I clarified already. I was meaning widespread as far as a gamer getting 1/3 of their total game library from a friend.
"PC is decimating console, just through price" - Romero
- Thread starter Poetic.Injustice
- Start date
I clarified already. I was meaning widespread as far as a gamer getting 1/3 of their total game library from a friend.
Denton
Member
Nice to see at least some common sense here. Unfortunately it was quite rare in this thread.
GOGOheadray
Member
Its a statement of fact though and that was what we were arguing in the first place. Can you game cheaper on consoles than PC? which dismisses the common notion that console gamers are buying games at 60 bucks a pop. I of course never said my methods were morally superior only that they achieved the end results that I care about the most ( playing games the cheapest way possible). And of course my type of mentality is something that is rampant in the console community which is why console gamers revolted against the X1; and why sony played it up so much. remember that commercial about game sharing that Sony showed? developers and publishers are well aware of this fact which is why so many are discussing DLC, unlock codes, etc.
I don't think people quite grasp that the steam universe initiative is more of a developer focused initiative than a tangible product for consumers. This is supposed to be a shift in the development process, not really something consumers run out and purchase. Eventually, it'll trickle down and affect consumers, but not currently. People focus too much on the physical pre-built boxes, when that's such a tiny portion of the initiative.
The premium tanks are designed to perform worse than the normal tanks in their respective tier. Credits only become a problem once you reach tier 7 or tier 8. If you have grinded to this tier at this point, I would say it is a fair assumption you actually like the game enough to spend some money on the game, such as getting a Lowe for example to grind credits.
Premium ammo is almost never used in public matches. It is mainly reserved for clan wars, otherwise it is simply a waste of money. Most of the time, people have no idea what they are talking about when they complain about premium ammo in public matches. I been called out on using gold, when in fact, I just know where to hit their tank's weakspot.
Paying money just lessens the grind a bit, but there is nothing you can't obtain by playing entirely free.
Source: Played 6000 battles over 3 years and never bought a monthly/yearly premium account time. Utilizing special events help too. I have a tier 10, tier 9, several tier 7s and 8s, and various other tanks researched and in my garage. I only have a SU-100Y premium tank, which I bought using gold I won from one of their events.
I haven't played in about a year, so I don't know how things are now.
Pretty sure the 24 hour check-in was the biggest revolt of the Microsoft policies. That was my one and only issue with it. If they had adopted a complete Steam-like no-check-in-required and one license per game, I wouldn't have really cared. It was their attempt to try to have their cake and eat it too at the expense of my being able to use their console at all on deployments, then being told they had a system for me, the 360.
We get it, your method is cheaper, enough said. "Moral superiority" is what you call wanting to provide even a few bucks to devs. It shows me enough about your mindset.
You win, your method is cheaper, now please stop glorifying it.
GOGOheadray
Member
24 hour check in was just part of it; many didn't want to part wth their physical games some for collecting, others for reselling, and others for buying games at a cheaper option than just steam esque sells. The 24 hours check in was just a symptom of the fact they were about to impose DRM in a steam like environment which most console gamers didn't want.
If you want to provide a few bucks to devs. that's fine; as I said before my position only argued about pricing and that's it nothing more nothing less.
But it wasn't a Steam-like environment. I can game for 6 months offline through Steam nowadays. 24 hours is what Microsoft was giving us. The people who kept comparing MS to Steam during the DRM defense era last year were plain wrong.
GOGOheadray
Member
The steam like environment came from the fact that their would be no physical medium for games; for many console gamers that was already a step to far. Had Microsoft not had a 24 hour check in the response from the majority would of been the exact same simply because many did not want to part with game disc for a variety of reasons.
SMOK3Y
Generous Member
Having just picked up a PS4, I'm really shocked by the prices of most items in the Playstation store versus PC stuff. It's nuts. I'm glad I'll be ready for Blodborne and the other exclusives but I see no other reason to use the system. Shadowplay is a lot more reliable than Sony's video capture feature too.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
It would have been steam-like but with many things different. Not an exact copy but definitely a step in that direction.
derExperte
Member
Not impossible thanks to Steam Family Sharing. There are restrictions but it works.
But that's an exaggeration as well as it's not the only reason by far. Others are no licensing costs, cheaper (basically no) cost of entry into the market, stiffer competition because there are a lot more games released at any given time, countless digital stores to choose from and higher price flexibility, any dev/pub can change the price of their game on Steam instantly now or start a sale or give out vouchers which gives them much more wiggle room to react to current trends and buyers behaviour.
Some Nobody
Junior Member
I obviously don't agree with it.
See, this is why it's difficult to have this discussion. Everyone exaggerates. Here's the reality: piracy is what keeps PC gaming prices so stupidly low.
Now mind you, I think that's great. I'm not upset about it, but let's not pretend like these sales pop up because when it comes to PC gamers developers are generous. You price things at a console level, and suddenly sales plummet. It's like some weird kind of blackmail almost, lol.
And, like you said, online prices are pretty much always high on places like PSN or XBLA because they're either placating the brick-and-mortar shops or the lack of competition keeps prices high. If the Amazon app thing turns out to be true, things may change, but for now that's a definite problem.
However, I've never had to "track down" used games or resort to Craigslist when eBay and Amazon both have a game at $20-30 within the first six months of a game's release.
....Y'know. Except Nintendo games. Nintendo games keep value like baseball cards for some reason.
It's in nintendo's culture not to create disposable games for the most part. You know, yearly series' and the like. But piracy keeping PC prices low? Lol c'mon. It isn't rocket science. Open platform, more competition for your dollar. Closed platform is inferior in almost every regard, and especially in pricing. Unmeasurable Fringe elements like game trading among friends need not apply.
Comparing sales on console and PC is ludicrous as well, because as mentioned many times, those Amazon sales include retail markup still and will almost always by their very nature be more expensive than an open market PC digital equivalent sale.
Arcanine55
Neo Member
In my opinion, multiplayer oriented games are better if they are free to play mostly because free to play games don't have any type of player base division and you can pay as much as you like your game, I don't like wasting 45€ for a game that is not worth it or the player base will die in less than a year.
How come Divinity: Original Sin, a DRM-free singleplayer/coop game (you don't need to use Steam at all after it's installed) has been on the top sellers in Steam after almost a month since release, with a $40 price tag none the less?
It's more about the games than the platform they're selling on. While low prices may help combat piracy, they're in no way mandatory if the game ends up appealing the PC audience well.
family_guy
Member
That doesn't negate the fact that its probably pirated heavily. For every person that will buy something there's another who will go find it for free.
Thanks for the info man, very much appreciated.
Some Nobody
Junior Member
*throws in towel*
I forgot we were both rapidly becoming irrelevant. This literally drained all the fight out of me regarding this topic. All hail our new wireless overlords.
*goes off to weep about the loss of a potential real Marvel fighting game*
I don't mean to downplay piracy but... So what? Not all the pirated copies are necessarily lost sales. Trying to stop it with more restrictive DRM will only degrade the experience for legitimate customers. The best things devs can do is find their niche and make sure the game is available to those who want it with a convenient delivery method and a reasonable price.
His point is that sales plummet at console-price level and developers are "blackmailed" to lower the prices because of piracy. Regardless of how much piracy the game might or might not have, I don't see Larian has been "forced" to drop the price in any way since they've released for almost a month, and that bump only occurred from the great word of mouth the game's been having recently. Just like any other platform, if the game appeals to the audience well, it will sell consistently.
EDIT: Well he seems to be distraught over something else right now, so I'll leave him be.
*weeps with him*XShadows69
Member
LoL is actually a bad example of F2P done wrong, honestly, with everyone complaining about pay to win I'm not sure how LoL managed to stay alive. However, I don't play it and maybe someone could enlighten me better on the situation.
He is right though, a lot of PC gamers will just play League and DOTA 2 over other paid games.
He is right though, a lot of PC gamers will just play League and DOTA 2 over other paid games.
One thing about F2P that I don't think many people realize is that the portion of players who pay is tiny compared to the playerbase. It's not that a majority, or even a lot of players play, it's a small percentage, like 5-10% of players who pay disproportionally. This has the effect of subsidizing the game for everybody.
I really question the degree by which people understand the economy of F2P and UGC. I would suggest everybody watch this:
The economy of Dota 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHC-uGDbu7s
UGC Economies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRyUpR4qOxU
I really question the degree by which people understand the economy of F2P and UGC. I would suggest everybody watch this:
The economy of Dota 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHC-uGDbu7s
UGC Economies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRyUpR4qOxU
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
Its actually smaller than that, its in the 1-2% range. A 3% conversion rate is considered very successful.
The percentage of players who convert to paying customers in F2P games is actually in line with the percentage of customers who purchase a product where piracy options are freely available in fact.
Make of that what you will.
Could you clarify and expand upon this a bit? Do you mean the percentage of players who purchase an item after pirating it, or something else entirely (i.e. only 3% of players will donate to something given away for free, or similar scenarios)?
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
Historically PC games have been estimated to have ~98% levels of piracy.
F2P titles tend to have around 98% of the userbase never pay anything.
Its an interesting correlation.
LOL that stat sounds bullshit as fuck
Do you have a source for this claim? Not that I don't believe it, I'm just curious.
There are a lot of ways one could digest that stat. Keep in mind how enormous the PC market is. He also said "historically" so I'm curious as to what sort of titles are being counted, within what time span, in what region, etc.
As is, out of context, it's not telling a whole bunch.
fluffydelusions
Member
Have any links to back that up by chance?
SneakyStephan
Banned
6000 battles and you have a tier 10
wow 
You've played the game more than 99 percent of people ever will and have one tier 10 and one tier 9
In WoT the gameplay is in the variety of playstyles that each tank offers ( hull down style, effective range, angling, speed etc) makes you have to play each tank differently and that is what makes the game good
Unfortunately that variety is behind a massive massive massive grind to unlock
Yes the community has collectively decided not to use premium ammo in pubs (it would be expensive to do so)
I forgot to mention all the hidden pay2win aspects
modules, unlocks (tracks, engine, cannon etc) and especially crew training cost a lot of credits (or gold to get 100 percent crew), and trained crew and modules give you large advantages (especially crew) in the few dozen games an f2p player or someone who 'merely' pays for the monthly subscription would take to unlock their new tank to not shit status (who doesn't remember their is-3 sucking ass until they unlocked the final 60k+exp unlock gun)
It's not a permanent advantage, but it is there for a lot of the time, and it is large.
Somehow that is supposed to make it less shitty?
It's a wonderful game with awesome game mechanics and variety but their f2p system is garbage
You can't just spend a reasonable amount of money and get the game
As I said I've spent several hundreds (t54+ subscription + some free exp conversion + some crew training) and was still stuck in stock tanks a lot of the time and still had to play hundreds of games in my t54 and t34 to get credits for more tanks and more modules and more crew training.
edit: and I forgot the large amount of gold (real money) spent on tank slots!
The game is designed to make you spend more and more and is a lot more expensive than any full priced game and will never give you anywhere near all the content even if you pay a lot.
My point is:
A heavily compromised game design that inconveniences people into paying is never a good f2p system.
dota has a good f2p system, vindictus has a good f2p system, tribes ascend had a good f2p system
The WoT one is awful for gamers
virtual world, anything goes, except fuck you give me (loads of) money! and then still fuck you !
I'll edit in a minute with what tanks I have to show how my 1000 games + 300 euros (or however many it was, I'll tell you when I reinstall) compare to your 6000 matches f2p grind of doom when it comes to unlocked content and advantages
edit:
I was wrong, it's not 1000 battles
I played 9833 battles not counting the few months I played in the beta before release
so to your 'I playd more so I know the game better' , I say 'no u'
I have 3 tier 10 and 7 tier 9s and 61 tanks in total, I assume that as f2p player you only have a few garage slots and have to sell old tanks to have room for new ones (and lose access to the old ones obviously , what a wonderful f2p system isn't it!, I spent easily 40-50 euros on garage slots alone)
that's with paying 300 ish euros...
I quit when they added the secondary crew specialisations , then the grind/crew pay2win rabbithole went too deep for my liking
fuck the f2p system wot uses
edit 2
Just to compare it to LoL for the league players
Imagine if :
For the first several dozen or so games your new champion you bought with IP has a lower view range (fog of war is closer) , takes a lot longer to turn, runs at half the speed and hits for half the damage (and lower attack speed) as well as having lower resistances and armor.
All of this would of course also cripple your ability to earn more IP to upgrade your hero to his full power and how it would make you a liability to your team
Then imagine your summoner abilities would have to be rebought for each champion and cost a lot of IP
You would also have the option to pay for a consumable that makes you hit harder and with a longer range
Imagine that whenever you buy a new champion (even if you buy one with real money) you would have to pay for a slot to put that hero in, you only get a few free slots and they can't be bought with IP
Imagine there were several real money only champions that have their own unique playstyles and that in turn help you earn IP faster when playing with them
Now imagine those champions costing 40-50 fucking dollars each
Imagine deaths in the game having an IP cost, you lose IP as you die (and you will be pretty much cannonfodder while upgrading your champion)
Imagine champions expending IP every time they use an ability
Now imagine certain champions expending so much IP per ability cast that they may spend more IP than they can earn that match
Imagine the IP earnings being designed around subscription based IP boosts, and that you will not really be able to maintain the running cost of some of your champions while affording new champions in a reasonable time
Imagine having to play certain 'earner' champions repeatedly because they are the most efficient at earning you IP to afford the ones you really want to play
I can't imagine a league player not going fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck all of that shit upon reading the above, and LoL itself isn't the best f2p system to begin with.
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
Random IOS/Android title with 98% piracy rate: http://playito.com/piracy/
Random F2P sampling with a 2.2% conversion rate: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...-just-2-2-per-cent-of-f2p-players-spend-money
EDIT:
I'm also not claiming that piracy rates in any way equal lost sales, or that "piracy rates" equal active players; when publishers say "look at those piracy rates!" they often just look at torrent trackers or whatever, when there is no real evidence that everyone who downloads anything even uses it.
In the exact same way F2P games release big numbers of "accounts created" which doesn't necessaily mean someone even downloaded or played the game.
EDIT2:
The "historically" part of my statement was that that was the sort of number being thrown around in the "PC gaming is dying" days, and the type of number being thrown around today on the platforms where piracy is trivial to perform, namely Android. The numbers are indeed arguable, but its the numbers publishers choose to use when making decisions.
The last modern (ie post-Steam) high piracy rate nunber I saw was a 95% claim from Ubisoft where the same F2P non-conversions and piracy are in the same ballpark figure comparison is made.
Random F2P sampling with a 2.2% conversion rate: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...-just-2-2-per-cent-of-f2p-players-spend-money
EDIT:
I'm also not claiming that piracy rates in any way equal lost sales, or that "piracy rates" equal active players; when publishers say "look at those piracy rates!" they often just look at torrent trackers or whatever, when there is no real evidence that everyone who downloads anything even uses it.
In the exact same way F2P games release big numbers of "accounts created" which doesn't necessaily mean someone even downloaded or played the game.
EDIT2:
The "historically" part of my statement was that that was the sort of number being thrown around in the "PC gaming is dying" days, and the type of number being thrown around today on the platforms where piracy is trivial to perform, namely Android. The numbers are indeed arguable, but its the numbers publishers choose to use when making decisions.
The last modern (ie post-Steam) high piracy rate nunber I saw was a 95% claim from Ubisoft where the same F2P non-conversions and piracy are in the same ballpark figure comparison is made.
This is silly.
We're customers. It's not our job to worry about the studio's finances.
SneakyStephan
Banned
Nor is it of pirates
LurkerPrime
Member
There's an easy answer to this conundrum.
We can call it the Player's Console - the gaming device(s) of choice for a person playing video games of any type. This includes traditional PCs, consoles, handhelds, and mobile devices... and whatever form it takes in the future. Now, no matter how gaming changes the PC will persist and thrive forever.
CosmicQueso
Member
Another way to look at this... GameStop came out a few years ago and said that a majority of trade in credit was used to purchase new games. Also follows that a good portion of the people that do trade in games for credit are lower income than those who don't, and wouldn't be able to buy games new were it not for trade in credit. The market to buy used games helps maintain and increase the trade in value of games being traded in to fund the purchase of new games.
So, in a sense, by buying used games, the market for new games is benefitted.
A bit counter-intuitive, but likely nonetheless. Pachter pointed it out in one of his packattacks that he thought the money put in to new game purchases and taken away from new game purchases by the used market is about equal.
It isn't a direct correlation and iirc those kinds of numbers aren't released. A direct sale is measurable to the publisher however
To build off of what derExperte said and the chart he listed:
Pcper has done an article already in which they add a 750 ti to basic home PCs. This is how the i5 PC did under load with a 300W PSU:
It could draw less power than a PS4 during a game, Assuming that the gaming PC draws the same amount of power for the sake of the argument, does the console gamer run their home PC for free; does their overall power draw not become greater compared to a maxwell / Intel gaming PC alone?
Also, any proof that an i3 + 750 ti would run games worse?
maneil99
Member
To build off of what derExperte said and the chart he listed:
Pcper has done an article already in which they add a 750 ti to basic home PCs. This is how the i5 PC did under load with a 300W PSU:
It could draw less power than a PS4 during a game, Assuming that the gaming PC draws the same amount of power for the sake of the argument, does the console gamer run their home PC for free; does their overall power draw not become greater compared to a maxwell / Intel gaming PC alone?
Also, any proof that an i3 + 750 ti would run games worse?
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/547?vs=549
Spazznid
Member
That's a 7850 vs 750 ti, not 750 ti vs PS4. Benchmarks and videos to compare is what I meant. Something like this:
DF video playing campaign at 900p high settings with a 750 ti
or
Battlefield 4 MP at 1080p high settings with a 750 ti + i3
maneil99
Member
That MP is 32 player server. And that's just BF4, a cross gen broken launch title.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UE07sbR_sU AC4 (21 fps AVG with an i7)
CosmicQueso
Member
they're not released but gamestop has this data from their power up rewards members, the findings from which are shared with pubs.
Apparently we've both just listed broken games then, because AC4 runs horribly on PC; the i7 probably makes little difference. And it's also running 4x MSAA in that video, which is quite a bit more demanding than the SMAA in the PS4 version. The BF4 DF singleplayer video is still the 750 ti managing similar performance in a GPU-bound location (where PS4 should have the advantage of making fuller use of the GPU's power).
Also, I think we might be steering too far off topic, so we either need a new thread for such discussion, or continue in private messages.
I own most consoles and a PC. I game a lot on my consoles. But that doesn't mean I can't see the immense gap in value that these platforms offer. You say PC is expensive, well the gaming part is just a small are of what you do with a PC and you can upgrade them instead of completely having to replace one. The barrier to entry is lower on PC's because people use them for work. PC has more exclusives than all consoles combined.
Consoles most certainly are simpler, however. That's an important feature to a lot of people.
And while these are conditional considerations, it's possible that 1) consoles have the specific exclusives you happen to be interested in and 2) consoles happen to have your friends on them. I owned an Xbox 360 last generation for a period because of the second consideration: several of my close friends are console gamers, and I wanted to play Left 4 Dead with them, so my choice was either not play with them or get an Xbox.
OldAsUrSock
Banned
You would think the sport scene for that game would be larger, but it seems League attracts the same sort of people that Call of Duty attracts.
StalkerUKCG
Banned
Consoles are simple sure but my first foray into PC gaming has been in no way hard.
I custom built a PC with an i7 and a 780ti but that is optional, you can obviously (money permitting) buy a high end prebuild from enthusiast websites.
Then you plug in a controller and download a game from steam and away you go.
That really isn't much harder than a console.
Sure if you want to be tweaking enb's and downsampling and installing 4k textures with Texmod it's going to be a bit harder but that is real enthusiast territory.