I've gotta agree that the 80s and early 90s saw some fantastic innovation and variation in the desktop gaming scene...
I think a lot of that has evaporated because the success of Windows and the Internet has put a buttload more PCs into the hands of the public and the audience for PC gaming has changed greatly. You don't have to be a nerd or a techie to own a PC at home these days, and the publishers want to sell the maximum amount of games to the average joes.
Back when development was carried out with more creative independence, the game designers designed games that they wanted to play... games for people similar to themselves. Now the publishers have them designing games for the everyman/woman/person. They're in the industry for money, not passion, and they want to sell the least expensive game to the most people with the least risk, hence all the numbers tacked on the end of game titles these days. They tend to stick to the formula. The success of consumer level 3D hardware also contributed to this somewhat, as it added another dimension to the consumer upgrade treadmill and made it more tempting to publish essentially the same gameplay over and over, utilizing the increased visual detail provided by the new hardware as the main attraction.
So, why do fools keep going on about PC gaming dying? Here's why... What we are seeing in the latest few generations is consoles approaching PCs in terms of visual quality and adding other PC-like features such as networking and HDD access. At the same time, game budgets are swelling to epic proportions, and the publisher's willingness to take risks with their money decreases proportionately. The hardware-requirements dick-swinging contest continues, and developers continue to churn out titles that only run comfortably on the top 5% of PCs. Then they're mystified that they don't sell as well as they'd hoped. This just makes it more tempting for big publishers to produce multi-platform games.. designed for the consoles and ported to the PC, rather than games designed to play to a PCs strengths. Add the piracy dimension into this (publishers erroneously believe that consoles are significantly safer from piracy than PCs), and it seems the large publishers, with the marketing dollars and the big titles shy away from the PC and favour the consoles. Everyone who got into PC gaming when the PC > consoles suddenly sees that they're playing the same game that's on the consoles and often having an inferior experience due to technical issues and portability compromises. People playing the PC exclusives are often frustrated by poor performance and repetitive gameplay.
Of course, there's always Microsoft in there, who seem to be deliberately shitting things up with DirectX 9/10 and Vista and Games For Windows.. trying to make PC game development harder and more expensive, while making it easier to port your efforts to their darling 360. Can't blame 'em for having conflicted interests... can we?
PC gaming will never die.. as long as there are PCs, people will want something to do on them when they're not working, and companies will develop it and sell it to them. The only thing dying is the feasibility of publishing multi-bazillion dollar multimedia graphics extravaganzas that can only be experienced as intended on a tiny fraction of the installed hardware, directed at an audience who with limited income on a platform that makes playing the game without paying relatively easy. I reckon that possibly the best thing that could happen to PC gaming is for the AAA publishers to sod off to the consoles and leave the big fat juicy PC market to dedicated PC developers.
tl;dr: 80s/90s rocked, publishers ruined everything with greed and can go to hell. PC gaming will live on.
A detailed and humorous examination of the player's physical presence in System Shock - probably the earliest 3D FPS/RPG combination to hit our screens:
(Warning: contains game spoilers and possibly other content that's bound to be offensive to someone or other.)
http://www.it-he.org/sshock.htm#hacker
I quite enjoy the "cluttered mess of disparate titles" that has provided me with entertainment more flexible and varied than anything available on any of the consoles for the past 20 years. I enjoy console gaming too, but the PC is my chance to get away from the limitations of console and vice-versa. What do current PC gamers really stand to gain by combining both sets of limitations?
I'm sick of this stupid trend of making PC games more "console-like" in an effort appeal to a wider audience and make porting to console easier. If I want to play console games, I'll play them on a damn console. Quit screwing the existing market for the benefit of a market you're trying to create.
Anyone remember Daggerfall? Now there was a game that promised nudity and actually delivered, seems that Bethesda have since become big 'ol wowsers in their push to attract more sales.
Incidentally, does the ESRB realize that female gamers of any age can view boobies without a third party hack or even a game? How are they gonna protect them? I've seen those shirts saying "Warning: contains coarse language and nudity." I guess they'll have an ESRB logo now.
When is the nudity rating insanity going to stop? Is nudity really so harmful that we need to take such steps? People see more than this when they get changed every morning. Maybe we should wrap toddlers in head-to-toe body stockings 'till they're 18 so they can't be corrupted by the sinful sight of naked flesh...
While we're at it, we need to rate breastfeeding as "Adults Only". Babies don't need to suffer such horrific trauma that early in their lives.
And birth? God knows what an eyeful those poor young newborns are exposed to! Quick, ban birth before more sweet innocent ones are irretrievably corrupted by more horrible, unnatural sights!
Sarcasm aside, if our teenagers are unable to handle the sight of naked breasts without being reduced to gibbering sub-human criminals then someone other than a game developer has failed them at some point.
Slashdot Mirror
At least it's not the ultimate NIMBY - a Nuclear Black Hole.
12. Gamers shall have the right to a pony.
Actually, I'm really looking forward to an Atari Lynx port of Bioshock.
Chip's Challenge is starting to lose it's appeal.
I've gotta agree that the 80s and early 90s saw some fantastic innovation and variation in the desktop gaming scene...
I think a lot of that has evaporated because the success of Windows and the Internet has put a buttload more PCs into the hands of the public and the audience for PC gaming has changed greatly. You don't have to be a nerd or a techie to own a PC at home these days, and the publishers want to sell the maximum amount of games to the average joes.
Back when development was carried out with more creative independence, the game designers designed games that they wanted to play... games for people similar to themselves. Now the publishers have them designing games for the everyman/woman/person. They're in the industry for money, not passion, and they want to sell the least expensive game to the most people with the least risk, hence all the numbers tacked on the end of game titles these days. They tend to stick to the formula. The success of consumer level 3D hardware also contributed to this somewhat, as it added another dimension to the consumer upgrade treadmill and made it more tempting to publish essentially the same gameplay over and over, utilizing the increased visual detail provided by the new hardware as the main attraction.
So, why do fools keep going on about PC gaming dying? Here's why... What we are seeing in the latest few generations is consoles approaching PCs in terms of visual quality and adding other PC-like features such as networking and HDD access. At the same time, game budgets are swelling to epic proportions, and the publisher's willingness to take risks with their money decreases proportionately. The hardware-requirements dick-swinging contest continues, and developers continue to churn out titles that only run comfortably on the top 5% of PCs. Then they're mystified that they don't sell as well as they'd hoped. This just makes it more tempting for big publishers to produce multi-platform games.. designed for the consoles and ported to the PC, rather than games designed to play to a PCs strengths. Add the piracy dimension into this (publishers erroneously believe that consoles are significantly safer from piracy than PCs), and it seems the large publishers, with the marketing dollars and the big titles shy away from the PC and favour the consoles. Everyone who got into PC gaming when the PC > consoles suddenly sees that they're playing the same game that's on the consoles and often having an inferior experience due to technical issues and portability compromises. People playing the PC exclusives are often frustrated by poor performance and repetitive gameplay.
Of course, there's always Microsoft in there, who seem to be deliberately shitting things up with DirectX 9/10 and Vista and Games For Windows.. trying to make PC game development harder and more expensive, while making it easier to port your efforts to their darling 360. Can't blame 'em for having conflicted interests... can we?
PC gaming will never die.. as long as there are PCs, people will want something to do on them when they're not working, and companies will develop it and sell it to them. The only thing dying is the feasibility of publishing multi-bazillion dollar multimedia graphics extravaganzas that can only be experienced as intended on a tiny fraction of the installed hardware, directed at an audience who with limited income on a platform that makes playing the game without paying relatively easy. I reckon that possibly the best thing that could happen to PC gaming is for the AAA publishers to sod off to the consoles and leave the big fat juicy PC market to dedicated PC developers.
tl;dr: 80s/90s rocked, publishers ruined everything with greed and can go to hell. PC gaming will live on.
A detailed and humorous examination of the player's physical presence in System Shock - probably the earliest 3D FPS/RPG combination to hit our screens: (Warning: contains game spoilers and possibly other content that's bound to be offensive to someone or other.) http://www.it-he.org/sshock.htm#hacker
"You probably had too many windows open at once."
DO NOT WANT.
I quite enjoy the "cluttered mess of disparate titles" that has provided me with entertainment more flexible and varied than anything available on any of the consoles for the past 20 years. I enjoy console gaming too, but the PC is my chance to get away from the limitations of console and vice-versa. What do current PC gamers really stand to gain by combining both sets of limitations?
I'm sick of this stupid trend of making PC games more "console-like" in an effort appeal to a wider audience and make porting to console easier. If I want to play console games, I'll play them on a damn console. Quit screwing the existing market for the benefit of a market you're trying to create.
Anyone remember Daggerfall? Now there was a game that promised nudity and actually delivered, seems that Bethesda have since become big 'ol wowsers in their push to attract more sales. Incidentally, does the ESRB realize that female gamers of any age can view boobies without a third party hack or even a game? How are they gonna protect them? I've seen those shirts saying "Warning: contains coarse language and nudity." I guess they'll have an ESRB logo now.
When is the nudity rating insanity going to stop? Is nudity really so harmful that we need to take such steps? People see more than this when they get changed every morning. Maybe we should wrap toddlers in head-to-toe body stockings 'till they're 18 so they can't be corrupted by the sinful sight of naked flesh...
While we're at it, we need to rate breastfeeding as "Adults Only". Babies don't need to suffer such horrific trauma that early in their lives.
And birth? God knows what an eyeful those poor young newborns are exposed to! Quick, ban birth before more sweet innocent ones are irretrievably corrupted by more horrible, unnatural sights!
Sarcasm aside, if our teenagers are unable to handle the sight of naked breasts without being reduced to gibbering sub-human criminals then someone other than a game developer has failed them at some point.