|
|
Epic: No Gears of War 2 PC
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 30th September 2008
Gears of War 2 will definitely not be heading to PC according to Epic, who are concerned with piracy issues.
In a discussion with TVG recently, Gears of War 2 designer Cliff Bleszinski said that the reason there was not going to be a PC version of the game was simple; high-end users.
"The PC right now is a fair amount different to what it was back in the day, with all the badly integrated video chips," said Cliff.
"Here's the problem right now; the person who is savvy enough to want to have a good PC to upgrade their video card, is a person who is savvy enough to know bit torrent to know all the elements so they can pirate software. Therefore, high-end videogames are suffering very much on the PC."
Cliff then went on to confirm that unlike Gears of War 1, which did see an eventual port to the PC, the second game will not be making the same move. Asked if Gears of War 2 PC would be possible once the dust had settled and sales had declined on the Xbox 360 version, Cliff still said no; definitely not.
Unfortunately then it looks like PC gamers who want to get a slice of Gears of War 2 will either have to get it from consoles, or have to wait for the film adaptation to be finished and given a sequel.
If you want to know more about Gears of War 2 and what we think of it then you can check out our hands-on Gears of War 2 preview, or let us know what you think of the forums.
Related articles on bit-tech.net
Comments (95)
Cant they look at it another way, that the poor gamer with the low end to midrange hardware cant afford £40 a game so they turn to torrents!
As much as I have supported Epic for their amazing games. I am done buying from them.
/rant
*sigh*
Seriously, console gamepads are not suited to FPS games, even watching someone who has played waaaay too much Halo/Gears etc you can still see that the view motion is jerky.
Mouse is far superior for freelook controlling, which suits it to PC better.
As i learned yesterday gow is infact 3rd person and tbh 3rd person does work ok on consoles but i've never liked it on pc i can't get my head round it even gt3 was a bit of a problem for me.
Seriously?
We really need to get that sand out of your vagina dude, it's making you cranky!
absolutely, but GoW was a pretty terrible game on PC anyway
havent played it on xbox but cant imagine it being much better, not really bothered by this news :p
edit:
that quote from cliff is mildy offensive tbh
my PC is a high-end gaming pc and i buy FAR more games than any of my friends with **** PCs and consoles
granted i also pirate more games than them, but i only pirate the crappy games :p
Cheers epic, sanity maintained. Glad those naughty PC pirates wont be able to get their grubby hands on your bug-ridden POS game
Nah there not, but GOW is. I play it using an XBOX remote rather than mouse and it feels far more natural
Its all the fault of PC piracy.
I don't know where he is getting his 'facts' but i see a shitload of torrent sites loaded with x360 and other console titles.
Yet again we see piracy blamed to justify lazy and selfish game developers.
Epic - are you aware that the PC was what put you where you are now?
Epic can go to HELL.
And someone needs to kick them out of the PC gaming alliance.
PC release: November 2007
360 release: November 2006
So in one year they sold 4 million copies pretty much on the 360 alone.
They've currently sold over 5 million copies in total, so since the PC release only 1 million more have been sold, I don't have the exact figures for the split but I'm willing to bet 9/10 were sold on 360 and the extra development time and cost was not worth it especially since the PC release was extremely buggy!
Chicken or the Egg? Maybe if we the PC game buying public STOP GETTING SHAFTED, we would be more likley to purchase games.
First its EA and it beta battlefield that takes 4 patches to fix broken net code and bugs. second its EA and there Terrible Download manager. Then its Bioshock and its shi*y secure rom. Spore and its WTFing DRM. Then EA are back at it with Crysis warhead. Stalker and its lovely Broken game( its a good game but having to restart it each time they try patch it. 4 times so far)
We get treated like morons. Of course there is a piracy problem. Thats never going to change. But there are some of us that actually buy games and resent getting bum robbed every time we go to the shops.
Well here to Cliffy. lets hope hes a man of his word and a half arsed PC conversion doesn't crawl out the door a few years down the line when no one cares.
Lets be honest. They have obviously been paid quite a bit of money by microsoft to make it an xbox 360 only game.
He can bullshit all he likes about other reasons but thats why.
They all like to blame piracy on everything nowadays. Its not our fault that the port they made for GOW 1 was **** which forced people to dl it first before they spent their hard earned money!
1. Most people had bought / played it on a console already, so werent interested in a PC version.
2. It was technically flawed, with bad rumors from day 1 of install and technical issues.
3. Piracy. Yep, Im sure it was pirated to hell as well.
Pirates will always steal the games, but these people are not your target market anyway.. its the other few hundred thousand people they need to convince that DO PAY that they had to convince the game was worthy.. and they failed.
So why on earth would they bother releasing GOW 2 for the PC ? They would probably make a loss, not probably due to piracy but simply because people just arent that interested in the game (the mass public that is, not the odd bit-tech reader who is).
1 and 2 contribute to 3 here imo
people who've already bought it on xbox are extremely unlikely to buy it again on PC, unless they're super fanboys or something :p
people who heard rumours that it was buggy and unstable are unlikely to go and buy it without trying it first
However I blame Microsoft... They could have used their power and money to make the PC the only relevant platform. Instead Ballmer and Gates decided to take on Nintendo and Sony (PS3 failure).... and look what Nintendo did with the Wii.... totally pwned the 360..
Good, a child should NEVER play Gears of War
i download xbox360 games online
and buy copies from stores
so whats the diffrence
then release a pc version to scoop up anyone that hasnt bought the pc version and make a smaller profit on the pc version just to sqeeze the last few pounds out of the game
They release a Console focused arcade shooter with cheesy one liners and no story and repetitive gameplay 1 year late on PC with many bugs and wonder why it didn't sell well? Pc gamers have different standards and tastes Cliffy.
Cliffy, why do other High end games have no issue on PC? Explain that? Maybe, just maybe Gears is not all u think it is. it is a game that appeals to console gamers, Pc gamers do not think it is that good. Then you try and twist that into it being a hardware issue, BS.
I should have made it clearer what I meant - Any game with a permenant crosshair (as opposed to just during manual aim) and/or no auto-aim or lock-on should come under the same bracket - and therefore is NOT suited for a console gamepad. Precision aiming is an arse with an analog stick.
2nded. Totally. Along with what reflux said as well; only addition: someone PLEASE shove a #&@+!% rocket down Cliff's throat. Or better yet, up his arse, then fire it to deep space.
How would they know? They've been too busy blaming everything on piracy to notice.
True. Funny how the only ones complaining (ID and Epic) have lost thier place as a top Pc dev, sounds like sour grapes to me, so they move to console out of necessity and bitterness. You cannot expect to get great sales when you release the same game on PC 1 year after, come on.
That, and I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out M$ and/or Sony just "support" developers catering for their respective consoles. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised even if we learnt one day that all this crap is just a twisted ad campaign funded by them console manufacturers.
How much u want to bet MS had a say in this so they can get yet more money? MS does more to hurt PC gaming then help it, as does Epic, yet both are in the PC gaming alliance.
it is no secret companies like MS are helping fund these games so they stay on their platform.
On another note, Pc gamers are not missing out on much anyway, gears was one of the more dissappointing games I have played. Seemed like ti was targeting teenagers. Far Cry 2, Crysis Warhead and Stalker Clear sky (With patches, lol), not really missing out on much TBH.
Piracy? **** it, try NOT to overprice the freakin' games AND try NOT to make gamers' lives hell with so-called "anti-piracy" methods - I bet anything they'd see such a steep increase in sales they'd get a heart attack.
Any way, the console gaming will die sooner or later any way :)
ID? Where did you get it? They were always talking about piracy yet they were always supportive towards PC gaming. They never resorted to any form of intrusive DRM. And they always release SDK for their games. Who would push evolution of PC gaming(technology) forward if not Johny Carmack & iD? Whining Crytek? .......
On topic - if Epic were focusing on PC as primary platform they wouldn't have suffered that much(GoW). Console ports are in 90% beggars limited by poor controls, graphics or something else due lack of proper testing or insufficient effort...(opposite to this is Valve's port to PS3 aka "Waste of everyone's time")
a E7200, a radeon 4850, a p35 board and 2 GB ddr2 dont even come close to high end and are allready more than enough for every game except crysis.
no pc version due to piracy? what a logic, zero percent piracy on the pc version of gow2, we won, oh wait, we didnt make a single cent either as we didnt sell it.
and no, I'd never buy a console, the day there are no more pc games i'll simply quit gaming.
Can you post link to back up this statement?
So far, I know they're planning Doom4, hiring another developers and that Linux ports of their future games are low priority. Not a single word about consoles...
in fact, i will make sure i pirate ALL Unreal Engine games whenever possible, and i'll try to provide my friends around me, pirated Epic related games. i'll also be sure to create lots copy of xbox360 GoW2 from turrents when that's released. console games can be just as easily pirated.
their behaviour is unacceptable, makes me wonder why they are still in the PC gaming alliance. im going to buy myself a second copy of Solar Empire to support StarDock.
Carmack along with Epic are idiots, sorry.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/john-carmack-rage,6074.html
A quick google search. Carmack has said they wioll no longer focus oN PC, consoles first, PC after thought.
Rage is all about consoles.
It was a mediocre increment to ut2003, and imo broke a lot of the feel of the game - the movement dynamics changed, so you could no longer do some of the more outrageous jumps.
I played ut2007 at a lan once, and it just didn't feel the same. :(
JOHN CARMACK: We certainly expect Rage and the Doom project on the PC. We're contractually obligated to have Rage on the PC, and I would be stunned if we did not do Doom 4 for the PC. It would just be wrong. Even if it was a marginal business case, we would still do it because it's the right thing to do.
...doesn't sound like they don't care about PC gamming to me.
PC gaming is everything. Not consoles you idiots epic workers. and yeah GOW1 was bull **** on pc. I had to restart after I play it. and was pain in the ass to install.
Download games? lol. I download the game to try it. if I like it I buy it. if not I don't, do they think that money come easy ? ****ing retarded.
I guess that they are saying that people that use consoles are technological imbeciles who don't know how to use the internet.
Exactly
I really don't get why he said that, its such an ill-thought out statement. Ofcourse their savvy enough, it doesn't mean that they'd do it. No one looked at banning fertilizer when Timothy McVeigh blew up the Murrah Building. 'Yeah, we had a good run on that whole crop growing thing, but I just can't trust that your going to actually use this for what its intended for, so best just to not sell it'.
Have some faith in humanity,
Game designer isn't fat, bald and in glasses, thinks he's Jesus Christ, twunt.
Edit:
Wait, wait, wait....
'Epic Fail!'
Too late?
You are kidding me right? :(
If support was added to popular FPS's and RTS's, 90 percent of PC gamers would switch to consoles.
Console = a cheaper gaming experience. No constant video card and processor upgrades.
Utter bull crap, you have no clue what you are talking about. Constant upgrades? On what planet? There is a large market for people who like tweaking and upgrading, that is something console gamers just don't understand, and K/M is only one SMALL reason people like gaming on PC.
Realistically consoles are only significantly cheaper compared to a mid end pc at the end of the their life cycle once you include buying games etc and by then your stuck with gfx that look like they did 5 years ago.
that what I was thinking on.
360 guys just download and burn. not like pc... so how the hell that not counted piracy :(
Release a good quality product and people will PAY for it. If you are so afraid of piracy then why don't you release your game(s) on Steam ! I know I have never pirated a game that was only available on Steam. Actually, yes I did. It was HL2 and the cracked version that was available on the net was buggy as hell and the artificial intelligence was missing at many points of the game. I then bought the game in store and activated it on Steam. Well guess what Epic , 2 years later I BOUGHT THE EXTENSION BECAUSE IT WAS A GOOD GAME AND I WAS SATISFIED BY IT. The next year I bought the Orange Box and I now have all the recent Valve games.
Epic and many other game developers could learn from Valve
haha! my toughts excatly!
Yeah... us PC people are a finicky bunch when it comes to quality, but we are also extremely loyal to a developer and their products. Get one good game out and you're pretty much guaranteed at least one later purchase, if not many more. Just looking at my stack of Blizzard, Chris Taylor (Cavedog, GPG), and Valve games makes that pretty obvious.