Id Software figurehead losing patience with the platform he launched his company on
A pioneer in the field of action PC games believes the platform has been superseded by consoles.
John Carmack, co-founder of Id Software and an architect of the tech behind historic PC games Doom and Quake, said today his studio “does not see the PC as the leading platform for games".
“That statement will enrage some people, but it is hard to characterise it otherwise,” Carmack said in an interview with Kotaku.
His claims come in the wake of the disastrous PC launch for Id Software’s latest title, Rage, which for many had been rendered unplayable due to a multitude of driver issues.
Id Software has released various patches in a bid to resolve the issue, but Carmack’s relationship with the platform seems to have suffered from the driver problems.
Advertisement
He said both console versions of Rage (Xbox 360, PS3) would have larger audiences than the PC version.
“A high-end PC is nearly ten times as powerful as a console, and we could unquestionably provide a better experience if we chose that as our design point and we were able to expend the same amount of resources on it,” he said.
"Nowadays most of the quality of a game comes from the development effort put into it, not the technology it runs on.”
Carmack’s comments come in conflict with many indie games developers who, research has shown, are pouring more resources into PC game development.
Id Software’s old rival, Epic Games, recently claimed it would refocus on PC games development.
The fact that there are too many variations of possible PC configurations provides far too many problems. We don't need so much choice, not only would it be more cost effective to produce less variations of processors and graphics cards, but it also makes it a great deal easier to support the users, of which there will be fewer sets.
All we need is an entry level PC for using office apps with only basic hardware accelerations and a basic CPU (since word processing hasn't greatly changed in the last 20 years).
The only other choice the user should have to make is how powerful, and this can be made simple by tying them with console-like generations. No GeForce xxxx, just simple names like ALPHA, BETA, GAMMA and DELTA.
Incrementally more powerful than the last, and the only choice is if you have a bog standard graphics card (for example if you want a powerful machine for just music production), or graphics acceleration is needed.
Imagine being able to just state GAMMA level systems are required for the game, but DELTA level systems are recommended for full graphics effects.
---
Just go on apple.com and observe the simplicity in choosing a Mac, and even then I feel it's too much choice. Make it simpler with less choice and it will be easier for both users and developers.
@MR_K: I would agree, 12 different systems should be enough for everyone.
That would be:
3 Intel/NVidia
3 Intel/AMD GPU
3 AMD CPU/AMD GPU
and 3 AMD CPU/NVidia
We now see that most graphics cards are just rebrands, the 6950 is a 6970 with a few shader cores lasered out, which proves that less types is more cost effective.
And of course the entry level PC's could do with an IGP instead of a GPU, as that's pretty much enough for most people.
I think we are missing the larger picture here once again. I a have not grown up as a PC gamer but as the years role by I find that the PC market offers a huge variety of different type sof games than solitary consoles.
For example PC games do not just fall into the category of triple A graphic busting titles. As the article states we have seen a huge uprise in independent games on the PC platform from games based on traditional mechanics like Amnesia (which would struggle to find a market elsewhere) to others that are simpler but just as brilliant like World of Goo or Machinarium.
On top of this we have the whole Facebook phenomenon too with its controversial brand of social gaming.
Surely all of these including triple A titles constitute as PC gaming? Maybe Carmacks game are no longer what PC gaming is all about and that bigger simply does not mean better anymore.
From my point of view, I believe most AAA game studios didn't realize the audience changed: players aren't anymore only a number of technological "geeks" that could put up a PC from scratch in order to get the best computer around to play the latest Id Software, Crytek or Epic's wonderful yet very demanding cool game.
We now count way more players that don't want to give a damn about how to make their computer run faster to play their game, they just want to put the disk and start playing.
That's why we see all the casual games either on Facebook or on smartphones getting so much success from my point of view, these games are just simple yet addictive games that plug & play without having to care about DRM, can my machine support it kinda questions...
The game industry is now mainstream and players aren't tech savy.
Consoles are great on that since they simplify the development of a game (the game studio doesn't have to care about different processors, video card, drivers, etc) and it somehow reassure the consumer.
Just the simple process of "installing" a game on your computer seems like a show stopper for most people: how often can I hear some of my friends or family being worried just when they have to "install" MS Office on their machine. They just want it to launch and use it.
Not to mention that laptops are gaining since half a decade a lot of success and people do not generally own a desktop AND a laptop...
And we all know how laptops aren't made for resource demanding games...
You can also see such change when you buy a game on Steam or the like: you don't install properly a game but download it to your machine (which is something general public can easily understand and accept).
Digital is getting more and more success over retail distribution because of the simplicity brought by this approach.
From my point of view, people just want to hit play. So if you miss your launch on PC with such annoying issues crashes while you just bought the game and yet you read on forums that the same game runs fine on your friends consoles, players will tend to leave PCs to Consoles.
Surely the testing before you release a title should show any driver problems? Perhaps this is a case of a developer loosing touch with their home platform, rather than an issue of hardware fragmentation...
Surely this is about ten years behind the times? This argument was old when the original Xbox launched. There are a decade's worth of solutions to the multiple-configurations problem used in thousands of games and hundreds of game engines, and the argument right now should be whether the console has been superseded by mobile, tablet and web gaming.
Console are for poor stupid people who play poor stupid games. They are too dim to realise what wondrous prizes await at the gates of PC gaming.
Let them have their poorfag graphics. Let them have their poorfag no-mouse.
Meanwhile I'll be over here with my 560GTX 2500K with the rest of the PC master race, browsing 4chan.
No wonder that he says that now, after his company was unable to do proper QA and launch a stable product.
The PC version of Rage is just the development version released as full priced title. It is possible to produce a good and stable PC game, just because id is to lazy to do it it's not impossible.
Sure they used some new tech, which might be problematic, but to tell the truth I am not impressed.
The PC market has standards and they work if the developer is putting a bit efford in it. We don't need less product variety, heterogenous platforms are here and are the future. We don't need vendor lock-in for the PC.
