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How eSports are saving the PC industry

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Re: How eSports are saving the PC industry

#61

Post by Shivetya »

duiker101 wrote: post #11

I think that the base concepts of this article are wrong. eSports is not saving PC gaming because the games require the best hardware. In fact competitve games have some of the lowest requirements possible. Riot(League of Legends) goes out of their way all the time to make sure that their game will work even on the most outdated computers and really none of the competitive games have the most astonishing graphic. For…

the mod community for XCOM has been very active and for the most part the developers don't try to stop them. If anything features in the next version of the game show a lot of requests for what previously had to be modded are to be added.

With regards to eSports and the sites that cater to them, I would like to see them impact on game sales as well as the hardware used to run them. If anything watching others play a new game is a great way to determine if its even worth buying

Re: How eSports are saving the PC industry

#62

Post by edias »

moistgorilla wrote: post #47
redml wrote: post #27

My biggest surprise is how this all runs on Microsoft's operating system and Microsoft does very little to nothing to facilitate this as a potential revenue stream. In fact they're just sitting by and watching as the biggest player, steam, is slowly taking their library off of windows and onto mac or linux.

Microsoft have the biggest IP that could turn into an esport (Halo) and all they would need to do is put it on PC and Xbox one for free, throw in cosmetic microtransaction ala CSGO and they would make billions. But they will never do it.

Halo was an eSport but lost the qualities that made it a good eSport. The oringinal and Halo 2 were incredibly competitive games, but Halo 3 and especially Reach killed these aspects in favor of casual gameplay features.

CS GO was dead in the water eSport wise on release and took major core gameplay changes for it to get to a point where people were okay with it, but 1.6 is generally considered the better ompetetive game.

The idea that companies can just make a game an eSport is incredibly flawed. A game needs the qualities to become one. It's why the Gamecube version of Super Smash Bros, Melee, destroys the brand new one in tournament viewers despite Nintendo promoting the new game as an eSport.

Re: How eSports are saving the PC industry

#63

Post by moistgorilla »

ascagnel_ wrote: post #55
moistgorilla wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft have the biggest IP that could turn into an esport (Halo) and all they would need to do is put it on PC and Xbox one for free, throw in cosmetic microtransaction ala CSGO and they would make billions. But they will never do it.

Not really. Halo is a game designed around a ten-foot controller experience. There's a decent amount of sticky aim and banana bullets to compensate for the relative lack of accuracy in thumbsticks, and the aim reticle is 1/3 of the way up the screen, instead of the dead center like you'd expect in a PC FPS.

> Not really. Halo is a game designed around a ten-foot controller experience. There's a decent amount of sticky aim and banana bullets to compensate for the relative lack of accuracy in thumbsticks

Most of your arguments here are based on the fact that halo is only released on console. It's obvious then that it would have these console shooter features. If it were released on PC it obviously would not have aim assist.

> and the aim reticle is 1/3 of the way up the screen, instead of the dead center like you'd expect in a PC FPS.

This is something people would easily get over.

There are still people playing Halo 1 for pc online (Even after microsoft shut down the servers) and there is an even larger community playing a reverse engineered Halo version that was released in russia as F2P. (http://www.reddit.com/r/haloonline)

Re: How eSports are saving the PC industry

#64

Post by mafuyu »

edias wrote: post #54
kllrnohj wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know if it's still a thing but in Counter Strike people use very low resolutions to enhance performance, have better vision and reduce mouse movement. Not anymore. There are plenty of pros playing at 1920x1080 with all settings on high + MSAA. High-end video cards are common as a result (as the target is ~200-300fps on 144hz monitors) I think the reasons for this are a combination of that's what this genera…

Even still Counter Strike GO is not a resource intensive game. No one needs a top of the line PC to play that game at max settings. Also pretty much any tournament is not broadcasting from the players computer but have dedicated observers that will always run the game at max settings. Plenty of CS pros still use 4:3 aspect ratios, but their games would be broadcast in HD. >There have been some investigation of settin…

CS:GO is a terribly optimized game (a hack of the L4D2 engine ported from Xbox to PC!), and requires 300 in-game fps in the Source engine for competitive play. 300 fps is the sweet spot for no mouse acceleration and smooth mouse movements, as well as no frame drops on a 144 Hz monitor. CS:GO perf is CPU-limited, and my i7 2600 can only go up to 250 fps on all low settings, so I'm upgrading to a Skylake 6600k.

Blizzard has done a much better job with SC2; one of their goals from the start has been to optimize for low-end computers.

Re: How eSports are saving the PC industry

#65

Post by moistgorilla »

rasz_pl wrote: post #60
moistgorilla wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft have the biggest IP that could turn into an esport (Halo) and all they would need to do is put it on PC and Xbox one for free, throw in cosmetic microtransaction ala CSGO and they would make billions. But they will never do it.

> esport ......Xbox :), I dont think you understand what esports is about, it is not about playing with a pad with huge autoaim.

The professional matches wouldn't be played on xbox obviously. I understand Esports probably better than you do, I am on a team in ESEA Open (We aren't good though)

Re: How eSports are saving the PC industry

#66

Post by rasz_pl »

huac wrote: post #8

"H&F: Do you see the PC gaming market being eclipsed by mobile or console any time soon? JG: I think mobile has it since the install base is massive and people have a lot of spare time sitting around where they have their phone right with them. Mobile has a fantastic growth opportunity."

You missed the part about keyboard and mouse being essential for any kind of precise control

Re: How eSports are saving the PC industry

#67

Post by moistgorilla »

edias wrote: post #62
moistgorilla wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft have the biggest IP that could turn into an esport (Halo) and all they would need to do is put it on PC and Xbox one for free, throw in cosmetic microtransaction ala CSGO and they would make billions. But they will never do it.

Halo was an eSport but lost the qualities that made it a good eSport. The oringinal and Halo 2 were incredibly competitive games, but Halo 3 and especially Reach killed these aspects in favor of casual gameplay features. CS GO was dead in the water eSport wise on release and took major core gameplay changes for it to get to a point where people were okay with it, but 1.6 is generally considered the better ompetetive…

Yes, you obviously can't just do a direct port of halo with autoaim and put it on pc and hope it will be a popular esport. My point was that Microsoft has the resources to MAKE halo a good esport title but they wont.

Re: How eSports are saving the PC industry

#68

Post by blakeshall »

kllrnohj wrote: post #45
duiker101 wrote: post #11

I think that the base concepts of this article are wrong. eSports is not saving PC gaming because the games require the best hardware. In fact competitve games have some of the lowest requirements possible. Riot(League of Legends) goes out of their way all the time to make sure that their game will work even on the most outdated computers and really none of the competitive games have the most astonishing graphic. For…

> I don't know if it's still a thing but in Counter Strike people use very low resolutions to enhance performance, have better vision and reduce mouse movement. Not anymore. There are plenty of pros playing at 1920x1080 with all settings on high + MSAA. High-end video cards are common as a result (as the target is ~200-300fps on 144hz monitors) I think the reasons for this are a combination of that's what this genera…

Definitely agree. I would argue that streaming has had the largest impact both because, as you mention, it makes for a better audience experience and it demonstrates the capabilities of PC gaming graphics-wise. Streamers and Let's Players have probably helped expose more games to a larger audience that would have previously not seen them.

Re: How eSports are saving the PC industry

#69

Post by kllrnohj »

edias wrote: post #54
kllrnohj wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know if it's still a thing but in Counter Strike people use very low resolutions to enhance performance, have better vision and reduce mouse movement. Not anymore. There are plenty of pros playing at 1920x1080 with all settings on high + MSAA. High-end video cards are common as a result (as the target is ~200-300fps on 144hz monitors) I think the reasons for this are a combination of that's what this genera…

Even still Counter Strike GO is not a resource intensive game. No one needs a top of the line PC to play that game at max settings. Also pretty much any tournament is not broadcasting from the players computer but have dedicated observers that will always run the game at max settings. Plenty of CS pros still use 4:3 aspect ratios, but their games would be broadcast in HD. >There have been some investigation of settin…

> Yes and no. In a game like Starcraft where cloaked units give a slight glimmer when moving

Sorry I wasn't clear, I was specifically talking about CSGO. Seeing through smokes & fires isn't any better at low vs. high settings.

> It's why so many CS pros still use 4:3 aspect ratio.

Hmmm I disagree. Many of the current CSGO pros using 4:3 AR came from CS 1.6 and I think they just never felt like changing. There's no competitive advantage to it. If anything it's a FOV loss and thus a slight disadvantage but it's so minor as to not matter most of the time.

Re: How eSports are saving the PC industry

#70

Post by jstelly »

tychuz wrote: post #48
Zikes wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given their work with the Steam Link and Steam Controller, I think you have a valid point. Steam Link supports DualShock and XBox controllers, and can stream via network from a PC located elsewhere in the house, making PC a viable competitor in the "couch gaming" space that consoles have thus far dominated.

Erm. When you play Call of Duty on PS/xBox, you're playing with controller against other people with same controllers. When you'll join a PC server with your steam controller, you will have 0 kills and 20 deaths, because everyone is playing with a mouse. That is not fun. Steam controller helps with, I don't know, 10% of the gaming - the single player. And if you're casual and single player is 100% of your games - hel…

There is a lot of user customization possible with the steam controller though. e.g. This guy is trying out layering inertial control on top of the touchpad for aiming. Generally I do prefer using a mouse to aim instead of a controller for first person games, but I will try this out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKuO9M0WuMg&feature=youtu.be

(disclaimer - I work at Valve but not on the steam controller so this technique was a surprise to me)

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