Steam influenced Skyrim's quality?

[VorrAkkagi]

Er, no. Skyrim was compromised for consoles, and so newbs, casuals and the unreceptive could just pick it up and play it.

 

Well, I guess the Marketing guy IS a genius. Open the market up to all of the above = $$$.

 

We're making a game which I very specifically am not designing around 'catering to the common crowd'. It will be meant for the hardcore folks who want a challenge and don't expect to be hand-fed a level 100 uber char by the end of the first month of play. But then, we're a small group so we don't need to pay for 100s or 1000s of employees all wanting to drive $100K chars =)

[Fortunado3]

Er, no. Skyrim was compromised for consoles, and so newbs, casuals and the unreceptive could just pick it up and play it.

 

Well, I guess the Marketing guy IS a genius. Open the market up to all of the above = $$$.

 

We're making a game which I very specifically am not designing around 'catering to the common crowd'. It will be meant for the hardcore folks who want a challenge and don't expect to be hand-fed a level 100 uber char by the end of the first month of play. But then, we're a small group so we don't need to pay for 100s or 1000s of employees all wanting to drive $100K chars =)

Just sell outs to me. People would have bought in on the hype, and Skyrim would have still sold the same regardless of all the dumbing down they did. Their PR was lowest common denominator, their game didn't have to be.

[Dan3345]

Ok, besides the constant crappy patches I'm starting to think releasing Skyrim on Steam also affected the game's production value. Since you have to download the game to play it, Bethesda was probably pressured to keep the download size small. So we're probably forced to hear the same dialog lines ad nauseam because they didn't want to bloat the download size... :sad:

You had me, and you lost me. While I can see how Skyrim being on Steam would make Bethesda sort of lazy, I don't see them being pressured to keep the download size small. I have many games which I believe are larger than 10 gigabytes such as AC Revelations, and Stalker COP (not sure about COP). I think Brink may be 8 gigabytes.

 

I don't know, I just don't see how a games literal size means it is of bad quality or points to developer laziness. Skyrim when fully uncompressed takes up over 32 gigabytes, so lets not forget what awesome compression people Bethesda are.

[Calamachus]

Opening Skyrim up to consoles and that market allowed it to outsell Oblivions total sales in a matter of a couple of weeks. Was it a decision based on money? Of course it was. Bethesda isn't a charity, they have jobs and families and they want paid and paid well for the work that they do. That's not unreasonable at all.

 

PC games are a niche market now. Trying to pretend otherwise is pointless. What you need to do is get passed that and start focusing on what's important - staying worthwhile enough to get to tag along on the big titles. Halo 3 anyone? PC games get pirated far more than console games. They are more twitchy to develop for (different video cards, hardware specs, etc). Making a game for the PC is more complicated and expensive than it is to do for the console and the return per consumer is technically LESS because a larger percentage of your would-be consumers steal it instead of pay you for it.

 

Skyrim is an awesome game. Could it be better? Of course. Oblivion and Morrowind both could have been better at release too. Be glad Bethesda isn't Ubisoft and we get all these awesome modding tools.

 

Hands down the smart thing to do as a PC gamer is NOT to *censored* and complain and try to pretend that somehow Bethesda is required to spend more on us than they are on console gamers for the same or less return but to instead to show that we add value. Promote the game, make and use mods, buy DLC and otherwise continue to be a market worth catering to. Console kiddies have proven they are going to continue to shell out $60 for 25-30 hours of content every couple of months just about regardless of quality. They make up about 80% of the market. We need to make our 20% *worth* catering to and supporting. If it's cost-effective and a worthwhile investment game developers will make better PC-focused content for their games. If it's not, then they won't. It's pretty simple. What are you going to do - threaten to not buy TES VI if it's geared towards the console market? So their choice is to sell an extra 1,000,000 console copies with an extra $3 or $4 profit per unit or sell an extra 500,000 PC that barely meet production costs? Let's see.... make an extra $4 million or an extra $500,000?

 

It's a business. It has shareholders and investors. It exists to make money. The people who work their without a doubt have pride in their work and want to do what they enjoy. They WANT to make the best game that's ever been made ever - and they want to do it every time. It's not a career someone gets into for the money, but the business itself has to. If we, as PC game consumers, want to get the greater attention we need and our platform can take advantage of we have to be worth the investment.

 

Does that make sense?

Edited April 8, 2012 by Calamachus

[bben46]

@Calamachus: :thumbsup: I'm glad that someone actually 'gets it' that we are not the primary target of these games and that game makers need a profit - that pirates are stealing - to allow them to continue making games for PC.

[azaltan]

'' Does that make sense? ''

 

Hmm.. Partly, because;

 

Console oriented development should not be an excuse for dumbing down an entire genre to the ground for mass appeal.

 

Console oriented development (or piracy) should not be an excuse for almost complete lack of quality assurance for the "full priced" PC release.

 

Console oriented development should not be an excuse for the false advertising they made to create massive hype for their in fact (imho) mediocre quality games.

Edited April 8, 2012 by azaltan

[Sandatharius]

Everything that you see happening in the PC Gaming industry is the DIRECT result of PIRACY. That's why you see great games like Skyrim being somewhat 'dumbed down' as console ports. Sure, piracy exists on consoles, but piracy is 5-6 times greater on the PC platform. So, console versions of the game are being developed FIRST - and then ported to PC (if the developer thinks it's going to be lucrative to do so)

 

I have to be honest, I love having the convenience of STEAM. I can only recall ONE occasion where I couldn't download a game, because of high traffic (it was Christmas and of course people were in the mood to buy or use the gifts that people had given them) But, I have never had a problem logging into Steam, or problems playing my game whenever I wanted to.

 

And no....I seriously doubt that Steam had ANY influence on Bathesda's decision to make the game the size that it is. Blame the fact that Bathesda, much like many other game companies, are putting consoles FIRST. And you can lay the blame for that squarely in the laps of PIRATES. It doesn't MATTER whether YOU think that software developers make too much money. That's irrelevant. What matters is this: If THEY don't think they're making enough money in a certain platform market, due to excessive PIRACY.....THEY WILL STOP OR REDUCE THAT DEVELOPMENT FOR MORE PROFITABLE PLATFORMS!!

 

It doesn't matter how you slice it. We lose. Plain and simple.

 

I like Steam.....and I will continue to enjoy the convenience of being able to download a game whenever I want to.

Edited April 8, 2012 by Sandatharius

[bben46]

@Sandatharius: Based on the last data I saw, nearly a year ago now, your numbers on piracy are a bit off. What I saw claimed that PC piracy was more then 15 times greater than console piracy. One reason for this is that more consoles are used by younger kids - under 12 far more than PCs to play games. They are far less likely to pirate console games at that demographic. And typically they get their games from their parents and grandparents instead of actually buying them themselves. They don't usually have the cash to buy them on their own.

 

Yes, they do have a big influence on the games selected by their elders, However, More than a few parents will outright refuse to allow a child to have a teen rated game, let alone a Mature game. If you are a kid and want a teen or mature game - its better to ask your grandparents - as many people in my generation still think all games are made for kids and not for adults. From experience - my sister was going to buy GTA for her oldest grandson - age 13 until I had her read some of the reviews. :facepalm:

 

This is one of the reason the games are dumbed down for console. And the game companies want the same experience for both consoles and PC for some reason. :rolleyes:

 

That said, I do agree that piracy is a major influence on the PC gaming industry, and a exceptionally detrimental influence. Then the pirates will be the first to whine when their favorite game company stops making the games they steal for PC. :whistling:

 

In my own opinion, the pirates have had a much greater influence on Bethesda's decision to go with steam than any consideration of the size or quality of Skyrim. Going with Steam as their primary distribution channel also reduced their distribution costs dramatically as they didn't have to pay for nearly as many physical copies. :cool:

[Handofbane]

Well, even Gabe Newell has his views on how piracy affects the PC games market, and it isn't quite what most people would expect. While pirates definitely have some influence on publishers' decisions, it may not be nearly as big a reason to justify any cuts made in certain sides of production. I do agree, though, that it makes perfect sense to cut back on physical copies, especially when it has been stated by other developers that online distribution actually helps keep some developers in business. Then again, for bigger publisher/developers, it may not seem like it is that important a deal since they still are restricted on their pricing for digital copies since they need to appease brick-and-mortar retailers to keep console copies of their games available.

[fraquar]

Steam == get a good backup/archive routine started if you don't already have one.