PC Games, RIP?

A bristly rebuttal from Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley on Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney's prediction of the PC-game market demise got me thinking; just what will the next 5 years hold for gaming? Clearly, the numbers are heavily stacked in the console's favor. 2007 figures from NPD put PC software at only 10% of the $9.6 billion in total video game software sales, highlighting a continual trend in favor of consoles over the past few years.

The question isn't really why anymore, that's been done, and basically comes down to four factors; consoles are cheaper, easier to use, the best platform for the most popular genres (sports, action and shooters) and as of recently, have powerful online capabilities. The question now is what. What will the future of PC gaming look like, and what if anything can be done to protect the market?

The answer to that is probably another question - what can a PC do better than a console?

Subscriptions and Casual Gaming
As Smedley pointed out in his Gamasutra interview, a lot of transactions are not being measured by the industry-standard NPD numbers (though they're working on it), which rely on retail sales for their figures. Recurring subscription revenue for the massively popular World of Warcraft alone rakes in $15 million a month, given their January milestone of 10 million players and a monthly subscription cost of $15. And while lacking the sex, pop and sizzle of their more elaborate cousins, casual games may be the hottest segment of the industry, bringing in $2.25 billion in 2007, growing at a 20% yearly clip and attracting the attention of major players like Microsoft, RealNetworks and Electronic Arts.

Consoles will have difficulty adopting subscription models. MMO's, the genre most suited for subscription fees, do not fair well on consoles. The X360 already charges for online service to begin with (at an improving, but low attach rate), and many gamers have balked at the similar but less intrusive model of microtransactions.

Even less likely is the adoption of a robust casual game market on the consoles. Casual games enjoy a strong percentage of female gamers, consoles do not. Casual games are far more successful when based on an ad-supported model, consoles rely on transaction. And perhaps most of all, it's convenient to play Bejeweled online for 15 minutes when avoiding work at the office or sharing a latte with your laptop at Starbucks; booting up your console and waiting for your plasma screen to warm up is not.

Complex Genres
Baring the sudden shipment of a keyboard and mouse with every new Xbox, certain games will always be better suited for a computer. Massive Multiplayers, Strategy and certain Role Playing games just fit better with the ergonomics of PC gaming. Intricate command functions, the need to type and the ease of a mouse just work for certain genres. There is also a positive intangible element to PC gaming, namely, it caters to an up-class market with brains. Console games can be seen as spastic, pubescent and simple. PC games come with 75 page manuals. It's a branding opportunity that could pay dividends in the exploding in-game advertising market and an (albeit difficult) chance for a rebirth of previously popular, but recently underappreciated genres like Adventure.

Mods and Indie Gaming
Mods are basically the video gaming equivalent of user-generated content. Gamers use developer created software to recreate, adjust or otherwise modify an existing game. They've been a staple of just about all the biggest PC games in the last two decades including Starcraft, Unreal Tournament, The Sims and Neverwinter Nights. They're popular within certain circles, but could use some TLC from the industry. I'd take mods in two directions, on one hand make things a lot simpler and on the other make things a lot more powerful. A dumbed down version that just about anybody can use would up the ante in terms of what's being put out there and harness the buzz that UGC creates. A very powerful version could be offered to the semi-pro or serious hobbyist for a fee, and their creations could be jointly monetized.

Independent gaming is another young, untapped opportunity. There is no shortage of games out there, loads of conferences and festivals and the web provides a pretty ideal distribution platform, so what gives? Nobody has broken the threshold to get their game noticed over the multi-million marketing campaigns undertook by giants like Vivendi and EA. Basically, what we need is the Quentin Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh of indie gaming to emerge.

Microsoft might have an in here with XNA. For $99 a year developers get the tools needed to produce games for Windows and the Xbox 360. Unfortunately, in order to share XNA created games with others, the end user must also pay the $99 yearly fee - basically undermining all of its potential. The FAQ page does state "we are actively working on other ways to allow you to more easily distribute your games and are very excited about the possibilities this will open up for independent game development.