PC Gaming is dead! Long live PC Gaming!
Wow I bet I pissed off around 1000 people with that headline alone!
Many have eschewed the coming death of the PC gaming platform over the past 12 – 18 months. My thoughts? Balls to that. What I will say is that what is currently thought of as the PC gaming platform is living out it’s final days. What makes me say such ludicrous things? Read on my friends and I shall impart some moose-logic – scary huh!
Back when I was a proper PC gamer things like playing your friends in a multiplayer game involved setting up servers locally and handing out IP addresses. This then progressed to handing out external IP addresses to friends who could now play in the comfort of their own home rather than trying to all cram around a few tables in the kitchen. Then the real revolution came – server lists! This was the standard for many years on the PC gaming front. So much so that when the home console took it’s first steps into online gaming they picked up the mantle of server lists and ping times. Now to PC gamers who were used to a more “technical” aspect of their gaming it was not a big deal to plough through lists of servers in Counter Strike or Quake III Arena and look for empty servers will low ping times. Console gamers just wanted to get in to the game and shoot people.
PC Gaming the Old Way
Thus the advent of things such as Microsoft’s Xbox Live system were born. These system take the technical aspect out of your hands and, on the fly, calculate who would be a good match for your gaming skills, who is on a similar or better connection and who you have chosen to avoid to play with. This brought about a small revelation for online gaming and has been the main stay of console online play ever since with people like Sony using a similar dynamic to match make on the PS3. Meanwhile the PC has lumbered on with it’s ad hoc, pick your own stance on online gaming. Sure Microsoft have had a go at trying to resolve this with the likes of Game for Windows Live, but this has always been to restrictive for many a PC gamer.
Another major aspect of PC gaming is the ability to obtain “mods”, small modifications normally community made, for your favourite title. For the most part these modifications are free as well and can add months, if not years of additional gameplay to a game – original Counter-Strike & Team Fortress are a great example of extending the life of the original Half Life. Whilst this “scene” has sort of come to consoles in the form of user generated content on the PS3 yet the true heart and soul of the PC mod scene is not here. The ability to take a game and change it around has always been a main stay of PC Gaming and a cornerstone of why PC gamers swear it is the best gaming platform. Sure some mods are now “paid for” but this has only really been a shift from shareware products to help actually guarantee some revenue (case in point Gary’s Mod).
Garys Mod in all its mad glory!
Now the times appear to be turning on PC gaming. Many PC-Centric developers such as Crytek, DICE & iD are now stating that PC only development is costly and too high risk with the amount of piracy on the system. Statements like this made many cry out that PC gaming was on it’s last legs as more and more developers either dropped PC only titles or pulled ports to the system. Now a year or so after these latest rounds of “The PC is dead!” come the more sensible responses by long time PC developers like Infinity Ward & iD. You see despite the huge outcry from PC gamers about Infinity Ward’s decision to pull dedicated server support the developer has a valid point – let’s keep control of our product. You see PC gaming is dead & a few last embers will die over the coming year or so. What will rise from the ashes is a new era of PC gaming. An era where corporate control is exerted like never before. You will never get a truly closed system on the PC as it is far too tempting to hack, but you should be able to provide a secure framework for delivery of map packs (paid for of course!), patches and more importantly, things like COD’s perks and prestige systems. The “mod” scene is the only thing that may survive this shake-up. Too many potential level designers and environment builders have come through the ranks of public domain mod building – hell the whole of the original Splash Damage team came from this scene!
The gorgeous Crysis on PC
PC gamers are going to have to adapt or move on. Game makers just can not afford to lose that precious DLC revenue that helps keep them ticking over – look at the amount of people that buy things like COD: WaW map packs, that makes Activision a small bundle. Systems like IW’s perks and prestige scheme just can not work on PC games as they now stand. Too many hacks and trainers can be downloaded or built. Too many PC games have been spoilt by these tweaks and hacks, things like Titan Quest became unplayable online after only a few short months as everyone game themselves stupid level characters and tons of great loot. PC gaming must evolve and if it won;t accept these new efforts by iD and Infinity Ward then the system will just become the MMO/Casual gaming box that it is currently destined to be. I for one have no problem with a more console approach to game distribution. I think a majority of people put out by these changes are the ones perpetuating the issue by downloading ripped editions of games. Well I’m real fucking sorry but you will have to start buying games like the rest of us if you want to play online. So I say once again, PC gaming is dead – Long live PC gaming.
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06 Nov 2009, 1:19 pm
[...] post by moosehound [...]
06 Nov 2009, 4:43 pm
“I think a majority of people put out by these changes are the ones perpetuating the issue by downloading ripped editions of games”
… seriously? Sorry, but nearly every PC gamer I know legitimately buys games, and none of us are hackers or pirates. I personally have played games I didn’t pay for only because I borrowed them from friends, and that’s been a grand total of about 3 games.
I have a game list of 50+ PC titles that I have paid well for, and I personally don’t enjoy companies deciding what I want for me; not having Dedicated servers in MW2 makes me angry, but moreso, I’m miffed because IW claims they’ve done that because it’s what gamers want. Turning the PC into a platform that is exclusively for ported versions of console games is NOT what I want.
Developers play on the strengths of consoles; Xbox360 and PS3 trade various visual effects based on what they handle best, they do optimization for those systems. People shouldn’t be angry because PC happens to be strong both in graphics and choice.
I’m sorry if choosing a server from a list is too hard for you when you use a platform controller, but I’m perfectly capable of doing so with a mouse.
Valve has a good solution to avoiding modded dedicated servers (IW claims they got rid of dedicated server to make it easier for casual players to find standard servers); adding server tags. It’s so easy to write a program to read the server config and pick out key changes/tweaks and list them in a list of tags. Users can then search to include or exclude various tags. Example: Team Fortress 2. I want to play on a standard TF2 server… All i need do is click a button that says “include tags:” and type in the word “vanilla”. Problem solved. As far as hacking/cheating, once again, Valve has it right. Valve Anti-Cheat system has been wildly successful in stopping cheaters. I’ve played TF2 and L4D since they came out, and not once have I played in a server where someone was hacking.
06 Nov 2009, 11:51 pm
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08 Nov 2009, 3:45 pm
….Im still floored you are defending IW when we have 64 players in COD 4, and the architecture now only allows 18 in MW2. Downgrades are NOT the future. And with the following COD has, it would be REALLY easy to use dedicated servers with a centralized login. In essence allowing the profiles and everything else, the volume of players… and the clans could well run the servers LONG after IW decided they were done supporting the game to boot!
While I dont gripe them the mods (annoying, but ok), I DO gripe them dropping what the software can do.. Im reminded of the Tallest in Zim: “It’s not stupid… it’s ADVANCED!”
08 Nov 2009, 6:33 pm
Guy, guys.. I was not defending IW or iD in their action but saying that this is the path they want to tread to bring PC gaming “in line”. I prefer PC gamin the old way, it offers the best of both worlds.
I will retract the “most are probably pirating stuff” comment as it was a little too generic & was ill thought out
I do know several people that are complaining do tho. IW are looking to cut their own costs so don;t want to host anything.
cheers all – I was just being Devil’s Advocate on this post
10 Nov 2009, 4:26 am
woah woah woah! Who’s getting upset with iD? They make perfect sense and DESPITE making for consoles as well, they so far have played up to the strengths of the platforms they wrote on. I can ask no more of them.
My gripes are solidly with IW and Activision.
10 Nov 2009, 9:32 am
You say this but iD have confirmed (via John Carmack) that they are probably going the same route as IW & Activision – ie no dedicated servers.
On the subject od Console releases. They are unpoven in the “platform Strength” department having not launched a title written for all platforms – yet. Rage looks OK but it is the iDTech 5 engine that is the real thing to watch. I hope, just like Crytek with CryEngine3, that they do manage a scalable engine that plays to each machines strengths BUT iD have already started moaning on the PS3 for not enough power and poor architecture sowing the seed of doubt for performance. Surely if Crytek (multiplatform), Epic (multiplatform), Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Kojima etc can sort this out they can. Otherwise it is just another portal platform that will reduce textures for the limited Xbox360 storage and reduce frame rate or texture clarity for the “hard to code for” PS3. Interesting times lay ahead for sure – either way the PC engine will rock bells
10 Nov 2009, 3:18 pm
Interesting, though that bites. Eh, I cant imagine them making a team vs team game anyway, though to be honest. Im not looking at this as “OMG SERVERS ARE TEH ONLY WAY,” Im looking at this as “OMG SERVERS ARE TEH ONLY WAY TO GET BIG ONLINE GAMES GOING.”
IW bombed on this by taking a series known for that and taking it away. (And I still say private is best there because when the company drops the game, it can live on that way.) ID’s idea of multiplayer (at least aside from Quake LIVE) is 4 player deathmatch.