It's over, CAVE is dead... or maybe not...

[stryc9]

The only companies who should be allowed to do Cave ports are M2 and Arika. Cave should never have done any of them IMO. I'm not sure I'd be championing Asada's "work ethic" either given the number of bugs his output suffers from.

Bloody hell, they haven't done too bad! Worlds away from the quality of their PS2 efforts, and some of the Arrange modes have been pretty awesome, lets face it. Yes M2 and Arika are the kings of ports, but CAVE have done pretty well on their A graders IMO.

Maybe not so well with some of the other stuff, like the Pork pack

[Bananamatic]

ITT grumpy old men

touhou works on pc just fine
steam is not some DRM satan
get real

[Reiko]

I have all the Steam notifications turned off, I set Skype to busy when playing a game, my anti-virus doesn't pop up over a game either, and the other stuff that could pop up like updates to Flash, graphics card drivers and my graphics card overclocking software, only checks for updates when Windows starts up. So I don't really have interruption issues on PC personally.

PCs are expensive, but games are cheaper on PC by default; even more so with Steam, Good Old Games, Green Man Gaming and so on all having regular sales. I haven't paid more than $20 for a AAA PC game in ages, and usually its $10-15 or less. That's compared to paying $70-90 per Xbox game + delivery, so the difference becomes bigger as time goes on and you buy more games. I guess value then comes down to how many games you would buy. I only bought the Xbox for playing shooters, but I did end up branching out and buying games from other genres to better justify having the console in my own mind (may sound silly).

Anyway, not saying PC is the best platform, but it does have its own advantages. What someone else said though, about everyone having the same experience on a console, with everyone having the same hardware, is obviously more important in this genre than in others, and is probably one of the best points about consoles. When the option is available though, I'll always choose the PC version over a console version. I have a few friends who like stuff like Touhou, but won't actually go out and buy a 360, so its a bit boring for me experiencing the 360 games alone.


As far as Cave goes, only started playing their games this year and I haven't bothered to inform myself of the politics around the company. I did buy a few of their iOS games when they were on sale, but I don't really take the phone versions of the games too serious. Hope they won't actually go exclusively in that direction.

[jepjepjep]

steam is not some DRM satan
get real

Serious question: Why is DRM from Steam different from any other DRM scheme? What happens if they go out of business and all the servers are shut off?

[Reiko]

In that event, I presume that they will make the games playable without it. Though, it's already possible to set Steam to offline mode. I don't remember the specifics now, but from memory, to enable offline play, you need to set the client to Offline mode (while online) one time only, and from then you can set it to Offline whenever (regardless of having an internet connection).

[jepjepjep]

In that event, I presume that they will make the games playable without it.

How do we know that they won't just unplug the servers? Would you be able to install your games when it's time to upgrade to a new PC or OS?

[O. Van Bruce]

In that event, I presume that they will make the games playable without it.

How do we know that they won't just unplug the servers? Would you be able to install your games when it's time to upgrade to a new PC or OS?

steam doesn't need to check on the system register or at their servers to be able to run on offline mode. I have a main partition for the OS and other partition for data, which has steam installed. I have reinstalled and even changed the OS (XP -> W7 -> XP) and the steam installation on the data partition has allways worked.

I suppose it would work perfectly if you copied the whole steam folder and put it on an external HD but I haven't tried.

[IseeThings]

Well I stopped buying PC retail games the day one wanted to install steam, then required downloads / activation from steam to be playable at all, downloads which weren't available because apparently I'd bought the game too early?

Unless that wasn't steam, but it sure gave the impression it was? I haven't bought a PC retail game since anyway. Anything that requires activation and is tied to an account / one time key is an instant no-purchase from me. If it doesn't work out the box, on an offline PC, with patches I can download independently, store on a USB stick / drive for future application etc. then I'm not interested.

It really is that simple, ANYTHING else is an unnecessary inconvenience, especially when you consider every single PC game is cracked within days.

Anyway, yes, there are companies doing it right, offering DRM free downloads, and I'd much rather see Cave side with one of those. It's called treating your customers with a bit of respect.

I can't see it happening tho, if there is one message emanating from Cave over the years it's that they like to be the ones in control and if anything remain rather hidden away. Something like having their games in MAME is a tiny tiny audience compared to the number of people who would pirate them if they were on Steam or anywhere else.

One problem with exposing your games to the masses via a popular system like Steam is also that you're going to see an absolutely overwhelming number of negative reviews from people who don't have time for the genre IMHO. It's only in the last couple of years that a more widespread understanding of the genre has even been seen with emulation audiences, a lot of the older folks who enjoyed emulation of the 80s classics wrote them off with all the mahjong and casino games years ago, as impossible titles only designed to drain you of your money unfairly.

Furthermore, even the updated HD graphics on some games are not really on par with shmups released years ago, and while in the context of something like MAME they don't look out of place if you put them on Steam then you're in direct competition with other modern games, try explaining why the full screen isn't used, try explaining that the games are 100% based on gameplay (that people think is unfair) rather than graphics (which people think are dated) I think Cave are proud of the reputation they have, and maybe actually afraid of the reception they'd get on a larger scale? It's a shame, but I think that could be a big reason we're never going to see their games as A-list titles on Steam too, and I doubt Cave would accept B or C-list prices because that would be like admitting the games aren't the best of the best

Never undestimate the role pride can play, I think the same issue raises it's head with MAME and the UME / combined development work I'm doing. Many of the old mamedevs simply don't want the console part of the emulation in the main project, because it makes MAME look bad by exposing a number of the weaknesses in our emulation / framework, even if technically it's where *all* the work is being done these days anyway! (the last real MAME work of true note was probably that Cave SH3 work... even if a number of cool things have been done since)

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

They already released versions of their games on the cheap with the phone ports which only cost a few dollars. Might as well go Full Steam Monty at this point, not necessarily with brand new games but ports of old arcade titles.

[IseeThings]

yeah, but the phone market is very different, cheap pick-up and throw away games are common..

smartphone owners seem incredibly dumb and easy to exploit too, hence it being such a lucrative market in general.

The PC market is a bit different, if you sell your game for £5 then that becomes what it's worth, and I think Cave would rather see people fighting over an unopened copy of SDOJ at overinflated prices than know anybody can legally play the game for £5. By not having the games easily available gives a false value to the products compared to what they'd be worth if they were just being priced / judged as games.. Same mentality a lot of arcade collectors have in general.

As a developer / studio, if you can say you worked on a game that still trades at (stupid price) you can fool others into thinking that your games are worth that too If on the other hand you say you worked on a game that hit the steam bargain bin within a month, and hasn't sold for more than £5 since.....

So maybe there is some business sense in there.. or not..

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

I mostly see your points, just that it looks to me that they already took the plunge somewhat with all the cell phone ports. A lot of that is simply from a limited number of copies being available. But they could charge more like $20-25 a pop for Steam downloads, keeping in mind that even when they did iPhone ports they still sometimes pulled prestige pricing techniques. I recall some people puking on the toilet seat when they saw the price of Futari Black. It was like 12 dollars and people freaked out. I had to agree it was silly with the extras for sale though (paying an extra dollar for this and that options). Hope that was a failed experiment. Probably Asada at work.

[nZero]

I recall some people puking on the toilet seat when they saw the price of Futari Black. It was like 12 dollars and people freaked out. I had to agree it was silly with the extras for sale though (paying an extra dollar for this and that options). Hope that was a failed experiment. Probably Asada at work.

I haven't seen any evidence that Asada had any involvement with Cave's mobile division or any of the games ported to mobile phones. I know you hate the guy but he's not the only one at the company who can make mistakes.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

I definitely don't hate him but taking trends from other genres (in this case buying extras in-game with real money) sounds like his M.O. so it's a fair guess.

[WarpZone]

In that event, I presume that they will make the games playable without it. Though, it's already possible to set Steam to offline mode.

That's a pretty big presumption considering if they go out of business there will be nobody to deactivate the DRM or any financial incentive to do so, and it ignores all the agreements probably made with publishers on how the games can be distributed...

Also, offline mode is only temporary -- it stops working after a few weeks and you have to connect again, and is well known to be fickle and unreliable. Although considering the number of people that seem to think it's permanent, it's a bit of a stroke of genius on Valve's part...

The only real argument I can see in favor of Steam is that their sale prices at least reflect the value of the indefinite rental you're getting.

[gray117]

Steam is what it is. It's far from perfect, but its about as good a compromise as you're going to get. One of the primary benefits for a niche genre/game however is the sheer exposure a game gets by simply appearing on steam.

It was stated in the past if the service went offline they would attempt to ensure the games remained playable, but this remains at the publisher's discretion.

But, lets face it, as long as you have the data on your pc you will always be able to find a means to play these games, and since you paid for it within reasonable faith I don't think anyone's going to look down upon that in the event that steam is shut down. Beyond that - yes you won't be able to re-download it unless they have a pre-shut down grace period.

Digital or not, this is a bit like having to look after any copy of a game you own, whether that's the physical disk, serial number, collectibles or board game pieces; a degree of care on your part is required if it's important to you that you keep this forever, keep a backup, or two, or three

... However, back on topic, I don't think cave has ever been serious about any dl service. Perhaps the best we can expect is that in the future an enterprising middle man will be interested enough to re-release/package up the games and release them on, frankly, any service/device.

[Reiko]

In that event, I presume that they will make the games playable without it. Though, it's already possible to set Steam to offline mode.

That's a pretty big presumption considering if they go out of business there will be nobody to deactivate the DRM or any financial incentive to do so, and it ignores all the agreements probably made with publishers on how the games can be distributed...

Also, offline mode is only temporary -- it stops working after a few weeks and you have to connect again, and is well known to be fickle and unreliable. Although considering the number of people that seem to think it's permanent, it's a bit of a stroke of genius on Valve's part...

The only real argument I can see in favor of Steam is that their sale prices at least reflect the value of the indefinite rental you're getting.

Thanks for that info. I've never used the Offline mode for very long at a time, so wasn't aware of the time limit.

[AntiFritz]

I've never used offline mode much at all, but I was always under the impression from what I had heard/read was that "time limit" was actually a bug. Which I think valve finally got around to fixing recently?

[bcass]

Does the offline time limit affect all Steam games? I'm sure I've played some of my Steam purchases offline for more than 2 weeks.

To be honest, if Valve ever go tits-up, I doubt you'll have much trouble finding any PC game ever released (cracked) on the internet. Most retail PC releases are usually cracked within hours. Not ideal, but if they haven't got the grace to allow me to play my purchases if/when the servers go down then I won't lose any sleep downloading torrents of cracked games. Same goes for the Xbox and Xbox Live. Just get a modded console if they ever close the servers, problem solved. They'll probably sell for peanuts by the time they close Live.

[Teufel_in_Blau]

I won't lose any sleep downloading torrents of cracked games.

[bcass]

Oh please.

At least make an effort to quote exactly what I said instead of extracting less than a sentance out of context.

[casualcoder]

Ok... Don't bite my head off, there are too many posts on this topic to go through individually. But, reading the original post and follow ups, makes this thread seem like a bit of a lemming parade. I don't see any conclusive evidence that Cave is folding. In fact, it appears there is a lot of confusion. The company is possibly staying around to support past games and new avenues? Doesnt that sound like the bulk of the companys M.O. In the last 7 years? In times in the past the company looked dead and then they come out with a totally new stg from left field. It's sad to hear that they are having troubles but I'm not going to jump to conclusions until the company is officially in receivership or completely vanishes.

[hail good sir]

moms

[Drachenherz]

Oh please.

At least make an effort to quote exactly what I said instead of extracting less than a sentance out of context.

But the Pic was a nice touch.

Ah, this stare... Really makes one feel guilty, not-worthy and soon-to-be-punished.

[O. Van Bruce]

he's allways reminded me the Canterville Ghost

[Drachenherz]

I think it's the mad scientist/genius from the old "metropolis" film by fritz lang. Great avatar, I love it.

[caliburxcm]

APPLE

There's your problem

[trap15]

Get over yourself. Apple hating is so 2005.

[Lynx Winters]

Get over yourself. Apple hating is so 2005.

Half this forum acts like they wish it was still 2002 so this is still relatively progressive.

[kathy]

Get over yourself. Apple hating is so 2005.

Half this forum acts like they wish it was still 2002 so this is still relatively progressive.

2002 was a great year with great music and great party drugs..

Quite ironic that Ketsui wasn't even born yet

[PROMETHEUS]

For me PC is the natural most versatile most performant platform for gaming, you can do anything with it with the games and beyond the games ; edit, manage, communicate, play with any controler... it's cheaper, much more durable and not so tightly controled by one brand, one hardware and one set of game-"products".

Let's not forget unreliable, complicated, lumbered with a massive OS that needs virus checkers running 24/7, driver problems, always-on DRM, expensive, constantly obsolete, runtimes that update and leave older games with no possible way of running, etc. Computers are my work, and as such I absolutely hate PC architecture - they're such an unholy mess it's not even funny. It's fast, that's about the only good thing.

I'd be up for a controlled platform akin to home computers, but the free-for-all we have with x86/etc can burn for all I care.

Frankly I don't feel the same way at all :
unreliable : why? when a console dies it's dead and you have to replace it. PCs can have minor problems that need checking here and there but it is rare. I never have any problems with my PC, maybe once every 3 or 4 years I might need to replace one cheap part or something...
complicated : well I really don't care for "uncomplicated" platforms that you can't do anything with, besides if you want a simple interface for your computer that's always possible, get MacOS or Windows8 or some shit like that, they're still far better than XBOX OS or PS3 OS or whatever.
lumbered with a massive OS that needs virus checkers running 24/7 : I have stopped using antivirus for about 5 or 6 years now. I make sure I don't open suspicious exe files or whatever and although I guess there may be some minor things that have installed themselves on my computer, they don't bother me at all because it runs really great and whatever malicious programs are totally invisible to me. I'm really nitpicky with performance too, if I play any game I want it to run OVER 60FPS at ALL times or I'm not happy, and my computer does it perfect even though it is 4 years old now. I can also use all recent software such as Blender or the latest CS6 suite, or Autocad etc no problem, even though I only bought 1 PC long ago and in my school they replace their very expansive hardware every 2 or 3 years for seemingly no reason... As far as OS go, I use Windows 7 and frankly it does the job very well for me since I'm a gamer, I would be using my own selection of Linux otherwise and then I'd have the best OS ever.
driver problems : ? what do you mean, I have no problem. Problems exist when you want to do tweaking and stuff, just like when you need to fix your bicycle... would you rather buy a Apple-Bicycle extremely expensive that does nothing a non-Apple bicycle cannot do and if you need to replace a part you either can't or have to pay triple price? would you rather get a simplified tricycle (console) with which you can do next to nothing compared to PC but never run into tweaking "problems", as well as pay the same price or more expansive with all the accessories and fuel (games) ?
always-on DRM : I don't play such games (they're a minority anyway) and I only buy the games I really like, only check out the others or play for free if too expansive.
expensive : you can buy a low class full computer for 550€, and it's only "low class" because you could spend more but really don't need to : those computers run everything (contemporary and past) and last a very long time. Everyone needs a computer anyway so it's pretty crazy how much power and usefulness you get for such a price.
constantly obsolete : I keep my computers for years and don't need to change it, among all "similar" devices (tablets, "smart"phones, laptops, consoles) it is the one that lasts the longest and stays useful, as well as able to run about anything from the past and even from different hardware through emulation and other means.
runtimes that update and leave older games with no possible way of running : not sure what you mean here, this stuff may happen but you can always have a second OS to play older games that won't run on the latest windows anymore. Those are a minority and PCs have a far, far greater software and game library available than any other platform, even if you only include those that run on a single OS that you have installed. The games I play the most often are Starcraft Brood War, Dodonpachi and Quake 3 and stuff... those games are old and they run perfect, you can even run them in many different ways if you like.......... (Quake Live on browser is perfect, or Quake 3 original, Starcraft original or emulated under Linux works fine, runs on MacOS too, Dodonpachi on MAMEplus99 or ShmupMAME or PS2 emulation or whatever... you can play all games from all older consoles perfectly, even play AMIGA and ATARI games and they run perfect too. Man, PCs are fucking amazing!!).

And then you have all the qualities that PCs have and no other devices have,
one of my favorite is ability to include comfortable interfaces to actually communicate with other players online within games with chat channels and whatnot....... but the many qualities would be way too long to list.
(performance, comfort, multiple software running and software available to do many things, editing, modding, level designing, publishing and communicating online, browsing much faster, LAN, listening to music while doing whatever with software like Winamp, make music or videos or what the fuck ever!!!......... use a mouse and keyboard which are extremely versatile and accurate game controlers and practicle devices, (many types of games are unplayable or nearly unplayable without mouse/keyboard such as RTS, FPS, point and click stuff, MMOs, too long to list, you can put any GamePad controler on your PC to play whatever you want to play with gamepad including PS2 or XBOX360 gamepad...), write text, store and share all kinds of files......