OK, indulge me in an extended metaphor if you will. You’ve been invited to a party held by all the cool gaming people in the world. You walk in the door to be greeted by Lara, Mario and Sackboy. The music is loud, the drinks are flowing, and there’s the people you like in every room. In one room, the Wii is surrounded by girls, showing off his latest magic tricks. The next room you can find the PS3 in his dapper suit, showing off his muscles and laughing while quaffing pretentious overpriced wine. And then there’s the XBox 360, in a toga drinking as much as he can until he falls over proudly displaying his red ring for all to see. But in all this fun and froilics, where’s the PC? It seems most people would have you believe that he’s the old man downstairs banging on the ceiling with a broom, telling the kids to ‘keep it down’. But why? It’s weird. Of all the gaming formats available the PC always seems to be least party friendly of the consoles. For all the games that come out on the PC, we don’t really see a great deal of the games enjoying huge success on the console. The Singstars, the Rock Bands, the Buzzes ensure that whenever there’s a social gathering and gaming becomes part of the agenda that everyone has a good time. The PC meanwhile is expected to sit in the corner and stay quiet, not invited to share in the fun.
Last week was supposedly the launch of Guitar Hero World Tour for the PC. The series has been a massive success for Activision for many years now and the latest fourth version of the game came out to great fanfare last year with a big marketing push. Adverts featuring supermodels and sports stars emulating Tom Cruise in Risky Buisness, these days you can’t really walk into any games store without seeing their dedicated GH section featuring all the games plus spin offs for the consoles. Yet, walk into a store and ask for Guitar Hero on PC, and you’ll probably be met with a blank stare or even complete denial you can get it for PC. Be honest here – were you aware of GH4 coming out on PC? I certainly wasn’t until about a week before it was due. Heck, as I write this I’m still waiting for it to even be dispatched from the store, and neither Activision or Aspyr – the developers of the PC conversion – seem to have any indication the game even exists. It’s not even the first time the series has appeared on PC – both parties involved in porting GH3 and Aerosmith to the format. But again, to very little fanfare – I don’t think I even saw one review for Areosmith on the PC even after it’s launch.
It’s an even worse story for other, similar party games. There’s no real buzzer based quiz games on the PC, unless you count the endless rubbish spin-offs from TV shows, despite the PC possibly being the best platform to have them on. Assuming you’re connected to the internet, there’s no limit to the interesting stuff out there that could really challenge the minds of gamers. Wikipedia alone is a testament to people’s knowledge on a massive scale. If we want to do a bit of singing and Karaoke, our best options come from the talent of bedroom programmers emulating our console brethren. And of course, the camera based games? PCs have had webcams since before Microsoft even set foot into the console market – so it’s not as if our gaming machine of choice couldn’t do it. But of course, there are several factors.
PCs are still seen by many to be an ‘office’ sort of thing. Hidden away under desks, stored in studies away from the more social areas of the house. The PC gets a bit of a raw deal quite often when it comes to social activities. The obvious stereotype of the PC gamer can be a further barrier even if in an entirely conceptual context. Perhaps the publishers – and heck, even we as gamers ourselves are to blame. The PC has tried the Eyetoy, and it didn’t sell very well. Heck, it has indeed had the dancing games and of course the singing games -but they’ve not exactly set the charts alight. Publishers are wary of trying to turn the PC into any sort of Party friendly device, and the sales cannot have helped much. Can we really expect to see people crowd around a PC monitor, giggling profusely while attempting to murder a classic Bon Jovi song? Even Microsoft have made moves to take the PC out of the darkness and into the Living Room by producing its Media Center software. Perhaps the fact that the Media Center Edition of Windows also didn’t sell hugely well indicates that perhaps we as gamers are too stubborn to accept that the PC might be a genuine party platform.
Conversely, it’s a little bit ironic that the most biggest multiplayer game in the world also calls the PC home. And for a platform supposedly synomnous with dark rooms and solitude, you’d be hard pressed to buy a TV these days that did not also support an input from your computer. Steps are being taken to try and make the PC more communal, more living room friendly. In fact if we’re honest, the PC is at every stage of the party. Can you honestly say you’ve never used it at one stage of planning or hosting a party, or even going to one? Whether it’s to use it for making and sending the invites on Word, responding or inviting people over Facebook all the way to providing the tunes via the music player. Spotify, one of the current leading music streaming services, even encourages people to buy day passes for the service by reminding it’s users they don’t want adverts spoiling the music during a party. If we return to the analogy I used to open my piece, the PC should be at this party. He’s the host making sure anyone who is anyone is there. He’s the DJ providing the music so you can dance all night. So here’s my request to publishers, developers and the gamers themselves: don’t treat the PC as some sort of second rate party-pooper. Give the PC the respect it deserves and see that truly, it’s a party master in it’s own right. Treat your guests well, and they’ll be raving about your party for years to come.
Hell, we’ll even put up with the hangover.
I’ve gotta be honest that the way the Guitar Hero franchise has beent reated on the PC is pretty damn rubbish, it is a massive franchise, and whilsts the PC may not have the traditional image of being a ‘party’ tool, there is no reason why multiplayer can’t be used to give the game a little bit more depth. The absolute lack of any promotion of the PC release too just makes you think that companies don’t think the PC is suitable for ‘party’ games. Pfft!
http://fretsonfire.sourceforge.net/ <- this is all you need really.
Not entirely – Frets On Fire was a decent alternative to number 3 – and indeed earlier when it was all covers and we wanted to play real songs, but you can’t do the drums and singing with Frets like you can in 4. I was tempted to mention it in this article, I didn’t in the end as when it’s just a single instrument, I don’t think it personally has as much of an impact as GH4 does, which by including the whole band is more suited to party play naturally.
I was only pointing it out. Geez…. ;)
Pfft – you’re the one who wanted more discussion… :P
Only just seen this post. Don’t have much to add except to say I reviewed the PC version of Guitar Hero Aerosmith for WorthPlaying. It was very lazily ported, so I wouldn’t hold much hope for World Tour. :)
I quite enjoyed it to be honest Alan. Especially the fact it does work with my Rock Band stuff. Obviously it still pales in comparison to Rock Band, but for the PC I’d say it’s the best one of them.