Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Brief self-linking ahoy – IGN asked me to pen a quick round-up of ten of the most theoretically scintillating PC games due next year. That’s “10 of”, not “the 10″. It’s all stuff you fine, PC-loving human beings will already be eminently aware of, but thought you’d be interested to a) observe the random leaps my tiny brain makes when coming up with lists and b) start thinking in this thread about what you’re most looking forward to, given 2009’s big games are about to come and go this month. Yeah? Yeah.

(Oh, and I didn’t write the bit about Alienware at the bottom, and I’m sorry about the intro typo.)

Games For Windows top spokesman (and RPS’ favourite name in the games industry), Kevin Unangst, has been interviewed by Gamasutra’s Brandon Sheffield. In the interview Unangst is careful to talk up the PC, while avoiding the clear and present fact that the humble box will ultimately outmode and obliterate the console toys and become the de facto single format for gaming. Wuh? Crazy talk? Nolan Bushnell is with me. Find out what I’m wittering about after the link.
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Some interesting (and perhaps worrying) facts’n'quotes over in this report on PC industry heavyweights discussing the future of the ol’ IBM Compatible as a gaming platform. They claim all is rosy and well, but it seems PC gaming generates half a billion dollars less now than it did in 2001 – though as the piece points out this doesn’t include digital distribution such as Gametap or Steam (and, I’d guess, MMO subscriptions too). Or, indeed, pirated copies of games, the elephant in that particular room which doesn’t seem to have been mentioned, and could quite possibly account for some of the drop from $1.5 billion to $970 million over the last five years.

I can’t help but get a little bit snooty and defensive when I hear talk of something rotten in the state of PC gaming. Read the rest of this entry »