Friday, July 04, 2008
EA and Blizzard Square Off On PC Gaming's Health
EA's Peter Moore wrote a short blog essay the other day explaining why, in his eyes (and, we can assume, by the party line at EA for everyone who is not Wil Wright), PC gaming is pretty much dead. He brings up market decline, piracy, the change of the business model to online or downloadable games (and doesn't seem to commit to wanting to change EA's business model to suit), and just overall Return-On-Investment concerns. Ultimately, it all comes down to business - PC games don't make EA (much) money - not as much as they can make on the consoles.
And on the flip side, in a Eurogamer interview, Blizzard's chief exec Mike Morhaime explains why PC Gaming is alive, vibrant, and growing. He sites an incredible install base, extremely high margins (because you don't need to pay your tithe to the console manufacturer), growing revenue (!), and growth in every category except the traditional retail channels dominated by companies like EA. And he notes that Blizzard's primary forcus remains the PC.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun offers its usual witty commentary on Peter Moore's allegations in an article called, "Peter Moore Hates Your PC," and on Mike Morhaime's comments in "PC 'Far From Declining' Says Blizzard Boss." But I can pretty much sum it all up here:
Okay. So maybe Moore is right. I mean, it's been how long since Blizzard created a non-MMO PC game? Six years? So maybe Blizzard is going to release Diablo III and Starcraft II on the PC to the sound of chirping crickets. They'll sell maybe 100 copies of each, and see millions of copies pirated, and learn their lesson. They'll abandon PC gaming forever except to milk massively multiplayer strategies.
It could happen.
Or, they may discover that if you actually make a quality PC game focused on the PC gaming experience, rather than some half-hearted port from the console with the belief that mindless button-mashing can simply be mapped to the keyboard with no shame, that the game will actually, you know, SELL.
Or something.
I mean, yeah. They've got a problem. Diablo III has to compete with Diablo I and II. Starcraft II has to compete with the original. That's an ugly secret of why console development is more lucrative than the PC. It's been noted that, as the console becomes "mature," its sales begin to strongly resemble that of the PC market. A generational change in consoles effectively hits the ol' reset button for game developers, and the first 3 or 4 years make it easy to make money. You don't have to compete with the back-catalog.
And Moore didn't admit to some other facts of game development life. Like the fact that it's something like twice as hard to make a PC game than a console game. And it usually requires about 10x the customer support. On consoles, you don't have to worry about tons of different screen resolutions, hardware compatability, what O.S. version the player is running, what security settings are turned on, what other programs are running in the background, how much adware and other crap is tanking the machine's performance, alt-tabbing to another window, whether or not they've got a mouse-wheel, how much RAM they have, how much VRAM their video card has and whether it was made before 2004, whether they are running on a laptop or desktop, whether they are using a QWERTY keyboard or something else, and so forth, and so on.
And Moore is discussing this subject in the context of pumping out crappy PC ports of their console sports franchises. Now, I'm going to assume that he "gets it." He even talks about "lean forward" versus "lean back" gaming between the platforms. PC gaming is a fundamentally different experience than the consoles, and the PC gamer is in a different audience. This means that you can't just make the PC one of the "platforms" for a game and expect it make buttloads of money. You might do better than break even, but it is not a winning strategy.
I mean, I bought Guitar Hero III for the XBox 360, not the PC. I don't think I'd like it for the PC. I'm in a different mindset in front of a console than in front of the PC.
I applaud Blizzard and Valve for their efforts to make top-quality PC games, first and foremost. Even if it makes us indies have to work for it a little harder.
Labels: Mainstream Games
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 9:00 AM (Permalink)
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You are most certainly right about the big reset button in the console industry!
This tactic also works to a certain extent as customers for console platforms grow again and you have a drooling mob of pre-pubescents ready to play the next installments in those popular franchises that feature a "4" or "5" in their title.
It's always old wine in new skins but the console market may see a video game crash again when they continue to pump out noisy machines (ok, noise isn't really a problems with the pre-pubescents...) with high failure rates and unstable operating systems. The older the gamer gets the more likely he doesn't want to litter his home with a new console (or multiples) every four years because he doesn't want to part with the games that often can't run on a modernized console from the same company.
That being said I don't like (PC-)games that phone home and ask for permission if I'm allowed to run the game.
The more they try to force me into those modern schemes the less I spend money on their games (and no, I don't pirate).
One reason is that I dig out older games and play them again. I buy (at auctions) older games for PC and consoles on a regular basis and I'm happy to run them hassle-free.
This tactic also works to a certain extent as customers for console platforms grow again and you have a drooling mob of pre-pubescents ready to play the next installments in those popular franchises that feature a "4" or "5" in their title.
It's always old wine in new skins but the console market may see a video game crash again when they continue to pump out noisy machines (ok, noise isn't really a problems with the pre-pubescents...) with high failure rates and unstable operating systems. The older the gamer gets the more likely he doesn't want to litter his home with a new console (or multiples) every four years because he doesn't want to part with the games that often can't run on a modernized console from the same company.
That being said I don't like (PC-)games that phone home and ask for permission if I'm allowed to run the game.
The more they try to force me into those modern schemes the less I spend money on their games (and no, I don't pirate).
One reason is that I dig out older games and play them again. I buy (at auctions) older games for PC and consoles on a regular basis and I'm happy to run them hassle-free.
# posted by 
: July 04, 2008 12:16 PM
: July 04, 2008 12:16 PM
EA's problem with their annual release sports games is themselves. Sports game x 08 is the same as sports game x 07, 06, 05 etc but with tweaks and this season's data. So they face huge competition from their previous titles, including one that was only released last year :)
On a console it's only the titles that have been released for that console they're competing against.
Also console games still have a rental and a pre-owned market. If you only rented last year's version or played it then part exchanged it for something else, I'd think you're more likely to buy or rent this year's release.
Perhaps PC games could have a rental market again if the publishers decided to offer *both* a non-intrusive copy protection version you could buy and a need to be online subscription version you'd play for a weekly or monthly fee (so it's like rental).
On a console it's only the titles that have been released for that console they're competing against.
Also console games still have a rental and a pre-owned market. If you only rented last year's version or played it then part exchanged it for something else, I'd think you're more likely to buy or rent this year's release.
Perhaps PC games could have a rental market again if the publishers decided to offer *both* a non-intrusive copy protection version you could buy and a need to be online subscription version you'd play for a weekly or monthly fee (so it's like rental).
# posted by : July 05, 2008 3:05 AM
: July 05, 2008 3:05 AM
Rental market? Well, there's gametap... if you're in the US. since us foreigners, last I checked, aren't allowed.
Guess which of these companies has a 40% profit margin...
hint: their name starts with a B.
hint: their name starts with a B.
# posted by : July 05, 2008 7:31 PM
: July 05, 2008 7:31 PM
Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. EA Sports PC games have long been the sad joke of the PC games market in my view; the incongruous box you see at the game store year after year with an askance look and think to yourself 'what the hell is that even doing there?'
I mean, what if Blizzard had never made Diablo 2 but had just kept on releasing Diablos since 1997: Diablo 98, Diablo 99, Diablo 2001, Diablo 2002, and so on. Every year the same game, with maybe 10 new monsters, or 10 new weapons or very slightly improved textures. And every year they expected the market to pay full price for their "new" game.
If Blizzard had done this and were now turning around whining that the market for Diablo games is bad, would you take anything that they said seriously? No.. you'd be laughing in their face is what you'd be doing.
And this is with a GREAT game such as Diablo was, not derivative condescending ported slop like the EA games are.
Seriously, you start to add this stuff up in your mind and it becomes truly astounding how anything EA says is gaining any traction with anyone. They -deserve- to be laughed out of the PC market entirely. They -deserve- never to come back, and good riddance.
I mean, what if Blizzard had never made Diablo 2 but had just kept on releasing Diablos since 1997: Diablo 98, Diablo 99, Diablo 2001, Diablo 2002, and so on. Every year the same game, with maybe 10 new monsters, or 10 new weapons or very slightly improved textures. And every year they expected the market to pay full price for their "new" game.
If Blizzard had done this and were now turning around whining that the market for Diablo games is bad, would you take anything that they said seriously? No.. you'd be laughing in their face is what you'd be doing.
And this is with a GREAT game such as Diablo was, not derivative condescending ported slop like the EA games are.
Seriously, you start to add this stuff up in your mind and it becomes truly astounding how anything EA says is gaining any traction with anyone. They -deserve- to be laughed out of the PC market entirely. They -deserve- never to come back, and good riddance.
# posted by : July 07, 2008 7:54 AM
: July 07, 2008 7:54 AM
The EA comments were within the context of sports games, so I'm not surprised by the analysis and would agree that the PC is not a strong platform for that particular genre.
EA has been lame for a long time, for a variety of reasons. But the simple fact is: They do not publish any games that I want to play. (With the exception of Crysis, but I didn't give a flying crap who published it; I just wanted a follow-up to Farcry.)
90% of the games I want to play are published by publishers other than EA: Activision, Blizzard, Ubisoft, Valve, etc.
Thus, from my point of view, EA's whining about poor PC sales is completely moot. What they should be sniveling about is that other publishers are taking my money. =P
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90% of the games I want to play are published by publishers other than EA: Activision, Blizzard, Ubisoft, Valve, etc.
Thus, from my point of view, EA's whining about poor PC sales is completely moot. What they should be sniveling about is that other publishers are taking my money. =P
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