This post is exactly about what its title says. Is PC gaming, as we know it, dying because of Facebook? It’s a strong statement to make, but I’m saying it with a blunt tone, because it’s kind of depressing.
I was reading an article on Kotaku, which had the heading “If This Is How PC Gaming Will Live, Maybe It Should Die”, when it struck me, as to where PC Gaming stood in the 90s, where it stands now, and where PC Gaming will be placed in the coming future.
Most of us are noticing these countless Facebook games that are popping up day by day and the countless number of users they’re attracting. Games of the likes of Farmville, Cityville, and other gazillion “villes,” Mafia Wars, etc. My Facebook, which I barely use, gets flooded every day with some game invites from a friend who I don’t know that well. Then I noticed another friend, who wasn’t really into gaming, but who I knew pretty well, started spamming my account with those damned invites. And then, the thing that hit the spot for me: was when a friend of mine, who is the type of person who owns all consoles and upgrades his PC every bloody six months, in short, is really into some serious gaming, started spamming my Facebook account with Farmville invites. That was it for me. Another one bites the dust!
And the really messed up part about this whole thing was, here you have a guy, who’s played quality games his entire life, has finally succumbed to those shitty Facebook games. And since the normal human cycle consists of evolving oneself in every aspect of life, intellectually, financially, emotionally, socially, etc., this person has devolved and taken five steps back, when it comes to gaming.
So what does this signify? Is this where PC gaming is heading towards? Are we so time deprived and so socially hungry that we need to play these so-called “social games” to fulfill our hedonistic needs? These Facebook games don’t work on the concept of a unique visual experience through a definitive storyline, which a normal PC game consists of. These games are based on collection and growth, without any visual experience, a storyline, characters, music, or competitiveness. They rely solely on the addiction they induce in the player, by feeding them the illusion that they’re playing a game, when the player is actually just following a routine.
No doubt Facebook games appeal to a broader demographic. In a major underdeveloped country (gaming wise) like India, where the average Indian cannot afford a decent rig to play normal PC games, and consoles are way out of their reach, they do have Facebook games as an option. So the flaw is actually not in the game itself; it is in the root causes of what makes developers create games like this. Are they aiming for this demographic because they know that they don’t have access or resources to play decent games, thereby, lowering these people’s standards as well as their own? Why not, make some “real” games, that are optimized enough to reach these people? The developers of such Facebook games are just too lazy to develop these “real,” cost-effective, and minimally resource-hungry games. Lazy or hungry for those green bills with portraits of some nationalist character. They’re getting away with publishing cheap games like “Farmville,” which is not even a worthy pure gaming experience. Just addiction. Obsessive Compulsive.
PC gaming is where the roots of gaming belong, and it should stay right there. We all know this as a fact: A mainstream gaming computer has 20 times the processing power of an XBOX 360 or a PS3. That is not the point I’m trying to make, I’m just saying where PC gaming stands, where it can reach, and what scope it has. Looking at the current scenario, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
