From Next-Gen Biz – “Screen Digest estimates that the number of profitable titles per year could fall as low as 80 as developers and publishers are forced to focus on fewer titles.” This is not surprising since it seems that most PC games released will not play properly or just plain sucks. Let’s look at some examples shall we?

Civilization IV

Yes, I went there. Civ 4 is a great game. It’s challenging, it looks good, it is a vast improvement over prior releases. What’s the problem? Too many people are unable to get it to play. Let’s look at the recommended system requirements to play the game:

Operating System: Windows® 2000/XP

Processor: 1.8 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon processor or equivalent

Memory: 512 MB RAM

Hard Disk Space: 1.7 GB Free

CD-ROM Drive : 4X Speed

Video: 128 MB Video Card w/ DirectX 8 support (pixel & vertex shaders)

Sound: DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound card

DirectX®: DirectX® version 9.0c (included) or higher

My computer surpasses the recommended requirements, by a lot. So one would assume that I would be able to pop the game in and play. Ha, surely you jest. What they should have had on the requirements page is this:

Warning: If you have an ATI (even it is above the specs) it might not play.

Some ATI cards had initializing problems. Why was the game shipped when the ability to play affected so many people? There were mass amounts of problems users reported as they frustrated themselves trying to get the game to work. Some ATI card owners never got the game to play properly. It shouldn’t be that way. In my case I had current ATI drivers. I fixed that problem and bumped into another. I finally got the game to work (praying all my other games would not break trying to get one game to work) and you know what? I have not played it. Why? I feel like I have conquered the game already because I got the sucker to work.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Yes, this game was geared to kids. One would think this would mean the developers would put more into the game to make sure it worked. Not this game. There are tons of glitches in this game. For example, Charlie can go placed he shouldn’t, causing the game to freeze. It is not clear exactly what you’re supposed to do and the clues still leaves one puzzled. The controls leave a lot to be desired. The game does not look like the movie…I could go on. The game has a “rush to get out by the time the movie is out” feel to it. I honestly can not think of one positive thing about the same.

When you just have to buy something…

People buy licensed games like Madden – which in my opinion could be much more than it is now. Or they buy expansions like Sims. I have to give props to EA – they found a bunch of people that are satisfied with the slowest evolving series I’ve seen – and make them pay for it. The Sims series has the potential to be so much more but they are going to expansion pack it to death, which slows down progress. Maybe it is that I require more from a game. Sims should have been able to leave their lots in a car ages ago. There are so many opportunities to make it better but I have to give them credit where credit is due. For most people, the game works with no querks.

One more annoying trend…

The big gaming sites get all the scoops. This makes it very difficult for new or small gaming companies to get exposure. Games were better when the wealth of information was more spread out. There was more interaction with developers and their fan base. Big sites do not always do it better because they have more people watching.