Good for them. That’s a significant number considering they did not use any copy protection schemes like many of the other developers have been implementing recently. I actually haven’t bought this game yet, but it has gotten such good reviews, I think I might have to.
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Three pretty cool new developments I’d like to share with you:
Instant Action has done a great job creating free, browser-based games. Not the 2 dimensional Flash games you’re used to seeing online, but genuine 3D games that are on par (graphically) with PC games released a few years ago. Yeah, it’s no Crysis, but definitely worth checking out, and if they continue to develop this idea, we might be on the doorstep of a new gaming revolution.
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Hey, anyone out there wanna get payed to play games? And not crappy games either. I’m talking CoD4, WOW, TF2, etc. Well JACT is doing that right now. The catch is that they pay you in JACT BUX, which can be used to buy things from the JACT MALL. Not to worry though, the JACT MALL is filled with plenty of good stuff like video games, pc components, and much more. How can they afford to do this you ask? “JACT service is funded through its initial investors and traditional site-based advertisements as well as a new, innovative product placement method in the JACT Mall”.
Apparently, the Geforce 8-series GPUs came with special physics processing abilities called PhysX that I (and many others) were unaware of. Fortunately, drivers have now been released that can take advantage of this new technology and they are available for download here. Even more exciting is that Nvidia is also distributing (for free) a bundle of games, demos, and other media that showcase the new PhysX technology.
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On August 19 of this year at the GC Developer’s Conference in Leipzig, Germany, Randy Stude of the PC Gaming Alliance will be giving a presentation outlining the challenges facing PC gaming and the steps being taken to counter them. Among the topics presented will be the possibility of having a standardized set of minimum system requirements for PC games. If you’ve been waiting for the big event that would greatly impact the future of PC Gaming…this could be it.
“PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to drive worldwide growth of PC gaming.” Their members include Microsoft, Intel, AMD, .Nvidia, Activision, Antec, Dell, Epic Games, and Acer.
Grand Theft Auto IV will be released for the PC on November 18th in the U.S. and on November 21st in Europe. Many are complaining about the 7 month delay between the console and PC release dates, and although it does bother me, lets not forget that many games don’t even make it to the PC at all. So let’s concentrate our rage on that issue……for now.
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Expect this game to be a real hardware hog. I’m guessing it will surpass Crysis as Sys Req king (unless someone else does it first). Even more important to us is that the pc version of the game will “support significant visual improvements over the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions” according to an article in Wired Magazine. So yeah, I just want to say a big thank-you to our friends over at id software.
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I seem to remember a rosy, uplifting speech from John Schappert (the VP of Microsoft Live) about a month ago that spoke of great “opportunities and growth” with regards to Microsoft’s involvement in the PC Gaming industry. I personally believed him. After all, their “Games for Windows” slogan is plastered on many of the computer games in my apartment, a slogan which does not cost game publishers one cent. And keep in mind that the Windows-based PC is still the largest gaming platform in the world.
So I have to ask: Why is Microsoft’s “Fable 2″ being released in October of this year as a XBOX360 exclusive? The original Fable was very popular among PC gamers and I see no logical reasoning behind excluding the PC market. How can you make a great game for the PC, and then make its sequel exclusive to a different platform? AND THEN CLAIM THAT YOU ARE “INCREASING YOUR FOCUS ON INVESTMENT IN WINDOWS GAMING”. Are you really that dumb? The normal reasoning behind making a console game exclusive is to encourage a boost in hardware sales, but Microsoft shouldn’t be competing with the PC market, THEIR NAME IS PRACTICALLY SYNONYMOUS WITH IT.
I have a suggestion for you, Microsoft. Either stand behind your word and be TRULY dedicated to PC gaming, or put a tighter leash on your Vice-Presidents, who obviously don’t know the direction that the company is taking.
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Sadly, Gears of War not very impressive at all on the PC….Well, at least they tried. You can read the reasons for this here.
This is a question with huge implications for our Industry. Just think of how many console gamers would be upgrading their computers to play these titles. It would be a major economic boost for us (and much needed).
I’ll say this: I will be very hurt if either of these games gets released with console versions. And I truly am sorry, console gamers, I genuinely don’t have any problem with you and I wish you could enjoy great games like Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 as well, but when we (PC gamers) are excluded from so many of your great titles, can we really be expected to share our big, anticipated titles?
In the world we live in, a world where each platform has it’s own exclusive titles to boost it’s own sales, exclusivity is the only guaranteed way to maintain a competitive edge. In many cases, great games sell the platform, and if our platform isn’t required to enjoy some of the more popular games out there (WOW comes to mind), then it will cease to exist.
Anyways, here’s what we know so far:
Quote from official Starcraft website in response to the Question “Will there be a console version of the game?” : “StarCraft II is being developed for the PC. We have no current plans to bring the game to any console platform”.
Diablo 3’s website contains no such promise. In an interview with Jay Wilson from Blizzard, he states that there are no current plans for console versions of the game, but from what I’ve read around the web, it looks like Blizzard is still keeping its options open. Keep your fingers crossed on this one.
We’re halfway through Gamefest 2008, and already Microsoft has revealed some excellent news for PC gaming.
Firstly, all games for Windows Live multiplayer are now free, something that used to require a GFW Live Gold account. I am definitely going to enjoy relaying this news to my xbox-playing friends. Is it fair?…NO! Am I absolutely thrilled that it’s not fair?…YES!
Secondly, details of DirectX11 were released that sound pretty cool. These details include new shader technology, utilization of video cards as parallel processors, better multiple processor support and the addition of a new feature that I’ve never heard of…tesselation, which apparently makes models look more realistic up close.
And Finally, it would appear the Microsoft is taking a strong, supportive position behind PC gaming, as is evidenced by Brian Leahy’s interview with Microsoft’s Kevin Unangst, who had some very nice and encouraging things to say about PC gaming.
