PC 2008 Review

It’s that time again, when gaming sites review the year, and give out awards. In the past, I tally up the number of titles and determine which platform had the most awards. I’ll continue to do this again. However, the harsh reality awaits. This may be the first year, the PC does not collect the most titles. Although right now, its just a prediction, I’ve decided to write in more detail on the PC in 2008.

Pirating

It would seem you couldn’t talk about sales without mentioning Pirating. Pirating continues to chew into the PC game sales. The latest was a claim from indie creator of World of Goo; 90% of their installs were pirated. Pirating has been a very heated debate this year. One which ultimately falls flat for both arguments. Primarily, there’s simply no solid data on the subject. No way to tell if a pirate would have ever bought the game, or even if it was available in their country. Sales don’t account for Steam, Gametap, or other online sales. The factors go on and on.

Junk in memory

Clearly the PC is complicated. You have different version of OS, an uncountable number of hardware manufacturers, and zero standardization. Nothing new. The PC has always been a hobbyist’s dream. Yet for some reason, this year people forgot that. They expected their Crysis like games to work, while they have email, IM browsers, widgets, and 9 trojens running in the background. The PC needs to be embraced by both the developers and public for what it is. A place to experiment and take risks. Not a very good business model one could argue, but look what happened to General Motors, because they didn’t take risks.

Casual gaming

Spore was a let down to the hard core gamer, but really, what did you expect? The creator of Sims making another Sim game, but on a larger scale. Translation, the game is not for the hard core crowd. The truth is, the game is selling. People need to stick to the genera they like, and stop filling up forums with complaints about games they should have never tried to play. Do you seem me talking about The Sims, or World of Warcraft…NO! Why…because, I don’t care! Let your little sister enjoy the game in peace.

MMOs

MMOs continue to thrive on the PC. While claims from the masses point out that the PC is becoming a dedicated system only for persistent gaming worlds, I think otherwise. There are still single player RPGs to be found.

Companies in the Light:

Clearly Stardock and Valve are taking the lead on how a PC game can be enjoyable. Stardocks support is unprecedented and their concentration of quality over quantity is proving to be a good model. Their also not afraid of risks.

Meanwhile, Gabe from Valve continues to say kind words to the PC and slams DRM practices. Expect awesome official and non official mods for Left4Dead, just as we saw many updates to Team Fortress 2. Bioware, now heavily influenced by EA, showed that it would not turn its back on the PC either. Mass Effect was finally released with all the extras that made the game worth the wait. Two other gamers from Bioware: Dragon Age, and the upcoming Star Wars MMO, will focus heavily on the PC.

Lastly, unknown publisher CD Projekt, did the unthinkable. They admitted their release of their RPG, The Witcher, was a disaster, and set off to fix it with this year’s Enhanced Edition patch. Probably the largest series of patches I’ve ever downloaded, but well worth the wait. This company earns earned kudos for its post release support.

Companies in the dark:

Rockstar’s rushed release of GTA4 is a major fail. Buggy to the extreme, how many times do we have to see this pattern. Wait then release! Its that simple. I applaud Saints Row 2, for delaying their title, to fix bugs. Rockstar also flops with forcing users into unwanted social networks. PC gamers hate that. We like our LAN parties just how they are.

Epic’s CliffyB blasted the PC this year, and refused to release Gears of War 2 for the PC. His argument was that of a child with no depth. His games lately have been, just meh, for example Unreal Tournament 3 was just a graphical update of the same tired formula. You can often find it on gogamer.com for $15. While Gears of War 1 was riddled with reported release bugs. He also failed to mention in his diatribe the amount of money he made by having an exclusive title for the X360.

Head to Head:

Without a doubt, the PC has surpassed the current generation consoles in hardware. Clean ports yield better graphics, controls, bonus material, and overall experience. 2009 will simply continue this trend.

Microsoft’s lack of motivation

Since they have a huge investment in the Xbox360, Microsoft continues to force Xbox exclusives, with a PC version later down the timeline. The idea is that PC gamers would buy an X360 to play an exclusive game. This marketing schema leaves PC gamers in the dust, and naturally lowers PC game sales.

Windows Vista, direct X 10, Live service, and 64bit support continue to be nonexistent. First, I hate social networking, therefore, Live is a waste of my time and resources. Next, publishers have no motivation to develop in DirectX 10, primarily because Vista flopped in the market, and the differences between 9 and 10 are unmentionable. Along the same lines, developers have no motivation to utilize 64 bit processing. Again, primarily because folks own 32-bit Windows operating systems. The blame again goes to Microsoft. If they could get decent driver support for 64bit OS and Vista, gaming would be a much better experience.

Future: Could Macs, LINUX, or Windows 7 save the PC gaming market?

Overall, The PC not only had another strong year, it continued its usual solid trend. Hardware is getting cheaper, and is far exceeding the console market. As long as the developers see the value in the PC, we’ll see more years like 2008.