No love for the PC...

I recently purchased NBA 2K14 for PC on steam, since it was $20 I figured it was a steal being that its a new big title game.

Well, after seeing it on the next gen consoles I found out why the PC version is only $20.

2K decided that the PC gamer does not need the next gen game engine and therefore the PC gamer will not get to experience the next gen game even though current gen hardware on PC is fully capable of it since thats whats in the new consoles anyway.

So, Im a little cheesed that game developers are taking even further steps to kill the PC gamer. These half ass developers made us PC gamers WAIT 8 YEARS while they dicked around with ancient console hardware and now that consoles have up to date hardware the developers decide that only the consoles get to use all the features that our systems have been capable of for years? The same disappointment came to me when I spent $50 on BF4. Yes BF4 looks good, but its not a whole new engine at all like they said. At least not for PC. Perhaps EA had the same idea of release BF4 with the old engine as opposed to the new one. This crap is almost making me not want buy any new games at all anymore. If developers are really going to keep dicking us around then I have no problem making sure they dont get my money.

Oh here we go again.

The reason they didn't spend much time on it because the percentage of people that place sports games on PC is incredibly small compared to those playing on consoles.

In my opinion, if you want to actively play sports games, get a console.

Denther said:

Oh here we go again.

The reason they didn't spend much time on it because the percentage of people that place sports games on PC is incredibly small compared to those playing on consoles.

In my opinion, if you want to actively play sports games, get a console.

Click to expand...

Thats beside the point....2K develops ALOT of games for PC as well as console. There is no reason for them to not use the next gen engine that is RIGHT THERE already. It would have been no effort for them.

The point here is that we are getting ripped. Crytek proved that point clearly when they made Crysis 2 specifically for console and then went about advertising Crysis 3 with all these new technological features some of which never saw the light of day even though the engine fully supported them already because they wanted the console market.

The console market may be a big one, but they seem to be forgetting that WE, the PC gamers, DRIVE the gaming industry. Why? Because we buy high end expensive computers and hardware. If there was no PC gamers there would be no market for high end computer hardware and therefore no money or market for which to invest in advancement of games.

I just feel like we have been stuck in a hole since 2008 and no developer wants to dig us out of it. I thought the release of the new consoles would be the answer, so far it hasnt been. Even some of the new games on the new consoles dont look that great. Granted I know the developers need time to work with the hardware, but even better if they were not so lazy they would already know it as the hardware in the new consoles isnt even that new...

I'm detecting more than a hint of PC elitism in your comment. I'm going to use we instead of PC gamers from here on out. We don't drive the gaming market. I don't know where you think that's coming from. Majority of gaming takes place on consoles. That's what drives it. It drives sales, it drives production of consoles, and it drives how developers make and distribute their games. Developers don't owe us anything. And as for your comment about PC gaming pushing hardware, come on. Seriously? The average PC gamer out there is not going to have what you probably think of as gaming hardware. Those of us that have the hardware that's even say better than 7770 is most likely less than half. I don't have stats to go off of here but I'm still making a point. PC gaming is people playing games on PC. Graphics aren't everything to a lot of people. I consider myself a huge graphics whore and I'm running a "measly" 7850 compared to your GTX 680. But my card still blows many gamers out of the water in terms of what they have. I have a friend who plays on his computer very frequently and he has a piece of crap laptop that has a Dual Core Pentium, a 4500M video card (no idea what that even is, but bad) and 3GB of RAM.

There are very few people out there truly pushing the envelope of computer hardware. Real advancements for hardware are made in the professional field for rendering real life problems like medical needs or advanced scientific computations. That's where the new hardware is coming from. If we're pushing it so much, why are consoles settling for what some of us would consider weak hardware?

I'll wake up tomorrow and read this and realize it's very scatterbrained but I think I'm kind of getting my point across.

Edit: Or just reading this again. It's poorly worded but I'm too tired to fix it.

Denther said:

I'm detecting more than a hint of PC elitism in your comment. I'm going to use we instead of PC gamers from here on out. We don't drive the gaming market. I don't know where you think that's coming from. Majority of gaming takes place on consoles. That's what drives it. It drives sales, it drives production of consoles, and it drives how developers make and distribute their games. Developers don't owe us anything. And as for your comment about PC gaming pushing hardware, come on. Seriously? The average PC gamer out there is not going to have what you probably think of as gaming hardware. Those of us that have the hardware that's even say better than 7770 is most likely less than half. I don't have stats to go off of here but I'm still making a point. PC gaming is people playing games on PC. Graphics aren't everything to a lot of people. I consider myself a huge graphics whore and I'm running a "measly" 7850 compared to your GTX 680. But my card still blows many gamers out of the water in terms of what they have. I have a friend who plays on his computer very frequently and he has a piece of crap laptop that has a Dual Core Pentium, a 4500M video card (no idea what that even is, but bad) and 3GB of RAM.

There are very few people out there truly pushing the envelope of computer hardware. Real advancements for hardware are made in the professional field for rendering real life problems like medical needs or advanced scientific computations. That's where the new hardware is coming from. If we're pushing it so much, why are consoles settling for what some of us would consider weak hardware?

I'll wake up tomorrow and read this and realize it's very scatterbrained but I think I'm kind of getting my point across.

Edit: Or just reading this again. It's poorly worded but I'm too tired to fix it.

Click to expand...

Point is, I did not get the game I paid for. And I fear its becoming a trend. Crysis 3 and now this. False advertising is becoming too much.

I paid for NBA 2K14. What I got, was EXACTLY NBA 2K13. No where on the steam store page does it say that it is the old gen version.

Let me put it to you this way, if companies like nvidia and AMD/ATi (who make console hardware) didnt have the PC market to drive them to make the hardware they do, they wouldnt. People do not make things there is not a market for. So if we saw technology operate at the speed of console releases we may never see another gen. Because if these companies do not have the income they get from the PC gaming scene to produce their hardware they would not produce it and they certainly would not have the money for R&D into newer technologies. The PC is and always will be the driving force in gaming because games are designed on PCs.

Which is exactly why consoles have started using traditional PC hardware as opposed to specially designed hardware. Not only is it cheaper to produce but it makes things alot easier on the developers. My problem is, the developers still are not using the technology that has been readily available for their games. All these tech demos, millions of them, many different kinds of technologies that have been around for nearly a decade all almost untouched by developers.

Why? Why make us suffer? Why can we not have endless displacement mapping? Why can we not have deformable terrain? Why cant the whole environment be destructible instead of just scripted objects? Why can we not have soft-body physics? All these technologies just wasted in the interest to re-release the same exact COD or BF game to the simple minded gamer who know no better. BF4 using a new engine? I think not.

DirectX 9 features have had the longest DirectX life of any in history. By a huge margin. I mean, come on, 10+ years? Games today are still using 10 year old features?

The argument could be "give the developers time with the new consoles they are still new" . Well, no actually they are not new. They are using outdated PC hardware. And had these developers actually spent time developing games for PC we should have INSTANTLY seen results. So far, nothing I have seen on the new consoles looks any better than what I have seen on PC for the past decade. (I have an Xbox One right in front of me with COD Ghosts and 2K14. And sadly, 2K14 is the best looking game I have seen on the new consoles right now. Which is saying something)

Pretty sure NBA 2K14 probably just has some tweaks and updated rosters, as most yearly sports titles have... Steam likely didn't say it was 2K13... because it wasn't 2K13.

As upset as you may be, 2K13 and 2K14 are different. Whether these are seen or not is a whole other thing altogether. Can almost guarantee that the PS3 and Xbox 360 people didn't get a huge engine or graphics overhaul, just the PS4 and XB1 people.

I'm not a huge PC gamer, and I normally don't associate myself a whole lot with the PC community mainly because of the odd self-entitlement most seem to have.
Maybe... I don't know... express your distaste to the devs instead of to a general forum. Or demand a refund from Steam (lolz) since they seem to have misguided you in terms of product description.

Me? I'm going back to my Palm Bay, Poutine, and Final Fantasy XIV Real Reborn.

Agree with Ashley. Also, it's down to you to look at what you're buying more carefully. If you look at the screen shots then you should expect what you see, not what you feel you deserve because of what your computer is capable of running.

Denther said:

Agree with Ashley. Also, it's down to you to look at what you're buying more carefully. If you look at the screen shots then you should expect what you see, not what you feel you deserve because of what your computer is capable of running.

Click to expand...

I actually didnt even know they made a 360/PS3 version when I had bought the game because I had only seen it on the new consoles. And no, I didnt look at the screenshots.

Regardless, Steam should specify what version it is.

Its not so much that Im mad that I spent $20 for a game I didnt expect (and lets face it, for $20 now $15 thats an acceptable price for the old version) its that 2K does not even make the new engine available for PC.

Im not a huge console gamer. I am a PC gamer. There are a few games I play on console, but I love NBA 2K games even though Im not a sports fan and when I found out NBA 2K was on PC I got all excited. I figured I wouldnt need to buy the new consoles to play the new 2K.

And I feel there is no reason I should have to buy the new console to play 1 game, and I wont. Its just developers and their marketing and money makes the world go round blah blah.

Hyper_Kagome said:

Pretty sure NBA 2K14 probably just has some tweaks and updated rosters, as most yearly sports titles have... Steam likely didn't say it was 2K13... because it wasn't 2K13.

As upset as you may be, 2K13 and 2K14 are different. Whether these are seen or not is a whole other thing altogether. Can almost guarantee that the PS3 and Xbox 360 people didn't get a huge engine or graphics overhaul, just the PS4 and XB1 people.

Click to expand...

In regards to the 360/PS3 versions, the difference between 2K13 and 2K14 are nil. We are talking about the soundtrack (which being 2K they only have like 5 songs anyway) and the menus. Aside from that, same game. Same exact graphics and physics engine used in 2K13. New menus and a new soundtrack does not equal a new game. As EA and every other game developer seems to think.

And Im more upset that a company like 2K would pull this crap. Take-Two in general is usually very good at delivering fresh new good games as opposed to other big name companies that release the same crap every year.

Pluuuuuuuuus updated rosters.

A couple snips I've found from various websites that reviewed the game that argue your "same game" points otherwise:

The game’s developers seem to have eliminated the sluggish passes that have plagued the title in the past, and it’s become possible to efficiently whip the ball around the perimeter. On a more general note, the game play feels much tighter, resulting in a smooth fluidity in the on-court action that makes player movements more natural and versatile than ever.

Click to expand...

2K14 also features a huge increase in in-between-play animation, giving players more direct control. Instead of having to wait for an animation to finish, players can now branch out into another move, making it possible to react to defenders quicker. It’s also worth noting that playing defense in this year’s 2K iteration is no longer a chore, as the defensive A.I. has been drastically tightened up.

Click to expand...

On the graphics side, NBA 2K14 doesn’t look too different from NBA 2K13, but it seems that the majority of the work on this year’s update went into game play mechanics.

Click to expand...

Crew mode, signature skills, Euroleague, and something about a smarter play-calling system. They don't always do new engine builds every year. In fact that's rare. The mechanics get tweaked here and there, rosters are updated, sometimes new modes are added or taken out. I know with NHL they fool around with the Skill-sticks quite a bit, but it seems that NHL 15 will be a new engine build seeing as it didn't get tossed onto next gen right off the bat. (No, you don't need to point out that NHL isn't NBA, I was using it as an example on how it hasn't had an updated engine in several years.)

Steam DID specify the version. It was NBA 2K14, regardless of what you moan because of how it looks.
Maybe you should try out NBA Live 14?

Buuuuuuut I'm officially done here. It seems you're not going to be satisfied with anything that's said here that goes against your own opinion.

Hyper_Kagome said:

Pluuuuuuuuus updated rosters.

A couple snips I've found from various websites that reviewed the game that argue your "same game" points otherwise:


Crew mode, signature skills, Euroleague, and something about a smarter play-calling system. They don't always do new engine builds every year. In fact that's rare. The mechanics get tweaked here and there, rosters are updated, sometimes new modes are added or taken out. I know with NHL they fool around with the Skill-sticks quite a bit, but it seems that NHL 15 will be a new engine build seeing as it didn't get tossed onto next gen right off the bat. (No, you don't need to point out that NHL isn't NBA, I was using it as an example on how it hasn't had an updated engine in several years.)

Steam DID specify the version. It was NBA 2K14, regardless of what you moan because of how it looks.
Maybe you should try out NBA Live 14?

Buuuuuuut I'm officially done here. It seems you're not going to be satisfied with anything that's said here that goes against your own opinion.

Click to expand...

Roster updates have nothing to do with it. These games get roster updates daily.

Look.... Having played the crap out of 2K13 I can tell you the game mechanics are the same. I dissected the mechanics of NBA 2K13 and actually there is only one difference in the "mechanics" and that is that they got rid of the modifier trigger and put everything into the right stick. Which was actually stupid because now I have to use the button to shoot because if I leave the pro stick at default I cant do dribble moves without accidentally shooting.

Im sure those people who "reviewed" the game are not avid 2K players and most likely didnt spend immense time playing 13 or 14 and just re-posted what the developers said. And the developers will say whatever they want to sell their product be it true or not, Iv already seen that.

Theres no opinion about it. Its not a new game. The only reason I can even enjoy playing it is because I dont have 2K13 anymore and I never had it on PC and it was only $20. So I play the game as if its 2K13 because thats what it is. And I look at it as if I got 2K13 for PC for $20 which is fine. If I paid $60 for it and was told it was 2K14 I would have been pissed and demanded a refund from steam for false advertising. But for $20 I may not have got the game I thought I was getting but as cheap as it is Id say the price was right for what I got.

And like I said, the most upsetting part about this and my whole beef is that 2K, a huge developer, will not offer their new engine on PC. And there is no reason why they cant other than just not caring about the PC gamer.They doing this all as a big marketing scheme. While sports games may not have a huge market on PC, they want the few who do buy them on PC to HAVE to buy the new consoles to get the new game. And then its like, why even bother selling the game on PC at all if you dont care about the PC gamer at all.

I feel like as a company, by doing that they have just announced that they dont give 2 licks about the PC gamer and instead of ever giving us any quality games they would rather just give us 2 year old games and brand them as new. For developers to start pulling this crap makes me not even want to buy games anymore without demoing them ALL first. I mean, its sad that we live in a day where we cant even trust the developers to give us what they are saying they are giving us. I remember a time when game design and development was improving by leaps and bounds. And those were the years that got me heavily into PC gaming and gaming in general.

I totally agree with you G80, I was disappointed when I bought FIFA 2013...It's in freakin' DirectX9.0c!

Some games allow you to choose which Dx version you'll be able to run (for example LA Noire, Max Payne 3...). They go from Dx 9.0 to Dx10, I don't even get why new games aren't Dx10 at least...