest in such projects in the future?
 

DoubleClutch

Gold Member
Yes the PC market is growing, but not with high end AAA games.
It is indies and Live Service that is growing it.


The problem is more complicated than that.
The number of people on Steam that have a PC that can run the latest AAA games is tiny.
Publishers want to reach the biggest audience, so they make games for whatever the lowest common denominator is.


The consoles are already PC´s but their markets work completely different than PC.

Not with high end games? So PlayStation is high end now? Lmao, get real.
 

phant0m

Member
Makes sense as PC kept getting bigger over the years. This ain't like the PS2 days or before when there were lots of good exclusives on consoles for PS2, PS1, XBOX, N64.

Most of the good games launches on multiplatforms. Even a lot of exclusive are timed exclusives and the true exclusives aren't good enough on their own. Plus people usually have their PC on whenever they're home while most people leave their consoles in the dust for weeks or even months until another decent game comes out. Made the jump to PC during the Wii and PS3 days and got no regrets.
A lot people chasing that streamer dream which is way easier on PC

Xbox exclusives have been on PC for years and Sony is now following suit. 9th gen console performance is also dogshit. Gamers don’t want 30fps or muddy upscaling.

Console party chat is also dead, anyone that games with friends now is on discord.
 
Last edited:

DoubleClutch

Gold Member
They did, but that game was not PC only - it was a multi plattform game that barely made its investment back even with console!
At the same time Fortnite made them billions, so why exactly should Epic invest in such projects in the future?

The point is game development would be just fine without any consoles. It wasn’t developed for consoles in mind. Epic developed it to make money for its store. They threw it to consoles because why not?
 

rodrigolfp

Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
Do you think they would still do that if there is no market for those?
No market how?? PC market would still be here.
Yes the PC market is growing, but not with high end AAA games.
It is indies and Live Service that is growing it.



The problem is more complicated than that.
The number of people on Steam that have a PC that can run the latest AAA games is tiny.
Publishers want to reach the biggest audience, so they make games for whatever the lowest common denominator is.


The consoles are already PC´s but their markets work completely different than PC.
Both are growing.

The number of users with RTX cards and cards powerful enough but without RT is huge.

They are still very far from being "PCs". If they were that would not be any reason to play on PC.
 
Last edited:

ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Wasn't this always the norm? Like the amount of games releasing on PC dwarfs anything on all consoles combined or is it because of PCMR having like defacto BC that the library is gigantic

It was only 58% back in 2022, and then 66% in 2024. This year it soared to 80%
 

DoubleClutch

Gold Member
High End = high budget
Can you name a single high budget PC only game that isnt Star Citizen or Live Service?

Why does it have to be “PC only”?

With consoles using x86 hardware it only makes sense to develop for everything.

Multiplatform makes sense for everyone. Exclusives are a dying concept and nothing you say will change that.
 

ScHlAuChi

Member

ScHlAuChi

Member
Because he's seething hard and needs an excuse to make PC look bad.
Did you not follow the convo either?
I have nothing against PC - I am an indie dev on PC!
I just answered the user what would happen if there was ONLY PC as platform!
This wasnt an attack on PC, this was more a warning about watching out what one wishes for as the consequences might be different than expected.
 
Last edited:

HogIsland

Member
Why does it have to be “PC only”?

With consoles using x86 hardware it only makes sense to develop for everything.

Multiplatform makes sense for everyone. Exclusives are a dying concept and nothing you say will change that.
multiplatform doesn't make sense, and hasn't made sense since both major consoles became x86 pcs (ps4/xbone).

what we need is a uniplatform. not a playstation monopoly, but one common build target for all games. it is pc-only, but inclusive of all the form factors a pc can take.

honestly i don't think we need anything more than steam. but you could have support for platform stuff like Playstation trophies within the unified game build that runs 95% identically no matter what hardware you're using.
 

rodrigolfp

Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
I just answered the user what would happen if there was ONLY PC as platform!
There are no AAA games on "mobile". Only on PC and consoles. Where people go for them? PC or consoles.
Hypothetically, there are only AAA games on PC. Where people will go?? 👇

It’s not like people without an Xbox are suddenly going to quit gaming. They’d just move to PC.
 
Last edited:

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
No coincidence that dissatisfaction with the games market is at an all time high then. Lmao

And before anyone goes "no it isn't", here are some facts:

People are buying new games at record low rates, and PC is at the lowest rate of all the core platforms.

Most of the PC library is shovelware shite that no one buys and no one plays. 19k games released on Steam last year. And I've seen your "hidden gems" lists. Not impressed, and neither are you by the looks of it.

The majority of big money makers that have been propped up by the PC are (surprise) live service products.

Optimization is at an all-time low.
 

BizarroPete

Member
On Xbox I dont find top 100 played games, top 100 sellers.

Even their Upcoming release lists are not by date and some far away games are arbitrarily added.

I can use these 3 on steam to sort out games that are trending, and to my taste. Don’t want to limit myself to high reviewing games.
On Xbox there are Top Paid, Top Free, and Most Played categories on the store. I believe the "Top" categories are based on number of downloads within a given period.
 

DoubleClutch

Gold Member
multiplatform doesn't make sense, and hasn't made sense since both major consoles became x86 pcs (ps4/xbone).

what we need is a uniplatform. not a playstation monopoly, but one common build target for all games. it is pc-only, but inclusive of all the form factors a pc can take.

honestly i don't think we need anything more than steam. but you could have support for platform stuff like Playstation trophies within the unified game build that runs 95% identically no matter what hardware you're using.

No…

Multi-platform will always be a thing due to different OS… iOS, Windows, Mac, Android, Linux…It’s unlikely we’ll see a unified platform where Windows and Mac are one and the same.

And what do you mean it doesn’t make sense? So SEGA, Capcom, Konami, FromSoftware… would be better off if they only made games for PlayStation? Bullshit.

Only fools think we don’t need anything more than Steam. We need as many storefronts as possible and as little DRM as possible. I buy on Epic, GOG, Amazon, G2A, CDKeys… anything that gets me the best deal.

Trophies, achievements, and gamer profiles are just meant to lock in obsessive compulsive people.
 

DoubleClutch

Gold Member
No coincidence that dissatisfaction with the games market is at an all time high then. Lmao

And before anyone goes "no it isn't", here are some facts:

People are buying new games at record low rates, and PC is at the lowest rate of all the core platforms.

Most of the PC library is shovelware shite that no one buys and no one plays. 19k games released on Steam last year. And I've seen your "hidden gems" lists. Not impressed, and neither are you by the looks of it.

The majority of big money makers that have been propped up by the PC are (surprise) live service products.

Optimization is at an all-time low.

Indiana Jones is an amazing game, just came out, big budget, very optimized and the best place to play it is PC.
 
On the one hand I hope this encourages developers to go back to making AAA PC exclusives that really utilize the hardware to makes games that a console just couldn't handle, like Crisis back in the day.

On the other hand, thanks to console first development I've been able to happily game on a 2080 for almost 6 years. I don't want to go back to buying a new card every 2 years lol.
This probably won't happen much because most developers have admitted PC sales surged because of consoles. The same way console exclusives drives profit, vice verse. Devs should just be open to going back to said game and making patches that fully utilize the power behind pc.
 

rodrigolfp

Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
I’m expressing my preference. You are acting like I’m criticizing pc gaming. I’m not. Stop acting like you have to defend something that is not under attack.
???

If you prefer console that means you have critic(s) against PC gaming.
 
Last edited:

th4tguy

Member
Lots of factors at play here.
So much of the industry is chasing live service games and PC is a must platform for those types of games. Makes sense to me to see these numbers.
A lot of the industry is moving to third party engines like Unity and UE5/4. These engines support PC pipelines and make it fairly easy to port/ develop simultaneously for that platform.
Console publishers are easing into the idea of console exclusivity not including PC market place, allowing for more "Only on Playstation***"


*** and PC
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
what we need is a uniplatform. not a playstation monopoly, but one common build target for all games. it is pc-only, but inclusive of all the form factors a pc can take.

This statement makes no sense. *A uniplatform is essentially a console*. The games built for it would technically be built as *console apps* because they are built to that specification.
 

HogIsland

Member
No…

Multi-platform will always be a thing due to different OS… iOS, Windows, Mac, Android, Linux…It’s unlikely we’ll see a unified platform where Windows and Mac are one and the same.

And what do you mean it doesn’t make sense? So SEGA, Capcom, Konami, FromSoftware… would be better off if they only made games for PlayStation? Bullshit.

Only fools think we don’t need anything more than Steam. We need as many storefronts as possible and as little DRM as possible. I buy on Epic, GOG, Amazon, G2A, CDKeys… anything that gets me the best deal.

Trophies, achievements, and gamer profiles are just meant to lock in obsessive compulsive people.
It's Windows & Wine/Proton. Everything else has what it needs to interface with that. ARM vs x86 is an issue, but developers who want to support ARM can choose between emulation and cross-compilation.

My point was that developers only make games for the uniplatform, which Playstation is compatible with. That's where we need to get. One build. One codebase. One purchase works on all hardware.

Everything you listed is terrible compared to Steam, but I'm not saying there shouldn't be competition. Competition among keysites like Greenman, CDkeys, Humble, etc is great and there's no downside to it. Competition among platforms that provide useful gaming features like Steam, Playstation, and Xbox is also good. What sucks are bad platforms hitched to bad stores like Epic Games and Ubisoft connect. Gaming would be better if these didn't exist.

The best case would be a lot of cross-platform developer standards for features like online match-making, and some platform-specific features the game can implement at runtime. So if the game detects you're running on Playstation PC, the game unlocks Playstation trophies.

Re DRM, it's ultimately up to the publisher, like it or not. It's not going to be solved by the platform / storefront. If a storefront tries to enforce no-DRM, they just don't get games from major publishers. GoG is a nice underdog in the industry, but they don't have a solution. Their user experience is as bad as Ubisoft Connect, but you want to root for them because you're against DRM. This is wrong-headed. Steam supports DRM-free games. They're pretty transparent about what DRM is included in a game. They've done their job as far as I'm concerned. If you want to harrange publishers about removing shitty DRM, I'm all for it. If you want to get a law passed banning DRM, i'm all for it.
 

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
That’s why they’re spending money to port it to PS5 and also making DLC for it?

It’s a dead franchise, sure.

Have you even played it? You don’t even have to like Indiana Jones. It’s just an amazing game.
I don't give a shit. It's not moving the needle. I don't even know why I bothered responding to you in the first place. It has nothing to do with/no bearing on what I was saying.
 

Hari Seldon

Member
I'm pretty sure this is entirely due to Asia. China going PC and Japan converting to PC. Very hard to convince Asian parents to buy them an expensive plastic toy compared to a PC which is a productivity device not a consumption device.
 

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
Moving what needle? PC is bigger than it’s ever been.
Yes, off the back of live service slop. Not Indiana Jones. Stop being dumb.
Cry more.
The whole forum and the wider gaming internet is literally doing that over the state of the industry. While you clap like a trained seal for gacha revenue that you will never see, all I've done is provide a reminder of that.
 

DoubleClutch

Gold Member
Yes, off the back of live service slop. Not Indiana Jones. Stop being dumb.

The whole forum and the wider gaming internet is literally doing that over the state of the industry. While you clap like a trained seal for gacha revenue that you will never see, all I've done is provide a reminder of that.

I play exclusively on PC and have been able to enjoy virtually every game out there. I have zero reason to own a console.
 
Still have a PS5 and Switch and planning to get a Switch 2 but PC main. My blizzard launcher games date back to my CD keys from like 1998. Versatile. Desktop, laptop, PC handheld. Then eventually on Android where I'll someday be playing games that support 21:9 on ~7" 20/21:9 phones when on a plane. Monitoring r/EmulationOnAndroid to see how Winlator, Gamefusion, and Winplay development progresses with Steam support. Steam Deck is an almost 3 year old integrated graphics laptop level device. Barrier of entry on PC is low
 

JayK47

Member
I've been a PC gamer since 1999. PC gaming now is the best it has ever been. I rarely have issues playing a game. Tons of support. Easier than ever to build with sites that show compatability. Steam. More Steam. Lots of free games. With tons of console exclusives making their way to PC, if you have one gaming system, PC is the way to go. My PC builds hold up for well over 5 years. The only downside is cost, but I get so much in return, it is hardly a factor.
 

RaZoR No1

Member
picard-facepalm.png
I dont know why the facepalm...
Does Steam support gamesharing?
Can one Gamepass subscription on PC be used on two PCs at the same time with different accounts?

Afaik no.

Me and my wife play very often together or the same games, so instead of buying a game twice, I can use the gamesharing features of the consoles (one home console license and one account license).

Of course one could argue, PC games are cheaper than console games, but so is console hardware.

If I was the only gamer in my house, then I would have switched to PC years ago, but having me and my wife playing games, console gaming for me is cheaper and definitely more headache free.
Still subpar console experience at the moment for the same or even more money than a console.
It is getting better with Steam OS and the devices.

Again, no need to fidel around with settings, TDP etc. to get the max out of the game.

I have turned my PC into a console.

Look I used to be against PC gaming because it was about basements, tiny monitors and 200 dollar gaming mouse playing Diablo.
But in 2025 I'm playing weebshit on a 4k TV with a Dualsense.
I am not saying that it is not possible to have the PC behave like a console.
I was suprised with Steam Big Picture and Steam Controller Layouts etc. how easier it got to just use a controller for PC.
But still, it is running on a PC OS with all of its pro and cons..

- not all games support Controllers (Steam Controller options helps alot)
- I always have to go to the settings / graphics options to find the optimal setting for my PC (at least if you play a new game)
- OS and Driver updates...
- Windows itself is not really usable with a Xbox Controller (not tried with a Dualsense), onlx Steam Big Picture saves the day
- Still more complicated etc. than just playing on a console. For example alot of my friends / family member used a PC only for Office tasks. Anything beyond that is too much.
You cannot really give someone who isnt into PCs at all a PC to play games on it, at least it is not that easy as on a console.

IMO it doesnt suprise me that people on a gaming forum playing games on PC are trying to telling me, that PCs are easy etc. but we/you are not on the same level / have the same knowledge about PCs as a "casual gamers"

PC comes close to console experiece, if it is set up correctly, but only close.
 
Top Bottom