A Week In Comments

PC gaming is more important than a lot of console gamers, and people in the industry today, give it credit for.

PC gaming was the backbone of Western gaming; Western games are PC games. Everyone celebrates the creativity, ingenuity, or originality of this generations’ developers, but upon closer inspection many of these developers and games were closely tied with PC gaming in its beginning.

Pretty much the entire FPS genre has been ripped straight from the PC to consoles. Console FPS games this generation resemble something like Quake more than Goldeneye. Many of the biggest games in the genre this generation had their roots on the PC (and Mac in the case of Halo).

Western RPGs, which has also become popular this generation, was kept alive and thrived on the PC while JRPGs flooded the console market.

Online multiplayer, which has become so important this generation, was pioneered on the PC.

In the long run, PC gaming losing relevance is bad for everyone, not just PC gamers. The PC provides an environment that supports the development of new ideas and is suitable for smaller developers because of it’s almost non-existent barriers of entry. People complain about PC gaming needing to purchase video cards, but fail to recognize that those purchases help test and fund further improvements. You could go so far as to say that PC gamers help subsidize the graphical improvements consoles get. The console environment stifles creativity and innovation; it’s driven too much by profit. See the Japanese market and the issues around stagnation. PC gaming has been around just as long yet it didn’t face that problem to the same degree until formerly PC games abandoned the platform in favour of consoles.

Now the question is this: after everything that can be taken from the PC has been took, and PC gaming is truly dead, will the Western console market face the same dilemma that the Japanese are facing today?

The complexity of PC gaming isn’t a negative, and I’m surprised so many self-proclaimed “hardcore gamers” see it as such. Having to learn a little bit about the platform to enjoy it means that only those that care about gaming will become gamers; in essence all PC gamers are hardcore gamers in the truest sense. With all the talk about how Nintendo casuals are ruining gaming (which is total bullshit by the way) one would think that console gamers would recognize that they’re doing exactly what they claim casuals would do, which is killing “gaming”.

Press release from Activistion:

“Excuse Me, Mr.? Don’t Speak about things that you know not of. It’s a Tragic Kingdom we’re living in where a company such as ours can be caught in the Spiderwebs of lies perpetrated by someone who, let’s face it, is Just A Girl. We’re tired of Running from these types of accusations and, moving forward, any potential litigants better have a Hella Good reason for starting stuff with us. Don’t forget what makes the World Go Round – money. We’ve got it, and it’s Too Late to spread a Comforting Lie till you’re Blue In The Face.

We’d better End It On This. Hope you’re Happy Now. “