PC Games as a "service"

[PanzerMeyer]

Interesting article even though the guy from Nvidia seems to totally ignore the medium and small sized developers out there.


NVIDIA on PC Exclusive Games

NVIDIA's Roy Taylor Interview on Eurogamer talks with the NVIDIA VP of Content Business Development in a conversation where he opines that the heyday of PC exclusive game development is coming to a close:


I think that we're going to see more digital authentication, and we're going to see more of an approach that says that PC games aren't products - they're a service. You're going to start out with a basic service, which is the game, and then increase the value of that service through patches, mod packs, expansions, maps and so on. That's the direction it's going to go, because the pirates are just killing the developers - and I think it's really unfair what they're doing.

In terms of your other point, which you're right, is related - in terms of where PC development sits relative to consoles, I think we have to face the facts - the value of consoles is such that no-one is going to make a PC-exclusive game in the future. Why would they? Why would they ignore consoles? That said, PC gaming is changing - and consoles don't threaten PC gaming. They're just different. Adapting to that and understanding that is what I think is really, really important. Most PC gamers also own consoles - not all of them, but a lot of them. What we're seeing happen is that, yes, people are developing for Xbox 360, for PS3 - but they're also developing for PC.

The console is now a baseline. If you look at Gears of War or Assassin's Creed, they came out on console and they were great experiences - but the PC versions had additional aspects to them that also made them attractive, whether you owned the console version or not. The PC version was better. That's something that people need to get their heads around - the console is a baseline, the PC is going to be an improved version. That's an exciting future, and that's why I don't see anything threatening about console at all.

The other aspect is that in the past, PC gaming development meant pandering to the lowest common denominator - which meant some poor integrated graphics. Today, developing a PC game means starting at a console, and console graphics are way above integrated graphics. That means the baseline is getting better. Now we're going to add to that version additional features, additional content, to make the PC version even better.

[VEGETA]

well you could look at guild wars and MMP games like this already. guildwars you pay for the game itself, there is no pay to play after you have it but in order to play you need to connect to the hosted servers. Once the game is not so popular and the servers are pulled people still wishing to play it are SOL. Now ok so we generally do move on anyway, it can be said we are there a little bit already. Tho in the end thigns like sins, quake wars and such I want a DVD dam it. tryed downloading games 2 times now and ya not impressed. In generaly people want a copy of the game.