MNC and Steam - Small Question

A friend and I were discussing the game, and its eventual release on the PC...

I was around when there was a vote going, or something (can't exactly remember what - this was back in April or May), of what sort of online distributer would be best for MNC. The overall consensus at the time was Steam, I think?

The both of us are Steam users, and we were excited about the prospect of being able to play this through them. Eventually.

First off - Will MNC be made available on Steam?
Second - If so, will the game combine Xbox and Steam servers?
Last - Could someone possibly tell me how combining the servers would be bad? I'm guessing it has to do with crashing one's system of choice, and being slow... A horrible guess, as I'm no PC or game nerd.

TBH they havent even discussed (publicly) bringing it to pc, its all "what ifs" at the moment.

Xbox and PC servers are not combined in Bioshock 2.

It's uncertain at this point, You will have to check back later.

No, And I don't think the xbox will share any servers with steam games because Microsoft hates Valve.

It would not be bad, I have seen a few cross platform games myself and it's impossible to tell what console people are using to play and there is never any lag caused because of it.

It's actually a good thing when xbox and PC can share servers because you can host dedicated servers for your xbox and stuff if they do it.

It is however hard on the developers to keep both platforms in sync with all the patches and stuff so it is almost never done.

It's sounds like a lot of hard work too.

I think it's mostly the other way around. I don't think Valve is too fond of Microsoft because they were so cheap with the updates that Valve wanted give the Orange Box version of TF2. M$ was going to charge them for a full title update when all they wanted to do was tweak the classes a little bit. I just think Valve doesn't agree with all of the restrictions imposed by Microsoft on their services with limits on everything from achievements to DLC to user-generated content. Also, GFWL and Steam(works) aren't necessarily competitors, but they offer similar services. GFWL isn't a digital distributor but they both are used for DRM, for example.

But to keep this MNC related, since MS is the publisher of MNC, I imagine that if it is ported to PC it won't be available on Steam since there is not a single game on Steam that was published by Microsoft. So if it is available for digital download it will be thru some other provider but will most definitely require GFWL for matchmaking and achievements. On a happier note, I do believe it will eventually be ported to PC.

for shooters PC are also usually considerably better at aiming than consoles (aim assist helps a lot, but most snipers will be PC players) ^.^

And let's at least acknowledge the 800lb gorilla in the room. PC gaming sales aren't what they used to be. It would be much more valuable to PC gamers to be able to interface with XBL customers than it would be the other way around. What is the incentive for MS to allow for that?

They probably only view it as a security risk.

Shadowrun would like a word.

Why would Shadowrun want a word? It isn't a Steam distributed game...is it?

Which is another interesting question. MS is the publisher for Monday Night Combat. Does that publishing agreement extend to a possible PC version? And if so, does MS distribute any games over steam?

MNC on the XBox doesn't run on dedicated servers.

Plus would you want Xbox and PC players playing together?

Personally, I would not. I have maybe one friend who would want it for PC over Xbox and the precision of a mouse is far better than a joystick despite aim assist. Keep in mind this is just one man's opinion tho.

Plus, the PC gaming community is a lot different from the console gaming community. No offense to either party; I just wanted to point it out.

I apologize for the wall of text again...

The ugly for multiplayer games on the PC from a developer point of view is hacking.

The most of the problems Modern Warfare 2 had on the Xbox are directly attributed to them releasing a PC version a the same time with virtually identical save and network structures. People would hack the PC version of the game, and found ways to apply those hacks to the Xbox game via corrupted save game files.

Most consoles have some impressively advanced security features built in to them to prevent people from being able to actively hack games, and some brutal methods to hopefully detour most from wanting to attempt it. Specifically locking Xbox Live accounts of obvious cheating behaviors or locking the hardware itself from functioning if they detect physical intrusion, ie: mod chips.

In the past consoles have had on board security, but mostly this has been to protect the console maker from unlicensed products or prevent consumers from importing software from other markets. With today's world of online multiplayer on every gaming platform on the market, these kinds of hacks can have serious ramifications beyond import sales and unlicensed game releases. The original Counter-Strike on the PC is an excellent example of what can happen when cheating becomes prevalent. For a while it was almost assumed everyone played the game with some kind of wall hack and aiming hack, just because if you weren't the people you playing against probably were.

On the topic of sales numbers of PC vs console, that's complicated. It is true that retail sales of console games are significantly larger than for the PC, the downloadable market for the PC could be greater than the entire market for consoles. It's hard to know for sure as Microsoft, Sony, Valve, Direct2Drive and the plethora of downloadable PC game marketplaces are usually very closed lipped about what kinds of numbers their online markets actually. The PC downloadable game market is incredible splintered and diverse.

What little we (as consumers) do know for the consoles is the best selling game on Xbox Live has sold maybe 2m, but likely closer to 1.5m-1.6m (going from the few numbers Major Nelson releases), but most games sell closer to sub 300k numbers. The stand out titles are the ones that get past 600k, usually Summer of Arcade titles. PSN games appear to sell significantly less, how badly isn't something Sony likes to talk about. The few numbers I've seen of games that come out on both platforms, the PSN games sales numbers are usually missing a zero or two compared to Xbox Live.

The PC counter to that is some Steam games may have sold greater than 4 million copies even if their retail counterparts, if they had one, did relatively poorly. It's becoming increasingly common for "big" games to come out on the PC with little to no retail presence, but still have huge sales. PopCap is another example of a download only PC game market that's done amazingly well. How many billions of copies of Bejeweled and Plants vs Zombies have been sold? Plants vs Zombies on the iPhone sold 300,000 copies on the first day, and most of those people probably bought the game on the PC already.


There's one other thing most people don't really think about when it comes to console sales. For most developers, to release on the console means finding a publisher, that publisher negotiates with the console maker and they decided how to cut the profits. Some small percentage of the profits given to the publisher are then given to the developer, usually after some kind of profit or sales limit has passed to allow the publisher to recoup any money given to the developer for production and / or marketing, usually plus some on top of that if the developer didn't read their contract closely enough. This means on a $60 title a developer might be seeing only pennies back from each sale. It's worse if it's a retail product because there are then further console licensing fees, package production and distribution costs.

On the PC, a developer can setup their sale point on their site, or put the game up on Steam themselves with no middle men between them and Valve, with no licensing fees, and usually a better percentage split than most publisher can negotiate with Microsoft or Sony. This means a developer who can fund themselves with out the help of a publisher can release a game on Steam for $10 and have "poor" sales and still make more money than a $60 retail console game that does well.


* It should be noted that I'm a lowly Tech Artist and have no direct influence or interaction with the business dealings Uber does. While I have been in the industry for over a decade, and obviously have some closer views in to the nitty gritty of the game development world, all of this information freely available on the web.

It depends, you COULD play it on Steam. Regardless, it's a cross-platform multiplayer game. Which is part of the subject here.

PS: The last thing I want to see on Monday Night Combat EVER is hackers. They would just piss me off to a great extent.

I like my games clean...like my women.

The good ones arent "clean" -- women, I mean...

I write a small essay on the relationship between developers and game sales .. and in 3 posts it's already lead to talking about the merits of a woman's past? Wow, I'm better at this forum trolling than I thought!

Oh damn! Well I'm screwed! I mean, not in the literal sense!

No worries, ben. You're my favorite poster on these forums, so don't change a thing.

Most people roaming a gaming message board don't realize (and generally appreciate even less) the detail in the relationship and revenue distribution that takes place between developers, publishers and distribution methods (retail, digital, etc.). Hard costs with a boxed product vs. digital distribution. Hell, some people in this topic were convinced that showing a Blitz mode trailer at E3 was a bigger announcement than Summer of Arcade.

Maybe it's a sign that I'm just getting too old. :|

I'm going to sound like a ***** here, but I'm one of those people. And the reason I dont realize or understand .. well .. everything you just said is because it doesnt affect me. Sure, I can acknowledge it, even understand that its a part of 'this game I be playinz' but I dont need to know all the behind the scenes stuff. Show me the guns, the flashing lights, and I'm good to go. No need to worry my pretty little head with the cogs that make up the games wheel.

(did I come off as pretentious? I had hoped not.)

As a consumer myself I completely understand the mentality of "it doesn't effect me". For the most part it shouldn't ever matter to the consumer. The times when it should matter to the consumer it usually works itself out.

A recent and well known example of this is Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. When this game came out, the game was (and still is) one of the most revered games to come out of the Medal of Honor series. It pushed the popularity of the Medal of Honor series to new heights it hadn't seen even on the Playstation.

Subsequently there was a fallout between the devs, then at a company called 2015, and EA, most of them left to found Infinity Ward. EA believed that the "Medal of Honor" property itself was worth more than the developers who worked on the project. The Medal of Honor series has since plummeted off gamers' collective radar and Call of Duty, Infinity Ward's new game, sky rocketed past the Medal of Honor franchise to become one of the biggest single entertainment products in history. The only reason why it's not #1 is because of Avatar, and Gone with the Wind adjusted for inflation...

Now Activision, the owners of Call of Duty, appear to be making the same mistake EA made with Medal of Honor. It should be interesting to see how well Call of Duty does and what comes out of the company founded by those who left Infinity Ward.


The short version of this is, if we as developers do our job well, gamers will speak with their money and reward us regardless of what happens behind the scenes. How well we're rewarded proportionately all depends on our business choices.