The Death of PC Gaming?

For years I have been a diehard PC fan. The format has captured my imagination from the day I got my first rig: a Pentium 100 MHz filled with the awesome delights of my favourite games of the time. Quake, C&C/Red Alert, Discworld, and many more. I could, and would, spend days in my room at my keyboard and mouse. As PC gaming evolved so did my setup. At the time I remember my first 17-inch monitor running a game at 1028x724 resolution … “WOW”. Now things have changed. I refuse to part with the cash for another upgrade for many years to come. Why? Because PC gaming to me is a dead scene.

I guess it all came to an end for me with a few things over the past two years. Nothing has really captured my heart and my mind on the PC, the last true game that really did this for me was Deus Ex, and that’s where my story leads us.

Deus Ex for me captured what a PC game is, in its essence. It has all the major elements of a true classic. There’s a steady storyline but we have the main thing which I like which is interface: the way we deal with everyday problems within the game. For example, being able to type in passwords, hack bank accounts, pick up little bits of information, and my favourite: read a cookbook. For me all these extra things add to immersion in the way that the Nintendo Wii will never achieve, as it is never about control design for me and it never will be. I’m getting a little off-track here but let me put us back on the rails. The real problem for me that we stopped seeing true ‘PC’ gaming—the lack of imagination and inspiration from PC gaming and the sequel to Deus Ex proved that for me. Gaming was going in the wrong direction. We see here with Deus Ex II: Invisible War the sheer “dummies’ guide to PC gaming”. This game felt like a really bad console port, the interface was terrible, the HUD made me feel like feel like I was in a bubble, God this game was an awful insult to any PC gamer’s intelligence. This game for me has always signified who has won the war of formats, and sadly it is the ‘mass’ appeal of consoles.

Let me tell you another thing that has killed the intelligence of PC games and replaced innovation with a ‘quick’ fix: the Internet. Now in the days before 24/7 Internet and way before I had a router hooked up to the net all of the time PC gaming was my main hobby, it was before the times of PC masculinity and the era of the ‘pwnage’ generation. You see what games like Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 did for me was create a quick fix for developers to opt out on smart thinking and ways to keep you immersed within the game: “wow, human beings are amazing opponents, who needs to program any special AI?”(thank God for F.E.A.R) so we see over the next couple of years lazy titles and a move towards united online gaming. This for me was a great novelty, because before generation ‘pwnage’ the Internet was full of great, friendly people. All I can say with the masses joining it has made me come to the conclusion that I don’t want to game with strangers. Thus I find no real delight in beating or competing against anyone online. The majority of my friends are no longer gaming online; all my gaming is done with Internet friends and, no offence, it is not the same.

Now another thing to comment on about the Internet is that that years of running IM software in the background of my game has kept me from being truly involved with my games: having some window pop up during the game is like some annoying friend at the cinema who keeps nudging you ‘HEY I NEED TO GO TO THE LOO’. Distractions are another nail in the coffin. I can see you saying to me ‘but just turn off ICQ/MSN/YAHOO’ but most people keep those on through pure habit which until recently I have done. This last one for me and I don’t know if you share it was my fault but it extends the choice we have as PC gamers.

Too sum up: why I am giving up PC gaming? Well, it costs way too much, games are paint by numbers, online gaming is no longer a novelty and almost every game uses the get out jail free card here, no real and true exclusives, and the Xbox 360. Now wait, I never mentioned this before but I felt some real imagination in some of the titles that have came out for the new Xbox that have given me that ‘PC’ feeling—with Gears of War and Crackdown—and with more exclusives than you can shake a stick at as a gamer I like to feel special and with the Xbox I feel special and treated well and apart from that my friends are on it and online. I feel like the heart of the PC has been reborn in the Xbox 360, and it makes me feel like a right hypocrite that I decided to wait out and try it—something that I am long done with doing with the PC.

I really wish the PC would bring me back to those good old days but I just don’t feel like sitting on a chair playing a console game on the PC: I would rather play a console game on a console.

[Hammer]

Dammed good article.

I think there are some massive problems with the PC gaming industry just now. No-one seems to be developing games for it anymore (other the MMOs) and it's getting harder to find good, exclusive games for it.

You make a good point about the internet having a negative effect on PC gaming. I completely agree. It's become far too easy for publishers to build games around multi-player rather then have to deal with pesky things like plot.
I do enjoy online multiplayer, but I prefer having a game which will take me ten or fifteen hours to complete, has a gripping storyline and no online component rather then having a single player game thats an afterthought to the online portion.

[Rev Scapegoat]

*Applause*

[Dyno]

Excellent article JR. I couldn't agree more on the gaming with strangers part. I remember the days of a bunch of us jumping on HL deathmatch/Team Fortress Classic on our own server and just having a pure riot! Online gaming has lost it's spark
Hopefully all the crap AI/Buggy/poorly developed games stop with the next generation of games, starting with Bioshock/Crysis!

[Hammer]

Originally Posted by Dyno

Hopefully all the crap AI/Buggy/poorly developed games stop with the next generation of games, starting with Bioshock/Crysis!

I reckon we need to wait until the end of the year when all the developer furore over the PS3 and the Wii has died down. All the big dev studios (EA, Take Two, Ubisoft, Bethdesa etc) seem to be working flat out to innovate with the wii-mote and Sony's Cell processor rather then producing games for all the platforms.

Doesn't help that MS is being a stupid with the whole Games for Windows/GfW Live thing. Restricting Halo 2 to running on Vista is just crap. I don't know if they're planning on doing it with other Games for Windows titles. Dammed well hope not, because I'm not upgrading.

[MarkMono]

I laughed out loud when I first properly saw an xbox 360: Its just a desk-top PC.

[poprock]

Originally Posted by MarkMono

I laughed out loud when I first properly saw an xbox 360: Its just a desk-top PC.

But one that ‘just works’. No setup. No Windows. No distractions. It’s a console made out of PC parts.

[MarkMono]

Thats the theory. Everyone I know who owns a 360 has had it break at least once.

[Hammer]

Originally Posted by MarkMono

I laughed out loud when I first properly saw an xbox 360: Its just a desk-top PC.

Same deal with the original Xbox and the PS3. I seem to remember Ken Kutaragi making comments about the PS3 was the only home computer you'd need and one of the Xbox's biggest selling points was the fact that you could hack and mod it to your hearts content.

[MarkMono]

Difference being with the Xbox, that it is literally made from PC parts and has PC games released for it.

Fuck you Microsoft, Oblivion isn't that tempting.

[Zippy]

There are a fair few games which are exclusive to XBOX, I might have the wrong end of the stick with what you're saying though.

[MarkMono]

I'm not buying another desktop PC is what I'm saying. I smell a rip-off, and will be sticking with my ps2 until this ridiculous console war dies down.

I swear, you didn't have no stock, breaking consoles and new machines which cost three times as much as their closest competitor in the megadrive days.

[Zippy]

My problem with PC gaming now and to an extent all gaming is the time it takes to get into games now with little or no rewards. In a way I think I've been spolied a bit by Warcraft, in that when you do something you're awarded in the game either by money or equipment, also with the variance in the weapons/equipment you can get it means that you can be pretty much what kind of character you want to be in the game and be totally different from someone else who's at the same level or class as you. Due to this when I play a PC game now if I don't get an instant reward I feel let down, I bought Company of Heroes about 6 weeks ago and have hardly played it - a few years ago I would have lapped it up but now unless it gives me some sort of instant 'reward' I get bored pretty easily.

The xbox live online gaming is better than the PC online gaming as well, PC is sort of limited to MMO, FPS or RTS - Xbox live has a massive array of gaming genres which you can play online.

[poprock]

Originally Posted by MarkMono

Thats the theory. Everyone I know who owns a 360 has had it break at least once.

Mine hasn’t, nor has anyone I know mentioned theirs having problems either. Have I missed threads on here talking about broken consoles?

Originally Posted by MarkMono

Difference being with the Xbox, that it is literally made from PC parts and has PC games released for it.

None of the games I enjoy playing on 360 are available for PCs. PGR3, DoA4, Rockstar’s Table Tennis, Amped3, etc.

Originally Posted by MarkMono

I swear, you didn't have no stock, breaking consoles and new machines which cost three times as much as their closest competitor in the megadrive days.

I think you might be viewing the past through rose-tinted glasses there, Mark. Breakdowns and complaints weren’t as highly publicised because there was no intarweb network of geeksites to chat and bitch about them on. As for the cost differential: Neo-Geo? PC Engine imports?

[MarkMono]

Maybe (maybe all of your friends are just super-lucky) but I'm still not being conned into paying hundreds of pounds for another desktop PC. They're just getting lazy and I refuse to condone it.