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PC Gaming = Windows Gaming, Right?

Blog written by Gamers_Block on July 8, 2007 at 08:17 PM | 1 Comment

I'm no Mac hater, and I'm certainly no Windows lover, but it cannot be denied that for sheer "fun" factor, the PC market has walked all over the Mac market. Gaming on a home computer has meant PCs running Windows, and that's it. It's been a purely financial choice -- to get the game out to the OS with the biggest distribution you spread the seeds on the largest tract of fertile ground.

The problem is, other markets exist and are woefully underdeveloped. Case in point: two of the biggest games in history are cross-platform, namely Neverwinter Nights and World of Warcraft. Neverwinter is a total aberration with versions that run natively under both Mac and Linux platforms, while WoW shipped with both a Mac and PC client and thanks to a lightweight graphics engine, is quite simple to get running under Linux. Both of these games allow cross-platform multiplayer, which means it doesn't matter what OS your friend is running, you can meet in the common ground of the game. It's a multicultural approach, and works exceptionally well.

The problem now is the market is shifting at user-level, but not at developer-level. Macs are gaining ground thanks to the Cult of iPod, and Linux is capturing more of a market than ever before thanks to new slick distros like Ubuntu. Is the gaming market responding to these growing sectors? Nope. What is the market leaning towards?

The painted whore known as DirectX 10.

Let's understand something: Yes, Dx10 makes things pretty. And that's it. It won't make better games. Your surface shaders will take your breath away, but you'll still have the mechanics of Generic Shooter #236 under the hood. What price do we pay for this monolith of an engine? You'll need either an Xbox360 or a PC running Vista. And there's the rub. Dx10 is Microsoft's way of force-feeding the most unwanted OS since WindowsME down the gaming public's gullet.

In the meantime the growing markets of Mac and Linux gaming will go largely ignored, which is insanity from any financial point of view. What needs to happen is some small upstart rebel game company should start making cross-platform games in OpenGL with native clients out of the box. All they'll need is one major hit, and the big boys will be forced to sit up and take notice. Let's hope some studio has the courage to do it.

Multiple platform gaming is just one of the factors that contributed to the success of Neverwinter and WoW, but it cannot be denied that it had an impact. Surely some marketing board somewhere is looking at the numbers and seeing this emerging market and has the wherewithal to start feeding that beast so it grows up nice & strong.

Remember developers: Mac and Linux users have money too.