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Sons of Minesweeper

Posted 08/26/08 at 03:00:00 PM  by Thomas McDonald

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Thomas McDonaldSo is PC gaming hosed? That seems to be the case for games that a) are not massively multiplayer, b) don’t have “Sims” in the title, or c) aren’t played by your mom.

But it’s not really as dire as all that. Mass Effect actually made it to number 2, and Sins of a Solar Empire to number 9, on the current NPD PC sales charts.

Those numbers, however, don’t reflect where PC owners are really gettin’ their game on: with casual games. Remember when you would say you were a PC gamer and people would say, “Yeah, me too,” and you’d ask what they played, and they’d say, “Minesweeper and Solitaire.” And you’d chuckle. Good times!

I still laugh to think about it, but now it’s a painful, strangled (nay, rueful) laugh, because the Sons of Minesweeper are now dominating the PC gaming industry. I actually like casual games, since they load fast, fill a few minutes that might otherwise be spent strangling editors, and go away quickly.

If game manufacturers are wondering why their once-loyal PC gamer hardcore fan base is finally throwing up their hands and/or certain fingers in disgust and frustration, they need only read their own boxes. Remember Crysis, the game that would knock your PC to the ground and pound its chips till it cried for mommy? Well, Crysis was a PC-only game, and its minimum specs were a Pentium 4 2.8GHz or comparable, 1GB RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT or better (Vista specs are higher). And that was for people who liked to watch slide shows. The system capable of playing Crysis at full-res with solid frame rates is currently busy running the new supercollider.

Now along toddles the PC version of Assassin’s Creed, which Xbox 360 owners finished and sold back to GameStop about a year ago, and the minimum system specs make Crysis seem like a girly-game: Pentium dual-core 2.6GHz, 2GB RAM, 256MB DirectX 10.0 card. Recommended specs for people who want to, you know, actually interact with the game in real time? About twice that.

Screw that. Where’s the link for Bejeweled?

COMMENTS:10
TAGS: casual, bejeweled, Thomas McDonald, game theory, Crysis, Assassin's Creed, columns, sons of minesweeper, casual games
COMMENTS
avatarPC <3

Submitted by SpecOpsX on Thu, 08/28/2008 - 12:15pm

One company will keep me playing the PC over consoles anyday: Blizzard (And I'm not just talking about WoW, here.) 

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avatarConsole vs. PC

Submitted by FleshWound on Wed, 08/27/2008 - 10:56pm

Everyone always cries over the pc cost to console cost disparity but if anything, consoles are bridging the gap at quite an alarming rate.

Back in the day when you still spent anywhere from 1500 to 2500 on a kickass pc and you could own 3 or 4 consoles for less than 500 dollars, yeah, consoles were a nice cheap gaming platform that made plenty of ecenomic sense. Today? I just spent $800 on a PS3, 2 controllers, and an introductory game or 2. Consoles are rising in prices each generation, but the PC pricing system has been established and isn't going to change beyond general inflation.

 So with the PS3 going the road of taking over the role of a gaming PC with its keyboard/mouse support, external hard drive support, web browsing and amazing digital download support, at what point is the console/pc dividing line going to get too thin to be able to tell the difference, and the whole argument moot? My guess? If the rate of general inflation and performance and feature increases at the same rate it has been, we'll be presented with this dillema all too soon.

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avatarhttp://www.evilmilk.com/pictu

Submitted by zioburosky13 on Wed, 08/27/2008 - 5:23am

http://www.evilmilk.com/pictures/Macs_Suck_Just_Like_Aol.htm
Replace the bike with console and the motorbike with PC, and you get the idea.

Some indie games which trade technology with gameplay, which is where I will wait for my fix of CRPG with railgun and demons and robots and aliens in it. Major game developer just are not risk taker to do a new game, in fear of losing money if the game gone bad.  Which is why we have seen damn too many WW2 fps game, MMO with bikini elves, same old sports game title, crap fest of so call RPG game.

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avatarCompletely Disagree

Submitted by CrimsonKnight13 on Wed, 08/27/2008 - 4:48am

All of this crying about how much hardware costs is rediculous. This happens every day of every month of every year but yet people don't realize that PCs are what push console technology to the next level. Despite many games being consolofied, there are many PC games that push the limit. I'm a PC enthusiast & gamer for a reason and its to enjoy the power of overclocked hardware to the fullest. I'm truly looking forward to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky, Far Cry 2, Crysis Warhead, Project Origin, Dragon Age, WoW: Wrath of the Lich King, StarCraft 2, Diablo 3, and many others that are coming down the pipeline. Why worry about the price of consoles that fail a lot & become outdated in a heartbeat? I love upgrading my PC & getting the most out of it. PC gaming? Bring it on!

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avatarSadly I agree.  Why should

Submitted by b_boy_69_00 on Tue, 08/26/2008 - 3:34pm

Sadly I agree.  Why should people spend a few thousand dollars on a gaming PC when a XBOX 360 is $400.  Or why should they spend $60 on a game when you can get some that are a lot more fun for free or $10 or less.  My system is less than a year old and already can't handle some of the new games.  It's sad where the industry is heading, but I'll be there when it goes crashing and burning to the ground.

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avatarYou don't have to spend

Submitted by Zeldafanjohn on Tue, 08/26/2008 - 4:07pm

You don't have to spend thousands of dollars for a gaming PC.

800 bucks can get you a fairly awesome gaming PC.

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avatarUpgrade; Consoles get surpassed rather quickly too.

Submitted by Strongbad536 on Tue, 08/26/2008 - 4:20pm

You also only have to upgrade now and again.  I mean, I havent upgraded my PSU, RAM, Optical Drive, or HDD in like two years.  I just buy a new CPU and videocard, and if necessary a new motherboard.  It makes it a more gradual process instead of spending $400 for a gaming system that PCs will surpass in muscle within a year of their existence.  Plus everyone knows that the real hardcore gamers are on the PC; plus, keyboard and mouse > gamepad.

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avatarBut with a console, which I

Submitted by b_boy_69_00 on Tue, 08/26/2008 - 5:48pm

But with a console, which I do not own, you only have to pay once and for 4 years or so you are set for all the games.  I am a hardcore pc gamer and have been for years.  But I'm afraid that games like Crysis, and by that I mean games that don't scale well or at all, might become the norm and thereby make those low end gaming rigs obsolete.  Yes you can buy a decent system for $800, but if you want something thats going to play every game, like a console will, that comes out for the system then you need to spend more than $800.  My rig wasn't buy about $750 and I built it in march and I can't play Crysis and have trouble playing some of the other games.  I 150% agree that mouse + keyboard > any controller.

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avatarOnce you go console...

Submitted by JasonSF on Tue, 08/26/2008 - 10:58pm

I've always felt I fell into the demographic of hardcore gamer, which "back in the day" meant playing on a PC. During the 90's; I laughed at all my console friends who thought they were playing "cool games." But then the PS2 and Xbox came out...and they were the ones laughing..."You spent $3,500 on your PC to play games?!"

Truth be told, I was envious and angry and humbled all at once. Here were great looking games, that were fun to play on a system that cost under $400 bucks...But I clung to my "PC superiority" attitude like it was a shield. That said, the next time I built a system I limited myself to $1,200. I was really pleased with it. Then the Xbox 360, PS3 and HighDef gaming came out...and once again I was the one grinding my teeth.

See, at some point I guess I felt tired of being on the PC treadmill. Every 6 months your PC was obsolete. I could shrug that off and say, "Yeah, well my PC still runs games fine thanks." But inside I felt burned. Betrayed. Suckerd. And I'd done it to myself.

Last year I bought an Xbox 360 and a PS3 and spent less than $1000. I get games through Gamefly and have never looked back. Once you go to the Darkside you find out it's not that bad.

I wish you all luck...I've got games to play.

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avatarI have all "next-gen

Submitted by Zeldafanjohn on Wed, 08/27/2008 - 3:17am

I have all "next-gen consoles.

I like console gaming but, it's no match for PC gaming.

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