Purely hypothetically, of course ;)
Several years ago, before I began playing WoW, I used to buy a new PC game every month or two. There were probably a lot of folks like me who did the same. The PC Gaming Industry survived because of our never ending search for The Perfect Game®.
Then I found it, or at least I came the closest I've ever been to finding The Perfect Game®. I got sucked into WoW and it was glorious! Even with the subscription model I rationalized that at $13/month, it was cheaper than buying a new game every month or two. In fact with a new PC game costing $40 to $50, it was like slowing down my habit of one game every month or two, to just one game every three months. The big difference of course is that now I was buying the same game every month, over, and over, and over again. Instead of my money going to various, different gaming companies, it was all going to Blizzard.
And there were/are probably a lot of gamers like me.
We ceased our search for The Perfect Game®, because we'd actually found it (or a Close Facsimile Thereof®). We stopped buying a new and different game every month or two. We stopped funding innovation. We told the PC Gaming Industry, "We like This Game. If you ever want to see our money again you'll have to make a game just like this one, only better."
But the small gaming companies can't make a game just like WoW only better because that costs a lot of money, money which they didn't have. And they didn't have it because we, the Gamers, were no longer buying their games.
Not too long after I began playing WoW, rather than look at racks & racks of shoes with my wife, I wandered into a Best Buy and made my way to my favorite part of their store.
No, wait. These are PS2 games.
Here? No, X-Box games.
Then...where are??? I found a clerk.
"Excuse me. Where are your PC Games?"
He showed me one shelf.
One shelf of games. Filled with rows of WoW and Everquest, and oddly enough boxes of the very same puzzle games you can download off the 'net for free then pay $10 to $20 to "unlock".
The shelves of innovation were gone. The gaming companies that survived on me, and others like me, buying their games every month or two? They'd fallen by the wayside. They'd been driven off the road and left eating the dust of an 18-wheeler with WoW on the side.
PC Gaming is dead, but the Consoles cannot take the credit; that dubious honor belongs to the World of Warcraft, the PC Game that killed PC Gaming.
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7 comments:
Interesting theory. While I won't argue that WOW is the 18 ton wheeler of the PC gaming world, I will argue that a certain lack of innovation is what hurts the PC gaming world. Every RTS is a essentially a clone of starcraft/command and conquer, every FPS is a doom rip off with better graphics, and every turn based game is a Civ clone. you get the idea.
What PC gaming needs is fresh new ideas to drive a new genre. Something simple yet groundbreaking like guitar hero to remind gamers that devs aren't simply rehashing old ideas, but constantly working on developing new genres that inspire and consume our freetime.
The problem is how, as a game dev, do you come up with a new idea, that incorporates the internet, promotes online friendships, allows for user created content ala mods, keeps players entertained and engaged, without being an MMO?
-Wolfgangdoom
Wolf, to answer your question, I don't think the gaming industry can develop a game that will do all that but which is not an MMO. Then again, I also believe MMOs (and online gaming in general) are the future of gaming, so you'd be severely reducing your target market if you did do so.
WoW may be MMO 4 Dummies, but there's no denying that it has massive appeal because it...er...appeals to the masses??? Does that even make sense?
If you're a casual gamer with a limited amount of time, maybe you can only spend an hour or two here & there, you can play WoW.
If you like playing with a small group of friends, you can play WoW.
If you enjoy killing other people (virtually, I hope), you can play WoW.
If you enjoy getting together with 9, 19, 29 strangers and defeating content that few other players will ever see, you can play WoW.
While WoW is almost The Perfect Game, it's not quite there. In my opinion, it needs a little more casual basis, and a lot more player driven content. But, that's going to have to wait for another Blog entry, I think. Maybe when I get around to writing my fictional review for the mythical Harvest Moon Online.
I'm a casual gamer, and I have actively avoided WoW. The subscription model is brutal in the cost/benefit analysis for a casual gamer. Sure, the WoW game design itself is casual friendly, but the business plan is horrid.
I can pick up a nice title like Titan Quest for the box price of WoW, and have fun with it for a LOT longer than I could have fun in WoW for the same price.
To my economy-addled mind, it's not WoW itself that is killing the PC game industry, it's the subscription model and the mentality that comes with it. People have to rationalize paying that much money playing a game, so all their time has to go to it to milk it of value. It may not even be conscious.
Rather than WoW killing games, I think console games have taken off amazingly well. People who want to buy pc games can do so via Direct 2 Drive, Steam, and via torrent downloads although they can also walk into some shops. But with strong competition from the Wii, the Xbox and the PS, parents probably prefer to buy their kids games for their consoles rather than the pc they should be doing their homework on.
Personally, I spent a fair amount of time playing Puzzle Quest and Icewind Dale 1 just a few months ago. And I also played Knights of the Old Republic 2, a game that's got me really worked up over the proposed MMO from Bioware.
And just the other day, I re-discovered Ascendancy via Dosbox...
MMOs are social experiences. Solo games can be every bit as good as MMOS game-wise, and in some cases a lot better, but there is one problem with any solo game, and that is you are playing alone.
I've played hundreds of games, most of them solo, but no matter how good they were, they lacked the excitement of playing with or against other people.
Take for example a game called Phantasy Star Online that was on the Dreamcast originally.
I played the game off-line in solo mode, and I found it incredibly repetitive and I was bored after about an hour.
I then went on-line to play it, and wow! what a difference.
I was playing the same game, but this time with other people, and suddenly I was hooked on it, so much so that I hardly played another game for the next 2 years.
Harvest Moon Online? I can't wait!
I think that this is part of the issue, too:
Why Buy?
PC gaming is just a different animal from the console beasties. Sometimes that's better (mouse control in an FPS), but lately, it's a liability.
Back in my EQ days I kept buying the games, just never played them. When I was packing up to move out of my house I found quite a number of games still in their shrink wrap. Though my problem isn't just PC games, at the time I was also buying Game Cube, PS2 and XBox games. I don't have that part of the problem anymore as the whole region locking thing means I don't have a Wii, PS3 or XBox 360.
Now, however, I'm just like you and not buying PC games at all. I've actually stopped playing WoW because too much time working plus I had started playing with friends from work on a new sever and I just got burnt out on leveling up again. But now it looks like I can transfer my level 70's from my original PVE server to the PVP server they play on. I'll wait till I go back to Perth though because ping times from Brazil are around 4000.
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