This topic was posted in the incorrect forum so I've created a new one.
Are games dumbed down for console gamers?
This is a topic that's fuelled a lot of the arguments between console and PC gamers over the last few years, developers have made games much more accessible but the downside of this is that games are less appealing to the hardcore gamer.
When a developer's start working on a game they get told which platform is going to lead, the lead platform is the machine the game is going to be developed for. All of the other platforms will receive a port. The lead platform isn't decided by the developers it is decided by the publisher and whoever is willing to pay the most money to be the lead platform. Take Portal 2 for example there's been loads of banners advertising the game all over the web and even from these adverts you can see which platform is the lead one, check out the box art, the first most clear to see box is the lead platform so in Portal 2's case the PS3. Even in when the first game play footage is shown to the public you often see button prompts on the screen giving away the lead platform in the form an "X" or "A".
This is where the problem is for many PC gamers more and more games are being developed for the console and the use of a game pad which has to be one of the worst devices to play a first person shooter with it's so bad they have to include auto-aim to help the player move the crosshair from target to target. When this kind of game gets ported to the PC, PC gamers are left with something that is way too easy because of the precise movement of the mouse making something that would be considered hard to a console gamer easy for a PC gamer.
This is why argument will continue especially when it comes to games that started out on the PC getting mainstreamed for console gamers like Crysis and Call of Duty. More fuel is added to fire when PC gamers open a brand new game to see the message "Press start to begin" and then after navigating to the graphical options learning that there are 3 options to make changes to. The graphics level to either low, medium or high another to set the resolution and one last one to change the brightness of your "TV". Missing features often include the lack of advanced graphical options, the lack of anti-aliasing support --I hate jaggies – missing mouse configuration settings and the ability to turn off mouse smoothing. Games like this should come with a warning attached to them letting the consumer know that this version of the game is a port.
It's very rare that a game developer will talk about a taboo subject such as a game being dumbed down for console gamers, which is why an article posted on the PCGAMER website about the PC version of Fable 3 was very interesting. I've copied my favourite part of the article.
Fable 3 lead designer Josh Atkins admits that the game was designed to be easy for a console audience. "On Fable from the beginning I can remember sitting in a room with Peter [Molyneux] and him being very explicit with me that… I believe the direct quote, if I remember correctly, was, 'I want a blind child to be able to win this game with their feet."
It's not just the graphics of games that are held back by consoles it is the difficulty also! When Crysis came out in 2007 I remember running around the game world for ages just exploring and even in remote corners of the map I found that everything was highly detailed. So you will understand my horror when I ran up to the first key pad in the Crysis 2 something that is actually part of the game and not in a remote corner of the map and find this ugly thing.
http://www.cssmixes.co.uk/images/reviews/crysis2/This_is_what_consoles_have_done_to_crysis.jpg
"Consoles are holding PC games back, say DICE"
Battlefield developer DICE have said that they believe consoles are holding back the development of PC games. In an interview on GeForce.com, executive producer on Battlefield 3 Patrick Bach said: "Most games are actually still based on the same core idea that the consoles are your focus, the superior platform or something. I don't know why. That was the truth 5 years ago, but the world has moved on." Read on for more details.
Bach explained that: "Most games are actually still based on the same core idea that the consoles are your focus, the superior platform or something. I don't know why. That was the truth 5 years ago, but the world has moved on." He says that PCs are much more powerful, hardware wise, than consoles, and few PC games truly take advantage of all that hardware.
He goes on to say: "So for our target of what we want to hit, we are now using the more powerful platform to try and prove what we see gaming being in the future rather than using the lowest common denominator, instead of developing it for the consoles and then just adding higher resolution textures and anti-aliasing for the PC version. We're do it the other way around, we start with the highest-end technology that we can come up with and then scale it back to the consoles."
Log in to comment