Tim Schafer: Publishers Force Us Not To Develop PC Versions.

[@ruantec]

On the company’s website, Double Fine Productions boss Tim Schafer revealed that his development teams are willing and able to produce PC versions of their games, but publishers are constantly refusing to allow them to do so as they don’t see “enough financial reward.”

“As a developer we do not have final say in the sku plan for our games,” he ranted. “That is the decision of the person investing the money, i.e. the publisher.”

“We have much of the technology in place to produce PC versions of all these games, but there is still some more work required to make them shippable and that costs money. So far, our publishers have not elected to fund that work. Not because they hate PC Gamers, but because they don’t see enough financial reward.”

“Double Fine does care about PC Gamers, and we always push for a PC version, and will continue to do so in the future. If we ever get super stinking rich here, with enough money to fund PC versions of our games, then we will go back and make them ourselves! Oh man, wouldn’t that be cool?”

Interestingly, Double Fine’s latest games are published by THQ whose VP Danny Bilson vowed to release a PC version of “almost every, single console” they publish.

Source

Stab the publishers!

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[Hy-Def]

Let's. If only Jonc was here...

[SCHUMI_4EVER]

Shipping? exactly what shipping when all the smallish/indie downloadable titles go to Steam? Publishers are just bastards, that's all there is to it. Financial reaward...lol, I can find XBLA stuff just as easily as I can find PC stuff.

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No$GBA DS FAQ 2.0

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!!! WARNING: Emulation requires a brain !!! WARNING: Emulation =/= Piracy !!!

[Marcis]

Originally Posted by SCHUMI_4EVER

Shipping? exactly what shipping when all the smallish/indie downloadable titles go to Steam? Publishers are just bastards, that's all there is to it. Financial reaward...lol, I can find XBLA stuff just as easily as I can find PC stuff.

Make them shippable as in making them work on the PC, not as shipping costs.

You only ship something you've sold generally so it's not a cost even worth mentionning.

Porting the game to PC and making sure the game is compatible under all windows versions, creating an installer, beta testing, etc is what costs money, not shipping the product.

It's market demand really. As long as console games sell that many more copies, they'll get preferential treatment. If I were a business owner, I'd do the same.

The question is, are the extra costs associated with porting over the game to PC going to be recovered by the extra sales ? How many sales are you going to be loosing on consoles because of PC piracy (because while I certainly don't believe every single pirated game equals a lost sale, there most definitely is a loss - I used to pirate all my games a few years ago but I certainly would have bought some of them were they not available "for free") ? And yes I know there is console piracy but I'd wager the % of pirates on console is much lower than on PC.

PS : For the record, if a game is available on PC, I'll get it there. Steam deals are awesome.

[runawayprisoner]

Problem is, they don't see financial rewards.



No really, that has been stated over and over. It's not piracy, it's not that their games don't sell on PC or Steam, just that they don't "see" the financial rewards.

And that said, I cast more of my doom spell over PC gaming as it nears the saturation point, and... extinction in the unknown future.

[SCHUMI_4EVER]

Doom for PC gaming perhaps...yet the only thing left for consoles to do is return to being PCs...

__________________

Intel Core2Quad Q9550 (2.83Ghz stock) | ASUS P5Q | 2x2GB Transcend JetRam DDR2-800 | ASUS ENGTX260\HDTP\896M | Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit SP1

The Champ has retired but may his Legacy live on FOREVER !!!!

No$GBA DS FAQ 2.0

Get it right fools! The glass is HALF-EMPTY, not half-full!!!

!!! WARNING: Emulation requires a brain !!! WARNING: Emulation =/= Piracy !!!

[runawayprisoner]

Or you wish they would return to being PCs. The way I see it, dedicated beats general purpose...

Or specifically, not quite. But PC has become big and bloated over the years. Nowadays, it's just throwing brute processing strength at games, which is quite sad, really...

[Cid Highwind]

I'd buy Brütal Legend twice, it's awesome. It should put the OST in a convenient file format on disc btw

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