Republic Commando, bargain bins and the Death of PC Gaming

[MKSheppard]

While I was at a thrift shop today, I rummaged through their music/game CD selection and found Republic Commando for $1.90!

Now; at that price, it's an okay game -- okay, not great -- because it's too much like a old fashioned FPS; in that you have different enemies who can take different hits - e.g. normal Genosians go down easy; but the genosian elites with lasers take a bit to kill -- which is kind of stupid -- what makes your bog standard Genosian any different from an overseer with a laser?

Of course, lethality is significantly reduced; in terms of blaster firepower -- in the movies, you see people being knocked down or killed by single blaster hits -- while in the game you see them withstand hails of blasterfire including dozens of direct hits before dying. It's a great immersion defeater.

All of these combine to make Republic Commando basically a bargain bin game -- if I paid $49 for it, I'd be feeling a bit cheated -- but at prices of $19 or less, it becomes an impulse buy, something you can buy to waste a few hours of time.

Which brings me to my next point. Bargain bin PC gaming -- at least in the US -- has died.

EB Games (later GameStop) used to be a good source of marked down PC games -- I got my copy of Hammer and Sickle from them for like $9 bucks -- no longer has any PC section to speak of; it's all consoles.

The major retailers like Best Buy (and the late Circuit City) stick rigoriously to pricing policies -- it's been what, two years since COD4: MW came out; and it's still sold for like $49. The only reason I got COD4 was when I could snag it for $29 at the great Circuit City Liquidation Sale earlier this year.

In contrast, console gaming while there is a high investment for early adopters of A+ titles; if you wait a year, you can get it repackaged in "Greatest Hits" for $19 bucks.

[darthdavid]

This is why I love steam, they actually mark shit down as it gets older (an amazing concept I know), have sales, bundle deals etc. It's like going back in time to the days when major retailers didn't think they had a right to fuck you over just because you happen to prefer gaming on your PC...

[Commander 598]

what makes your bog standard Genosian any different from an overseer with a laser?

Shields, armor, powered armor, shielded power armor? *shrug*

Of course, lethality is significantly reduced; in terms of blaster firepower -- in the movies, you see people being knocked down or killed by single blaster hits -- while in the game you see them withstand hails of blasterfire including dozens of direct hits before dying. It's a great immersion defeater.

1. Standard Clones carried the DC-15A (Long rifle) and S (Carbine) blasters while Commandos had the DC-17m, which is barely larger than a pistol and obviously weaker due to these size issues.

2. Droid rifles generally seemed to hit fairly hard from what I remember, of course you generally couldn't tell because they can't hit the wall in front of them, it doesn't take a whole lot to down them, and you have shields.

The 17m is just an extremely weak weapon in it's base configuration and totally ineffective against targets the 15A and possibly even S can practically one shot.

[Starglider]

The major retailers like Best Buy (and the late Circuit City) stick rigoriously to pricing policies -- it's been what, two years since COD4: MW came out; and it's still sold for like $49. The only reason I got COD4 was when I could snag it for $29 at the great Circuit City Liquidation Sale earlier this year.

Another reason not to bother with physical retailers. This isn't a product that you need to physically inspect before buying it. I normally use Play.com for games; PC titles are usually cheaper than console titles, and older PC games are very cheap. For example you can get Bioshock and Oblivion in a twin-pack for 10 GBP ($16 ish - and they deliver free). That said, COD4 is still 17 GBP, so perhaps Vivendi are just being tight-asses.

[Stark]

A lot of this is nostalgia, I think. I also remember the days any game shop would have possibly dozens of older, dirt-cheap games you might have missed or would now buy at a bargain price, but the market seems to have changed. Prices stay high, games that don't make a big splash simply disappear, etc. Perhaps purchasing is just more 'targeted' these days, but I miss being able to snag a 5yo interesting game for $12.

[Pablo Sanchez]

A lot of this is nostalgia, I think. I also remember the days any game shop would have possibly dozens of older, dirt-cheap games you might have missed or would now buy at a bargain price, but the market seems to have changed. Prices stay high, games that don't make a big splash simply disappear, etc. Perhaps purchasing is just more 'targeted' these days, but I miss being able to snag a 5yo interesting game for $12.

I bought Fallout 1 and 2 in a single $10 case at a Wal-Mart over half a decade ago, and occasionally when I'm in shops of that kind I look around for the same packages, but as far as I can tell those deals are no longer offered. In fact the only retailers I've seen carrying any kind of serious deals for old classics (besides the obvious best-sellers like Doom) are online, like Steam.

As for Republic Commando, that game was stupid. Circle-strafing around a Super Battledroid and shooting/stabbing it hundreds of times, then doing it again five minutes later is not my idea of fun.

[darthdavid]

1. Standard Clones carried the DC-15A (Long rifle) and S (Carbine) blasters while Commandos had the DC-17m, which is barely larger than a pistol and obviously weaker due to these size issues.

2. Droid rifles generally seemed to hit fairly hard from what I remember, of course you generally couldn't tell because they can't hit the wall in front of them, it doesn't take a whole lot to down them, and you have shields.

The 17m is just an extremely weak weapon in it's base configuration and totally ineffective against targets the 15A and possibly even S can practically one shot.

And if they armed you with a rusty butter knife it would make sense for it to take a lot of shots to kill enemies too. It doesn't mean that there's a logical reason for the republic to arm it's 'elite' soldiers with completely useless weaponry or fun to play a game where you're limited in such a fashion though...

[Vympel]

I don't know WTH you guys are talking about. My local EB games is full of older PC games that are priced cheaper than dirt ($20 and below). The only games that aren't appropriately priced there are Starcraft and Diablo warchests - these fucking things have been $49.95 for a decade, because apparently Blizzard shits out turds made of gold.

[Dartzap]

Indeed, over here in GAME there is generally a large three-for-£20 deal on older games, and two-for-£30 on slightly newer ones. The older games tend to be re-released to work with whatever the newest OS is.

[JointStrikeFighter]

A lot of this is nostalgia, I think. I also remember the days any game shop would have possibly dozens of older, dirt-cheap games you might have missed or would now buy at a bargain price, but the market seems to have changed. Prices stay high, games that don't make a big splash simply disappear, etc. Perhaps purchasing is just more 'targeted' these days, but I miss being able to snag a 5yo interesting game for $12.

Man that's how I played Heavy Gear

That said it seems like all the old PC games in EB now are Rome TW or SWAT 4

[Alyeska]

There isn't shit for old titles available around here. I was surprised to see the Fallout Trilogy and the Space Quest collection available. The oldest games I've found tend to be Doom 3 and Halo. On rare occasion I find an old bargain title, but these are far and few between. Most game stores don't bother carrying anything truly old anymore. No more of the buying the game on the bargain once you missed the initial launch. If its remotely popular you can find it for a while, but after that it disappears. I can't even find Supreme Commander or Forged Alliance in any local stores for fucks sake.

[MKSheppard]

I can't even find Supreme Commander or Forged Alliance in any local stores for fucks sake.

Actually, I found a Supreme Commander jewel case edition for like 9 bucks at a Staples Nearby. Didn't buy it though.

MicroCenter does seem to keep a more balanced view of this -- they have a really cheap bargain section for PC Software -- I managed to find a single box of.......Daikatana on the shelves.

The problem is; MicroCenter is a very smallish store -- so most people can't count on one nearby.

[Stark]

I don't know WTH you guys are talking about. My local EB games is full of older PC games that are priced cheaper than dirt ($20 and below). The only games that aren't appropriately priced there are Starcraft and Diablo warchests - these fucking things have been $49.95 for a decade, because apparently Blizzard shits out turds made of gold.

That's what I mean about nostalgia; there are still plenty of old games around, but not so many new old games (if you know what I mean), and shovelware is pretty terrible (as opposed to failed 'proper' games). I mean, Sniper Elite is no bargain-bin Heavy Gear, but we've played all the old games already.

[Jade Falcon]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm sure that Alyeska and me were talking and he said in the US there is practically no 'budget labels' rereleases of games. An example over here is the "White Label" series which had Fallout 1,2 and Tactics together for a nominal price. The closest you guys seem to come is specialised collections like the Space Quest/Larry/Police Quest etc compilations, and even then these don't always sell at budget prices. We first had budget labels over here in the days of the Spectrum and C-64, when your typical game would go from £5.99 to £9.99, a company called Mastertronic, then later Codemasters started selling budget games at £1.99. Back then though these budget games were not rereleases, but that did change.

As mentioned, Game often have Two for £15, Three for £20 on their cheaper titles, and the £4.99 budget titles often go for Three for £10.

Saying that, there are games like the already mention COD:Modern Warfare that do seem to keep their prices far longer than other games.

[MKSheppard]

Man. Republic Commando sucks balls.

While it escapes the "lol jedi, lightsaber" fest of all the recent SW games; it feels more like a throwback to Dark Forces 1 than to a modern shooter; in that your small elite squad of four guys is tasked with taking on hundreds of enemies in pitched combat; instead of sneaking around, sniping people from a mile away; stabbing them in the back in a dark alley; or sneaking in corridors.

[Wing Commander MAD]

I'll have to agree that Republic Commando isn't great, it is somewhat refreshing to be away from lightsabers and jedi wank (I'm looking at you Force Unleashed) though.

Hell, Gamestops in my area (I'll just say Pittsburgh for ease) hardly even carry PC games anymore, ditto for places like Wal-Mart. It is basically coming to the point of if I want a PC game, I better check Amazon or Steam. Hell, I'd probably spend more on gas trying to find a title if it's not been just released and at least vaguely hyped, than I would for two day shipping off Amazon. Sadly, the days of the bargain bin are pretty much gone and with it any chance of me ever impulse buying something again as I simply won't risk more than $20-25 for something I've never tried or heard of. It even seems like we get fewer games that actually have demos available these days too.

Let's be honest, PC gaming has been dying for quite some time now. Part of it probably is the fact that developing for consoles is just plain simpler as the hardware is static (relatively). The fact that most console gamers, and thus the majority of the market for games, seem to have low attention spans and love to eat up the latest version of Madden which amounts to slightly improve graphics and an updated roster doesn't help either. Add to this that the market or at least publishers seem to favor following what has worked before blindly and without change is leading to stagnation in the various genres doesn't help either. Hell, I even heard that Blizzard has admitted that following the same old design could lead to the death of the RTS genre (though they apparently don't want to take any risks with Starcraft 2 ). I can't help but think that the industry might be better off if it imploded like it did in the past. Then again, as someone who'd like to work in said industry the thought of that happening is kinda scary, in the utterly destroying your dreams kinda way.

[Uraniun235]

It doesn't surprise me that some retailers would avoid bargain binning; supposedly one of the big things about retail is that shelf space is very limited.

Let's be honest, PC gaming has been dying for quite some time now. Part of it probably is the fact that developing for consoles is just plain simpler as the hardware is static (relatively). The fact that most console gamers, and thus the majority of the market for games, seem to have low attention spans and love to eat up the latest version of Madden which amounts to slightly improve graphics and an updated roster doesn't help either. Add to this that the market or at least publishers seem to favor following what has worked before blindly and without change is leading to stagnation in the various genres doesn't help either.

Oh come on, people have been saying PC gaming is in mortal danger (and citing most of your reasons - also citing piracy) since Wing Commander came out.

Is PC gaming actually dying, or has the PC gaming market shifted? Remember, there's a huge fucking amount of money being made each month on MMO games, plus people like to cite the hell out of "well the Sims is always best seller". There's also all those people out there who play games like those flash puzzle games available free online. PC gaming still has both a lot of casual gamers and a lot of fanatic gamers.

That said, considering how expensive it's getting to make blockbuster games, it's not surprising that some publishers are going to start focusing on markets where development and bugfixing is (supposedly) much easier, and piracy is far less convenient.


We might see fewer blockbusters released on the PC (though I'd imagine there will always be some - even if the video card manufacturers have to start paying kickbacks to some publishers to keep them coming), but PC gaming is not going to die.

[starfury]

Oh come on, people have been saying PC gaming is in mortal danger (and citing most of your reasons - also citing piracy) since Wing Commander came out.

Is PC gaming actually dying, or has the PC gaming market shifted? Remember, there's a huge fucking amount of money being made each month on MMO games, plus people like to cite the hell out of "well the Sims is always best seller". There's also all those people out there who play games like those flash puzzle games available free online. PC gaming still has both a lot of casual gamers and a lot of fanatic gamers.

That said, considering how expensive it's getting to make blockbuster games, it's not surprising that some publishers are going to start focusing on markets where development and bugfixing is (supposedly) much easier, and piracy is far less convenient.

Hasn't that been obvious for a while, the daily NPD lists for PC games are almost alway dominated by the Sims and World of warcraft and their expansions, for all of Starcraft 2's stagnation, keeping it's graphics low means it run on large number of typical PCs, keeping it from suffering the fate of Crysis or Supercom, both of which of required PCs which are far more powerful then the typical office machine, which is vastly weaker then even low-end gaming PC or the homebuilt ones.

[Uraniun235]

Crysis sold over a million units, which is good for a PC title, and I'm pretty sure Supreme Commander was also a strong seller. What fate are you talking about?

Whining about developers pushing hardware requirements too high also dates back to at least Wing Commander; and back then, computer upgrades cost a hell of a lot more than they do now. It's not like we have to pay $800 for a CPU or $600 for a hard drive any more.

[starfury]

Whining about developers pushing hardware requirements too high also dates back to at least Wing Commander; and back then, computer upgrades cost a hell of a lot more than they do now. It's not like we have to pay $800 for a CPU or $600 for a hard drive any more.
Crysis sold over a million units, which is good for a PC title, and I'm pretty sure Supreme Commander was also a strong seller. What fate are you talking about?

Basicly they felt they were to top the Piracy charts, and the casual with dells with mere integreted graphics either went to consoles or didn't bother, leaving only the kind of Audience of savvy gamers, who are more likely to pirate, also they wanted Halo style sales.

[starfury]

It is. Revenue from the PC market is far smaller than from the console market. It costs more to develop to a PC audience than to an equivalently sized console audience because of multiple technical issues. It is harder to market to PC gamers. PC gamers are more likely to pirate their games. These all pile together into "Most FPS developers release for PC out of loyalty for the platform and not because it makes business sense."

And this quote from ace pace on the COD MW2 thread is pretty much what Wing Commander MAD and I are talking about.

[Kurgan]

To OP (and nobody in particular):

I actually thought RC was a fairly original game, until I played HALO. While it was an engaging (though short) single player game, it was a major wasted bit of potential for Multiplayer. What we got was a buggy, bare bones impression of HALO minus cool stuff like vehicles, with a Star Wars coat of paint. Sad, really... because some of that SP stuff in MP really could have spiced things up... and on the UT2k4 engine of all things! Dang that annoys me how they dropped the ball on that one. I guess they figured Episode II mania was over and people were leaping on the Episode III bandwagon, and they didn't want to waste anymore time on Simon Jeffery's last game (just guessing here). They patched it, but the patch had one measly new level and the mission editor. They basically abandoned the game, like so many others.

Charging so much for console games (even used ones) made more sense back in the days of cartridges, since those things were expensive to produce (though dang near invincible compared to easily scratched CDs and DVDs). I figure most of the mark down is due to the perceived ease of piracy of PC games, though that shouldn't be such an issue since prior to the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox, pretty much every disc based system was pirated like crazy (and the cart based systems that still use carts like the portables are still pirated easily, though I guess it's less cool since it's not as portable which defeats the purpose unless you're using a flash cart device).

[Dominus Atheos]

Any person complaining about not being able to find bargain bin titles isn't looking in the right places. EB Games's has a bargain bin category for pc games, where you can currently download Assassin's Creed or Medieval 2 total war for $10 each. Steam just had a sale where you could pick up Mass Effect for $10. Walmart is currently selling Grand Theft Auto IV for $16.92, but that's a boxed copy so you have to pick it up at a store or pay $3 bucks for shipping. Direct2Drive has World in conflict gold edition or Far Cry 2 Fortunes Edition for $20. Amazon.com has Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion gold pack for $20.

If you want old games for cheap, you just have to know where to look.

[Steel]

GAME in the UK has 3 for £10 on a range of old titles, 2 for £15 on slightly newer ones always as well as other ones on deals some of the time.

Add to this that on launch day Sainsburys are selling MW2 for £26 in their larger stores. I think they're using it as one of those sort of get people into the store deals, so they then make up the extra profit on other things the people buy when they're in there.

[Oskuro]

I think the pricing of the games has more to do with the price the retailer originally bought the game at, unless they slash prices to get rid of their stock, retailers will keep offering them at full price. I've seen instances in wich the same store is selling the original box at full price, and the budget label re-release at a lower price.