How To Make PC Gaming Better 337
New submitter RMingin writes "Bruno Ferreira at Tech Report has a number of suggestions that he feels could improve PC gaming. Some are quite thought-provoking. For example: 'When technology advanced [in the '90s], the industry came up with a certification specification to ensure punters didn't miss out—and consequently spent more on better PCs. That spec was called MPC, short for Multimedia Personal Computer. The first version of the MPC spec said, in simple terms: Thy computer shalt be blessed with a sound card and speakers.
Thou shalt be provided a CD-ROM drive in which to receive silver discs. Thy processor shalt not be completely crap. At the time, this spec meant a lot—and, to be honest, I think it worked marvelously. We need something like that again. People wanted MPC, everyone sold the better hardware, and everyone was happy. Let the powers that be come up with a new baseline specification. Call it MPC-HD or whatever acronym the marketing Nazgûl want to give it. I'm fine with whatever, as long as it gets the job done.' He also calls for an end to the unintuitive model numbers for GPUs and CPUs, and more consistent driver support."
The problem with the PC right now is... (Score:4, Interesting)
... none of the major players give a shit about the PC as a platform. Since Microsoft has abandoned the PC as a gaming platform for Xbox. This leaves a huge opening but unfortunately big companies aren't very bright. Valve sadly has went the data-mining DRM route and is adding more barriers and cluster-fuckery to gaming that doesn't need to be there.
If I was Intel right now I would see the profits apple is making and attempt to standardize the PC space and prevent bargain basement PC chaos from occurring. When one looks at steam hardware surveys one see's most people have very little clue about their computers and tend to buy the cheapest shit.
As much hate as intel gets if it was intelligent it would get serious about creating a platform and not pull the software shenanigans like DRM/closed ecosystems like what the big software companies do (ms, valve, etc). Software is becoming hugely inefficient to create because software parts the equivalent of ROADS and SEWERS are being patented and copyrighted/protected.
Software really needs public R&D investment in 'foundation level' like stuff to get over these barriers and solve these problems, but barring that Intel (one of the biggest hardware companies) doesn't seem to seriously grasp the need for a software ecosystem that drives people to need their stuff. They are too content with idiocy and clusterfuckery of the current batch of software companies.
If I were intel I would turn GOG.com into a platform and increase R&D in how to make better games for cheaper as well as invest in better tools to drive down costs. The biggest problem we have today is making complex apps people want costs too much time and money so there need to be serious R&D in tools, software aided-creativity and automation.
better ideas (Score:5, Interesting)
#1. Make all games use OpenGL or some other newly invented standard that is cross platform.
#2. Have congress declare that "virtual goods" or whatever you want to call them are no more than poker chips. Selling items in game is probably the most detrimental change in the history of gaming as it leads to developers intentionally making the game un-fun and grindy so you'll sink real money to obtain imaginary items to make your play easier. Also... they really are poker chips... it's wrong that they are sold to children.
#3. Games that are online and can not work without the servers provided by the publisher should be required by law to provide service for a certain period of time after you buy the game. A certain portion of the proceeds of the sale of the game should go into a 3rd party account to pay for the continued operation of the servers even if the original producers of the game go out of business. At least someone buying the game could be guaranteed a certain about of play before it just stopped working all together. But better yet, hopefully producers of games would not want to have to put money into a trust and instead would open up the server platform to the players.