During GDC, Peter Molyneux — Lionhead Studios’ boss — gave some comments regarding the state of PC gaming. Stating that PC gaming is lacking innovation and in a tragic state, the comments seem to mirror similar thoughts Epic Games’ Cliff Bleszinski made last week.
Molyneux said, "I think it’s a huge tragedy. I mean, you might as well say PC gaming is World of Warcraft and The Sims… The weird thing is everyone’s got a PC, they’re just not buying software for it."
Molyneux also stated that while PC gaming innovation took a rebound with the release of a few popular casual games like Peggle, Puzzle Quest and Diner Dash recently, the market is back into repetition and a lack of innovation.
"The fascinating thing is when they first started, all these games came out like Peggle and Mystery Files and Alice Greensleeves and Diner Dash, and it felt quite exciting. There was a lot of innovation going on. Okay, there weren’t great graphics, but there was innovation.
"In my view, that has completely stopped. They’re doing the same game over and over again with a different wrapper. It’s like a mini-universe in itself which is emulating what’s happening in our industry."
I tend to disagree; I think the PC gaming market is easily accessible for innovative and little niche PC games, thanks to the internet and digital distribution. For example, the recently released independent Audiosurf is getting quite a bit of play from our forum members.
I’ll also easily point to other PC gaming companies such as Valve and Telltale Games who are definitely banking for their innovative products and services; also The Witcher, a debut PC RPG released by an Eastern European developer, sold over 600,000 copies, which boasted plenty of RPG innovation.
Molyneux is famous for overhyping and being over-enthusiastic for his games under development; the most famous example would be Fable. Maybe PC gaming enthusiasts will be more receptive towards supposed innovative games if companies stop being too ambitious over their PC games in the first place.
More people own consoles, that’s the truth, but PC gaming is definitely not dying and definitely not losing its innovation.
