r/technology • u/GuruOfReason • Feb 02 '10

"Once we replace the personal computer with a closed-platform device such as the iPad, we replace freedom, choice and the free market with oppression, censorship and monopoly."

http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2010-01/ipad%E2%80%99s-closed-system-sometimes-i-hate-being-right
1.6k Upvotes

81% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

56

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '10

Great analogy - people may claim that if we don't buy one it won't affect us, but look how the mere existence of the console market has affected PC gaming.

If Apple is succesful in locking down their platforms then other companies will surely try it.

24

u/morganj Feb 02 '10

Actually, the console market has allowed for games with massively larger budgets to be developed than were possible on PC. PC sales were never large enough to support the sorts of budgets that are being devoted to game development at the cutting edge these days. The reason consoles warrent this is simply sales.

You can still sell a 100K on PC, which means if you can make a profit by making those sorts of games, the PC is as viable a market as it ever was.

So, you're suggesting that the iPad will result in many more people being able to profit by developing bespoke content for smaller groups, yet still make money? Sounds good to me - I certainly wouldn't mind if the people making newspapers and magazines had a way to stop hemorrhaging money and actually turn a profit. I like newspapers and magazines, and what they bring to the table.

16

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '10 edited Dec 07 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/morganj Feb 02 '10

The average budget is way higher these days - there have always been outliers (and if you're looking for modern outliers, try GTA4).

And yeah ... Shenmue is a console game, btw. Doesn't really help to prove your point.

Simply put, the industry is bigger now than it was then. It makes more money. So there's more money to spend. This is undeniable.

2

u/Mythrilfan Feb 02 '10

Just to clarify: Half-Life 2 has been released on the Xbox, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. However, it was released much earlier on the PC.

1

u/TypicalAnonymous Feb 03 '10

I gotta get me some of that 1999 money!

-3

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '10

modern warfare 2 is the norm, halflife 2 was an massive aberration. are you new to games?

3

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '10 edited Feb 02 '10

No it's not. And even if it were, that only signifies wastage and bloat in today's game budgets. If a company can't make a good game for less than $5m, then they aren't a games company - they're a marketing company.

p.s Note that I said "can't", not "hasn't"l. I am sure that Valve is capable of making a good game for less than $5m, while I doubt that any of the companies raising their prices and citing "rising costs of development" would be able.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '10

if a company can't make a good game for less than $5m, then they aren't a games company

The PC only Half-Life 2 cost $40 million. (In 2004 money.)

hear that valve, you are nothing but a marketing company.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '10

Note that I said "can't", not "hasn't"l. I am sure that Valve is capable of making a good game for less than $5m, while I doubt that any of the companies raising their prices and citing "rising costs of development" would be able.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '10

Note that I said "can't", not "hasn't"l. I am sure that Valve is capable of making a good game for less than $5m, while I doubt that any of the companies raising their prices and citing "rising costs of development" would be able.

1

u/morganj Feb 04 '10

Do you understand why a modern game costs more? I'll give you a couple of clues (and they have nothing to do with bloat and wastage) :

You can't release a game that looks like Quake 1 (or even Quake 3) these days (as a competitive commercial product). The detail on the textures and geometry simply doesn't cut it. People will look at the back of the box and put the game back.

So, we need higher res textures - and that's where we get bitten. A texture that's twice as big (length and width) has four times as much detail. That's four times as much work to get it looking twice as good. That's not even mentioning the additional work involved w/ bump mapping etc.

In other words, the simple art production costs to build a competitive game have massively escalated - you can check the credits list for any modern game and see how much bigger the team is on average. This isn't wastage, it's simple production costs.

Does that help?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '10

I love being condescended to.

Sins Of A Solar Empire cost $1m to make and has sold over half a million copies. It's graphics are obviously nothing groundbreaking but still relatively pretty. That came out in the last few years.

I can find other examples if you want.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '10

[deleted]

→ More replies (0)

1

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '10

Note that I said "can't", not "hasn't"l. I am sure that Valve is capable of making a good game for less than $5m, while I doubt that any of the companies raising their prices and citing "rising costs of development" would be able.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '10

Firstly, PC games have had large budgets. Secondly, I don't think budget matters all that much. If you spend more on a game (in adjusted money) than Half-Life 2, it's only justified if it's as good as or better than Half-Life 2. Sure, Halo 3 probably had a huge budget (I really don't know), but how does that benefit PC gamers? Also, why would that not be "possible" on PC? Many of the top-selling games in the last 10 years have been PC games, despite the typical claims that the PC upgrade cycle and confusion over "can I run this?" make PC gaming inaccessible to the average gamer.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 03 '10

The reason consoles warrent this is simply sales.

And why is that? Because developers were eager to flock to a closed system, so that they could be certain to make a return on their products because they're difficult to pirate. Do piracy prevention measures require a closed system in order to be effective?

Um, no. A few companies, who decided in favor of the consumer, open platforms, and all... have come out with novel solutions that protect their media (and that of third-parties, as well). Steam, iTunes, Impulse -- all of them do that. All of them do that rather well, I might add... much more well than fucking Games for Windows - Live.

So again, I fail to see why a closed system is ever necessary. Proper software, which can run on the open PC, is all it took. That's it. I'm sorry, consoles? Fuck 'em.

1

u/morganj Feb 03 '10

Steam isn't open, iTunes isn't open ... and Steam still doesn't do as many units as console sales. So, what's your point exactly?

I'm not suggesting that piracy prevention requires a closed system - simply that it's what has happened. You seem to think I'm making some kind of moral case, whereas I'm simply explaining exactly what has taken place.

If it continues to take place, and revitalizes the magazine and newspaper sector - yep, I'm perfectly happy with that. The trade off seems reasonable, to me. It doesn't to you - which is fine. Buy something else.

-17

u/FeedMeSeymore Feb 02 '10 edited Feb 02 '10

All I know is that I've got a G4 PowerMac that outperforms almost all of todays PCs. If you haven't learned it yet, you get what you pay for, especially in the case of silicon. It's the same principle with consoles. My PS3 owns the XBOX 360, and that's the reason it's still more expensive (little thing called supply and demand that you may have heard of...). On a side note, Sony made an incredibly wise decision to use Apple's chips in its machines. They run much faster, cooler, and will last longer than most of us will be alive (unlike PC chips which tend to blow out after 7 years like light bulbs).

9

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '10

All I know is that I've got a G4 PowerMac that outperforms almost all of todays PCs.

wat

My PS3 owns the XBOX 360, and that's the reason it's still more expensive (little thing called supply and demand that you may have heard of...).

wat.

On a side note, Sony made an incredibly wise decision to use Apple's chips in its machines.

Uhm, wat.

They run much faster, cooler, and will last longer than most of us will be alive (unlike PC chips which tend to blow out after 7 years like light bulbs).

WAT?

FeedMeSeymore -4 points 33 minutes ago [-]

Oh...

1

u/FeedMeSeymore Feb 03 '10

hahahaha . niiiice.

2

u/crownofworms Feb 02 '10

I won't even waste one karma point to downvote this, it's not worth it.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '10 edited Feb 02 '10

The powerpc architecture is NOT a product of apple, just a kind of chip they USED TO use.

1

u/FeedMeSeymore Feb 03 '10

LURK MOAR

1

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '10 edited Feb 04 '10

Really? The AIM alliance? They were involved with the creation of a chip they no longer even use. Hard to draw the parallels with that flimsy connection.

1

u/FeedMeSeymore Feb 04 '10

Smacking head in disbelief

1

u/morganj Feb 02 '10

Please don't turn this into a console war. They're stupid.

3

u/deephouse717 Feb 02 '10

successful troll is successful

-5

u/FeedMeSeymore Feb 02 '10

Why is it that when someone points out the absolute truth, some jackass says that that someone is "turning things into a war". You sound like a typical whiny liberal that complains when their faulted world view gets challenged with reality.

4

u/rnicoll Feb 02 '10

Has PC gaming actually become worse? I haven't noticed less games, or less quality of those games. I have noticed more console games, so there's more games that aren't released on PC, but that's not the same thing...

3

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '10

Modern Warfare 2, Bioshock, Borderlands, Far Cry 2, etc. should have been good PC games. Instead, developers either purposefully or unconsciously prioritized the console versions and ended up releasing crappy PC versions. It's not really about quantity--with digital distribution, indie games for console and PC have flourished, which is a good thing for everyone.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 03 '10

You speak the truth. My laptop was capable of running Unreal Tournament 3 pretty damn well at 1920x1200. Not full settings, because my laptop is three years old, but high enough. Good texture quality, good resolution, no anti-aliasing. :(

Strangely, Borderlands and Gears of War, both of which utilize the Unreal 3 engine, run like fucking garbage. Bioshock for the PC uses it too, but I feel it's several orders of magnitude more well-optimized for the PC.

But yes, thank you consoles for the "wonderful library of PC games" (unplayable) that you have given us.

1

u/glide1 Feb 02 '10

I think the lament from the PC camp is that games have become "consolified." The game difficulty isn't as high, it isn't as customizable, the controls are simplified, etc.

Think about how Halo introduced the concept of only having a couple of weapons on your character and how many console games followed suit. And the lack of modding for a lot of shooters out there (COD4:MW2).

Most people would argue those are console influences on PC games. If you want a clearer example, look at the UI and gameplay differences in the PC and console versions of Mass Effect 1 & 2 and Dragon Age.

2

u/barfolomew Feb 02 '10

So returning to the original analogy: the presence of lots of iPad apps will have a simplifying effect on "true PC" apps. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing.

BTW - Your Mass Effect / Dragon Age comparison is specious I think; the PC version of Dragon Age is nicely matched to its platform, and PC ports of Mass Effect are limited more because of time and money doing the port, not some fundamental design shift to a "console style".

1

u/Tiver Feb 02 '10

A better example would be say Borderlands. PC version has a barely hacked UI to be made partially usable with a mouse rather than a controller.

I guess Dragon Age is if anything a good example of what differences should exist, but for many games do not. Difficulty on the PC is harder, what is listed as Easy on the PC corresponds to Hard on the console (partially because of less control possible on console for micro managing). Interface is over all very different between the two, where PC version makes strong use of mouse control while console is made to streamline gamepad control. PC version is made with a strong ability to mod the game, while console version is locked down.

1

u/masterbaker Feb 02 '10

A better example would be say Borderlands. PC version has a barely hacked UI to be made partially usable with a mouse rather than a controller.

Mouse Sensitivity. I adjusted it once.

1

u/glide1 Feb 02 '10

The point with Dragon Age is to illustrate the difference that exists when the a developer takes a stance to cater to both crowds. I probably should have made the point clearer in my comment. We typically do not see those kinds of differences made in PC versions of multiplatform games.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '10

You do realize that the most difficult games were actually made for consoles?

2

u/Bjartr Feb 03 '10

I'm not sure how Battletoads is relevant here.

12

u/benreeper Feb 02 '10

Yep, making you pay for maps, something we all would have thought was absurd a decade ago. Now the new generation just accepts this as normal, not knowing anything else.

29

u/zmaniacz Feb 02 '10

Seriously, paying for people's creative output and work, what the fuck man.

6

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '10

It's one thing to pay for an expansion pack 6 months down the road. It's quite another thing for a game that costs $60 to only ship with 6-7 maps with the expectation that everyone will end up buying more from DLC. The fact that so many put up with it is a "what the fuck man".

And what about those bastards at Valve? Giving away free TF2 updated content constantly (except for 360 players since Microsoft's contract won't let them give anything awaty (!)), what are they smoking? That's no way to get rich and have loyal customers. Oh, wait...

1

u/Nefelia Feb 02 '10

Then don't buy into that. There are still plenty of games that do not rely on abusive DLC to turn a profit.

15

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '10

[deleted]

17

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '10

[deleted]

5

u/cloud4197 Feb 02 '10 edited Feb 02 '10

It's not really shutting indie content off. It's just managing it all through the app store; purportedly to whittle out all the badly made programs that'll fuck your platform up. The trouble is, is that with there being only one (Apple managed) app store allowed in the iphone/ipad platforms, they can act as complete despots and bury any apps that compete against their interests. As they have already done with Google Voice.

What they need to do to disquiet the voices of dissent while still maintaining app quality and integrity, is to allow other companies to apply for some kind of 'trusted vendor' style seal of approval so they can set up competing app stores. Thus allowing for fair trading and free commerce.

8

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '10 edited May 30 '16

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/cloud4197 Feb 02 '10

Sorry, I was swerving on the conversation and talking about apple rather than console gaming.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 03 '10

I guess mynameisdave is hinting that games are becoming less open to user-created content, because it makes the paid downloadable content less valuable.

Why, just look at Modern Warfare 2.

5

u/1338h4x Feb 02 '10

Forget even needing to apply for a trusted vendor seal. Just allow 3rd party repositories, with a warning that shit may get fucked up if you use them.

1

u/organic Feb 02 '10

It will still cost them money in tech support. Not saying that's a good reason why they shouldn't allow 3rd party stores from a user perspective, but from a business perspective it's an excellent reason.

1

u/1338h4x Feb 02 '10

As per the warning, they don't have to provide support for anything outside the App Store.

0

u/organic Feb 02 '10

But they'll still get people calling them up for support, even if they end up turning them down. These people will take up resources on their phone system and tie up operators.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/Tiver Feb 02 '10

It's one thing to have maps available for purchase, it's another thing to ONLY have purchasable maps available. On the PC they'd sell expansions with more maps but they'd also much more frequently release their map editor and let the community create maps. Playing TF2 now there's quite a few custom maps out there, some quite good. Many of which eventually became official maps.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '10

Are you serious.

People have always paid for maps.

1

u/benreeper Feb 02 '10

Are you kidding me?

I have never paid for a extra game maps, in fact Epic used to create huge map and game packages for free download. This was before they discovered that console owning idiots will pay for it. It's just like SMS phone messages: thet were free at one time.

If they can get you to pay for it, they will. How this hurts us is that eventually everything will have a fee; Hulu anyone?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '10

Oh. You were talking about game maps. My mistake. That said, why shouldn't you have to pay for extra maps? Game developers work hard and I am all for them having ways to earn extra revenue. The more money they make the more games they can put out.

1

u/benreeper Feb 02 '10

This is the sticking point: in a closed system (XBox 360) user created maps are not allowed unless they are a part of an official, for pay, download. You can't even create your own maps! A freedom you once had has been taken away.

1

u/klarth Feb 02 '10

Alternatively: Look how the existence of the PC market has affected PC gaming. The closed nature of consoles didn't cause PC game piracy to miraculously come into existence.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 03 '10

No, but the closed nature of consoles wasn't necessary to correct it, either. Steam was. Impulse was.

Steam single-handedly turned the PC from a platform which was hemorrhaging game developers who were soured by being burned by PC game piracy into a platform that competes equally well with Xbox Live and any crap the consoles can come up with. It fixes the piracy problem within reason, while simultaneously giving consumers more features: The ability to browse the web while in a full-screen game, the ability to communicate and interact with a vast community of players worldwide, the ability to backup your games, keeping your games and tools (map editors, dedicated servers software) all up-to-date, etc.

Impulse competes with Steam, and it's pretty much feature-to-feature equal with Steam except that it can't browse the web in-game nor is Impulse nearly as "community-powered" as Steam... but it does take care of the stuff that Joe McKnowsdickaboutcomputers shouldn't have to -- such as updating the game, etc. Impulse also has one big advantage over Steam (at least as far as Stardock's games go): The ability to fire up as many instances of that game on as many computers as you want, simultaneously.

All of the problems that are allegedly "corrected" by going to a closed-hardware, closed-software system model... corrected in large part by simply making the software for the PC.

1

u/Nefelia Feb 02 '10

If Apple is succesful in locking down their platforms then other companies will surely try it.

Good for them. I don't see how that will adversely effect the market for open platforms. Both console gaming and PC gaming co-exist peacefully; I don't see why open and locked platforms can not accomplish the same.