Gears of War (the first one now) came onto the PC a year after the release of the Xbox 360 version, while the game was nothing out of this world amazing, it wasn’t bad. Heck we even had some compensation of sorts for the late release with a bunch of new levels that never appeared in the 360 version of the game. It was a pretty nifty deal real and gave us PC gamers a teeny bit of encouragement to buy the game.

However it seems that Gears of War 2 will never appear on the PC according to Cliffy B (he will always be Cliffy B to me) in this TVG interview.

Do you see the Xbox 360 as the main platform as opposed to the PC? During the whole Unreal time it was very much PC focused.

The PC right now is a fair amount different to what it was back in the day, with all the badly integrated video chips. Here’s the problem right now; the person who is savvy enough to want to have a good PC to upgrade their video card, is a person who is savvy enough to know bit torrent to know all the elements so they can pirate software. Therefore, high-end videogames are suffering very much on the PC.

So piracy was a main point for you…

Right now, it makes sense for us to focus on Xbox 360 for a number of reasons. Not least PCs with multiple configurations and piracy.

But when the dust has settled, is there any possibility of Gears 2 on PC?

No.

Definitely not?

No.

Wow, seriously this is just crap, I think it was confirmed a while back that it wasn’t coming onto the PC, but to spout out this piracy bullshit is just weak. Why can’t developers be honest with us for once? The game will sell loads more on the 360 than on the PC, mainly due to the nature of the game and Cliff will know that for all those 360 sales a large proportion will purcahse post-release DLC. He will also know that PC gamers won’t stand for that kind of treatment and very few would purchase any DLC even if it appeared on the PC.

I don’t know how he can claim that high-end games are suffering on the PC, didn’t Crysis sell over 1 million copies? Yes back in June it had sold over 1.5 million copies (source) which for a game that boasted extremely high system requirements at launch makes for pretty good reading. If a game like Crysis can sell that many, despite so many claims of mass piracy from Crytek then I don’t see why Gears of War 2 couldn’t achieve a good number of sales. Stop spouting this crap about the PC being a pain in the arse to develop on due to the many different system configurations, Valve have managed to do it, and People Can Fly were able to do it for the original Gears.

Pfft, I just want people like Cliff to acknowledge that with DLC and higher RRP’s that they can make more money off console versions of games like this and that they don’t deem the PC as being worth it. Stop this piracy crap, we all know piracy impacts on PC game sales, but it is overblown and used as a scapegoat. Grow some balls Cliff.

The ever amazing Stardock have released a PC Gamer’s Bill of Rights which sets out ten key points which PC gamer’s can expect the company to uphold and which they hope other developers and publishers will adopt in time.

“As an industry, we need to begin setting some basic, common sense standards that reward PC gamers for purchasing our games,” stated Brad Wardell, president and CEO of Stardock Corporation. “The console market effectively already has something like this in that its games have to go through the platform maker such as Nintendo, Microsoft, or Sony. But on the PC, publishers can release games that are scarcely completed, poorly supported, and full of intrusive copy protection and then be stuck on it.”

Wardell is entirely correct, we often get the short end of the stick when it comes to how we are treated by developers, publishers and even retailers. This is the kind of thing which should be adopted by many companies involved in PC games be it making them or selling them.

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According to this GI.biz interview with Yves Guillemot Europe is now a bigger territory than the US. Yves claims that turnover in Europe is more than 5% higher than turnover in the US.

Q: Europe as a market has developed a lot in the past five years – how do you assess the territory’s importance on the global stage now?

Yves Guillemot: First, our money – the pound or the euro – is very strong and because of that the turnover from those countries is heavier than they used to be. So for Ubisoft turnover Europe is actually more important than the US now, and by more than 5 per cent. It’s become a very strong market for us.

I think there are lots of customers that want to play – because in Europe we love to play – the only problem we had was that the games were becoming more and more difficult to play. Now that there’s more accessibility, some accessories that are helping people to have fun, I think this market has no limit in the growth it can have if we can make sure that the people that are coming in are staying.

It makes me wonder then who is in charge of Ubisoft’s digital distribution efforts. Ubisoft titles on Steam are limited to North American customers, they are not available to any European gamers. I find it odd that they would declare that Europe is now a bigger market than the US, yet they still exclude it on Steam.

I think someone at Ubisoft has to go and sort things out, Steam may not be perfect, but if European sales are constantly on the up, then what better way to help drive this than to let people buy their products on Steam. Sort it out Ubi.

The PC Gaming Alliance has released a lengthy press release at the Leipzig Games Development Conference lauding the success of PC gaming in the past year. The ‘Horizons’ report reveals that PC gaming was a $10.7 billion industry worldwide in 2007. One of the most surprising figures to come out of the report was that retail sales only accounted for 30% of the total. Unsurprisingly however it was revealed that the Asian online market is approaching half of total worldwide sales.

Online PC gaming revenue totalled $4.8 billion and was the biggest contributor to total PC gaming revenues last year, this was nearly double the worldwide retail sales. Digital distribution sales were approaching $2 billion and advertising revenue (websites and in-game ads included) accounted for $800 million of the total.

My thoughts? Read on

How much do you think the latest Codemasters games have cost to develop? A game like GRID you would have thought would cost at least £10 million. In fact GRID only cost about £6.8 million to make according to this MCV report.

According to Codemasters CEO Rod Cousens GRID is expected to make around £32 million in total, more than enough to recoup those development costs. With Operation Flashpoint 2 also expected to cost less than $20 million to make times ahead look good for Codemasters with their low-cost, high-gain approach to the industry.

In additional Codemasters news it has emerged (via RPS) that Overlord II is currently in development. A followup to the demonic minion mastering havoc ruling game from 2007 the new game, coming 2009 will feature new minion mechanics, bigger battles and the Roman Empire.

Good Old Games or GOG.com is the new venture from CD Projekt, the team behind The Witcher. Good Old Games is the latest entrant into the world of Digital Games Distribution and already has several key features that will set it aside from the competition when it launches in September.

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In an interview with Games Industry.biz Mircosoft Games Studios’ Peter Zetterberg and Matthew White discussed marketing strategies and business models in Europe for the PC and 360.

They claim that they don’t release 360 and PC games at the same time in Europe so as to help drive sales of the 360 title yet they go on to claim that they don’t prioritise the 360 over the PC. Either I am getting lost in market-speak but they are talking out of their arses!

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Wow…I have just read two fantastic pieces on Rock, Paper, Shotgun, the first is a live-blogging of a mini-conference at Valve and the second is the more detailed roundup of the first piece. Boy is it clear that Valve love the PC as a platform and are willing to stand up and fight their corner.

Steamcloud, free weekends, game availability and much more are covered by John over on RPS so read on for the info!

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Shacknews recently caught up with the voice of Valve, Doug Lombardi. In this first half of a two part interview Doug talks about the PC Gaming Alliance, the future of PC gaming and system requirements in current PC games. This is an extremely interesting interview and you can read a little bit of it now:

Shack: Does the responsibility lie somewhat with the hardware manufacturers to market their products in a reasonable way, or is it up to the developers to set sane requirements?

Doug Lombardi: Oh I think it’s totally the fault of the developers. Totally the fault of the developers. I mean the graphics guys, their job to keep pushing the envelope, and as they push the envelope, move the lower-end cards down to a nice price point, so that there’s always this evolution that’s happening. If you’re a hot rod type of guy, and you want to spend $400 on the latest thing, you want to have a smoking machine, and when Left 4 Dead comes out you want to run it at its highest resolution with killer framerates, and call your buddies over for a beer and make them all drool over your system, awesome. But if you’re just a guy who wants a decent PC for less than a thousand bucks, and wants to be able to run games on it, there should be a card out there that runs games at a decent famerate and decent fluidity. Then it’s on us to write for both of those guys.

Go read the rest of it here.

The NPD which tracks game sales in the US has revealed that US online gaming subscriptions top $1 billion a year. The findings were based on data gathered between October 2007 and March 2008 and the NPD also revealed that 11 million people in the US subscribe to online games each month.

NPD analyst Anita Frazier told GamesIndustry.biz the following.

“Now that NPD can estimate the value of the subscription market, it’s clear that there is a sizable chunk of revenue being generated by PC gaming beyond what is reflected in retail sales,”

“The variety of content available to play games on the PC clearly can draw a diverse audience.”

This shows that those people claiming that PC gaming is dying are short sighted individuals who cannot see the true potential of the PC as a gaming machine. $1 billion is not a figure to be scoffed at and is a clear example the the online gaming industry for the PC is a massive business.

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