Bethesda: “The PC is a headache”

10 November 2011

Speaking to Joystiq, Bethesda’s Pete Hines had quite a bit to say about the technical challenges they face while making games for PC, and how those challenges are compounded pre- and post-release.

“From a technical standpoint, yes, the PC is a headache. It just is,” said Hines.

“A million different possibilities of hardware, drivers, etc. As you saw with Rage, all it takes is some bad video card drivers and years of hard work comes off as ‘buggy’ when in fact it’s a really solid, stable game.”

But settings issues aren’t the only thing that Bethesda feels makes PC a pain – there’s also piracy; something Hines notes they try to handle without resorting to “draconian measures.”

“Unless you decide not to make your games available for PC, it’s a problem and you have to deal with it.”

Forgive me if I’m incorrect here, but I’m pretty sure that console games also get pirated a lot – so that’s a bit unfair, in my opinion; but I suppose it’s simply just easier to do on the PC.

Despite Hine’s headaches dealing with the PC development, he’s convinced that fans, across all platforms, will love Skyrim – with each version of the game delivering the same experience.

“Good games are good games,” said Hines, “so the core experience is the same on all platforms.”

“We try to do some things with the UI for PC folks [so they can] have the best experience possible.”

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