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Last week, I dusted off my crystal ball and took a long, hard look at the future of gaming. This week, I'm doing it again, because the remainder of Time As We Know It is sort of a lot of ground to cover. On the docket this time around? Everything from games that may actually justify forging your own Dream Machine with parts from the Heavens to the industry's continued, none-too-pretty war against the hacker menace. Read the full thing after the break!
Now: Battlefield 3. Metro: Last Light. Far Cry 3. Those are the names of major triple-A releases that are eschewing the conventional “all PC gamers are pirates and also probably horrible racists” mantra in favor of a PC-first mentality. Sure, it's not much, but it's a start.
The Forecast: Slowly but surely, major developers are beginning to take interest in our humble (read: greatest) platform in the world again. Why? Oh goodness, let me count the ways. I mean, they've got tons of potential – and now well-tested – business models to work with, for one. Gaming is, after all, a business foremost and when a green pasture presents itself, your “???” suddenly transforms into “profit.”
Also, there's the matter of showcase potential. Modern top-of-the-line PCs are experimental hotrods to consoles' cars from The Flintstones, and there's no better way to wow a crowd than by aiming for the top. Plus, with new consoles just beyond the horizon, PC is the perfect testbed for new development techniques. No, PC's not suddenly going to become every triple-A title's lead platform again, but a modest crop of new benchmark bench-pressers is definitely on the way.
Toss in indie overnight success stories like Minecraft, Amneisa, and Terraria, and you've got a platform that sends a very clear message: thar's gold in them thar hills. Or, translated out of cartoon prospector, PC gamers do spend money after all. Oh, and PC's installed base eclipses that of consoles and then hurls it into the sun. Ignoring it, then, would be astonishingly foolish.
And have I mentioned Facebook yet? I haven't? Hmmm. That's a problem. Wait, what's this? The next entry's devoted to it almost entirely? How convenient!
Comments are closed on this article
mountainmanxl
July 30, 2011 at 10:55pm
Or you could, ya know, accept that PC's superior graphics dont make up for inferior sales vs. consoles and the fact that those better graphics mean a PC with a price tag 6x as much as new PS3 or 360...
Ghok
November 14, 2011 at 6:28pm
If you're spending that much, you're getting ripped off...
What do you mean "make up"? If I judged what games I bought on how much they sold, I'd be something of a tool. Most PC gamers know that consoles are the major platform for games. We just don't care, in fact, for me at least, I enjoy the benefits. It's called a niche market, and it has its advantages and disadvantages. Not all of us are anti-console. We just prefer our games on PC because we have good PCs. You figure there might be some people like that on this site, right? Usually when we bitch, it's about a crappy port or not getting a title at all. I think consoles are the better gaming platform for most people... just not me.
I try not to get too excited about this boom in PC gaming. When the new consoles are released, we'll start getting ignored again. For a while. It's a cycle. There are enough of us that will buy PC games that someone will always be making them for us.
sladeofdark
July 29, 2011 at 6:53am
I may be influenced by the academic writing class i am taking right now , but this guy talks too much. He needs to get to the point of his article.
sojrner
July 28, 2011 at 1:59pm
Anyone remember that "game" from the early 80s, Dragon's Lair? An entire game of QTEs. Nothing else. For the time, was cool... but mainly because graphics then sucked and Don Bluth (IIRC) did the animation. It was a good story. It was not a video game though IMO, it was more a participatory cartoon. (or maybe "video" game is the proper term for that, and what we currently have are "graphics" games? lol) That's where this is all going though... a choos-your-own-adventure movie rather than a game.
bloodgain
July 28, 2011 at 10:17am
I hate QTEs for one big reason (among the other good ones) - arthritis and repetitive motion. You know, some of us take cutscenes as a cue that we can put the controller down for a minute and flex our hands out of the static position game controllers put them in. Not everybody who plays games is a 14-year-old with perfectly undamaged joints -- and I'm only twice that age. Imagine how the older gamers feel!
bingojubes
July 28, 2011 at 9:15am
Indigo Prophecy, or the uncut verstion, Farenheit, was all QTE. besides the Mass Effect style of dialogue, the QTEs i think, as cheap as they were often, were quite engaging. some games i guess implement them into cutscenes to keep players engaged, instead of "press(ing) B to skip".
I also enjoyed the Guitar QTE mini game in The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile. Maybe QTEs can be incorporated into higher difficulty settings in games, instead of Easy or Normal modes, or give an in-game option to "disable cutscene QTEs" or something. Give a choice, and possibly extra rewards for players that turn the feature on, besides narrowly escaping danger.
LatiosXT
July 28, 2011 at 8:18am
If they're going to do "variable QTEs", they should embrace the idea of branching paths.
The one thing that really boggles my mind with a lot of American game design is the illusion of chioce. Giving players the idea that they're choosing something when in reality, it's about as good as ordering steak... and choosing whether or not you have plain, with some seasoning on top, or a douse it with A1. In the end, you're still eating steak.
But for some reason, American game design doesn't like the idea of bad endings (I can't name a game as of late that features a bad ending). If you're going to get a bad ending, it's going to be a game over.
TommM
July 27, 2011 at 3:21pm
Don't know if I read Pt 1, so you may have already addressed this, but I think delivery options are making a big difference in developer's mindsets when it comes to PC games. Steam has reduced pirating down to a shadow of what it used to be.
The low point was when Crysis had 8 million illegal downloads in the first couple of weeks of release. And their developer's stated point blank that as a result they would move away from PC-first development. And it happened (console port Crysis 2 was a result). I thought PC gaming was going to be dead within 2 years after that. Now it seems to have rebounded and I don't hear developer's talking much about piracy any longer.
ABouman
July 28, 2011 at 10:15am
Hey TommM, you can read part I here: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/gaming/game_boy_future_gaming_predicted_e3_2011_pt_1?page=0,0
(although I don't believe that Steam was mentioned)
Biceps
July 27, 2011 at 2:50pm
"Battlefield 3. Metro: Last Light. Far Cry 3. Those are the names of major triple-A releases that are eschewing the conventional “all PC gamers are pirates and also probably horrible racists” mantra in favor of a PC-first mentality."
Three games I will be buying :)
Maktaka
July 27, 2011 at 2:46pm
"But don't use accessibilty and whatnot as an excuse to skip out on the part of game design where you, you know, design a game." Hear, hear! A QTE is not gameplay, it's just making a mildly interactive movie. Shovelware companies first did that when the CD-ROM came into existence. Those companies are not remembered and are no longer in business, and the gaming industry would be wise to learn from this precedent.
