Mark Rein say no to Serial content and No to Intel IGP.

locutus12 · 12 Jul 2006 at 19:31

Video games should not try to copy the TV industry by releasing episodic content, a senior game industry figure has said.

Mark Rein, vice president of Epic, makers of Unreal Tournament, said the cost and time needed to produce blockbuster experiences ruled out successful episodic content.

He was speaking to a conference of game developers in Brighton, in the UK.

"It's not feasible to bring a level out every other week," he said.

Franchise fatigue

The games industry is looking at new ways to deliver content to gamers and episodic content is seen by some as a way of meeting demand and distributing to consumers in new ways.

"One of the problems is that you are getting a piece of a game," Mr Rein told the conference.

"You are typically paying $20 for a third of a game and waiting at least six months between episodes. That's a long time.

"When you are watching a TV show it's not that big a deal to wait a week between episodes because you are not paying for it - it's advertising supported."

But he said gamers were more fickle and that competition from new, full cost, heavily marketed titles would result in diminishing returns for episodic content.

He said: "I always feel that when I put a game down for a certain time I want to try a new game.

"Franchise fatigue will set in to these episodic games if they don't shorten the time between episodes."

Another potential problem, he said, was that getting episodes to gamers more quickly would result in recycling.

"You are going to see a lot of recycled content, walking through the same environment you saw in a previous episode, shooting the same enemies with the same weapons."

The developer of PC title Half-Life 2 has just released a spin-off episode for the game and a second is due soon.

Mr Rein warned that Half-Life 2 was unique because the game had a large following.

Mr Rein said the current "blockbuster" model used by the video game industry was less risky and potentially more lucrative.

"Gamers want rich experiences. We are cool already so why must the game business continually feel the need to emulate other mediums."

Epic's latest project Gears of Wars on Xbox 360 is being pushed strongly by Microsoft and is a key title for the console this year.

Mr Rein said each level of the game "probably involved a couple of man years of work".

He said: "A new, boxed game has entirely new characters, content, storylines and an experience you have not had before. Developers have spent years making it."

The games developer said the current model of releasing episodic content in the form of fully-fledged sequels was the least risky model for the industry.

Chip chop

He also attacked giant chip firm Intel for damaging the PC games industry.

He said Intel's decision to produce integrated graphics chips for use inside millions of PCs meant many gamers were being sold machines incapable of playing the latest games.

"If Intel exited the gaming market we would all be better off."

He said that PC gaming was in danger of being killed off altogether, leaving the industry "at the whim of Sony and Microsoft".

Many PC manufacturers use Intel integrated graphics chips instead of providing dedicated graphics hardware.

The low-cost chips are incapable of dealing with the graphics and computational power required for modern games.

i quite agree

Xinn · 12 Jul 2006 at 19:57

Agreed, I seem to see a lot more "cheaper" machines being sold which all seem to be P4 rigs with either on board graphics or low end cards, it's one thing that really annoys me.

*that competitor springs to mind here :rolleyes:

*

gord · 12 Jul 2006 at 19:59

Mark Rein setting it straight. Although you can see bias in some of his words, i do agree with him on most of the points. But is Epic aided by AMD? Intel integrated graphics isnt the worst thing on the planet for gaming, loads of boards come with onboard graphics and its not a hell of a deal to stick in a card.

chris06 · 12 Jul 2006 at 20:10

gord said:
Intel integrated graphics isnt the worst thing on the planet for gaming, loads of boards come with onboard graphics and its not a hell of a deal to stick in a card.

Agree, but for the average customer who walks in to the purple place to buy a pc they dont know how crep they are. They just presume because they have a new pc that it can play the latest games. Which it cant!

Behemoth · 12 Jul 2006 at 20:55

chris06 said:
Agree, but for the average customer who walks in to the purple place to buy a pc they dont know how crep they are. They just presume because they have a new pc that it can play the latest games. Which it cant!

Agree with you there mate, given that I work for one of their sister chains the only difference is we wear blue shiirts and sell other things besides PC's.

I generally ask what things people want to use the new PC for, they say the latest games then I tell them that the £499 PC they are looking at won't do it, they just sort of look at me with a usless look and say "What none of them" I then break down what I've said a relate the information to them in car talk, near enough everyone uinderstands the difference between having a car with a 1.2 litre engine, and a 1.8 GTI for example.

Once they've gotten there head around it and they ask how much they would have to spend on a gaming PC, and I say well aroun £800 upwards, they walk out the store like I've insulted them :mad:

But like I say you are right, because it's new they expect it to run everything.

chris06 · 12 Jul 2006 at 22:20

Surley this will all change when vita comes out anyway as iirc it needs a dedicated card just to run the os. if thats true bye bye intel integrated gfx

Minstadave · 12 Jul 2006 at 22:51

chris06 said:
Surley this will all change when vita comes out anyway as iirc it needs a dedicated card just to run the os. if thats true bye bye intel integrated gfx

Nope, Intel have got an updated integrated solution in the pipeline for Vista.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=31239

Its not fast, but it'll do the job.

chris06 · 12 Jul 2006 at 23:10

Minstadave said:
Nope, Intel have got an updated integrated solution in the pipeline for Vista.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=31239

Its not fast, but it'll do the job.

oh well nevermind. I stand corrected

Gimpymoo · 12 Jul 2006 at 23:58

Minstadave said:
Nope, Intel have got an updated integrated solution in the pipeline for Vista.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=31239

Its not fast, but it'll do the job.

I believe S3 also have an "Improved" VGA chipset in the making

locutus12 · 13 Jul 2006 at 00:11

gord said:
Mark Rein setting it straight. Although you can see bias in some of his words, i do agree with him on most of the points. But is Epic aided by AMD? Intel integrated graphics isnt the worst thing on the planet for gaming, loads of boards come with onboard graphics and its not a hell of a deal to stick in a card.

intel are the worst for it though as a lot of their IGP`s end up in off the shelf PC`s from places like faeces world and HeLL, crapard bell, compaqt and Phony all carry their boards with IGP as well, someof dells pc`s dont even come with an AGP or PCI-E socket, so what youve got is what youve got.

Minstadave said:
Nope, Intel have got an updated integrated solution in the pipeline for Vista.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=31239

Its not fast, but it'll do the job.

Whorah! on no wait...

[TW]Fox · 13 Jul 2006 at 00:58

The amount of time people come to me at work and insist that YES, Half-Life 2 will perform faultlessly, because the machine is 'BRAND NEW' and who am I to question their machine never ceases to astound me.

They always come back the next day as well for a refund..

chris06 · 13 Jul 2006 at 01:10

I provide tech support for a well known games company and get loads of calls where people start shouting at me when I tell them that their BRAND NEW maching cant play the latest game.

They then proceed to demand a refund only for me to tell them that its their responsibility to check the specs on the box and there is nothing we can do.

Cronox · 13 Jul 2006 at 09:22

Personally I think IG have a place:

Behemoth said:
Once they've gotten there head around it and they ask how much they would have to spend on a gaming PC, and I say well aroun £800 upwards, they walk out the store like I've insulted them

The fact is most people don’t want to spend £800 for a system just so they can play games. That’s basically saying you can have a 360 and a PS3, which will both run games for at least the 5 years or you can get a PC. I know what sounds more attractive to a casual gamer. I think game developers need to work harder on ensuring their games scale so those lower end systems rather than complain. This is something that companies like blizzard do in all their games, which I feel helps in their massive sucess. These cheap systems are always going to be out there, it's your own fault if you cut out the majority of the audience by not supporting them.

Boogle · 13 Jul 2006 at 13:25

The new Intel IGP is for Vista only, ie. just fast enough to render Aero. Doesn't mean it can render games by any stretch.

locutus12 · 13 Jul 2006 at 13:34

Boogle said:
The new Intel IGP is for Vista only, ie. just fast enough to render Aero. Doesn't mean it can render games by any stretch.

so basically as long as you just sit and stare at the desktop youl be fine

gord · 13 Jul 2006 at 13:48

locutus12 said:
so basically as long as you just sit and stare at the desktop youl be fine

Isnt that the case with the current onboard chips..

chris06 said:
I provide tech support for a well known games company and get loads of calls where people start shouting at me when I tell them that their BRAND NEW maching cant play the latest game.

They then proceed to demand a refund only for me to tell them that its their responsibility to check the specs on the box and there is nothing we can do.

I dont envy your job at all. I can imagine the hell it is though, theres not much you can do to console someone who has just bought a new pc only to find out its not too great.

Fact is, some businesses would rather push their PCs out the door than be honest and tell it to customers straight.

Dj_Jestar · 13 Jul 2006 at 14:08

locutus12 said:
so basically as long as you just sit and stare at the desktop youl be fine

Come now.. I'm sure it'll handle Solitaire with blissful frame rates.

HEADRAT · 13 Jul 2006 at 14:26

They should just say the minimum requirements for games is a GPU :confused:

HEADRAT

silversurfer · 13 Jul 2006 at 15:58

Integrated graphics used to be some good, the only downside being they used slower shared memory. Now the modern IGP is fully dx9 compatible but is delibrately hobbled with 1 pixel line only, it does not stand a chance.

Ive used ATi x300 IGP recently to play CSS and BF2 and it can do it on the lowest settings and resolution but only just at 30fps and if anything much happens then it gets totally overwhlemed and drops to half that. The old nforce2 IGP is better then the brand new IGP because its not trying to eat a full course meal through a straw.

Modern IGP is a good demo for what a games pc could be and if it has a PCI-e slot and doesnt cost much more then a normal motherboard then I see no harm in it. My IGP alllowed the pc to run on a tv right out of the box, thats going to be very usefull to some people

drunkenmaster · 13 Jul 2006 at 16:20

not everyone wants to game, infact a lot of people do, and a lot of companies prefer a computer that someone can't really install a game on so they can't sneak a go here and there at work. a huge majority of machines won't ever play a game and there for costs are reduced using a cheaper IGP, because they are cheaper more people can buy them meaning more memory, mobo's and everything else sold. more of everything sold cheaper the prices become on other memory and everything, its all connected. IGP = cheaper pc's for gamers too.

just because some people are too retarded to walk into a high street store and say "i want to be able to play the newest games well", buy some POS and end up dissappointed.

also, just because a console can play games for 5 years, it can only play games roughly as powerful/ graphically advanced as it could in the first day you bought it. the xbox which has only just had a successor meant that up until not long ago people were playing on a very slightly faster than stock gf3ti500, meaning a 4 pipe card, its 4 generations old and basically crap. pc games after 6months to a year are way more graphically advanced than a console. so consoles don't last long with no upgradability, a pc is a base with upgradability. the ps3 will have the g71 in it, it probably won't be out before the g80 is out, it will be 8 pipes short and not support dx10 most likely, it will be outdated before its released, great value. other thing being is i know loads of people without consoles, i don't think i can name anyone(except one of my grans) without a computer, almost any current cpu can provide a fine gaming experience with a ok gfx card. say someone got a £300 dell for uni work with an igp on, they can spend £450 on a ps3 or £350 on a g80 and get better gaming performance which is more future proof for cheaper.

forgot to mention that also even a cheap ass pc will probably have a monitor that can handle gaming fine at 1024x768, or 1280x1024. a original xbox on release , well, we know the card could hangle 1600x1200 in older games but can't now. but a current xbox360 can handle games in much higher resolution but most people use them on a normal tv thereby wasting most of the advantage in power it has, to really use the 360 properly you need a high def tv. i've never thought consoles are better value or better for gaming. i'm more of a strategy/fps though which no doubt always are better on pc's. but theres no reason not to buy 2 £10 controllers and play similar games you get on consoles.