Gamasutra - GDC 2008 Event Coverage

Is PC gaming as we know it dead? Or just shifting course to be the dominant medium of the future? At Dave Perry's "Lunch With the Luminaries" Peter Molyneux, Phil Harrison, Chris Taylor, Raph Koster and Neil Young discussed what path PC gaming will take in the coming years.

Koster kicked off the debate by comparing web developer speed versus the games industry. "Iteration speed on the web is insane... the base assumptions on speed are astounding. By the end of the day they get 500% improvements on their metrics," he said, saying that, like Bungie's heat-maps used to fine-tune multiplayer levels, "Think about what we could be doing -- we should be sending back play transcripts."

He continued by pointing out that while "[In the past I thought that] the interface is where the rubber meets the road... but the web says I have no idea what platform you have."

"Flash is the next console," he posited. "It's pointing its way to the future more than the next generation of consoles," with capabilities increasing dramatically over the next 12 months. "Retail PC is in dire straits, but... the web is kicking the console industry's ass."

Gas Powered's Chris Taylor seemed to agree that, at very least, digital distribution of any kind is the way forward, saying, "PC gaming as we know it is dead... secure gaming is the future."

Ex-Sony exec Phil Harrison concurred, saying, "There is a generation of kids who are already on the planet who will never ever buy physical media," to protests by EA's Neil Young that "I don't think it's that simple and you'll get to choose."

"No it will not," said Harrison, who later said he thinks this is the last generation where physical disc media in a case is the primary means of delivery, and that the business model will have to change.

Radiohead's recent In Rainbows digital model "would work perfectly for games," he concluded, referring to a recent interview by band front Thom Yorke where he said he'd like to quickly release songs and even maybe iterate them via fan feedback.

Comments

Anonymous

27 Feb 2008 at 9:00 am PST

In a world where the following can happen:

-Crysis sells a million despite its requirements
-STALKER sells 1.6 million despite its obscurity
-The Witcher sells 600,000 in a couple months despite its obscurity
-Orange Box sells far more on PC than both consoles combined
-Call of Duty 4 sells millions on PC (yes, millions. If Crysis' 88,000 NPD can turn into a million, then CoD 4's 350k + Steam can easily be millions)

Then no. No, Chris, PC gaming as we know it is alive and well. Maybe it's just your games that have the problem?

Anonymous

27 Feb 2008 at 2:53 pm PST

Expect anonymous1 that with the exception of the witcher all those games are first person shooters!!!

Starting to see a pattern yet ? & those numbers are for the entire planet most console games do those numbers in a single territory alone.

Chris was spot on traditional PC gaming is on it's way out, anything that isn't a first person shooter doesn't sell that well & there is far too much graphics snobbery in PC gaming in general. (the witcher wasn't even all that good and did most of it's sales in the east Europe were the franchise is well known)

The Orange Box were lame console ports done by a company with a bias towards PC gaming, everyone knows it which is why most avoided by the console version if they wanted to play it. Just like when PC gamers turn there nose at bad ports from a console most do the same with anything from Valve.

The hard truth is that traditional PC gaming is on it's way out but that does not mean it's dying just that new forms will replace the old like Sam & Max episodes for adventures games, or flash games as Chris points and the new Empire/tribes game that is going to be done though the web browser - those are the future of PC gaming and it will be a slow gradual transition.

Tim Carter

27 Feb 2008 at 4:21 pm PST

I would say that dead things - like technology - are dead. Living things - like the voices of designers - are alive. To me, the future isn't in machines or platforms or consoles or corporations or any other *thing* - it's in finding the creative individuals who will make the best games. Just my opinion.

The game industry is so rife with trend-talk. Please, people. Stop being sheep. Stop thinking you have to be following some trend or you're toast. Get back to basics. Just focus on designing good games.

Anonymous

27 Feb 2008 at 6:46 pm PST

That's funny, I recall The Witcher being an RPG. In fact, one of the best RPGs of 2007. I recall C&C 3 selling a whole lot better on PC than on consoles. I recall MMOs having no home BUT PC. I recall the PC still being the home for practically every capable simulation game under the sun.

Fact is, the only way it's possible to say that only FPSs are successful on PC is to admit that you really don't know much at all about PC games. If anything, the 360 has just as much of a bias towards FPSs as the PC does.

The only reason I listed mainly FPSs, with the exception of The Witcher, is because those are the only games we actually have decent sales figures for.

Fred Di Sano

28 Feb 2008 at 10:18 am PST

Good look at the quarterly earnings from the major publishers. The PC very nicely holds it's on against individual console sales. I've seen many cases where PC titles far outsell console titles.

PC gaming isn't dead Chris... but umm... I won't be buying Supreme Commander anytime soon either!

Hasen Ahmad

28 Feb 2008 at 2:13 pm PST

I think the issue that everyone forgets about is input devices. The minimum expected device on the PC is mouse and keyboard and maybe a game pad. I used to expect a joystick but after flight sims seem to have died in the late 90's I can't expect it. Consoles have the controllers that it came with to be expected. So on a PC the input devices lend them selves to certain game genres (FPS, RTS, one button casual games) and consoles are good with platformers and puzzle games to an extent. The Wii changed things for casual games on the console input-wise though, as it essentially brought mouse-like functionality to the console. So the way I see it is that when a mouse and keyboard come standard with a console, on top of the usual gamepad, that is when the PC will die as a gaming platform.