Dead Space 3's PC port defended by its executive producer
When asked about his decision to not make a PC optimized version of Dead Space 3, executive producer Steve Papoutsis went on the defensive.
Last week, a report suggested Dead Space 3 wasn't getting more than a bare-bones port for its PC release. While developer Visceral Games has rarely offered enhanced PC versions of its games, many other developers are taking advantage of DirectX 11 and new hardware to deliver a higher fidelity experience for PC gamers.
Even publisher Electronic Arts has been aggressively pushing PC development, with Battlefield 3 and Crysis 3 being notable examples. When asked about his decision to not make a PC optimized version of the game, executive producer Steve Papoutsis went on the defensive.
"It's confusing to me that this question even comes up," Papoutsis told us. "It's by no means any less important to us; it gets a lot of attention. The PC is a very different platform. As developers, you want to deliver an experience that's as similar as possible on different platforms.
"In Dead Space 2, I felt we made some great strides in terms of controls, responsiveness and even the visual improvements we got into it. We continue to evolve our games as we develop them, but we certainly don't target PC as something that's going to be significantly different. We aren't trying to create disparity in the experience that our gamers enjoy; we want to make sure everyone's having that same experience.
"At our studio, we've always made console games," he pointed out. "The biggest thing is we want to make sure the quality of the experience is consistent across all platforms so we don't have one userbase saying it's better on their system."
On PC, Dead Space and Dead Space 2 could easily hit 50 and 60 frames per second, and featured advanced rendering options for better shadows and anti-aliasing. While we don't expect that to change for Dead Space 3, the decision to not make a fully optimized PC version nonetheless sticks out.
"The fact that we're allowing you to control the game with a mouse and keyboard immediately makes the game feel different," Papoutsis said. "Working with the community, we found some people wanted to map the controls a little differently because of disabilities and we supported that [in Dead Space 2]. It's a confusing question and I hope my answer brings a little bit of light to it. We seem a little bit discredited for the amount of effort that goes into it, quite honestly.
"We want it to be great on all systems, that's our approach."
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replyTimothy J. Seppala posted a new article, Dead Space 3's PC port defended by its executive producer.
When asked about his decision to not make a PC optimized version of Dead Space 3, executive producer Steve Papoutsis went on the defensive.-
Dead Space 1 definitely had its issues with the mouse movement. Dead Space 2 was a huge improvement over the first. Dead Space 3 I'm sure will be fine.
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Dead Space's bigger problem was making it impossible for certain handicapped people to play (you couldn't map movement to mouse buttons).
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to accommodate handicapped players. http://www.joystiq.com/2011/02/07/visceral-games-hears-disabled-gamer-adding-customizable-control/
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I'll gladly buy DS3 on PC, I had absolutely no issue with PC DS 1 or 2. In fact, Dead Space 2 looked great and despite what some may think, it *did* have some graphical enhancements over the console versions with a higher framerate. The only fault I found was with DS1 in terms of vsync being tied to mouse movement, but that was easily solved with a framerate limiter or adaptive vsync.
People are really going full retard about this. DS3 will be fine.-
Same. I played DS2 on PC and thought it looked and played great. I'll be getting DS3 on PC as well--probably. Origin's the only roadblock, there, and not for the reason you might think. I have nothing against EA or Origin. I just don't like spreading games across so many accounts.
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If DS2 is an indication, it will have slightly better textures (I could be wrong, but I could swear that DS2 on PC looks much better than the 360 version by a lot..), re-mappable controls, unlocked framerate, advanced shadows, anti aliasing, etc.
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Also, when I think of bad PC ports I think of games such as Prototype 1, 2, and Dark Souls. Granted, DS with the DSFix mod looks pretty damn awesome, but it is a bad port in vanilla form.
Dead Space 2 isn't even remotely in the same territory - it is a pretty damn good port which plays great.... hence my belief that the PC version of DS3 will be absolutely fine. -
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Yeah that's the thing - a PC port can still be top notch even if it doesn't have tons of PC-specific options and a 35GB install footprint, but the way this guy phrased his answer seemed to be completely oblivious to how these sorts of things have been bungled in the past.
His last line of "We want it to be great on all systems, that's our approach" should have been pretty much his whole answer, because his "I'm confused that this even comes up" comes across very wrong.
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You think a normal person knows how to limit their framerate? I'd consider that pretty game breaking.
I still haven't beat DS1 for the sole reason of it being a nuisance to turn on settings to get my FPS down low enough to make the game playable, and turning them off again when I'm done playing.-
If someone can't turn vsync off (which fixes the mouse issue) they should stick to the ipad or some other idiot proof device
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I know; he should've just kept silent. There are so many different ways to read these tea leaves, from "EA forced us to make a PC SKU," to "We're intentionally not developing toward each platform's inherent strengths," to "We intentionally make cookie cutter games, developing for the lead console platform, then pasting to each other platform."
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"As developers, you want to deliver an experience that's as similar as possible on different platforms."
No... no you don't. You want to make your game look the best on the best platform and use those better looking graphics to market the game for you on platforms that might not have all that eye candy. -
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Pander to the 360 crowd and their seven-year-old hardware.
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"The biggest thing is we want to make sure the quality of the experience is consistent across all platforms so we don't have one userbase saying it's better on their system." I hope this also means that this time Dead Space 3 will get DLC for the PC and not just the consoles. I hope this guy gets pissed all over by a hobo if they announce PC will not get any DLC ..again.
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Its all about the controls on PC. FPS was born on the PC. To ignore the fluidity and total immersion PC controls give to FPS gaming is to ignore the most basic magic lesson of the entire genre. Its like saying your a graduate art student but have never studied anything about the Renaissance.
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