Think the PC is dying and console gaming is king? It's actually going the other way
The new console generation, hmmm? Is it coming soon? Is it, Daddy? Is it coming soon? Ooh, exciting! How long do we have to wait? Will the PS4 come with four terabyte Green-ray drives? Will the new Xbox project hologram controls into my mind so that I can socially-network my generic social “experiences” in my social sleep (while streaming Netflix)? Will the Wii U’s innovative new soul-powered controller bring about gaming experiences so sociable and all-welcoming that Iactually physically bond with my family. Will it also be more powerful than all of NASA and be so hardcore that Call of Duty goes exclusive, along with all of the rest of Activision forever?
Above: That exciting Xbox 720 "teaser" joke in Real Steel? It did not excite me
You know what? I sort of don’t care at the moment. Even if all of the above were confirmed at E3 2012, it wouldn’t be enough to get me fired up. Because whatever tedious social marketing buzzwords and third-party advertising deals Microsoft decides to build the infrastructure of its new console around, whatever old-tech-repackaged-as-a-new-gimmick Sony steals from Nintendo at the last minute, there’s a fundamental problem with console gaming that I can only see getting worse across the board.
The more powerful consoles get, the bigger and more impressive games can be, the more expensive, duller and samier they actually become. Like a room full of cloned accountants. We knew that higher development budgets would become an issue at the start of this last generation, but the list of devs who've gone under or been forced to lose their identity in order to survive is stark proof of how bad the problem is. Free Radical, Bizarre Creations, Pandemic, Kaos Studios, Rare...
Above: Modern console gaming
Because the more impressive that games can be, the more expensive their development will be, and the less exciting developers will be allowed to be, lest the investment doesn’t pay off. It’s a situation that’s become increasingly troublesome throughout this console generation, and it’s only going to get worse with another one. This is the generation in which high development costs and ultra-closed, ultra-controlled console platforms really started strangling creativity and steamrolling any games not coming from the big publisher model. And if those big publishers don’t drop their insistence on an expensive, blockbuster-driven mentality, console games are only going to get safer and more sequel-centric as they get more expensive.
Medium and small-scale indie development is thriving of course. In fact in many ways it’s doing better than it ever has. But it’s doing so on the PC. Because on the PC, it’s allowed to.
More so than any generation before it, this console age is driven and controlled by the industry big guns. There’s more cross-media marketing than there ever was. There are more promotional deals with platform holders than there ever were. In fact, the explosion of online functionality has given console manufacturers and their partners more control than ever before over what you see and play. Between dashboard marketing updates and console functionality changes, the men with big budget games and big budget suits have more influence over the less engaged gamer than ever. And that’s before you even get into the financial and logistical hoops developers have to jump through in order to even release and support a console game.
Above: A developer pondering a hoop he must jump through
Example: Fresh off his kickstarter success, Double Fine’s Time Schaferhas revealed that even patching a modern console game costs $40, 000. That’s not publishing DLC I'm talking about there. That’s just releasing a patch. This kind of set-up can only ever push smaller, less mainstream developers and publishers out of the race before a gun has even been fired.
Consoles are increasingly a place in which only the big budget, safe bet titles are nurtured. Where once consoles made games more accessible, now they’re the equivalent of an expensive, exclusive, slightly wanky night club. Only the rich, fashionable friends of the management stand a chance of getting in, and once inside the clientèle is so conscious of looking respectably en vogue that everyone in the building stands still, stays sober, avoids doing anything controversial and has no fun at all.
Right, a caveat for the rest of this feature. If you're perfectly happy with glossy commercial games, and if all you want from your gaming is a string of shiny blockbusters and sequels to your favourite stuff, you don't need to bother reading on. But if you want more from your gaming experiences, and if you care about games as a developing creative medium, then just ahead I'll explain exactly why I currently think a move away from console gaming is going to be important to you over the next couple of years.
As game development budgets get higher as new consoles come in, the stakes will get higher and smaller devs and publishers will find themselves more frequently smashing face-first into the cast iron, electrified barrier of entry. Or, you know, being more violently punched in the face by the big burly nightclub bouncer on the front door, to go back to that metaphor I started a paragraph ago but seem to have already forgotten about. Ahem.
Continuing in that metaphorical vein - to prove that I really do commit to my own analogies and am no cheap fly-by-night literary floozy - PC gaming by comparison to console gaming is the slightly scummy all-night bar with the cool jukebox next door. Yeah, the paintwork is peeling a bit and the toilets don’t always flush like they should, but more interesting people hang out there, the conversation is interesting, and no-one is too bothered about anyone’s appearance or social status as long as they’re having a good time. Oh, and there’s no door charge.
As Schafer adds to his statements about console-patching, “Open systems like Steam, that allow us to set our own prices, that's where it's at, and doing it completely alone like Minecraft. That's where people are going.”
Above: And Gabe did look down upon his creation, and he saw that it was good
And he’s right, of course. While they’re two of the most prevalent ideas within gaming right now, the notions that PC gaming and indie development are in trouble are hilariously inaccurate. Both are in rude health, because both absolutely back each other up. And in terms of gaming as a varied, rich, progressive medium, they’re certainly in better health than console gaming. The barrier of entry is low, self-distribution is more than feasible, and there's a more accepting customer culture in regards to smaller, less mainstream games.
The various consoles’ downloadable game services were meant to level the playing field. They were meant to be the saviours of more experimental and lower budget indie development on the big HD machines. They were supposed to turn console gaming into a truly democratic, healthy and varied experience by opening up an outlet for the kind of games that just couldn’t find a market in an age dominated by big retail blockbusters. And for a while they did.
But now? Nintendo’s online stores are an organisational and marketing shambles. The PSN is still has a steady trickle of interesting exclusives but what does Xbox Live Arcade give us these days? Three or four decent downloadable games a year, increasingly tied to big franchises or publishers, and almost certainly tied into some Microsoft-branded promotion. The rest are left to die. Indie devs are giving up on the Xbox 360 in droves, repeatedly citing too much control and too little support from Microsoft as the reasons. The freer (though frequently crap-filled) XBL Indie Games marketplace has been buried deep by the new dashboard update. The “triple-A or GTFO” model remains the same. Only the delivery method and file sizes have changed.
Above: This was where the less mainstream stuff was supposed to be, wasn't it?
And let’s not ignore the fact that both XBL and PSN are increasingly being colonised by more big-namers as delivery methods for their full-fat disc games and HD remakes (at ludicrously inflated prices). I increasingly feel that the systems I used to so value are being subverted to become more and more part of the thing they were supposed to combat.
By nature of being an open platform, though, the PC has the full spectrum of gaming, covering every level of budget, profile, genre and beardy-weirdy artiness. There are no publishing gate-keepers. It’s just you and your audience, and handily your audience are pretty much all connected to the internet. Whether you use a distribution network like Steam or not, getting your game out there is cheaper and easier than on consoles by far. So creativity and ambition of every size and shape can flourish.
As all of my brain-spilling over the previous pages will probably tell you, I’m a man who values games as a progressive, developing medium. I’m not Jimmy FIFA or Johnny Halo. I crave new talent, new ideas, new aesthetics and new ways of seeing games as both fun and art. And the more I think about it, the more I realise that the stuff I want is available in abundance on the PC. Just check out this small (massive) selection of this year's stuff for starters. And then this one.
As much as we gamers moan about the increasing homogenisation of mainstream games, we never acknowledge that the problem is utterly exacerbated on consoles. We ignore the fact that the development freedom that we say we want is happening every day on the PC. We rightly champion the odd console release like Braid or Limbo as a mighty strike for creativity, but there's a raft of stuff in that vein happening all over the PC every day, along with more new IP than you can keep up with. We complain, but we rarely make the leap away from the systems and structures that cause the problems we lambast.
And I’m beginning to think I might be ready to.
Above: On a console. a unique narrative experience like Dear Esther would be lauded as a once-in-a-generation avant garde masterpiece. On the PC, it's a PC game
The more I think about what keeps me predominantly a console gamer, the less reasons I come up with. I think that situation can only be worsened, not improved, by a new, more technically-demanding console generation. Console exclusives, except when platform-holders make or pay for them, are a dead concept. And the time and money required to make or acquire single-format games impressive enough to really grab the attention is probably going to mean that they’re fewer and further between in the future anyway. Next-gen it will probably cost far more to buy an exclusive, and any third-party in their right mind will be increasingly drawn to releasing for as many platforms as possible.
Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if push eventually came to shove, and those costs saw even the big publishers turn to the smaller, more audience-specific, enthusiast-targeted games I espoused the virtues of in my recent article about Double Fine’s Kickstarter success. And that sort of stuff is bound to head PC-wards. If indeed it's not targeted towards it in the first place.
Above: Sorry guys, been there, done that
So what would I really be buying a new set of consoles for? Better-looking Halo and Fable? Better-looking Uncharted? Another couple of big new first-party franchises on top of better-looking versions of all the others? A whole raft of family games from Microsoft?
Meanwhile, a PC will give me the best versions of the third-party blockbusters, and all of the medium-size and small-scale creativity I want. Games that will never hit the console market. Games that will never have to. Games that would be hampered if they tried. To rob myself of that would be like limiting my film-viewing to whatever the big multiplexes give me every month. And I’m certainly not going to do that.
Then again, I'll probably change my mind about all of this as soon as I see an HD Mario game running. We shall see, friends, we shall see.
[via gamesradar] #gamingumar
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