Is PC Gaming Dead?

Let's jump on the band wagon, shall we. Over the last few months there was a sudden uproar of console gamers saying PC gaming is dead. They cite many sources to prove this, and PC gamers counter with their own proof. It's all become a little tiresome. So when this morning I stumbled upon another of these articles, I decided it's time to give my own opinion.

PC gaming will never die. It will only change. But this is nothing new. The whole point of game development is innovation. Every game designer wants players to experience something they've never experienced before.

It's a simple cycle, really. It all started with the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 in 1982. The first fully-assembled home computers available. You bought yourself one, plugged it into your TV, and off you go. They both featured a built-in programming environment that allowed technophiles to create their own applications and games. It still took a little work to get the games working.

Then in 1985 came the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), also known as the Famicom. It was by no means the first game console, but it was the first console to have nearly as wide a fan base as computers did. What made it special was the fact that you could purchase a game cartridge, put it in, and it works. The two game controllers (pictured in their storage position on the sides of the console) meant players didn't need to share a keyboard when playing games. This simplicity of use is what made it so much more popular as a gaming console than home computers, that were originally built for office work, not games.

Since then personal computers and consoles have been running side by side, trying to pursuade the same consumers that one is better than the other, though their capabilities remained relatively similar. So similar in fact that many game publishers were able to release their games on multiple platforms.

It was only with the advent of the Sony Playstation that the "riots in the streets" started. At the time of release the Playstation's graphics capabilities far outperformed desktop computers. Games didn't need to be installed and configured before playing, and saving your game on a memory card meant you could take your game with you and play on a friend's console. It was believed that PC gaming was dead.

Within a year or two computers had again taken the market. Because of the modular design of computers, consumers were able to replace certain parts of their computer at a relatively low price and drastically improve performance and capabilities. Games could then use this new hardware to make games look, feel and sound more realistic. Because the Playstation was a single, solid, prebuilt machine there was no way to improve performance without releasing a whole new model and everyone spending the same amount of money (if not more) than they did to buy the original console, to get the newer console.

Until the Playstation 2 was released, PC games were far more impressive than console games. But suddenly the market was flooded again. Die-hard Playstation fans were rewarded with new bragging rights. Personal computers were running complex operating systems with tasks always active in the background while you're playing your game. This meant PC games never used hardware to the best of its capabilities. The popularisation of the Playstation 2, Nintendo Gamecube and Microsoft Xbox came with better performance than their PC equevalents, even though the Xbox was essentially built from PC parts. Once again, PC gaming was announced to be dead. But again, slowly creeped forth the technological developments of PCs allowing better games, better experience, and cheaper games.

Regarding cheaper games, let's take a quick side-line here. Many people argue that PC games are cheaper than console games. And this is true in a sense. Take a look at prices for Race Driver GRID (prices from Take2.co.za):
Playstation 3: R 699
Xbox 360: R 619
PC: R 348

But why is this? Because in most cases the gaem developer needs to buy into the development platform needed to run the game of a specific platform. To release a game in Xbox 360, developers need to distribute their game through Microsoft's publishing system, branded with their names and logo's. On PC, it only needs to run on an operating system already installed and present on almost all personal computers.

So what balances out the price? Hardware. An Xbox 360 retails for around R3000. A personal computer that runs the same games at the same level of detail would set you back at least R6000. That's excluding the TV you need for the Xbox and the monitor, keyboard, mouse, and perhaps gamepad you'll need for the PC. If you play alot of games and you don't mind tinkering with settings and the inside of a computer, PC games will work out cheaper in the long run. On the other hand, if you someday dig your Xbox and games out of the attic, you can plug it in and show it to your kids and all the games will still run exactly how they did back in the day. Whereas PC games tend not to work on newer technology. Or the newer computers are so fast that your old games runs much faster than it was meant to, rendering it unplayable.

Back to the story.

Over probably the last year the new generation of consoles was released. The Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii. Along with these games was pioneered the phrase "Next-gen gaming", which means essentially nothing, but promises a new level of detail and lifelikeness in games. Ironically, PC games have been doing it for years. But because it was such a gradual development, nobody noticed.

For the final time it seems, it was announced that PC gaming is dead. PC game sales looked to have plumetted and game development studios are no longer interested in releasing games on PC because it just gets pirated and they don't make any money. But they are wrong.

If you as a game developer have an idea for a game, but it's such a revolutionary idea that you don't know if it would work, you're not going to get a licence with Microsoft or Sony to develop the game on a console. You're going to sit down behind the computer that's in your study and try out the idea first. Because of this fundamental fact, the face of PC gaming is changing. A-list games can be released on consoles as often as they like. The best ones are always released on PC anyway (I'll get back to this point). But if you want a truly unique and interesting experience, that even occasionally requires you to use your brain, your only option is a PC. Plus, if you get stuck, you can always google it. It's a little harder to do that on a console...

A good example would be World of Goo, to be released soon. There's no way you can play this game on a console. And would you even want to?

Back to the point of the best being released on PC aswell. I've noticed a trend in the market:

1. Games are released on console. It does very well and the developers decide to expand their target market by releasing the game for PC aswell. They go back into production.
2. While they're busy working on the game, they fix the issues encountered by players of the console version. They fix the annoyances that made the game less-than-perfect.
3. The game is released on PC, now better than ever. In many cases including material the console was either unable to handle or wasn't available at the time (such as extra DLC)
4. Console owners complain that they don't get the cool stuff the PC version has. Developers see the opportunity to make even more money and go back to work.
5. A few months later, the console "Special Edition" is released, containing some or all the new features and content that was added fot the PC version.

Step 5 doesn't always happen, though. I can list a few examples. Gears of War did very well on console, so was then released on PC, but with 4 extra levels that was removed from the Xbox360 version, because of the console's limiations. Those 4 levels didn't play well on the console because the machine was overloaded. Mass Effect won awards on console when it was released in November 2007. My copy of the PC version was delivered on thursday. It has a newly redesigned heads-up display, more action-focused gameplay, and many of the texture-based glitches experienced in the original game has been fixed.

The list keeps growing. Then when I'm done with my A-list games and need something to keep me busy until the next one comes out, I play a quiet game of Darwinia, released by a small games development company and almost unknown to gamers, it is one of my favourite games and remains addictive no matter how many other games I play inbetween. And guess what it cost me...

R100.

Words:
"Wanting is the root of all... needing... stuff..."
-Mad Money