Epic thinks that PC Gaming is “different”, “not in trouble”

We’ve seen major advances in technology concerning PCs in recent years, but the concept of PC exclusive gaming seems to be quickly fading into the books of gaming history. Does this mean that PC gaming is finally ready to kick the bucket? Not according to Epic Games European head Mike Gamble, who thinks that PC gaming isn’t just due for a digital renaissance, but that one has already occurred before our eyes.

“There’s a massively thriving community of hardcore gamers on the PC still, the way they get their games is different where it’s nearly all online delivery, so you’ve got the likes of Paradox, who do a variety of niche content but it’s all massively hardcore and serves that audience. You’ve got the World of Tanks guys who have something like a million concurrent users or something stupid like that.”

“That is not a platform that is in trouble. It’s just different, it’s changed.”

While Gamble wasn’t too keen on the idea of PC Exclusive games at the moment, he didn’t rule out the possibility entirely. Although publishers and developers are more in favour of console audiences right now because of the existing user base, Gamble thinks that the PC will eventually emerge as a viable contender again.

“It happens every so often, we’ve been having the same talks since Windows 95. It goes up and down, the consoles are here and the PC is in the trough, then the PCs are here and consoles are down there. That’s how the performance works, just the fact that delivery has changed on PC, that it’s not trackable as it once was, it’s not the retail, it doesn’t mean it’s gone.”

Having recently presented a tech demo by the name of Samaritan, Gamble confirmed that it was designed using current hardware, and was meant to show console developers what gaming could look like if it was really pushed to extreme levels.

“The real point to take away is that it wasn’t built using a special toolset, it was built with what is now in the marketplace. The only thing about it was the hardware it ran on was a very expensive PC.”

“But even so you could go out today, buy all of those components, build that PC and have that capability. You’ll have no content to run on it but you have the capability. So there’s no trickery, it’s not like we created some hyper-tool or whatever you want to call it. It’s what we can do.”

So whether its cutesy games such as Angry Birds or resource hungry first-person shooters, it looks like the PC is still going to be a gaming platform with an edge over its console rivals, despite a diminished presence. But who knows how long it will be before we see a predicted surge in popularity again for the venerable gaming device.

Source: VG247

Last Updated: August 4, 2011