Can New Game Control Schemes Hope To Match the PC Keyboard?

An opinion piece on Gamasutra discusses how, in spite of the fancy new motion control systems that have come to console gaming, the PC's keyboard and mouse setup is still unreplaceable for many titles and genres. Quoting: "With over 100 keys to choose from (back of the box quotation right there), the possibilities are near endless, if you start to think of shift and control functions altering the purpose of keys. It means that, when the developers start to make their game, they don't have to worry about the limitations of the interface, knowing that, if all else fails, they can always assign the compass to K, even if that's a bit of a stretch to all but the pianists. The keyboard is the friend of ambition, and ArmA 2 is the testament to that, in all its surrealist, broken glory. ... It's the same reason RTS games have found a home on the PC for so long, able to use the skills people accumulate moving around windows and clicking on icons to command troops and manipulate their battle lines. Developers taking advantage of what we already know to teach us something we don't is what gaming is all about."

Comments

The reason the keyboard is popular is simple

[Shadow of Eternity]

Control shape is arbitrary, just like the number of possible bindings. Many people use WASD with space for jumping, I use Q and E instead of A and D because it's more comfortable.

What position my hand rests in is entirely up to me, the controls are never too large or too small. And when you consider that the signals are what counts you've got keyboards in all sorts of shapes and sizes, even balls up wierd "gamepads" and the like.

I wouldn't be surprised if pretty soon keyboards start shipping with the CTRL ALT and Shift keys moved to the space between the numbers and the F# keys.

Re:The reason the keyboard is popular is simple

[ragethehotey]

When you design games completely open ended and based on the keyboard for RTS games, more often than not it becomes a game of who can master the controls, not who can actually master the game itself. (If you disagree, find me someone over the age of 40 that can play a clickfest game like starcraft well)

Re:The reason the keyboard is popular is simple

[khellendros1984]

Learning to input your commands into a game is *part* of the game. It's one of the skill-dependent aspects, just like understanding the strategies is. A different game would have different requirements (for instance, some sort of turn-based Starcraft would rely far less on speed of the player). It's like many other good games; The challenge exists on multiple levels.

Re:The reason the keyboard is popular is simple

[pantherace]

Solution: Don't play Starcraft.

I know 40+ year olds who are good at games like Supreme Commander. (I speak as someone who was in the top 100 of FA, in the months after it launched.) Reason being, not because they click like crazy, but because they are devious. (Old age & Trickery, etc) Where Supreme Commander is slow enough people can use thought, and not have to fight the interface, as with Starcraft.

There are games where you are fighting the interface. It shouldn't be that way, games should have a good interface. If the game requires a clickfest, then the problems are deeper, in it's design. I consider games like that to have flawed designs, if they want to be played by people like me.

I'm sure someone has done something as crazy as 'real-time' chess, or such. Funny how well that game holds up even in the computer game era.

Re:The reason the keyboard is popular is simple

[Martin Blank]

Control shape is arbitrary, just like the number of possible bindings. Many people use WASD with space for jumping, I use Q and E instead of A and D because it's more comfortable.

What position my hand rests in is entirely up to me, the controls are never too large or too small.

Absolutely. I'm always a little confused at first by people that claim things about a key being "a bit of a stretch to all but the pianists" because my primary control keys are in the middle of the keyboard (TFHV), and not off to the side like the normal WASD or your QWES. I never did understand why those keys were used, other than someone not thinking of taking the keyboard and moving it a few inches to the left. It's a rare desk that doesn't have the room for it. (At the time that the current primary control schemes became prevalent, notebook computers weren't terribly common in gaming, so weren't a factor in determining popularity.)

Well, can PC keyboards match console controllers?

[Valdrax]

There are genres for which the PC keyboard will always be stronger -- those that require a massive variety of command input, such as RTS games.

But for many simple console games, like platformers, will a keyboard ever catch up to the simple elegance of a game controller? I mean, anyone who has played console games on emulators should know that no keyboard mapping is going to feel as comfortable as something like a good old dual-shock controller for quick, repetitive presses of a few buttons. (My knuckle joints kill me after some games on an emulator.)

So why this idea that any one solution is always better? Different games have different control requirements, and different input devices shape different kinds of gameplay. None is "superior" to the other, and you'll never get a keyboard to give you the same kind of game play as a DDR machine or Wii Tennis.

So why the e-penis contest?

Re:i love the keyboard and mouse

[clarkkent09]

I'm not a gamer so maybe I'm missing something here, but why couldn't game consoles support the regular keyboard and mouse in addition to the controller? It sure would make porting PC games to consoles easier, or the player could be given both options. Seems like the best of both worlds, no?

Re:Well, can PC keyboards match console controller

[TheCowSaysMooNotBoo]

Not necessarily true. I've come to a point where it doesn't matter that I use a keyboard or a xbox controller. It's all a matter of getting used to the input device I think.

Keyboard/Mouse

[Bert64]

Yes, keyboard/mouse are far better for some kinds of games... I tried C&C on the xbox and found it virtually unplayable with the control pad, and FPS games really need the immediacy of a mouse rather than the slow gradual (by comparison) movement of a control pad.

But for everything else a console is so much more convenient, you have fixed hardware and a guarantee that a game you purchase will run with no fuss...

All the modern consoles support USB, and most new keyboards and mice are also USB... So why don't more games support this as a possible control method? Most console games also have PC versions, or are direct ports of PC games so adding keyboard/mouse support wouldn't even be much of a burden.

Re:Well, can PC keyboards match console controller

[Opportunist]

Quite dead on.

There are games that are unplayable with a keyboard. Likewise, there are games that are unplayable without. But it's even less the keyboard, more the mouse, that I miss in console games. Keyboard/mouse input is, at least in my opinion, superior in games where pointing and clicking is a sizable part of the game. Whether you point and click on an interface, as in a RTS, or whether you "point" your crosshair and "click" to fire as in a FPS. I just can't get into controling a FPS game with a console controller.

Likewise, playing a platformer or a racing game with mouse/keyboard is a nightmare to say the least. Use the right input device for the right game, why bother asking what input is superior? None is in every aspect and for every game.

Keyboards aren't optimal.

[Toonol]

If the keyboard is better than a controller because it has a hundred keys, then would a new device with 200 keys be even better? Of course not.

The keyboard and controller serve two different, but related purposes. The keyboard is an immobile device that is placed on a surface. It is worked on. A controller is held. Both have different optimal configurations, a reflection of their different purposes. Certainly, some games benefit from keyboard control, just as some games benefit from controller control. Comparing the two, as if they were competing entries for the same role, is silly.