iOS is destined to be a hardcore gaming platform | Hacker News Reader

iOS is destined to be a hardcore gaming platform

polygon.com

5 pointschillericed7 comments

Truly hardcore games will remain on the PC for the same reason they always have: input devices. Nothing else offers the complexity of the keyboard or the precision of the mouse, which is why console gaming has always been a second-class citizen, with auto-aim a necessity and the most exciting new genres impossible. Unless and until we see radically new input devices, that's going to remain the case.

Disclaimer: I work for the company featured in this article.

I think this view is a bit myopic. Just because the controls are imprecise, doesn't mean the games can't present a deep experience. Certainly existing FPS games and RTS games would not do well on a touchscreen device. The reason why games on mobile and tablet platforms have done so poorly up to this point is that they merely try to emulate a genre of games that was built from the ground up with a different platform in mind (PC or console).

When GoldenEye first came out, the controls were abysmal compared to what was possible with Counterstrike on the PC. But console developers eventually learned to adapt (dual stick controls) and change the feel of the game to be console appropriate. This needs to happen for mobile and tablet as well. My hope is that the push to create meaningful gaming experiences will engender innovation in this space that nobody has seen yet (new game genres, new input methods, etc).

Console shooter gameplay is still slow compared to PCs with their mice and keyboards. I like the speed and I like the precision.

This is my point exactly. The game that will take off on tablet is certainly not going to be a shooter. At least, not a shooter that even remotely resembles anything on the market right now. There needs to be a paradigm shift.

This is more of a justification for why First Person Shooters and RTS games (specifically, Starcraft clones) will remain on the PC, and it's not all that great of a justification. FPS games on consoles have been extremely popular, and a lot of really innovative independent games have launched with touch-first or controller-first mechanics.

I'm not sure I follow your statement about exciting new genres being impossible on console or iOS...can you give an example about one such genre that is PC only?

Well, I can give an example of a genre that is console- and mobile-only: rolling ball games. The k+m layout is great for FPS games, but sensitive analog input isn't something it's great at. Analog sticks and accelerometers are much better. I'm talking Super Monkey Ball or Katamari Damacy.

Another genre many people shy away from on PC unless they're hardcore and money-rich: racing simulators. A controller, a wheel, or an accelerometer is a much more realistic input method for controlling both a steering wheel and feathering a throttle/brake.

Obviously both of those genres exist on PC, but they're quite a small marketshare of an already small marketshare.

Look at the rise of Dwarf Fortress leading to Minecraft and its various imitators. Once you get to the polished, simplified level of Minecraft then it can be (and has been) ported to consoles and phones, but the experience doesn't start that polished. You need to be able to experiment with something clunkier, something with many more possibilities - and something like Dwarf Fortress couldn't possibly happen on anything other than the PC.

I think, anyway. Maybe that's got nothing to do with it, and we see innovation on the PC solely because it's a more indie-friendly development environment. But I think it's telling that the dev versions of consoles come with keyboards.

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