I am a big fan of making bold statements.
Last week I claimed FPS games on consoles are for Jeremy Kyle contestants.
Back in August, I made a confident hypothesis that Left 4 Dead 2 dissidents, despite their claims they will boycott the game, will still be playing on Left 4 Dead 2 servers when the game is released.
I base my standpoint on those that blow hot air and huff and puff, are exactly the same as myself. If Modernware 2 bombs, and as some fear, it’ll be a bad console port, I’ll delete this post and pretend I never made the claim. And I assure you, if you follow my tactics, you’ll get very far in life.
Diclaimer- I am joking. Tongue in cheek time! I would never make a very good life coach.
Call of Duty 6- a poor console port?
The grapevine is an interesting medium. Sometimes drunk with chinese whispers. Other times with grains of truth. One of the rumours is that Modernware 2 has been made for the consoles first, PC last. Fuelled further by a delayed release date, it’s thought that Call of Duty 6 will be ‘ported’ over to the PC to suit a small demand.
I can feel you spitting that energy drink at the screen right now, my gamer friend. I feel you. For those that aren’t familiar with the phrase ‘porting’. Essentially, the game is made for the console. It’s then adapted to work on the PC. But primarily its based round the consoles. Why? Demand. For every one of us PC gamers, there are hundreds of controller noobs, who have a morbid fear of mice. Because they suck at gaming.
Try youtoooobing for Call of Duty 6 videos. All console based. PS3, XBOX 360. Am I breaking it to you yet?
Check this out:
While for a COD veteran, there are all the familiar signs there of a franchise. But is it just me, or is that rather ‘consoley’? ‘Arcadey’? The dictionary is no use to me here. It’s not a traditional PC online FPS game. You’ve been forgiven for imaging old skool CS and Quake players vommiting at the site of this vid, the poor mites. It’ll be ported.
So why will it still be a huge success?
Before continuing, I think it’s time to add in my exit strategy, should I need to change my mind after the last release.
This depends on a masses of factors.
Firstly the support for Linux binaries, a real hot topic of debate. Well, call me Derron Brown, but no hope here. Last year we were waiting weeks and weeks for the release of Call of Duty 5 linux server binaries. Now given the recent revelations, can you see them being rushed out? Sadly, this is a sign of changing times.
If you’ve ever read the book Who Moved My Cheese? (don’t ever claim this blog isn’t educational!), you’ll understand why we’ve adapted, moved on, and we’re now going to have Windows support for Call of Duty 6 servers with the hope we can host from day one. We just couldn’t afford to be waiting round like idiots for the linux binaries again. Third time bitten, er, third time shy? 
So on the basis of the Windows dedicated server, we are then looking at how well IW support the dedicated servers. Will the servers be customisable? With the patches be frequent and fixing?
Learning from COD5, while I cannot see the same level of support Valve provide for their FPS games, I think it’ll be enough to appease the community. Because let’s face it, there’s only one COD game a year, and when all counts, the gamers don’t have much choice these days.
It should be an interesting run up to Christmas regardless. And the game makers and everyone involved (bar the poor game server providers) will make a fortune, no doubt
I think if the release is delayed it will certainly point to it being a console game , and it will also show just what the makers think of pc gamers if this happens the finger will point straight to the money point of view with no concideration to the thousands of dedicated Call of duty gamers that prefer the pc over nooby consols .
Personaly im not to bothered about the game i can see the multiplayer is going to be Cod4 with a few graphical tweaks and it will be full of nooby hackers within a week, the single player will be awesome just like Cod 4 was so when i get it and i will the Cod franchize is like a drug i will be buying mainly for the 4-5 hrs of single player.
Its a shame these companys put money ahead of there dedicated pc customers.
Very good read, consoles are clearly the primary target for the cod games now, the Devs give me a feeling that they think they are doing us a favor by releasing on the PC at all. That’s the impression i get anyway. Just goes to show, money is all that matters.
I can’t help but think how cod would of turned out if it wasn’t for the PC players, it certainly wouldn’t be as big as it is now. Another thing that i have noticed is the “new” features added to multiplayer, it’s fairly obvious they checkout the mods and get idea’s from modders hardwork for there next game. Take the AC130 for example, would it of been included into mp in MW2 if it wasn’t for the extreme mod from cod4? I doubt it
Yet still we will most likely get a buggy game on release date which will require lots of patching.
I could be totally wrong but i think there is more chance of me winning the lottery.
I see MW2 basicaly as a large COD4 patch, but IW have a cash cow and they are milking it for all it’s worth.
Im not overly bothered about when it comes out, but ive got to buy it so I can setup the clan servers for it.
I have no doubt the game will be good. The only thing I hate about COD games are the small shoebox maps. Kind of creates predictable gameplay….
Great news, no dedicated server support for mw2….
* We’re doing a lot on the backend to make the game accessible for everyone.
* There is no delay for the PC version of MW2
* There’s prestige mode
* Jason West at the MP event, said that he was dead on, on the matchmaking servers. We’ve been building a system on the backend called IW.NET.
* You are completely reliant on IW.NET. There are no server lists. There are no dedicated servers.
* You have private matches where you can customize the game
* You cannot put MW2 on a dedicated server.
* This is the first time we’ve ever done something like this and the team has huge plans for what IW.NET develops into.
* Customizing your game…you have quite a few options in a private match
* You’re getting same game (as in Console), plus matchmaking and private match.
* Server admin point-of view, NO DEDICATED SERVERS
OH dear quick Olly delete it and pretend it never happened lol.
I still don’t understand why this is happening. To correct your figures Olly, at the beginning of 2009, there were 17 million Xbox Live accounts, and just over 20 million Playstation network accounts. Now, Steam ALONE had over 20 million accounts at the start of the year.
I realise this doesn’t give an indication of who is playing what games and (like myself), many PC gamers will own at least one console.
More figures to mull over… Like everyone else, video card manufacturers were hit in 2008 with greatly reduced sales. But despite this, in Q1 2008 – a three month period – 24.4 MILLION standalone graphics cards were sold by all manufacturers. 24.4 million!!! Again, most of those are probably not top-end gaming cards but I would bet a good few million are since generally, non-gamers will stick with onboard video – they certainly won’t bother upgrading. Even so, that’s several million every 3 months (the figures are similar for each quarter, btw)
There was some less reliable info released last year that hinted that the PC gaming industry was actually substantially larger than all the console sales (incl the Wii) added together. I have not quoted those figures as they cannot be verified.
As I pointed out, the figures don’t allow direct comparisons to be made but they do imply that that there are huge numbers of PCs being used for gaming. So when I hear the gaming industry talking about how PC gaming is a niche market, I start to wonder if they’re trying to talk it down because it’s easier for developers to create mass-produced console garbage than new, innovative products, most of which start life on the PC.
Here’s how it might go down: Take a frachise that started out as PC only. After a couple of games, create a port to console. Console sales are good so next time, create the game for the console only. Realise how easy and profitable that was?!?? Next time, release the game for both PC and console but deliberately make the game appeal to console players using techniques that are obvious to us PC gamers (perpetual upgrades, achievements, etc). Console sales soar because this game is pandering to what those types of players want! However, PC sales of the title lag behind because the game has been dumbed down and plays like a console game! Now, you have the excuse to release the game as a console game with a PC port since “PC gaming is a niche market – our last game’s sales proved that point”. Call me paranoid…
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/11/pc-modern-warfare-2-its-much-worse-than-you-thought.ars
Take a look at this link. I can’t believe the IW devs were so non compliant with the pc gaming community. I personally will not buy the game because of their attitude. They were basically like, “YOUR INPUT IS CRAP AND YOU’LL PLAY OUR GAME OUR WAY AND LIKE IT.”