"But if you're a long-time PC gamer, you may be a bit apprehensive about your hobby. Who's going to deliver the next Master of Magic? Will we ever see another game as great as X-COM? Although some games aimed at the hardcore PC game market are in development � Dreamlands, Master of Orion 3 � it's hard to not be a bit fearful that these may be the last games like this we'll see, and in a few years we'll be limited to ports of console games, first-person shooters, and real-time strategy lookalikes on the PC."

Comments on the interview?

Dreamland Chronicles. 'nuff said.

I'm frankly surprised that Tim Brooks from Shrapnel Games was not part of this panel interview.

This is a serious omission, as shrapnel has been more prolific than any other direct sales publisher, though maybe not as widely successful as battlfront.com. Mr. Brooks has also been one of the most outspoken and longest running advocates of online sales. His absence from your article disappointing. Otherwise the article was excellent!!


As far as trying to pigeonhole future trends or rutts of the industry, that can be dangerous. As various genres have a tendency to cycle in popularity; i.e. FPS to strategy on to RPG and now hybrids titles are popular.

Also the disappointing showing of PS2 this year (limited title releases, some say the result of restrictive and problematic platform tools and new prohibitive profit margins cuts for Sony has dried up potential developers for the platform) has made predictions of the PC's eventual demise less certain. Though it certainly looks like the industry has embraced console systems, if last years E3 was any indication!! :)

I read somewhere the PC gaming will always be around as long as PCs are around, which I agree with. I'm just worried that the cool, big budget games (which often turn out to be drek) will end up being done almost exclusively on the console.

Obviously FPS and RTS games are somewhat immune to the lure of the console since they play better with mouse and keyboard, but I'm worried about other genres.

Another good candidate for the interview would have been Blue Byte, since they are selling exclusively direct now, and doing so with a significant marketing budget still.

duh

Very good interview! I enjoyed it thoroughly!

I don't think we are in danger of only having the
cool games being created for consoles only. While
I understand that it is easier to build games for
consoles in some respects, because you do not have
to worry about drivers and such, I think the PC is
too entrenched to become a "3rd world country" in
gaming land.

And with the X-Box right around the corner,
developing PC and console games simultaneously
might be closer than people think. It will be
interesting to see how that pans out.

I see direct marketing being important to the
future of gaming, and software in particular, but
only if Internet Connection speeds increase.
Right now, the best speed I can get in my area is
56K, and there is no way I am going to download a
400MB CD Image at that speed.

;)

Mickey

"I see direct marketing being important to the
future of gaming, and software in particular, but
only if Internet Connection speeds increase.
Right now, the best speed I can get in my area is
56K, and there is no way I am going to download a
400MB CD Image at that speed."

Yep, and 400 megs is starting to be on the small side for games.

Still, you can take orders over the Internet and ship the next day. I'm guessing that a lot of small companies will be happy with that.

Great interview... of course, the people making profit now won't sit idly by while their near-monopoly slips away. I think the best thing that could happen to games right now is for alternative and independent distribution channels to open. This is something that can, should, and will be done.

Those who think it cannot be done have, unfortunately, had their systems infected with a virus. The virus is called 'Corporate.Inevitibility' and causes the user's system to think that there is only the Microsoft way. It's an easy virus to fight, though -- just purge your cache of all the glossy ads and marketing hype, and you'll be back on track.

Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it. The direct sales route is great for small developers. It allows them to make a decent profit on a small number of sales. Jeff Vogel, another guy I could have interviewed, makes six figures doing his RPG shareware series. He's the extreme small end, though, as he's a one-person shop and his games look years behind the curve graphically.

Has anyone tried the new streaming demos? These stream onto your computer in ready-to-play form (no install necessary). I don't know if streaming is accurate in this case since you can't play, say, 30% of the game while the other 70% is downloading. :)

You pretty much have to have a high speed connect to use them though. I was hoping one of the news sites would try it out and see how it is.

Description's here:
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/010116/ca_stream_.html

Alas, my attempt to get DSL was futile, and no cable net's available in my area yet.

Definitely a solution in search of a problem when it comes to broadband. On my cable modem, I usually see 150-200 kilobytes a second when I'm downloading from the big demo sites (fileplanet, et al.). That's about 10 minutes for a 100MB demo. Sometimes it may be as low as 30-50 KB/s, but that's still only half an hour or so. If there is a new demo I want, I just download it in the background while I surf.

It will be interesting to see if they can really make it work, too. I hate streaming video because there are inevitably slowdowns and hangs that screw up the stream. That bugs me enough on video feeds, but it would be ten times more irritating in a game demo.

AFIK, you don't play the demo while it streams. It spools onto your computer in ready to play form. But, like I said, I can't test it out. :)

In my bandwidth challenged suburb (maximum 28.8k telephone exchange, no cable now or for a long time) I can only shake my head. Great idea but there aren't many people with fast connections here.

"In my bandwidth challenged suburb (maximum 28.8k telephone exchange"

Ouch! Do you live in Bedrock or something? :)

I guess LAN parties are the way to go for multiplayer in your neck of the woods.

Actually I live in a fairly new (5 yo) modern suburb with underground electricity cabling etc. The current situation is due to the shortsightedness of our national phone carrier - Telstra - to provide enough lines through the local exchange.

Therefore two households have to share the same macrolink at the local telephone exchange. Because of this sharing the lines won't support anything higher than 28.8kbps.

I guess this is what you get when you live in a country where one Australian dollar only gets you US 48 cents. :-(

In my bandwidth challenged suburb (maximum 28.8k telephone exchange, no cable now or for a long time

Yeow, if it were me, I would invest in some satallite gear. Don't know much about it, other than it's a bandwidth alternative in places where there are no solutions. In my part of the world (USA, Pacific NW), you just need an unobstructed view of the southern sky. I believe one of the gothas is that high speed access is only for downloads. To upload, you may have to continue on with 28.8 dialup. That's the other downside, it's sort of a Rube Goldberg contraption of chutes and marbles because you've got two connections: one DUN for uploads; and a high speed WAN connection that uses the satallite service.

probably way more than you wanted to know about htis, but what the heck.. ;)

Yeah Tim I did explore that option but it is just way too expensive. I am looking at least AUD$100 a month and that is even before bandwidth costs are factored in.

Typical. Anytime "they" know they got ya between a rock and a hard spot, they never let you get off cheap.