ID's John Carmack on PC Games

PC Gaming Legend Calls it

In an interview for Gamasutra Carmack weighs in on the reasons the PC remains a viable gaming platform, if for one game genre at least.

On the PC becoming a Console port option

If you make a cross-platform game, the PC is not going to look that much different there. There is a little bit better graphics fidelity, and it’s lot more powerful than a high-end console. You certainly only have about half efficiency, but still, you get some influence. But it’s not really drastic.

The exception being...

But on the other hand, if you look at what’s really successful on the PC -- like World Of Warcraft, that’s an insanely successful product. It’s like a train driving all the PC sales numbers altogether on gaming.

Read interview here Gamasutra

The Death of PC Gaming? (R.I.P. 1994)

The PC as a gaming platform has been on the ropes since well before the PS2 and XBox made their debuts. Cost of development and sales took many developers under. Like then as now, only the ones with hot properties or well financing publishers would last.

The reality is that the PC is largely an enthusiast market. People buying off the shelf PCs may buy a new game with the PCs, but they aren't generally buying a PC with gaming as a priority. Kick in the steep hardware/software curve and many game experiences are less than stellar.

PC game developers can't go on the installed base of PCs when designing their games because they are generally targeting for the top 5% - 10%. And because PCs are not primarily used for gaming, the games sales associated with that 5%-10% is lower.

For small developers, this is a nice target as long as they can keep costs down while hoping to drive graphics and game innovation to sell the final product. For more established game developers, this sale base is increasingly smaller and less likely to sustain a return on their investments. Once a game studio achieves a certain critical mass - the PC as a platform is less viable and is more risk than its worth.

The PC and the MMPORG

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. So long as games like World of Warcraft and Everquest allow multitudes of people to play interactive quests online, the PC will reign supreme in this game area. The numbers of people playing these PC games are in the millions. A far cry from most any console based game.

Console gaming has come a very long way in both game play and graphics. A dedicated gaming machine has never made more sense. Fortunately (for now) there is an equal balance between PC and Console. You can play a title on either one and get a similar experience (providing you're the PC enthusiast with uber hardware.)

PC gaming will be around when and if the next generation of consoles hit the market and again we will revisit the Death of PC Gaming.