ESSAY: PC Gaming and Console Gaming

[Erik]

The school season is winding down here in Japan, too, and I've had a lot of free time at work.  So I wrote an essay!

This is something I’ve wanted to talk about directly for a long time.  Rapid advances in design and technology have begun to blur the lines between what used to be two very different gaming platforms.  I think it’d be interesting to take a look at the strengths and weaknesses of both, examine how things are changing today, and – you know, ‘cause as long as we’re engaging in some critical thought – make a few predictions about the future.

First, let’s ignore the console for a second and look at the PC.  The PC has three attributes that define it in terms of gaming, I think: the mouse-and-keyboard interface, strong internet capabilities, and the ability to function as something other than a gaming platform.  Ready, set, go!

1. The mouse-and-keyboard interface

This point is pretty obvious, and is also the one that has changed the least over the years.  Though gamepads can be used with PCs and keyboard accessories exist on consoles, the mouse and keyboard is generally accepted as the PC’s primary interface.  When companies develop for the PC, they assume that you will play with a mouse and a keyboard.  Gamepad or joystick support, when present, is usually optional.  And, on the console side of things, manufacturers have yet to design a mouse and keyboard that feels as natural on a coffee table as it does sitting on a desk.  So, the mouse and keyboard remains a pretty solid emblem of PC gaming.



The most direct impact this has on PC games is that it dictates how players interact with their interfaces.  With over a hundred buttons and a supremely precise point and click tool, PC games are free to offer up intensely complex control schemes.  This benefits certain genres – I think that RTSs and RPGs and simulations in particular really benefit from a huge set of inputs.  Navigating menus in a console game is, almost without fail, a chore.  Scrolling to find a potion in the middle of a JRPG fight is not so bad, but managing your inventory in Mass Effect is terrible.  Being able to instantly click on stuff, drag stuff, and hit hotkeys on the PC makes virtually any input easier.

Some argue that shooters benefit from mouse and keyboard control, too, but I’m not so sure about that.  Recent shooters, especially since the advent of the dual-joystick controller, feel perfectly natural to me.  You can certainly be better at a shooter on the PC than you can on a console – mouselook offers more quick precision than the thumbstick and having all your weapons available at all times in a neat little row of number keys makes things easier – but console shooters have managed to overcome such limitations well enough through game design by scaling difficulty and limiting weapon selection.  Shooters on the console play a little slower than shooters on the PC, but that doesn’t make them worse games.

So, to make a blanket generalization, the keyboard and mouse interface allows for more complex game interfaces (the controller has its own advantages, we’ll get to that later).  Complex inputs are directly related to our next two points, too.

2.  Strong long-distance multiplayer

The PC, as the primary avenue to the internet, is the place to go to game with people who are not immediately with you.  Current generation consoles are making great advances in online gaming, but the PC still remains number one, and I think this is largely because of its mouse and keyboard interface and also its ability to function as a tool for communication outside of games themselves (that’ll be point number three).



Current-gen consoles – even the Wii, really – have done a lot to close the online gap between themselves and the PC.  The console games with the most successful multiplayer, however, usually rely on some sort of random matchmaking service.  This is, I think, because it’s a pain to have to go through the process of filtering servers, managing friends lists, finding players, and communicating with other people outside the game when all you’ve got to work with is a controller.  On the PC, it only takes a couple of clicks to set server preferences, figure out what’s going on in any given server, and message your friends to join you.

On the console, matchmaking often becomes an exercise in frustration.  It can take several tries to find a good server, and sending an invite to your friends on a software keyboard is very cumbersome.  Voice messages are a little quicker, but they still take time to record and to hear.  Plus, you have to navigate menus, which is always extra annoying on a console.  There are examples of online play done well on a console, but these are far more the exception than the rule.

Current-gen consoles’ online populations are still smaller, I think, than the PC’s.  This can make it a lot tougher to find games.  This will probably change over time, but for now it’s still true.  I think.  Actually, I don’t know for sure…

The rest of point two is covered as part of point three.  Another thing that greatly benefits online gaming on the PC is:

3.  The ability to function as something beyond a gaming console

This too is something that current-gen consoles are quickly adopting.  To call either the PS3 or the Xbox 360 just a gaming platform is pretty much incorrect at this point.  Still, as cool as Netflix is, it doesn’t directly help the 360 accomplish more as a video game console.  The PC, I think, is different.

The difference lies in communication.  The PC is not only a gaming platform, but also the location in which all forms of communication about gaming take place.  It’s much easier to form online communities, discuss a game, read up on news, and contact friends.  All three current-gen consoles have web browsers, but chances are you’re reading this on a PC.

When the line between game console and communicative tool is so thin, it’s very easy to get into multiplayer gaming to a degree that is prohibitively difficult with a console interface.  Clans, mod communities, message boards such as our own, and various other forums flourish on the PC.  The types and scope of multiplayer available to the PC gamer are vast.  Intensely cooperative games like Left 4 Dead have existed on the PC for years already.  Likewise with MMOs and MUDs.  Some upcoming console games are boasting battlefield player counts of over one hundred, but such epic warzones have existed on the PC for almost a decade.

The PC’s versatility also means that your friends are also probably using their PCs.  They’re probably using their PCs right now.  When you want to do some spontaneous multiplayer gaming with your friends on a console, you have to wait until they too are in the mood and sign on.  People are only logged into consoles when they plan on gaming.  People are online on their PC, however, much more often.  If we all owned Gears of War for the PC it would take nothing more than a simple IM and a couple mouse clicks to get a multiplayer game started, regardless of whether you were doing homework, reading news, or just browsing youtube.  And, if you must wait for a friend to get ready on the PC, you don’t have to just sit there – you can alt-tab out of the game and browse the internet and whatnot.

The PC is also the main platform for user-generated content.  People go crazy with mods.  Obsessive fans are still creating mods, campaigns, and total conversions for games released last century.  If a PC game is even the tiniest bit open source, you can count that the mod community will do everything it can to extend its life beyond the value of its price tag.  Some user mods like Warcraft III’s Defense of the Ancients or Half-Life’s Counterstrike or Battlefield 1942’s Desert Combat become almost as popular and intricate as the games that spawned them.



Console games are catching up here, too.  LittleBigPlanet is a great new thing for consoles, I think, and I hope that titles like it continue to explore farther afield while daintily stepping over such well-meaning corpses as RPG Maker and Mario Paint.


(edit... due to the character limit I've had to split this into two parts.  Cont'd below.)

[Erik]

Ok!  Now, let’s get to the console advantages: An ergonomic controller, physically social multiplayer, standardized hardware, and price.

1. An ergonomic controller

Over extended play, I think that all console controllers feel more comfortable than an extended keyboard.  Your body has a much greater freedom of movement when playing a console game as opposed to a PC game.  You can tilt the controller up or down, you can lie down on your couch, you can rearrange pillows, whatever.  The keyboard, while complex, is not very comfortable – the carpal tunnel scare of a few years ago is good evidence for this.  Manufacturers design console controllers specifically for gaming, and it does make a big difference.

Wireless controllers also help out a lot in the comfort category.  I have played Wii Tennis doubles while making a sandwich in the kitchen.  I certainly can’t do this with any PC game I own.

At first, this might sound almost like a throwaway advantage.  Comfort has little obvious relationship to game design.

In reality, however, just as the mouse and keyboard cater to certain game genres on the PC, the standard controller design also helps certain other genres flourish on the console.  2D platformers, fighting games, and 3D brawlers all feel very limited on the PC.  The radial precision of a console thumbstick allows for greater control when you’re trying to do something acceleration- or direction-based, like making Kratos walk forward slowly while simultaneously orienting the camera to look behind you.  The WSAD keys of a keyboard, typically used for movement in action games, only function in binary on or off positions so you can usually only be walking or not walking.  Design choices like offering the shift key as a run key do help, but they are still not as precise as a console’s controller.

In general, the console controller is better suited to games with a limited amount of inputs that are constantly repeated.  If you’re witnessing an entire game from behind the sight of a gun, or from a camera orbiting a little dude who climbs colossi to stab them, then the console controller has no weaknesses.

The Wii controller is a little different.  In theory, it can simulate the point-and-click specificity of a mouse.  Any pixel on the screen becomes a potential input.  In practice, however, I think it’s clear that the technology isn’t quite where Nintendo hoped it would be.  It’s very hard to hold your pointer steady and rotating the tip of the Wiimote with your wrist inside a hemisphere is not as fluid as pushing a mouse across a 2D plane.

I don’t think the Wiimote is a failed concept, however.  If future technology can increase pointer sensitivity while somehow simultaneously dampening the waver effect that occurs when someone tries to hold her hand still in mid air, the Wiimote could go places.


2. Physically social multiplayer

Before I came to college, I was equal parts PC gamer and console gamer.  Two aspects of university life, however, quickly pushed me farther toward console gaming.  First, campus internet sucks.  It was impossible for me to get playable ping rates on my PC from behind my dorm’s network.  Even after I moved off-campus, network saturation (at school, everyone is on the internet, all the time) kept things unstable at anything approaching peak hours.  So, strong online multiplayer, one of the PC’s big advantages, was out.

The other reason I found myself spending more time on the console was because I was now living very close to – even with – friends who played games.  I was no longer in high school, where my closest pals lived over fifteen minutes away and I didn’t have a driver’s license.  At college, I could simply walk into the next room and start a Gears of War campaign with my roommate.

Consoles have a huge advantage when you live close enough with your gamer friends to organize impromptu get-togethers.  Having allies, enemies, or even just spectators in the room with you is a wholly different (and almost always better) gaming experience.

As a side not: plenty of people have argued that online gaming is not true socializing.  I think this is absurd.  Online gaming is definitely a type of socializing, and I’d even go so far to say that it offers opportunities for certain social interactions that are hard to find in a living room with friends (World of Warcraft is a great example of a fluid and unique setting for online societies, economies, and even political systems).  But, as social as it is, there is still no physical person in the room with you.



Playing games with people is just more fun.  A great sociologist could probably write a superb paper on the reasons for this, but it’s beyond my current scope.

3. Standardized hardware

Building and understanding a PC is beyond the expertise of most gamers.  Even for those of us that have done it, I think it’s more of a chore and a time commitment than a hobby.  That isn’t true for everyone, but I think the majority of gamers feel this way.  Dealing with hardware and software compatibility issues, messing with router settings, keeping chips cool, searching for rare drivers, and dealing with everything else that could go wrong when you boot up your PC game is a huge pain.

When you place a disk into your console tray, you can be certain that it will work as advertised close to one hundred percent of the time.  Software issues are simply nonexistent, and while early PS2s and Xbox 360s are famous for breaking down, such hardware failures have typically happened no more than once or twice per person if at all.  And, when these hardware failures do happen, the manufacturer’s warranty generally has you covered.  While sending your box in and waiting for it to come back can be irritating, at least it doesn’t cost you much of your own time or money.

Hardware failures on the PC aren’t that common, either, but when they do happen—which is more frequently, I think, than on the console—you’re generally on your own.  You have to either pay an expert to solve the problem for you or buy parts and get your hands dirty.

The console is almost completely free of compatibility problems.  Unless you get into homebrew, which most people don’t, the most difficult question you’ll ever have to ask is whether or not your current-gen console’s backwards compatibility will work with a certain last-gen game.

The PC requires a lot more research and trial and error in order to get things to work properly.  You might have to worry about whether your hardware has the power necessary to run a teamspeak voice chat server in the background of your Command and Conquer game, or whether you have the proper ports open to connect to Battle.net while your firewall is up.  Since every person’s PC is unique, you won’t know for sure whether a given setup will truly work for you until you try it for yourself.  After, of course, you’ve already invested time and money into buying and installing whatever it is you’re trying out.

It doesn’t help that the listed system requirements for a new game are often different than what you, personally, actually need.  PCs of the same core specs run faster or slower depending on how they’re connected, how they’re cooled, what they have running, the brand of their hardware, and any number of other factors.  It is a pretty safe assumption that your PC is not the same as a play tester’s PC.  Your particular configuration could cause any number of problems that the developer wasn’t even aware of, or was aware of but decided not to fix because it assumed the problems will only affect a small number of people or could be solved with a workaround.

Some PC developers such as Valve and Blizzard have a reputation for meticulously testing their games in order to make sure they are as stable as possible on as many different kinds of machines as possible.  Quality standards in general, however, are still much lower on the PC than they are on the console, and launch day patches for PC games aren’t unusual.

The console is starting to see patches, too, but so far it hasn’t been too bad.  Playing a console game requires no tweaking or workarounds.  When I buy a new game I want to play it, and the console lets me do this.  There’s no rogue DRM ‘protection’ to outsmart or mysteriously bad frame rates to investigate.  You get exactly the product you paid for.



4. Lower prices

I hesitate to list this as a console advantage, but I think it’s still at least a little true.  A few years ago it was certainly true – a self-built gaming PC would probably run you close to a thousand dollars while a console would only cost two to three hundred plus controllers.  Now, it seems that high-end PC equipment can be got on the cheap, and the cost of setting up a media center for current-gen consoles has gone up.

I don’t think it would be unreasonable to claim that current-gen game developers assume that their players have an HDTV.  Though the price is decreasing, high def TVs of any decent size still cost several hundred dollars.  Most games are also designed for a sound system more powerful than simple TV speakers.

You can spend as much or as little as you want on your media center, and it is probably a little unfair to count an HDTV as a required gaming peripheral, but at the very least I think it’s safe to say that the amount of money you must pay for an ideal console game experience is no longer simply the cost of the console itself.  Controllers have become more expensive, and accessories like guitars and that load of WiiStuff aren’t free either.  The Xbox even charges you a small fee to play online.

All that being said, however, I think it’s still true that it’s cheaper to game on a console than on a PC.  And, as home media centers continue to become more prevalent, their prices will probably continue to decrease.  In the future many would-be console gamers will probably already have an HDTV, striking it from the list of required purchases.  On the other hand, the cost of purchasing powerful PC parts may continue to decrease as well.


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Overall, I think that console gaming seems to be moving in a very positive direction.  Recent console games have worked very hard to emulate PC multiplayer, and are meeting with increasing success.  Even just a few years ago I never would’ve predicted that the internet would become such an integral part of console gaming over such a short time.  And yet, here we are with gamertags, DLC, and voice chat.

Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, however, are still very protective of their online spheres, and anything that appears on their respective networks has to pass strict scrutiny.  If online console play is to truly reach the level of PC, I think some of these restrictions need to be lifted in order to allow the mod community to do its thing.  New controversies spawned by creation-oriented games like LittleBigPlanet and curious anomalies like this Left 4 Dead hack give me hope that someday the big three will have no choice but to loosen their hold on user generated content.

The PC is not changing as much, but I think that the biggest thing that currently separates it from consoles – the mouse and keyboard interface – will probably remain unchanged for some time to come.  This will probably ensure that PCs continue to have an important niche in the gaming market.

But, if consoles continue to work hard at assimilating all the good aspects of PC gaming while simultaneously avoiding all the downsides, it's possible that PC games could almost completely migrate over to the console somewhere down the road.


If anyone else has any opinions on the subject, I'd like to hear them too.

[ajnrules]

Good job and kudos to you on this article. I must admit that I spend a lot more time in front of a PC than in front of a TV with a console attached because of the PC's use as a communicative tool, but when it comes to gaming I'm virtually all console, partially because the genres that I like more are better represented on consoles, and also because of the constant need to upgrade when it comes to PCs. Needless to say, I feel I've spent considerable time with only a trio of PC games: The Sims, Rollercoaster Tycoon, and The Movies. Needless to say, all three of those games are the strategy/simulation games that work best with the keyboard and mouse. (Vick got The Sims for Gamecube, and I must admit, navigating the menus sucked. I made a house in the shape of a Buddhist swastika, and I think that was all I can stand. It didn't help that our TV was extremely blurry.)

I've never really strayed much from console gaming, so I really can't fathom the level of popularity that PC gaming must have had in the mid-1990s, but I feel that as long as Blizzard is still making games like World of Warcraft, PC gaming isn't going to bow out anytime soon.