5punk

The Problem With Porting Games
As the cost of developing games has risen, so has the popularity of multi-platform titles. While multi-platform games are attractive to publishers, PC gamers often feel hard done by when it comes to 'ported' games. Ben Hardwidge talks to developers about the difficulties involved.

Category: Gaming
Publish Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 07:10:04 +0100
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Source: bit-tech.net Feed
Description: Computer hardware, games and technology reviews and news

Mostly DI.

Though, this bit hurt a little, Strikes me as them saying "PC games are more limited because we mostly code for consoles, if we coded for PCs, the consoles would be limited."

Article wrote:A very common bugbear for PC gamers is that they feel that the graphics in a PC version of a game have been compromised, simply because the consoles wouldn't be able to handle the same level of graphics. However, Red Faction: Guerilla's system architect Dave Baranec disputes this, and says that in fact “we usually find it's the opposite”.

Part of the problem is that multi-platform games are usually developed primarily for consoles, which means that they're heavily optimised for those architectures. Baranec explains that “content targets, system design and overall structure tend to be tailored towards what the consoles do best. It isn't uncommon to find that even high-end PCs have a hard time holding up against the sorts of deep optimisations you can make on fixed hardware.” However, he also concedes that “the situation could certainly be reversed – you could build a game that caters to the strengths of PCs, and find huge problems trying to get it to run on a console”.

Sounds fair to me. A lot of PC gamers don't have rigs which can match modern consoles, and so programmers have to cater for all specs.

Personally I think there are two things that make ports shit; firstly, they never seem to make an effort on the controls. PC gamers will often hate the gimped joypad controls if they're used to having an entire keyboard worth of buttons and a mouse. Secondly, many console games are aimed at console gamers, and they're largely a different market. Console gamers tend to want more immediate gratification and have lower standards when it comes to gameplay, although as technology advances they're starting to become a lot more like PC gamers.

Dog Pants wrote:and have lower standards when it comes to gameplay

Your prejudice is showing.

I did wonder if it was predjudice on my part, but I don't think it is. Obiously this is a generalisation and doesn't apply to everybody, but console gamers are usually more casual than PC gamers. If you want to put it another way, they're less elitist than PC gamers and will accept a game for what it is, rather than what it could have been. It all boils down to the same thing though, which is that a game which sells well on a console might not do as well on the PC because the target audience have different expectations of a game.

Dog Pants wrote:I did wonder if it was predjudice on my part, but I don't think it is. Obiously this is a generalisation and doesn't apply to everybody, but console gamers are usually more casual than PC gamers. If you want to put it another way, they're less elitist than PC gamers and will accept a game for what it is, rather than what it could have been. It all boils down to the same thing though, which is that a game which sells well on a console might not do as well on the PC because the target audience have different expectations of a game.

It's arguable, but if you include the Wii with the other two, proper, consoles than the argument becomes one-sided.

Don't forget there are plenty of casual PC gamers as well. Otherwise the PC chart wouldn't be dominated with The Sims, Championship Football Manager, GTA and other games yummed up by the casual market.

Wait, could you define a "proper" console for me please?

Stoat wrote:Wait, could you define a "proper" console for me please?

Any console that has a shocking top sellers chart like this*: http://www.play.com/Games/Wii/6-/TopSellers.html

Mind you, the other two aren't exactly inspiring. The general public are fucking idiots.

*I'm showing my prejudice.

If you're defining consoles as proper or not, you should make the same distinction for PC gamers.

There's the casual ones, who play the sims on their £399 pc world special.

Then there's the ones who spend a good deal of money to keep their machine current and running well.

spoodie wrote: Don't forget there are plenty of casual PC gamers as well. Otherwise the PC chart wouldn't be dominated with The Sims, Championship Football Manager, GTA and other games yummed up by the casual market.

True. But then also see reviews. The same game might get rave reviews in console mags, and get trashed in PC mags. Again the causes are debatable though, I just get the impression that console gamers are more easily pleased.

I quite like some of the ported games for what they are, but invariably the lack of effort put into porting the HCI is a massive turn off.

The worst offenders are the RPG type titles where a bag/backback or spellbook are required. Oblivion suffered abominably from having that stupid one click interfarse, where a NWN or WoW style bag would have been so much more...normal. Put mice on consoles and we'll all be happy.

I tend to make less allowances for a PC title, especially regarding the control system - but I don't think that's me being more discerning, just that I'm used to being able to use particular control methods on PC. I don't make any excuses for graphics or gameplay.

I think console owners are more starved of choice than more easily pleased. Resistance and Killzone are popular console-only FPSes, but they'd likely receive the same lukewarm reception on the PC that Gears of War and Halo 2 did. I don't see them as fantastically great examples of the genre, but given their only other choice is a mix of PC ports such as FarCry 2, Bioshock and Orange Box (equally mixed in terms of their execution) it's not that surprising their exclusives have done well. Unlike many of us, people typically own only one device.

There is a near-constant stream of third-person shooters/action adventure/GTA-ish games on the consoles, few of which make it to PC. I'm not a massive fan of them except for the real cream, like GTA, but even those, that make it onto PC, have been plagued by shoddy ports.

Then there are the oddities: Mass Effect had a spectacularly-well done interface on the PC and managed to improve markedly on a number of other things. Last Remnant on the 360 was slated for its awful loading times (as was Mass Effect, also using the Uneal Engine) - but while LR's PC control system basically required a gamepad, it improved almost everywhere else, some claiming it made an unplayable game into an awesome one.

The reverse transition of PC->Console almost never works. While it could be argued that the Sims console ports actually drove the gameplay of the main release to a more objective-based model, the fiddly and sometimes frustrating controls of Syndicate and Theme Hospital were made fiddlier and er..frustratinger on their console releases - yet both have remained popular choices on XBLA and my water tells me a new version of both isn't far away..and they won't be PC-only.

You talk to your water?

And yes, I forgot Mass Effect. It wasn't perfect (kitting out your whole team with new gear, locker by fucking locker?) But if in principle they can do it for both PC and Console, wtf can't everyone else? Is it sheer idleness?

Don't forget Kotor 1.

Infact, the PC version was delayed by 6 months I think so they could apply spit and polish it up, while also bolting on extra content. Which was nice of LA and Bioware.

We also haven't mentioned Call of Duty. It's sold exceptionally well and been warmly received by PC players and console players alike.

While we didn't take to CoD2 and World at War as much as we did Modern Weapons, generally they've all been very popular titles. Console-only fans I've spoken to rather like the fact they feel like the raw PC versions console-ised, without the silly GUI conventions like huge HUD icons highlighting everything many titles have. They see the series as pure shooters for skilled players which rise above the crowd of oversimplified everyday shooters.

The CoD games have been PC first console second, they've just been very good ports to the consoles, but they've also been geniunely good games anyway so they survive the transition better.

CoD2 was a good game, the story and some of the action was good, I just took offense to the weapon firing modes being removed and a couple of other silly mistakes, the the Gewehr 43 and the scoped variant using different ammo. Small things which just add up.

Halo 1 suffered from the same thing, a well polished and not bad game but suffered from it's xbox otimisation with the controls, which damaged it on the pc as when you were playing it still felt like a console game.

Most of the issue with ports is simply needing to change and modify bits and bobs in order to make it feel at home on that platform. If it still feels like its on another platform is doesn't do well.

buzzmong wrote:The CoD games have been PC first console second

except for that one we dont talk about

I heard they just decided three was an unlucky number and decided not to use it at all.