14 DAY TRIAL // The PC gaming industry has always been the benchmark of performance and quality in games but as consoles, like the Nintendo Wii, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, are becoming more and more powerful hardware-wise, a lot of critics are saying that PC gaming will eventually die.
Although quite a lot of effort has been made by hardware manufacturers, which have formed a PC Gaming Alliance, in order for improved performance and exclusive content to be brought to the PC, a lot of publishers decide not to bring their creations to the historical platform. That is quite sad, but publishers and developers cite the high rate of piracy as the main cause.
Jeff Lydell, head of Relic Entertainment, the creators of the upcoming Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2 PC exclusive RTS, says that PC gaming will never die, as we all have PCs capable of running some games. He goes on to say that PC gaming has seen a slow period because one of the exclusive experiences to this platform, the online one, has become standard in all of the consoles. But, as PC hardware is still being bought, there is a gaming market on this platform and publishers should exploit it.
“[PC gaming will] die the day we stop having PCs! Right now, we all want to have PCs. We're seeing some changes where people are adopting laptops more. But PC gaming isn't dying,” explained Lydell. He then tackled the issue of piracy saying that, “It's certainly a threat to triple A gaming. It makes developers and publishers reluctant to invest large amounts of money in a just-pc product, unless there's some form of guarantee. But piracy is not going away. As an industry, piracy is something we have to work around, not something to try and eliminate - because that's a losing fight”.
All in all, some very interesting statements sure to make quite a lot of PC gamers happy. Although the market isn't as profitable as it used to be, publishers have to understand that some measures can be employed to guarantee profit if they bring their creations to the PC. Let's just hope that publishers and developers still consider the PC gaming market a viable option for their titles.