“We want it to be great on all systems”: Dead Space 3 producer defends PC port
By Jess Colwill on January 29, 2013 at 4:46 pm
Last week, we revealed that Dead Space 3 would be getting a straight port to PC with no extra features. The PC gaming community went wild, accusing Visceral Games of everything from laziness to stupidity — so executive producer Steve Papoutsis has come forward to defend their position.
“It’s confusing to me that this question even comes up,” Papoutsis has said to Shack News. “It’s by no means any less important to us; it gets a lot of attention. The PC is a very different platform. As developers, you want to deliver an experience that’s as similar as possible on different platforms.
“At our studio, we’ve always made console games. The biggest thing is we want to make sure the quality of the experience is consistent across all platforms so we don’t have one userbase saying it’s better on their system (…) It’s a confusing question and I hope my answer brings a little bit of light to it. We seem a little bit discredited for the amount of effort that goes into it, quite honestly.”
“We want it to be great on all systems, that’s our approach.”
How do you feel now, sportsracers? Seems like they’re taking an attitude of equality over favouring the PC master race, while still keeping in mind that the PC is a different system with different inputs and requirements. Do you feel placated? Or do you still thirst for blood? Make sure you let us know!
Source: Shack News
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Considering how butchered some ports feel these days, I feel the concerns are legitimate. ‘Extra features’ according to developers are what were standard features in older PC ports – I honestly wouldn’t want anything more than a UI that is redone for the mouse (see: Borderlands 2 doing it wrong, Deus Ex:HR doing it right), even basic graphics options.
But considering how they’re trying so hard to justify microtransactions, I won’t even buy the game. The trailers show a shell of what the series used to be, pushing forward in all the wrong areas in an unashamed attempt to draw an audience that hasn’t even played the first two games!
I really REALLY would like DS3 to bomb at this point, to tell developers that as customers we don’t want mobile gaming traditions squeezing into what should be complete games from the START. At this point, every single article or trailer on DS3 tells me that it’s nothing more than business – they don’t want to make a game to leave a mark on the industry, the want to make it for nothing more than money. No soul left.
Like I said in the other thread some games being straight ports are fine. We don’t need the latest DX11 graphics in every game but we do need the basics like resolution/vsync control, enough graphics nobs to account for different systems and proper kb/mouse support including rebindable keys and no mouse smoothing/acceleration. The game to be properly optimized. Also not to feature stupid things like limiting the framerate. If those are done then 99% of the time there should be 0 issue.
I’d like to see more effort put into any console to PC port, its just sad seeing some big titles play out so badly on PC due to being dumbed down for consoles first.
There’s your problem.
The goal should be to make the game as good as possible on each platform, according to that platform’s capabilities. Not to pick the worst system and strive to recreate it on every platform.
Precisely. Isn’t it great PC games are still being held back by 6 year old technology?
I do agree with exe3 though. As long as there are enough options that it can be classified as a PC game I have no issue. Each comment seems to point toward simple console port though, with the added bonus of always on DRM. They still have a chance to prove me wrong though…
Everyone’s comment here except for exe3′s and caitsith’s http://tinyurl.com/p6zuja
Exe3, that remains to be seen as no one has touched the PC version yet (could be due to comments such as the ones above mine), but I don’t see any reason to accommodate as many rigs as possible (it would tank the sales) by offering resolution etc options (that and the fact that some people still run 5+ year old computers that need the game running on as low as settings as possible).
Caitsith, in recent times I’ve found that developers tend to make the x360/PS3 versions the ‘middle of the range’ editions, and having PC copies being able to go lower than that to accommodate very old rigs, and developers often DO take advantage of each platform (Red Dead Redemption off the top of my head), but I haven’t seen any comparisons for Dead Space 3 anyway.
rapid101,
How do you propose that accommodating a game to run on multiple rigs ‘tanks sales’? The exact same type of work is done to make games work on consoles, they just don’t have extra variables to work with.
Of course we understand that more time and money will be used to make a workable port. We’re not stupid. Adding resolution options by the way, would be one of the simplest things to ad. Like any other comment here, people don’t feel they need more than the basics most of the time – but they appreciate when a developer actually tries to put work into a game going to their platform. That generates good word and good word generates sales.
Name to me ports that tanked due to allowing older rigs to play them on low settings. Half the time that means nothing more than reducing already built in draw distances or number of things on screen, or resolution or adjustable variables for assets ALREADY in the game.
Why we are worried for Dead Space 3 is that EA goes in, throws us the exact same game as was made on 7 year old hardware, with no options basic to the platform to tune it, with added DRM, microtransactions and expects the market to be happy.
If they make a GOOD port, the extra revenue that went into it will pay off (see Deus Ex:HR, Alan Wake, Max Payne 3, The Last Remnant, Black Ops 1′s dedicated servers) to more revenue. Far from tanking, the audience is happy and you make more money.
If they make a BAD port, it will make minimal sales on that platform, people will pirate it in spite of the developer, developer wont develop for the platform anymore, the industry sinks a little bit lower.
Well said.
Papoutsis’s comment is laughable. They do not want to take advantage of superior PC technology because they are concerned about grade school debates in the playground of who has the better gameplay experience? Yeah good luck selling that pitch.
As a personal opinion, I’m satisfied that this won’t look any better on PC as it means I won’t be missing out on the shinies when I’m whoring those delicous Xbox360 achievements and playing with my console friends.
Elaborating further, I personally don’t enjoy having an inferior product in any instance, but sometimes I would prefer the game to perform in the same manner across all platforms so I’m not having to miss out on a certain aspect of the game.
As an example I purchased BF3 on Xbox360 and PC as my friends play on the console, so I wanted to play with them, however I also desired to experience everything the game was promoting visually.
Well at least it’ll bring back an old gaming classic…
“We want it to be great on all systems, that’s our approach”
…Please Insert Coin To Continue.
Again you muppets let your stupid self get in the way of a great game and story. Bitch all you want. I’ll be rocking the shit out of this game
BS excuse is BS.. “we dont want it to look better on different hardware..”
The Xbox 360 was released on November 22, 2005….. nuff said.
kipjib,
Let’s say, for argument’s sake, they were also developing for the Wii at the same time. (I know they aren’t, just theoretically) Would you still be Ok if all versions remained identical then? I know personally that I’d rather the shiny XB360 version I bought pushed the system as far as its old hardware can go, rather than being limited by Wii technology.
Now once again it’s not about giving us PC owners super hi-res textures and extra content that nobody else gets. It’s about making a PC game that’s worthy to be called a PC game.
That said, if it’s as fun as Gamer87 claims (I assume he’s played it and knows :P) then as they say love covers a multitude of sins. *looks sideways at Dark Souls*
The first one fucking sucked, AA issues, flat textures on max settings, REALLY bad mouse smoothing/acceleration, I could not bring my self to play more then 30 mins. It just distracted me too much from trying to enjoy the game.
This sounds even worse. All versions identical ay? so a controller is required to play on pc?, o man this is gonna be the worst pc game ever.
gonna love dat 520p minimal AA’d resolution.
No it isn’t.
Do people upgrade their PCs every generation? No.
I’m rocking a CPU from 2005 and a graphics card from 2008 (that weren’t even top of their line then) and can still play the latest games, and DS3 is an action horror game anyway. Why should it have so many bells and whistles attached? In Borderlands 2 the PC version looks better but why does it even matter? The gameplay was literally the same despite how much of a difference PhysX made.
Judging by your 2nd paragraph you seem to be joking. I think.
By the way turning off vsync fixed the mouse issues in the first one, and they even patched it as well unless you played a pirated copy. I am unaware of the other issues you’re griping about but in games gameplay is first, and you never even mentioned whether it was good or not for you.
Totalbiscuit has picked this issue up and as usual is getting riled up over a trivial matter, as usual. Sometimes I agree with what he has to say but he has such a strong bias that makes most of his videos very hard to watch and he just grabs his pitchforks at the drop of a nail just like reddit did.
Actually went and watched that Totalbiscuit thing on Dead Space 3 just now. I guess I share a lot of his bias, since I’ve been a PC gamer for decades, but I do agree with him on a lot of what he was saying. Let’s face it, as an enthusiast I find it frustrating to see so many games being tamed down just because they want it to work on a 7 year old console system. It’s even worse when you sit down at your mouse and keyboard and the game is telling you which X-Box controller buttons you should be pressing. Or the graphics settings boil down to setting the brightness and contrast, and that’s it. Yeah I’ve seen all sorts of fun situations in console ports. If game developers can’t get the bare basics right, it just shows they couldn’t give a flying fig about PC gamers and they shouldn’t even bother.
So no, I don’t see it as a trivial matter. That said it’s not out yet, they may have at least the basic niceties like resolution changing, keyboard/mouse layout changing, basic level visual tweaking etc. It’s not DX11 features or anything (that would be nice but not super necessary) but I’m not sure how it would be an issue to do stuff like that.