<<<This industry is such a mess. Games here, there, everywhere. Such a glut, no wonder any long term profits are negligible.>>>
Most of the games are clones anyway. It's like Hollywood; a game comes out and one development cycle later there are a dozen like it. Command and Conquer and Warcraft II started the Real Time Strategy genre in '95. Two years later, there were over 50 of them being released around the holidays. Obviously this includes great improvements in the genre like Total Annihilation :)
<<<New games are coming out with a 200mhz+ recommendation. I can't use them.>>>
There is a reason for this. There are two types of game buyers in the market; the Gamer who buys tons of games, and Joe Schmo the average user. As I recall, half of all games are sold to Gamers and the rest to the average user.
The interesting statistic is that MOST average users buy their games within a few months of a computer purchase, and that's it. They may buy the occasional game, but for the most part they keep what they bought with the computer.
Since most new computers being sold are P200s or higher, and most serious Gamers are always upgrading, it seems to make sense for the game companies to incorporate the latest and greatest game technology, even if it does require a PII-333 with a 12MB graphics card so you can see the cirrus cloud formations at 30K feet.
That's the logic behind games requiring P200s. Not that I agree, mind you... personally I prefer playing older games, since many of them have good gameplay and don't require a high end machine. I've been playing Master of Orion II lately, which came out in '96.
<<<Video standards are changing rapidly (is there a standard?). Bought a game a year ago to find it wouldn't work with my ATI 3D accelerated. >>>
Nope, no standard. There is DirectX, but all THAT does is *try* to supply a standard interface to video cards. I said try, because many cards have lousy drivers, or implement something wrong, and there is little a game developer can do except note this in the readme.
And to be honest, ATI3D cards aren't really accelerated. When 3D first started becoming big, several companies put out "3D" cards that were poorly made. Nowadays the closest thing to a 3D standard is the Voodoo chipset made by 3Dfx (cards made by, among others, Diamond, Creative Labs, and - my personal favorite - Canopus.)
<<<To tell you the truth, I'm almost sick of PC games, from trying to install them and getting them optimized, to DirectX version questions, to jerky graphics on my 133mhz. Remember the good old manuals we used to get? Now you got read.me, help.me, http.me, etc. May as well be screw.me.>>>
What's a manual? Heck, *I* remember buying Infocom games, text-based adventures which were extremely good. They used to put all sorts of goodies in the package! The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy game included some peril-proof sunglasses, a ziplock bag with a (microscopic) alien fleet inside, etc.
<<<I fail to see any long term growth potential with GTIS, or any other related company.>>>
I'm not sure I would go this far about game companies in general. Entertainment is big business. I think the problem is that no one is doing it *right*.
Of course, I may be wrong too. I'm familiar with the multiplayer game industry, and they've been talking about how much money they will make "someday." The last time I heard so much hype, it was over VR back in the early 90s (and they thought we'd all have headsets and cybergloves by now.) |
