Bigwigs dish on future of PC gaming

September 13th, 2011

PC gaming is alive and well. Imperfect (i.e. buggy code, poor ports, etc), but enjoying a renaissance recently after a few down years.

What are the platform's biggest challenges moving forward then?

"The biggest threat is the fact that we need leadership in the PC industry," says Gabe Newell of Valve, in an interview with GameSpot. As Newell sees it, the lack of a central authority (i.e. proprietary console) is a strength for PC, but it's also a weakness. 

"It makes it hard for new technology to achieve critical mass," he says, "So it's really useful when different companies can take those risks on and push those things forward. But if nobody does it, then we're going to languish and end up having proprietary closed systems that can use that to their advantage over the energetic chaos of the PC."

Frank Pierce of Blizzard told GameSpot that a big challenge will be making hardcore games more Facebook like. No, he doesn't want to turn PC games into shallow web titles, but he does want PC games to connect and report on what others are doing like other popular social games. 

"We're talking about social networks, like Facebook, and I think people that are using the PC and game players that are using the PC are going to, more and more, have an expectation of connectivity with information," he says. "The most important thing we're going to see in PC gaming is a constantly connected networked experience for people because they are discovering how important their connections to their friends and family are."

What do you think: What might PC gaming look like in five years and are you excited about its future?