The Next Generation Console Psychosis Blues

According to The Entertainment Software Association, over 70,000 “industry professionals” attended this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, which was held in Los Angeles in May. At times, it seemed like all 70,000 people were standing in front of the Blizzard booth watching a World of WarCraft trailer. The crowds at their display were so ludicrously large it made you want to shout, “People, you do realize you can buy the game today and play it at home, right?” Maybe they were jonesing for a fix, or needed to check their latest auctions.
It’s always somewhat dubious when The ESA rolls out that “professionals” line, considering how many “industry people” were spending the majority of their days waiting in line to score free T-shirts or maul booth babes for a photo op. But such is the way of E3, a show that answers the question, “How many ‘Vote for Pedro’ t-shirts does it take to make a room toxic with kitsch?” The answer? 63,000.

If this year’s show provided anything, it’s that it’s not so good to be the enthusiast game press anymore. The show is all glitz and glamour and parties, and while the game press is allowed to attend most of its events, all but a handful of major players are definitely third-class citizens. They let you show up to be around the cool kids, but they sort of herd you into a corner and pretend you don’t exist.
For example, Microsoft debuted the Xbox 360 on MTV with an embarrassing show/infomercial a week before E3, without the involvement of the press (it was so self-consciously trying to be hip that it became unhip, and not in a good way). Sony announced the PlayStation 3 before the show got underway, and Nintendo announced its Revolution console through USA Today before the show opened for business. It was as if the show was over before it started.
With three consoles promising to revolutionize gaming to some degree, and terms like 720p, 1080i, microtransactions, and “Live Aware” being more common than “new gameplay ideas,” games took a definite backseat to all of the hardware. And in the parallel universe where everyone is trying to kill their boss, and the ladies always murder their lovers to get ahead but the men still sleep with them anyway, someone would have cared enough about Tiger’s Gizmondo and Nokia’s N-Gage to know if they had had any press conferences too. Now it’s time for games.
The best of the announced PC games look as good, if not better, than many of the products shown for the next-generation consoles but many people still sound the “PC gaming is dead” bell.

Fortunately, there were hundreds of nails in the coffin that holds PC gaming’s bloated corpse available for play on the show floor. According to Dean Lester, general manager for Windows Gaming for Microsoft, the PC is “the game system you already have,” but Windows needs to be a better platform. In the short-term, Xbox 360 controllers will work with Windows, with drivers likely being available via Windows Update at or near launch. (Microsoft gave no specific timetable.) Longhorn, the codename for the next version of Windows, will potentially have console-like features to help people, in Lester’s words, “Put the disc in the tray and play.” Though it may sound otherwise, Lester says it isn’t Microsoft’s goal to create another console. “We already have Xbox,” he says.
But Microsoft hasn’t been as focused on PC gaming as it has on its console, though Shane Kim, head of Microsoft Game Studios, says the company remains committed to PC games. “The reports of the death of PC gaming are greatly exaggerated,” he says. He also notes that certain categories are still better on the PC than any other platform. “Content should–and can–vary from platform-to-platform,” he says, which goes against the general trend of making sure every game appears on every possible platform. For hardcore PC gamers, though, he’s optimistic. “Keep the faith,” he says.

Perhaps the most innovative game at the entire show, the one that would most let PC gamers “keep the faith,” is Will Wright’s wildly inventive Spore. It was only shown behind closed doors to members of the kid-tested, marketing-approved “Best of E3” committee. (A group, and award, we declined to be a part of.) It remains something of a marvel, a game where you evolve from a single-cell creature to controlling warring planets.
Also drawing giant crowds was Namco’s first public showing of Flagship Studios’ Hellgate: London. This “Diablo goes 3D” role-playing game with randomized dungeons dazzled everyone. Normally, former employees branching off doesn’t immediately mean “hit game.” But it worked for Guild Wars; who says it won’t work again?
Shown behind closed doors, Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls: Oblivion has quietly slipped into 2006. It remains a graphically intense, hardcore, single-player RPG with the typical open-ended gameplay the series is known for. In keeping with tradition, 1) the game is set in Tamriel, 2) you begin the game behind bars (and not the good kind), and 3) you are the One True Hero that can save the land from Imminent Destruction. The plot’s overall concept is standard fare—find a way to push the demons that have escaped from the bowels of the underbelly of the world back into their teeming cesspool of bacteria. Lead designer Todd Howard hopes the combat will blow people away. “We came to the realization that no matter how many features we add, the player will ultimately spend the majority of time smacking creatures and taking their stuff,” he says. “So let’s spend as much time as possible making that the best anyone’s ever seen, and if we get that right, everything else will be easy.”
David Jones, the creator of Grand Theft Auto, was on hand talking about his non-fantasy MMO APB, which will come out some time this decade from this year’s NCSoft, Webzen. First you join a gang and start breaking the law to earn money; elite gang players will be recruited by Webzen as cops with skillz who bust gangsters. Fight other gangs over turf and resources.

And who doesn’t want to be a gangster? The industry is definitely banking on the appeal, since it seems like “Living the Thug Life™” is the new WWII. In addition to APB and (obviously) Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, new games with gangsta themes include 187 Ride or Die, 50 Cent: Bulletproof, True Crime 2, The Con, Beatdown, Final Fight: Streetwise, Crime Life: Gang Wars, Scarface, and The Godfather. But there’s something of a disconnect when 40-ish-year-old white people control a young, cornrowed African American holding a machine gun sideways blasting fellow gang members to bits. It’s good to be a suburban kid living the gangsta lifestyle, or something.
By the end of the show, everyone was positively toxic from exposure to all of the hype, but there won’t be any casualties. Well, except one: PC gaming is still dead. It was killed by people who would go crazy over stylish pieces of plastic that actually don’t do anything yet, but everyone listens to every exaggeration about performance and argues over theoretical performance. It’s not about games; it’s a “mine’s bigger” contest between two enormous corporations. And oddly enough, the Xbox 360 and PS3 are probably relatively close to each other in actual power.
Oddly enough, the distractions provided by the console launches are what made PC gaming stand out; it was more about the games and less about the hardware. Though there will still be a lot of hype around Sony and Nintendo’s new hardware offerings, next year’s E3 show should be even more about games for all platforms.
With additional reporting from Matthew Gallant, Tiffany Martin, and Cindy Yans.

This article originally appeared in Computer Games Magazine #177