The Consoles and the Bazaar

Hi. My name is Dev and I’m a PC Gamer. There seem to be a dwindling few of us these days. Consoles are selling in the millions and every time I stop by the PC gaming aisle, the selection of games is depressingly thinner. Writers have been predicting doom (not Doom) for the PC gaming market for a while now, but I don’t think I fully grasped the overwhelming odds PC gamers are up against until I played Halo. Not Halo for the XBox, but Halo for the PC.


History Lesson: In 1999, Bungie Studios showed up at E3 with the first glimmers of a game called Halo that made game journalists crap their pants. It promised fantastic real time 3D rendering and realistic physics. PC fans were officially stoked. A year later, so much had changed. Microsoft dropped a bomb on the gaming community by announcing its own console. And in perfect Microsoft fashion, they went out and bought the shiniest game development asset to install as the crown jewel of their new game “box”. Suddenly, PC gamers lost a fantastic looking game and I admit I was fairly bitter for a long time. The rest is history. In 2001, Halo came out along with the original XBox and wasn’t just a fantastic success for the console but became a cultural event.


Then in 2003, Halo finally arrived on the PC. I picked it up, played it front to back, single and multiplayer, and I was completely surprised that my overall experience was a resounding “meh.” What happened? Where was the transcendent gaming experience that I had heard about for 2 years? The game that both fanboys and non-fanboys alike raised up as a pinnacle of video gaming? The game that helped sell nearly 25 million consoles and established Microsoft as a viable game company? All I knew was that this game did not hold up to the quality first person shooters I have experienced over the years as a PC gamer. To this day I replay the original Half-Life once every couple of years. I’ll still fall back into a quick Counter Strike addiction every once in a while. I’ll even load up some old Call of Duty. But I haven’t touched another Halo since I finished the first one.


It bothered me that I didn’t really like this game, so my brain kept trying to figure out why it was so freakin’ popular. I eventually came to a realization: How many quality first person shooters were on a console before Halo?


* Goldeneye (Which doesn’t really hold up very well anymore.)

* Maybe some early Medal of Honors

* Maybe Perfect Dark (Which was really Goldeneye 2.0.)


That’s it. Count ‘em. That’s all that console players had in one of the most dominant genres in video gaming. Meanwhile, from Doom onward, the PC was the home of the top notch shooter. Then Halo comes along, and in spite of its quality compared with contemporary PC shooters, it completely blows away every other game on the list above.


This led me to an even greater realization. The number of console gamers so outweighs the number of PC gamers that Halo had no other fate but to become the smash hit that it was. This may not be a great surprise to many, but it hit me like a headcrab to the face. I always saw the PC and consoles on an equal footing, each with their particular strengths, but none of them dominating to such a degree. A rock vs. paper vs. scissors vs. stick(?) type situation. Only now everything beats stick which was never a part of the game anyway. I leave it as extra credit to figure out which console equates to which object.


So what happened? How has the PC fallen so? Really it’s not a question of what the PC lost but what the consoles have gained. First off, computers always used to have in edge graphics-wise on consoles and still do, but graphics and graphics hardware have become so advanced that the difference between the tippy top eye burstingly gorgeous games and the plain ‘ol eye bleedingly purdy games is becoming increasingly negligible. It’s also becoming more of a chore to keep your computer stocked with the necessary hardware to guarantee consistent eye burstage. Furthermore, PCs used to be the sole masters of the internet, but with the most recent generation of hardware, consoles have finally gotten their act together on the online front. Finally, the third addition to consoles also came full force with the most recent generation: hard drives. Consoles have dominated PC gaming by blurring the line between the two. The only difference between them now is that consoles are customized PC platforms with a standardized programming model and hardware specific controllers. This basically guarantees that if a game runs on one XBox it’ll run on every XBox, which isn’t always the case for you every day PC.


So what’s left? Consoles have taken the hard drive, the internet and graphics, so how does the PC gaming market survive? A couple of months ago I urged my friend to get Valve’s Orange Box and play Portal as soon as possible. Anyone who hasn’t played Portal should consider it a Secret Shame of their gaming experience. He said that he’d pick it up for the XBox as soon a he could. Of course I protested, “No, no, no you have to play it on PC if at all possible.” To which he replies, “Why?” The best answer I could muster was “Uhhh....Feng shui?”


However, there’s hope yet. PCs will survive. They still retain a couple of aces that consoles may never be able to steal. Most obviously, the mouse and keyboard. There are just some games that will always work better with a mouse and keyboard. There are numerous high quality first person shooters on consoles now, but you’ll never get that whip fast “should I aim for the head or the nuts” quality precision that a mouse gives. Real time strategy also remains almost exclusively in the pocket of PC gaming. And I would be remiss without a mention of World of Warcraft which is like a small country of 800 pound gorillas. It and other complex MMOs seem to be firmly held by PCs and while each of these genres may eventually find a worthy representative on a console, it’ll take a spectacular feat of user interface design to make them work without a mouse and keyboard.


Keyboard and mouse aside though, here’s the biggest strength of the PC that will keep it gaming for many years to come. The PC is the most open, accessible and adaptable gaming platform there is. There may come a day when it’s simply not good business to release a Triple-A game on the PC. I believe we are currently seeing a shift in the PC gaming market. Big name titles are decreasing but for any new developer looking to make a splash and prove himself, any programming nut strapped for cash and any guy with a brain full of crazy new gameplay ideas will go to the PC first. Big game developers are scared of the new and crazy stuff. They simply can’t afford an expensive and risky concept to bomb. Like big Hollywood movies, the monster developers will go with something that’s worked before rather than take a chance. However, what the big guys can’t afford, the PC independent programmer can. The cost of creating a game on the PC is simply the cost of the computer and then the time, sweat and blood you pour into it. Want to make a game for the XBox, PS3 or Wii? Not so fast. You have to register and be approved as an official developer for those platforms and lay down a large chunk of change just for the necessary hardware and software tools to make a game for them. No game design noob is likely to jump through those hoops and saw blades just to get started. I believe PC gaming will become the bazaar to the console’s cathedral. The Linux to its Windows. A place where short, cheap and innovative games spread through out the internet and give developers a chance to test and implement their crazy new gameplay ideas.


This is the future of the PC. This is what the consoles will never have. So let Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft keep on with the endless hardware arms race. Let them have their Halo. Consoles will come and go but the PC will be hanging around for a long time to come.

-Dev Null