PC gamer market in 'tatters', says Molyneux
Reckons 3 Spore activations is 'OK', but understands gamers being very upset.
The PC gamer market is in "tatters", PC gaming legend Peter Molyneux has said.
Speaking in a wide ranging interview with VideoGamer.com, the second part of which is due to be published tomorrow, the Lionhead boss said that apart from "high points" like Crysis and certain Blizzard titles, gamers are restricted to The Sims and World of Warcraft.
He said: "If you look at the gamer market on PC, I'll be quite honest with you, it's in tatters. There aren't that many releases on PC. There are some high points like Crysis and what Blizzard is doing, but other than that you are restricted to The Sims and World of Warcraft, they seem to be dominating the PC side."
Molyneux was speaking on the subject of restrictions put in place in recent high profile PC games, like Spore, that limit the number of PCs the title can be authorised on. Currently EA has set that limit to three, although it has announced it intends to increase that amount in the future.
Molyneux, mastermind of upcoming Xbox 360 exclusive RPG Fable II, said that he understood EA's position, but personally "hates" any form of copy protection.
"I would say while me as a player hates any restrictions, I can understand that publishers need to do something to give them the confidence to make games for the PC, to spend the huge amounts of money necessary to spend on development and to get their return," he said. "Anything that may give them more confidence on the PC means that ultimately we as gamers will come out better off because they will invest more in the game.
"I don't think three (Spore PC authorisations per game) sounds that bad. I'd prefer it not to be there but if it is going to be there then I think three is OK, but I can understand people being very upset. Personally I hate any copy protection. I hate typing in that number. I loathe it as a gamer. It just makes me feel insulted. And I always lose the blasted manual anyway. So if we can get away from that password protected side which is a waste of time then that would be great."
You can check out the first part of our mammoth interview with Peter Molyneux right here. Be sure to check the site tomorrow for the second part.
User Comments
Woffls
I wrote about it here
The way around it...
1) Drop ALL DRM entirely OR implement GFW distribution platform. Valve managed it 4 years ago.
2) Make the retail versions worth buying - art books, maps, keyrings and more cool stuff. Charge more for it, the games are still cheaper than console games at £30.
dreamhunk
pc gaming is dead! pc gaming is in tatters!!!! pc gaming has drm loss sales! game devs like ubisoft, lucas arts,epic games and others treating pc gamers like garbage, loss of pc games sales. Lack of high qauility games for pc gamers loss of sales.
people take a good look at ubisoft sales and EA's
ubisoft still made about of money off of pc gamers and they treat us like garbage!!!! I am sure they would have done better like EA did with pc gamers! add DRM bite on that too! I am sure EA could have made more money!
any way i have no respect for ubisoft!
thomas
dreamhunk
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/...cle4557935.ece
dreamhunk
inde game devs are starting to fill in and take over where old big game devs use to be dominate. In fact smaller companies are putting the bigger companies to shame on the pc. Like for exmaple crysis, project offset and sins of the solar empire.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkoi6WCCJHY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBPeg...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ko1a73VG1U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CD-mJMB7Lw
new companies have taken the place of older game devs as well!
dreamhunk
http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2008/...ng-pc-gaming/1
this can clearly be seen by intels project offset
dreamhunk
Silent Cypher
dreamhunk
http://kotaku.com/5044010/capcom-exp...-participation
its just that pc gets pick on by big companies.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Weeke...cy-91313.shtml
http://www.edge-online.com/news/acti...ged-cod-pirate
here are links to prove it.
If you look pc gaming has the must games made for it
http://adrianwerner.wordpress.com/games-of-2008/
It's just that must game devs go multi plat because of cost. If any thing it's console gaming that might be in trouble just take a good listen from the info from this link.
http://gametopius.com/index.php/vide...console-market
E3 was pretty much dead this because of pc gaming. if pc gaming ever died the gaming it self would die. There is more big companies that support pcgaming than console gaming. If any thing hardware companies would turn on console. they don't make moeny on old pc.
http://www.pcgamingalliance.org/en/index.asp
CG T
What I miss is the amount of inovation we used to see on the PC. You bought a gaming pc before, because you knew that you would be playing games that you never played before. You would be able to play games that required thought, rather than console ports developed for people with IQ's of 80.
Hopefully some of the big companies releasing sequel after sequel will leave the pc market and this will open up some space for new up and coming companies that will release titles which actually have some innovation and interesting game play.
CharmngCharlie
Iain_McC
The PC market isn't in tatters, it's evolving in a way that's very different to the past model that's been prevalent for the last 10 or 15 years. You've got the EA, big-budget, DRM camp who want to shovel out two dozen huge blockbuster titles each year in the retail sector, and the DRM-free indie camp who are using digital distribution models like Steam and Impulse to ship titles with minimal (or no) DRM direct to their customers. Molyneux has trapped himself in with the big business DRM camp, since he decided to take Microsoft's dollar and I don't think he actually understands the divergence in the market.
Still, I think he'll get the chance to when Fable II tanks in the charts, MS cut his studio loose and he has to rework Populous II for release on Steam so that he can afford to eat... What? Me, cynical? Never!