Bitter McRant-Pants #3

Liam explores why Mark Rein is killing PC gaming.

It’s summer in the Northern Hemisphere. I’d like to think the reason there is a metaphorical gaming ‘drought’ is because everyone is outside enjoying the sunshine. Unfortunately, I grudgingly accept that it’s because it’s currently about as far away from Christmas as you can get, and publishers would rather wait and have their title lost in a sea of tat than take advantage of the lack of titles. Talk about a lack of common sense.

But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything to rant about. Oh no; and speaking of common sense, how about that Mark Rein, eh? In case you don’t know who Mark Rein is, he’s a Vice President of Epic (of Unreal fame), and is also the fool that said that the Wii is destined to have nothing but gimmicky drivel. And at a recent conference, he just stated this new gem: “Intel is killing PC gaming.”

His logic, if you can call it that, is that Intel designs integrated graphics chipsets, favourites for low-end laptops and desktop computers. You see, said chipsets cannot run a majority of the new release games at even minimal settings, simply because they are not able to perform fancy effects like pixel shading.

However, Mark needs to realise one thing: integrated chipsets aren’t killing PC gaming; people like him are.
Now, that’s a bold claim. But hear me out. The first thing you have to realise is that having integrated graphics doesn’t stop you from having a purpose-built graphics card. Indeed, on-board graphics can provide great back-up in case your graphics card malfunctions.

And if someone isn’t putting a graphics card in their computer, the chances are that they’re not a hardcore PC gamer anyway. PCs can do many things they couldn’t do in the ‘Golden Age’ of PC gaming: mainly multimedia functions like music and video. And with the widespread adoption of the Internet, the chances are that if you purchase a computer today, you might just want to surf the net, type a few essays or letters, send some e-mail, sync some MP3s to your iPod, and maybe play Bejewelled. It’s a far cry from what you could do with a C64, but anything more than integrated graphics is overkill.

But even if the average user wanted to play PC games, the chances are they would be turned off by the cost of high-end PC gaming. The average price of a 7800 GT graphics card is about $700. That’s practically the price of an Xbox 360, and the GT is just a graphics card; you’d also need a computer to put it in. It’s no wonder that (when they’re working) the ‘PC in a corset’ is a popular choice for those wanting a taste of PC gaming.

And the reason that high-end gaming is so expensive is because PC developers are obsessed with technology and eye-candy. Peter Molyneux once stated that he doesn’t worry about technology; he just makes the best game he can possibly make and by the time it’s released the technology is there to support it. That’s a dangerous attitude to have.

And that’s because developers should be focusing on developing solid gameplay coupled with artistic graphics for a standard set of requirements, rather that trying to continually push the graphical boundary. Remember all the fuss about Doom 3? Too bad the game turned out to be ass. What about all the fuss about Crysis? Everyone’s wetting themselves over photorealistic foliage, but nobody is talking about how the game plays or if it’s any fun. Everyone is failing to realise that we’re paying through the nose to play the same bloody game with shinier graphics.

Well, not everyone, because otherwise Mark Rein wouldn’t be talking about how PC gaming is dying, right? But let’s look further into why Rein is a tool. Let’s look at one of the best selling PC games in years: World of Warcraft. While Rein’s part of a company that is making an engine that needs everything but the kitchen sink, Blizzard realised that limiting their audience would reduce potential profit. Hence, WoW can more or less run on a toaster.

Sure, I need to crank down the graphical settings to 16-bit colour with minimal draw distance, but the game still looks amazing. Why? Because they’ve actually put some effort into the artistic direction. Unlike something like, I dunno, Epic’s Gears of War, which looks about as bland and generic as they come. And Blizzard is making more money off WoW than Epic will ever make off a single game.

But hey, your game doesn’t even need to push polygons to look good or be fun to play. Three of the recent highest-rated games here at NZGamer have been 2D titles, and two of them are independent titles that will run on, gasp, integrated graphics chipsets. These games rated highly because they were original and fun to play but also had a fantastic art design with a great sense of style. Something I can’t say about the next Unreal game.

In the days of the Commodore 64 and the Amiga, most people would play games on their machines, simply because you couldn’t do a hell of a lot else on them. But gaming on those machines wasn’t a chore because, for the most part, you could guarantee that if a game was for your system, it would work. Sure, there were a few issues with games needing Kickstart 1.3 rather than 2.0, but they were few and far between. Unlike PC gaming today, where you constantly need to check the bottom of the box to make sure your system is up to scratch. 2-gigs of RAM for F.E.A.R.? Guess I won’t be buying it then.

PC gaming is dying because tools like Rein have been dragging it down ever since the introduction of the maths coprocessor. But here’s an idea for you, Rein: how about you create a game that would run on those graphics chipsets? I mean, after all, you talked about Epic nostalgia by displaying such titles as Jill of the Jungle, but I don’t remember needing a state of the art computer to run that; no, it ran fine on my 386.

Of course, it’s obvious that a man who is so dismissive of the Wii controller must believe that the key to success is to try and disguise a mediocre game with fancy graphical effects. Unfortunately, most people realise it’s not worth paying to play said pretty-but-mediocre-and-generally-forgettable games.

You just keep telling yourself that Intel is killing PC gaming, Rein. Hell, blame anyone you want, as long as you don’t need to look into the mirror, right?