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Gabe Newell on this point: “Economies get better the bigger they are,” Gabe Newell. John Carmack on this point: “I was really happy that when mobile came along

Gabe Newell on this point: “Economies get better the bigger they are,” Gabe Newell. John Carmack on this point: “I was really happy that when mobile came along with the more ‘pure’ games, they didn’t have to be a $50 game that had man-centuries in them,” Carmack tells Ars Technica. “You can have these small things that cost people a couple bucks.” “I don’t have a lot of free time and I don’t have 50 hours for Skyrim. That’s not to take anything away from the massive titles, but it’s great to have this broad spectrum of gaming,” Carmack added. Yes there will still be blockbuster games that can't be made on the current devices (although I'd argue tablets and TV consoles will surpass game consoles not long after the 2013 refresh). The idea is that you have so much competition that games and innovation have to become more fun. On controlled environments that level of competition is not explored because of the high dollar amount needed to play or compete. Game companies like Halfbrick, Firemint, and others wouldn't exist without the openness of mobile. If consoles were truly open there would be games that the bigger companies cannot even risk trying that are immensely fun. PC games allowed anyone in and companies like id software appeared, leading to PC games from Valve as one example. Market determination of good is better when bigger. The internet itself is an example of this. Would Hacker News exist if there were only 10 publishers of content on the web? Bigger and more open always makes for better content. Even if not now, it will shortly. Games have gotten back to arcade level fun rather than trying to create movies. Controlled, top down ivory tower markets never create better content, the currents get too stagnant.

throwaway2048 13y ago
Gabe Newell on this point: “Economies get better the bigger they are,” While this might be true in isolation, ie. a widgetbox with 30M sales is a strictly a better economy than the same widgetbox with 10M sales, I do not believe it to be transitive ie. Widgetbox @ 30M sales vs PlayBox360 @ 10M sales. This played out in the last console generation with the wii vastly outselling both the ps3 and the xbox360, but having an inferior library. Smartphones and tablets are by no means new, nor niche platforms at this point (outselling every other gaming platform by a mile), but id argue that by and large they have failed to produce the kind of quality games available on say, the DS/3DS. I cannot even think of one mobile title that measures up to even an average DS game.
- drawkbox 13y ago
  I'd argue there are still better games on PC that is open, consoles are really just secondary for the best games. Yes there are some awesome titles on there but some of the indie ones are just as fun (Fat Princess, Joe Danger). The better shooters are even still better on PC (Battlefield, Valve games (L4D, TF2), Call of Duty etc etc). With enough time and in a few short hardware cycles the new consoles will be as powerful as mini PCs sitting next to your TV but open markets, then we'll see some fun, fun fun. The question is, if id software was a small or medium company today, would they be able to afford getting onto a controlled environment? Would Valve have existed on a closed, publisher happy market like consoles are? (they built off of Quake II) Now there are lots of exclusives and games that are killer on console (Little Big Planet, Halo) but they also have immense budgets. It is not a small/medium sized company playground. No risks are taken there. I also loved Red Dead Redemption and GTA games but I always have more fun on the PC, so sad Red Dead never made it there.
- rednukleus 13y ago
  > I cannot even think of one mobile title that measures up to even an average DS game. I more or less agree with this. The major problem to me though is the input mechanism. Touch works for casual games like Angry Birds and Candy Crush, but have you ever tried playing Another World? I hold out some small hope for an Android console, if it standardises a reasonably good controller.
  - drawkbox 13y ago
    I'll just put this here: http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/24/thanks-to-ios-7s-game-pad-support-flipside-controller-case-gets-a-second-shot/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/24/thanks-to-ios-7s-game-pad-s... They are coming, iOS7 has gamepad support, OUYA has a game controller. This will continue.
    - rednukleus 13y ago
      Oh I know its coming, but I'm still not 100% convinced its going to work. I cant think of any smartphone game I would want to play on my TV, other than games I wouldn't want to play on my smartphone. There just no overlap. I would rather have a PS4, XBox or Wii U designed for high quality games using a controller, and then play smartphone games on my phone. Buying a separate Android or iOS console seems pointless, and plugging a controller into a phone into the tv seems like a fairly convoluted and niche offering.

throwaway2048 13y ago

Gabe Newell on this point: “Economies get better the bigger they are,” While this might be true in isolation, ie. a widgetbox with 30M sales is a strictly a better economy than the same widgetbox with 10M sales, I do not believe it to be transitive ie. Widgetbox @ 30M sales vs PlayBox360 @ 10M sales. This played out in the last console generation with the wii vastly outselling both the ps3 and the xbox360, but having an inferior library. Smartphones and tablets are by no means new, nor niche platforms at this point (outselling every other gaming platform by a mile), but id argue that by and large they have failed to produce the kind of quality games available on say, the DS/3DS. I cannot even think of one mobile title that measures up to even an average DS game.

drawkbox 13y ago
I'd argue there are still better games on PC that is open, consoles are really just secondary for the best games. Yes there are some awesome titles on there but some of the indie ones are just as fun (Fat Princess, Joe Danger). The better shooters are even still better on PC (Battlefield, Valve games (L4D, TF2), Call of Duty etc etc). With enough time and in a few short hardware cycles the new consoles will be as powerful as mini PCs sitting next to your TV but open markets, then we'll see some fun, fun fun. The question is, if id software was a small or medium company today, would they be able to afford getting onto a controlled environment? Would Valve have existed on a closed, publisher happy market like consoles are? (they built off of Quake II) Now there are lots of exclusives and games that are killer on console (Little Big Planet, Halo) but they also have immense budgets. It is not a small/medium sized company playground. No risks are taken there. I also loved Red Dead Redemption and GTA games but I always have more fun on the PC, so sad Red Dead never made it there.
rednukleus 13y ago
> I cannot even think of one mobile title that measures up to even an average DS game. I more or less agree with this. The major problem to me though is the input mechanism. Touch works for casual games like Angry Birds and Candy Crush, but have you ever tried playing Another World? I hold out some small hope for an Android console, if it standardises a reasonably good controller.
- drawkbox 13y ago
  I'll just put this here: http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/24/thanks-to-ios-7s-game-pad-support-flipside-controller-case-gets-a-second-shot/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/24/thanks-to-ios-7s-game-pad-s... They are coming, iOS7 has gamepad support, OUYA has a game controller. This will continue.
  - rednukleus 13y ago
    Oh I know its coming, but I'm still not 100% convinced its going to work. I cant think of any smartphone game I would want to play on my TV, other than games I wouldn't want to play on my smartphone. There just no overlap. I would rather have a PS4, XBox or Wii U designed for high quality games using a controller, and then play smartphone games on my phone. Buying a separate Android or iOS console seems pointless, and plugging a controller into a phone into the tv seems like a fairly convoluted and niche offering.