PC Gaming

Hi, my name is Peter Chapman and I’m a PC gamer. It feels good to get that off my chest, to share with the group. You see, PC gamers are a special breed. You think console gamers are poorly thought of in the mainstream press? Console gamers are only accused of being borderline psychopaths with poor social skills. PC gamers are the real freaks.

If I told you to think of a console gamer you’d probably arrive at the mental image of a male in his late teens or early twenties. He’d be playing FIFA or Madden, Halo or Call of Duty. He’d be in his living room with his big flat screen HD television. There might be a group of them on a sofa. Perhaps there’s even a female present. You might even have pictured a brightly lit room reminiscent of those staged “lifestyle” adverts that all three console manufacturers are so fond of. These are the general stereotypes of a console gamer (at least outside of the ignorant mainstream press).

Now picture a PC gamer. It’s dark isn’t it? They’re still male, perhaps slightly older and certainly less outgoing. Your mental image of a PC gamer probably involves a smaller room, lit only by the glow of an LCD panel. There might be pizza boxes and soda cans around the scene, probably circuit boards and little fans and bits of wires. A PC gamer doesn’t play the big sports games. They’re not even synonymous with the big first person shooters the way they used to be. A PC gamer plays MMOs. Alone, save for the staccato chatter through his headset.

Of course, I’m generalising massively and I’m exaggerating for dramatic effect but there is a disparity in image between the two methods of playing games and PC gamers have become marginalised in recent years. But you cool kids with your approachable consoles, on your big screen TVs, in your brightly lit rooms, with your surround sound are missing out. There are certain types of game that your consoles simply can’t do properly.

My PC can do statistics. I play Football Manager every year. SiGames have just announced the 2011 iteration and I’m really looking forward to it. You can have conversations with the players you’re trying to sign, it’s hard to describe how excited I am about that simple implementation without drawing blank stares. The whole package looks to have been given another coat of polish and usability improvements. Underneath the yearly improvements to the user interface and the growing friendliness of Football Manager, though, there are numbers.

Most games keep these numbers hidden, Football Manager is proud of them. What FIFA gives you in a few columns of player stats, Football Manager gives you in dozens of statistics. For thousands of players, coaches, physios and clubs. Measured on a scale of 1-20 and set against hidden scales to account for current and future ability (among others), these numbers are the difference between a wonderkid and pub-league hoofer. Football Manager can’t be done on a console.

Sure, there was a version (in 2006) on the Xbox 360 which sold reasonably well and was fairly well-received. They didn’t release the next iteration because, by their own admission, it wasn’t up to scratch. The PSP versions (Football Manager Handheld) are moderately popular but they’re not the same and they’re not anywhere near as good. The iPhone version is approachable but it feels very lightweight. It doesn’t have the same scale of data, it doesn’t have the numbers. To play Football Manager, you need to play it on PC.

What about MMOs? They’re making repeated attempts to bring those to consoles with the upcoming Final Fantasy XIV, DC Universe and oft-delayed Free Realms but the jury is still out. Sure, Final Fantasy XI and Phantasy Star Online have their fans and some solid sales figures but compare that to World of Warcraft and let’s see what popular really means. WoW had eleven and a half million subscribers at one point, all paying between thirteen and fifteen dollars a month. That’s a serious income and a huge fan base.

Blizzard, the creators of the Warcraft universe are, perhaps, the heroes of PC gaming. Not content with making more money than can be easily imagined from WoW subscriptions, they’ve made the best selling PC game of the year too. Starcraft II is a shining example of another genre of game which just doesn’t work (at least not yet) on consoles.

Real Time Strategy needs a keyboard and mouse. You might argue, you might think that the quality of Supreme Commander 2 and the popularity of Halo Wars indicate that RTS can be done on consoles. They are barely the same genre in comparison to Starcraft II. Yes, Supreme Commander 2 did have streamlined controls that made it a pleasure to play with a console controller. The base-building aspect was dialled down sufficiently that the slowness of control wasn’t an issue. It was pretty good. It wasn’t in the same league as Starcraft II.

Halo Wars, then, was popular. It sold really well and it has a number of zealous fans. The emphasis on “hero units” meant that you didn’t need to focus so much on base building, tech trees or rushing your opponent. Halo Wars was simply an average RTS, with reasonably well-implemented controls, set in a familiar and interesting universe. It wasn’t a great game and, measured against others of its genre (on PC), it was completely inadequate.

Starcraft II is the pure distillation of a genre which is only possible on PC. Only without the need for chunky, SD-friendly hud overlays and pared-down control systems can this genre really flourish. The keyboard is essential for offering adequate speed of selection and control to make the margins of winning or losing so well balanced and fine-tuned. The freedom of motion offered by a good PC mouse is like a breath of fresh air when measured against the very best that the analogue stick has to offer. This is only possible, or at least only ever made possible, with a PC.

So PC gamers might have an even worse stereotypical image than console gamers. PC gamers might have to constantly be thinking of their hardware upgrades (although it’s not really as expensive as you would like to think). We might have to sit on less comfortable seats and tinker with sliding scales to get the best performance out of a game. But it is, generally, the best.

Setting aside the potential for immense graphical superiority that a PC offers, and the superiority that a keyboard and mouse still maintains over an analogue stick for certain tasks (although the FPS argument is quickly becoming irrelevant) some game experiences are only available on PC. Whether we see that gap narrow over the next few years will be an interesting movement to observe.

For now though, games like Starcraft II mean that if you don’t play games on a PC you’re missing out on a defining moment in gaming. That may sound like hyperbole but the qualities in Starcraft II are far beyond just being a good game on its platform.

Starcraft II isn’t only one of the best PC games of recent years. It’s not just one of the best examples of a real time strategy game. It is one of the best games available and the subtlety it demonstrates with guidance, exposition and pacing as well as how exquisitely well-balanced the mission structure is should serve as an example. Not just to PC games or RTS games but to anybody making any kind of game for any platform. Without a PC I would have missed out on that. Are you?