In the previous post "The Future of Gaming The Future of Computers" I mentioned a video put out by Eurogamer.net. The video was called "The Future of PC Gaming Pt.1" whose follow up "Pt. 2" I was able to get back to and finish. In the previous post I concentrated more on the style of the article and the website that this video was on and the site that was linking to it. My goal for this post is to give a general review about what I took away from the actual video.
The video was very well done. It made a strong case for how the PC is not going away anytime soon as a game playing platform from a graphics and hardware standpoint. The two parts totaled twenty minutes and I think it was a useful video to explain some of the issues surrounding PC gaming and gave some excellent visual examples.
The problem I had with the article is that like many other articles about PC gaming it focused on the visuals from both a game play standpoint and a hardware perspective. Unfortunately this has been the trend for a long time in the coverage of PC gaming. Like many of Hollywood's movies today it is all about the visuals and not about the story or content. I liked Avatar but I felt like I knew where that movie's story was going the whole time. There were no surprises or deep insights that caught my imagination. But Avatar was a great action/adventure movie. The visuals kept me entertained and the straight forward story was a satisfying although familiar journey. I bought the movie and will probably watch it many more times over the years. But like Avatar many PC games have focused on the visuals and the technology that deliver this enjoyable experience. The debate about whether the PC or consoles like the Xbox or the PlayStation provide a better experience or whether the PC will be replaced by the console have raged in the gaming community for years.
I will now enter my opinion into this long and heated debate. I am a PC gamer and I have never owned a console. So I am a little bit biased. But why don't I buy and at least try a console? I would save a heck of a lot of money on hardware if I did. Consoles cost about what a high end PC video card costs alone! When a console comes out it totally out performs mid to high level PC's for a couple of years. Many game publishers are staying away from the PC platform because of the technical difficulties of writing a game for so many possible configurations of hardware that are found on PCs. Plus many of the manufactures find that the console games are more profitable and they feel that they loose less money to game copying/pirating. From many technical and economic pressures one would conclude that the PC is going to die off soon. Why not just go with the flow and buy a console?
I will stick with a PC because consoles don't really do the kind of games I like really well. I mainly like strategy games and role playing games. Console manufacturers love to make games that have lots of action and lots of eye candy. But if it is a game that is as absorbing as chess (strategy) or as deep as a novel (role playing games) then they don't have the patience to develop it or accept the low profit margin from selling it. Console games are sold like DVDs. Buy it, experience it, and then buy another one. I have played some individual strategy games for years on my PC's, dated graphics don't deter me. Master of Orion II is an example of such a game. Like chess, you have to play it over and over again before you really begin to master it. That learning process is as much a part of the fun as any action or hardware stressing graphics. Well written role playing games can have deep stories, multiple endings and can have an element of combat strategy all to themselves that is enjoyable. When consoles start making games like this then I will be tempted to buy a console. Some games like Fallout 3 are tempting me to the "dark side" of the console world since it is available on both PC and console and has both the elements of depth and strategy. But for now I can still have the "Avatar" experience on my PC if I wait a year for the hardware to catch up to a new console while still playing games that have depth and strategy. I have plenty of patience since I am in no hurry to spend even more money on games and I am still busy playing "old" PC games because of their replay value.
One of the ironies of this video is that they featured Shogun 2 from the Total War series in part two of the article. They focused on how detailed the graphics on this game were and how much processing power it took to run the game. The appeal of this game, and the whole Total War series, is that this is a strategy game that is more about its style of chess game play and not its graphics. It is not the advantages of hardware that PCs might have over consoles that will save it as a gaming platform. PCs will survive because of the gaming experience provided by this style of deep game play.
I think one of the reasons that PCs are different than consoles is the "mentality" inherent in the controls of the two devices. Underneath the hood both consoles and PCs are computers. They crunch zeros and ones in their processors according to the instructions of a team of programmers. But consoles use "controllers" for their input. PCs use keyboards and mice. Controlers like game pads and joysticks provide a quick reaction to the input into the user from the console. Keyboards and mice are used to input data and controls from the user into the computer. I know some people will say that I am playing a little bit of a semantics game since consoles are technically using an input device too but I think the psychology is different in their design because the games themselves are designed from a different perspective.
Users react to a console while users input data into a PC game. Users move through a console game whereas users search within a PC game. It reminds me of a line in a song written for the movie Maximum Overdrive called Who Made Who by AC/DC. The lyric goes, "The video game she play me..." which was fitting for a Steven King movie about machines coming to life and trying to kill humans. I feel like consoles are like those machines in Maximum Overdrive except they don't kill us they just control us more a little bit at a time. I feel like I am playing a game when it is on a PC. I feel like I am figuring it out and mastering it a little more each time I win a little victory. I always feel that I am just trying to keep up with a console and it is controlling me. This can be entertaining sometimes but it is not very fun over the long term for me.
More and more PC games and console games are converging and maybe one day both platforms will use "controllers" that are identical. Possibly a mind link to the game? More and more PC games are developed first on consoles so PC gaming is starting to look and feel like console gaming. But many early PC games were slow moving strategy and role playing games that would never work on a console. But that may all change one day soon as consoles gain momentum. Instead of sitting down to my computer for a game of chess or a long book I will be playing a game of Pong. I like games that challenge me but allow me to input my commands into them so I will be sticking with the old style game play that can still be found on the PC. Although the Eurogamer article was good I think it missed the point of PC game survival by focusing on graphics and hardware and not on game play and content which really is what makes PC gaming different and enduring.
