The Gaming Industry - Does the PC fit in?

It is hard to ignore the behemoth that the (video) gaming industry has become. With $18.8 billion in revenue in 2007 alone it is clear that gaming has become increasingly popular in the domain of entertainment. This presents the outstanding question of where exactly the cash cow that gaming has become is headed? With the Nintendo Wii, Gameboy, DS, Xbox 360, PS3, PSP and an array of other devices, gamers have plenty of options. According to NPD reports, consoles and portables have dominated 2007 software sales, totaling $8.589 billion worth. Seemingly dwarfing the $911 million that PC games brought in, which is actually $70 million less than last year. Some believe that PC gaming is entering the last years of its eventual demise, so what kind of future is there for the PC as a gaming medium? A deeper look at the environment reveals what may be holding the platform back and where it’s headed.

A common complaint about PC games is the set of barriers that can stand between gamers and their game. When you’re looking to relax and indulge in a good game, you aren’t exactly in the mood for obstacles. It isn’t very enjoyable to have to deal with installing games, updating hardware and drivers, tuning performance, configuring routers and a long list of other complicates one encounters playing games on a full blown operating system. Money can often be a factor as well. A lot of gamers are a little hesitant to shell over several hundred for better hardware to support the cutting edge graphics that newer games are sporting and some simply wouldn’t know what to do with it even if they did purchase it. It is safe to say that gaming on the PC can sometimes be considerably more work. To the average “customer” consoles are much more comprehensible and tangible. A PS3 game is a PS3 game, but what is a PC game and what are minimum requirements? You may laugh at some people's inadequacy when it comes to computers, but when it's 10:00PM on Christmas Eve you can count on Halo or Smash Brothers being purchased before Bioshock gets a glance from the crusty corner that the PC game shelf has become. Speaking of the PC game shelf it seems it has been getting progressively smaller in most stores, a sign of its lack of marketability and interest. The inconveniences aren’t unique to less computer-savvy either. On the PC piracy and DRM are duking it out and there is plenty of blood on the ground, but low and behold no one is winning. Game publishers fear that they are missing out on sales due to the susceptibility of PC games to piracy. In turn they conjure up elaborate DRM systems that only frustrate and alienate honest customer and at the most make a hacker’s hobby slightly more challenging.

Preferring to game on the computer myself I find these recent trends troubling. What if we as PC gamers missed out on Call of Duty 4, because it just wasn't worth it? What if Blizzard took over 10 years to come out with Starcraft 2? The sequel to a game that sold over 9.5 million copies and still holds cash tournaments to this day, which by the way landed at the number 13 spot for top computer games sold in 2007 and 20th most sold game of all time (granted the announcement of Starcraft 2 did revitalize the fan base). Oh wait, my bad... they are taking that long. No I'm not bitter, just when the community was losing hope for a Stacraft sequel Blizzard announced Starcraft Ghost. Talk about gamer blue balls. A Starcraft title that isn't a sequel and not a PC game? Now I would have purchased the game, but unfortunately Blizzard started development a little late in the lifecycle of the current console generation. Perhaps Blizzard was ahead of the curb as a business. They may have forecasted those 2007 sales numbers, wanting to tap into the console world and go back to their roots.

On the other hand one genre that has seen no shortage of attention or new releases is the MMORPG. It all goes back to the success of Ultima Online and Everquest, laying the foundation for the genre and opening the door to a very lucrative profit model. The most notable of this genre today would be World of Warcraft. Somewhat of a shining star in a relatively slumping industry, carrying a healthy 10 million subscribers and growing, with the average of its three payment models being $13.99 a month that is $139,900,000 in revenue a month. You heard that right, with that kind of player base WoW will bring in more money in 2008 solely in subscriptions than every PC game purchased in 2007 did. Blizzard may take the gold with WoW, but there is also a surprisingly long list of other active MMORPGs experiencing their own level of success.

Now I have enjoyed my share of fun and folly in the land of Azeroth, but there are number of other people myself included that feel MMORPGs eventually grow dull and tiresome and for some the genre isn’t a feasible option in the context of their lifestyle. For faster paced action based competitive gaming I often look to First Person Shooters or Real Time Strategy games. My concern is that these genres may be increasingly neglected with the recent gold rush to subscription based games. With everyone hopped up on the latest MMO, the rest of us don’t want to be twiddling our thumbs. I can't help but think that WoW was a big factor in delay for a Starcraft sequel. The Starcraft 2 development team is the same group that brought us Warcraft III and I'm sure that same team had a role in WoW. Perhaps Blizzard feared it couldn't craft a successor to the gem of a game that Starcraft is. My cynical side wants to blame WoW, after all when a game is so successful that it employs nearly 500,000 people farming virtual gold in developing nations you know you have something worth investing your time and money in.

So why do developers spend any time creating a game for a platform with such a small share of the gaming market? Well to be fair, $911 million is really no small chunk of change and that number is relatively inaccurate when used to gauge how well the platform is doing. It fails to account for digital downloads from services such as Steam, or individual companies that are beginning to offer downloadable games such as the new Blizzard store. It also not factoring in the millions of dollars people pay to be able play their favorite MMO. Besides no one is throwing out their PC because they got a Wii for Christmas. It isn't simply another gaming platform that will eventually die out and become obsolete, it is obviously much more than that. For many the PC has become a common household appliance, one that many can’t or don’t want to go without. This is a clear advantage for the PC since it exists predominately by default and gaming “can” be convenient in that sense.

There is however a lot that could be done to improve the platform overall. Services similar to Steam, while not an all inclusive solution, do serve a lot of helpful purposes. The concept is not overly intrusive when dealing DRM, the digital store is useful, and the communications tools help create a hub for other PC gamers. The DRM war is disastrous and has only really created more problems. As with other aspects of life the dilemma is one of personal imposition versus corporate security and protection. The ugly fact is that piracy happens. No one looks down on a company for taking reasonable steps to protect their software, but alienating people that purchase your product to protect against a small minority of people that would likely never be a loyal customer of yours is bad practice. On another front, I think a lot could be done with the PC gaming community. There are plenty of robust and focused gaming communities scattered across the web (a PC strong point), but there aren’t any services that are the same caliber as the XBOX 360 community interface.

So is an apocalypse on the horizon for PC gaming? Well besides the fact that most people don't take gaming seriously enough to warrant such sensationalism, the answer is no. PC gaming will continue to thrive in niche groups. Real time strategy and role playing games are particularly well suited for computers and favored as made apparent by 2007 statistics showing the two genres making up 52.7% of all games sold. These numbers are drastically different from the 12.3% that the genres make up in console game sales. So while the complexity of computers brings numerous barriers for the less savvy player, it also offers greater flexibility and a lot of potential for the future of gaming.