Game Rants 08.30.06: The Death of PC Gaming Part II
Posted by Will Scott on 08.30.2006
Are the consoles starting to muscle in on PC exclusive territory? Can you come up with a better name for the column? Check inside!
Well, it's been a pretty busy week for me here, so I apologize for any drop in quality (admittedly, that'd be hard to do) in the column. I just started out my first week of law school, so I'm waist deep in brutally boring text books instead of video games. Still, I'm going for something of a new format here, so bear with me - there's even something for reader response at the bottom.
Mailbag
Yes, I actually got a response to last week's column on comic books and games.
Carlos Waller writes,
Hi Will,
I enjoy your articles, but I wanted to say something about your current article regarding comic book games. While I'll agree with you about how lax and underdeveloped most licensed games are, I disagree with your statement about how comic book games don't work. Most of your negative examples are either based on a movie or a cartoon, not the actual comic (i.e. Superman 64, X-Men the movie game, etc...) Because they're based on a movie or a cartoon, it's caused the pigeon-holing you mention in your article.
The fact of the matter is comic book games based on a movie or a cartoon are forced into the confines of creating moments from the movie or the cartoon and not the original source material. It's one of the main the reason why these games fail. You can't make a solid 10 - 15 hour game if the source material is a less than a couple of hours long. Another problem is that the game needs to be released while the property is still hot, cutting development time down to nothing and forcing games into simplistic genres to get the game out in time.
X-men Legends and Ultimate Spider-Man (which you do mention) are based off a comic, and not a movie or cartoon based on a comic. These and other comic games work because a comic license is constantly changing and morphing and evolving. There is enough depth that any number of genres can be represented from a single license, which in turn keeps it away from the pigeon-holing problem you mentioned. Just the X-Men comic license alone has provided a dungeon crawler, a fighter, a beat-em-up, and action/adventure games.
I agree with what you're saying regarding how games should be evolving and become more thought-provoking. I just thing your target shouldn't be comic games; it should be licensed games in general because these are the games that garner a lot of attention. These are the games that are given huge budgets and usually fail to provide enough entertainment to justify their $50 - $60 price tagged.
Either way, keep up the good work.
Carlos Waller
First of all, thanks for the response - I appreciate other folks' opinions and like knowing that people read the column. Beyond that...you make a really good point, and it's something I really should've brought up more. I was in a bit of a time crunch (no excuse, true), and I didn't get to go as in-depth as I'd like to with the comic games that have flopped - I particularly was thinking about the older X-Men and Spiderman games from the Nintendo/Super Nintendo and PS1 when I thought about comic games that didn't work(even though it's arguable that even THOSE games are based on the cartoons and not the comics).You're right though, in that it's particularly the movie-to-game thing that tends not to work, and that's something I'll probably do another column on down the road.
So there you have it - you give me your opinion, and it'll wind up here, folks.
Rant: The Death of PC Gaming Part II
In the last installment of this particular bit, I mostly discussed how component pricing was adversely affecting PC gaming. As I've recently purchased a new PC, I can honestly say I felt the pinch, having to shell out a few hundred extra to get the better processor, graphics card, etc. However, this alone isn't enough to kill off a platform...after all, there's people chomping at the bit for the PS3.
However, what might help to kill the PC as a primary gaming machine is the crossover between the PC and console market. Remember, we're not too far removed from a time where these two platform types were connected only by a few ports - the consoles were the homes (generally) of the platformers, some of the adventure games and puzzlers, the racers, and a good deal of the RPG market. The PC, on the other hand, had all of those genres (some, like platformers, to a more limited extent) coupled with a few of its own - the
Real Time and Turned Based Strategy Games and the First Person Shooter. These games achieved the gold standard for the PC - they encouraged the purchase of the game by multiple players, the purchase of new equipment (for many of us, a modem), and a rabid fanbase that was willing to shell out more cash for more literations of the same type of game.
Fast-forward to today, and you'll see a world where the FPS has become a legitimate genre on the console, thanks to games like Halo and Goldeneye. With online gameplay becoming more of the norm through systems like X-Box Live, it's possible for the same sort of fanbase to pop up for these console games, effectively stealing a bit of the online community away from the PC. These games also serve a similar function - they encourage users to buy new equipment (X-Box Live accessories and more controllers) and prep the gamers to buy games of the same genre. However, it's not as if all is lost for the PC on this front - it still has strategy games as a near exclusive, though titles like Battle for Middle Earth 2 prove that these games can be effectively played on a console.
It not what the PC DOESN'T have that may be it's final fatal flaw, but rather what it does. In the final installment of this series, there's going to be another culprit - the MMO. I've come to the conclusion that this title sucks, so if you have any suggestions, please let me know. As always, all feedback can be sent to thepariaheffect@yahoo.com.
