As the title would suggest, AndersonGaming.com is publishing a list of game development/publishing companies who have turned there backs on PC gaming. When the going got tough, these companies got going…either by giving up on PC game development altogether, not porting games to the PC, or by switching their focus from the PC to the console platform. These companies deserve a good shunning in my opinion.

Important information about the list:

1. The list begins with the worst of the bunch and ends with the least worst.

2. The list probably isn’t exhaustive since these are just the ones that I’ve noticed in the past month or so. I’ll need your help in tracking down the rest. (Leave Comments)

3. None of these companies are written-off by any means. They will be welcomed back to our good graces the moment they return to their “roots”.

From the mouth of the Ubisoft CEO himself: “it’s easy to pirate PC games. So what do we do? Well, it’s better not to invest a lot of money on that particular platform…we prefer to focus on platforms that maybe have less piracy and where more customers are actually paying for the content they consume…We greatly reduced the number of people working on PC games…” I am ashamed of Ubisoft. They made some of my favorite PC games (Battle Realms, Far Cry, Prince of Persia…) and now instead of standing behind their loyal fans and working on a solution to game piracy, they have turned their backs on us and fled to their comfortably unchallenging consoles. For shame, Ubisoft, for shame. ~shakes head in disappointment~

While reading this, remember that EPIC’s Unreal Engines have powered games like, Bioshock, Mass Effect, and Gears of War. Epic’s Cliff Bleszinski had this to say earlier this year: “I think the PC is just in disarray… what’s driving the PC right now is ‘Sims’-type games and ‘WOW’ and a lot of stuff that’s in a web-based interface. You just click on it and play it. That’s the direction PC is evolving into So for me, the PC is kind of the secondary part of what we’re doing.“  Of course I’m not at all happy with Cliff’s comments about our platform, but what shocks me even more is that EPIC Games is a member of the PC Gaming Alliance. Am I missing something here. Either Cliff is not very in-touch with his company’s mantra or EPIC has some serious explaining to do.

As you may have already read in my first-ever post, I am not very happy with LucasArts and their decision to NOT make a PC version of “The Force Unleashed” which is due to be released on September 16 of this year. Here’s what the producer of the game had to say: “the game is not coming to the PC because it was hard to develop a game that would satisfy both killer gaming rigs and outdated computers…PC being the gaming platform that it is, someone with a $4,000 high-end system would definitely be able to play the Euphoria, the DMM and really technical elements of the game. But someone with a low-end PC would have a watered down experience, they would have to turn all the settings down and it wouldn’t be the same game.” I’ve got some news for you LucasArts, your game wouldn’t TOUCH the capabilities of my ~$1500 PC. Furthermore, if performance is such an issue, why are you releasing ‘The Force Unleashed’ for the PS2, the Wii, the Nintendo DS, and the PSP — none of which are high performance platforms. My message to you: Unleash the Force for the PC and you will be off this list in less than a parsec.

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Crytek just barely made this list, and to be honest, they aren’t really doing anything horribly wrong. Here’s part of a quote from Crytek’s president, “We are suffering currently from the huge piracy that is encompassing Crysis…Similar games on consoles sell factors of 4-5 more. It was a big lesson for us, and I believe we won’t have PC exclusives as we did with Crysis in future.” It’s not like Crytek has abandoned the PC platform; after all, my mission isn’t to destroy console gaming, it’s to keep PC gaming running strong. However, that’s not what’s bothering me regarding Crytek. What bothers me is that they claim piracy has forced them into the console market, which makes it sound like if they had their choice, they’d still be making PC exclusive titles. Message to “CRY“tek (pun intended): if you want to make PC exclusive games, try spending less energy on whining and more energy on solving the piracy dilemma.

WHAT? HOW IS MICROSOFT ON THIS LIST? Yes I’ll admit, Microsoft should probably not be on the Benedict Arnold List of Game Development Companies. After all, their “Games for Windows” initiative has done much for our industry, and where would we be without their operating systems?…not fun to think about. However, Microsoft is sending us mixed messages. They are not releasing Fable 2 for the PC even though the original Fable was excellent and very popular on our platform. This makes me think that perhaps Microsoft doesn’t know PC gamers very well at all. Making a console exclusive game is one thing, but making a sequel whose predecessor was awesome on the PC only available on the XBOX360 is entirely another. One thing I hate more than anything is insincerity, and this reeks of it.

So there you have it, the Benedict Arnold List of Game Development Companies.