PC gaming ‘in tatters’ says Peter Molyneux

Posted at: 11:27am 3rd October 2008 by Ben Hardwidge

Black & White creator laments the domination of The Sims and World of Warcraft in the PC gaming business

Although there’s been a bit of mutiny in the PC games chart recently with the release of games such as Crysis Warhead and Warhammer Online, it’s also fair to say that it’s been dominated by The Sims for a good part of the year, and there are still four Sims titles in the current top 20. It’s not just Custom PC readers that get wound up by the chart being dominated by the Sims, though; Lionhead’s Peter Molyneux has also expressed concern about the situation, saying that the PC gaming market is ‘in tatters.’

In an interview with Videogamer.com, the creator of many classic PC games, including Populous, Dungeon Keeper and Black & White, said that ‘if you look at the gamer market on PC, I'll be quite honest with you, it's in tatters.’ While admitting that ‘there are some high points like ‘Crysis and what Blizzard is doing,’ Molyneux said that ‘other than that you are restricted to The Sims and World of Warcraft, they seem to be dominating the PC side.’

Molyneux also discussed his feelings on DRM and copy protection, saying that he personally ‘hates’ any copy protection. ‘I hate typing in that number. I loathe it as a gamer,’ said Molyneux, adding that ‘it just makes me feel insulted. And I always lose the blasted manual anyway.’ However, he was cautions about jumping on the anti-DRM bandwagon, saying that the original limit of three authorisations in Spore didn’t ‘sound that bad,’ but added that he could still ‘understand people being very upset.’

Justifying the need for DRM, Molyneux said that he ‘can understand that publishers need to do something to give them the confidence to make games for the PC, to spend the huge amounts of money necessary to spend on development and to get their return.’ He also added that ‘anything that may give them [developers] more confidence on the PC means that ultimately we as gamers will come out better off because they will invest more in the game.’

Is PC gaming in ‘tatters’ or is this a great time to be a PC gamer? Although we’ve had numerous Sims titles over the last 12 months, we’ve also seen Crysis and Crysis Warhead, Mass Effect, Spore, Warhammer Online, Portal and Call of Duty 4, among other titles. Is DRM a blight on PC gaming, or is it necessary for publishers to be able to invest in new games for us? Let us know your thoughts.


Via Kotaku