PC's Near Death Experience

PC loyalists now have a reason to love Activision: it may have saved the computer as a gaming platform. Such a statement seems a little ridiculous, especially since Activision has lately been getting nothing but bad press, but allow me to explain exactly how such a thing is possible.

Activision

It's no secret that the PC platform has been in decline of late; more and more developers have been migrating towards consoles thanks to several different reasons; more standardized platform capabilities, Xbox Live Arcade/PSN actively sponsoring indie titles, as well as the simple fact that for consumers it is considerably cheaper to buy an Xbox 360, or even a Playstation 3, than it is to buy a tricked out gaming rig. Even PC mainstays like the Civilization series have been foraying into the realm of console gaming. Simply put, the computer is running low on extra lives.

In fact there is only one thing that the computer really has going for it: mods. The modding community has never really migrated to consoles, holding fast to its PC origins. Mods are truly the one last card that PC gaming holds in its hands.

And Bungie almost killed it.

Bungie

Halo: Reach's Forge World has been called by many a "love letter" to its fans. It is the ultimate map-making tool. Had more games adopted a system like Forge World, it would end the computer's reign as the king of community-mods. Additionally, the fact that Bungie is now moving to the mod-unfriendly Activision (just look at the Call of Duty series) means it is unlikely that anything like Forge World will be created again.

While it is true that earlier Halo games had Forge modes as well, they did not reach the level of versatility nor the ease of use present in Halo: Reach's Forge World. As it is, thanks to most publishers love of selling map-packs to captive audience for a tidy sum, it is unlikely that other developers will soon imitate Halo's Forge, and the consoles will remain untouched by user-created content for some time longer.

Halo Forgeworld

Had Bungie made more games with Forge World type utilties, the PC platform would likely not be able to withstand for much longer as there would be virtually no incentive for developers to make games for it. So PC gamers, next time you start up your computer to play Starcraft or Team Fortress 2, a thank you note to Activision may be in order.

Kotick

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Rob Savillo

September 30, 2010

I think you undersell PC gaming considerably. Modding is a big part of what makes playing on the platform unique from consoles, but map making is certainly not the extent what you can do on a PC. Civilization 4, for example, has the Fall from Heaven mod, which radically alters the core rules of the game and overhauls much of the graphics.

Fans have updated X-Com: UFO Defense with dozens of mods that keep the 16-year-old game running on modern hardware and OS environments, as well as add in better user interfaces. They've even added multiplayer functionality to an originally single-player-only game using private servers -- something that would be impossible for Halo's Forge World to accomplish.

But like I said, you underestimate other strengths of PC gaming -- many of us prefer mouse controls for shooters, and you can't use mice on a console (except for UT3 on PS3). And not just indie developers, but niche genres, can find a home on PC with considerably less overhead than on consoles. I'd wager that you'd never see a part-time programmer build a game in his spare time and then become a full-fledged developer with a team on anything but a PC. And that's exactly what happened with Minecraft. You'd never see something like that on a console.

Bungie and Activision aside, the fact that the PC is the one and only open gaming platform is the reason it'll always be around. No gatekeepers monitor PC development -- anyone can do whatever they have the means to do on the system.