PC game

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PC games, also known as computer games, are video games played on a general-purpose personal computer rather than a dedicated video game console or arcade machine. Their defining characteristics include a lack of any centralized controlling authority and greater capacity in input, processing, and output.

PC games reached widespread popularity following the video game crash of 1983, particularly in Europe, leading to the era of the "bedroom coder". From the mid-90s onward they lost mass-market traction to console games before enjoying a resurgence in the mid-2000s through digital distribution.[1][2]

The uncoordinated nature of the PC game market and its lack of physical media make precisely assessing its size difficult.

Contents

History [edit]

Main article: History of video games

Early growth [edit]

Spacewar!, developed for the PDP-1 in 1961, is often credited as being the second ever computer game. The game consisted of two player-controlled spaceships maneuvering around a central star, each attempting to destroy the other.

Although personal computers only became popular with the development of the microprocessor and microcomputer, computer gaming on mainframes and minicomputers had previously already existed. OXO, an adaptation of tic-tac-toe for the EDSAC, debuted in 1952. Another pioneer computer game was developed in 1961, when MIT students Martin Graetz and Alan Kotok, with MIT student Steve Russell, developed Spacewar! on a PDP-1 mainframe computer used for statistical calculations.[3]

The first generation of computer games were often text adventures or interactive fiction, in which the player communicated with the computer by entering commands through a keyboard. An early text-adventure, Adventure, was developed for the PDP-11 minicomputer by Will Crowther in 1976, and expanded by Don Woods in 1977.[4] By the 1980s, personal computers had become powerful enough to run games like Adventure, but by this time, graphics were beginning to become an important factor in games. Later games combined textual commands with basic graphics, as seen in the SSI Gold Box games such as Pool of Radiance, or Bard's Tale for example.

By the late 1970s to early 1980s, games were developed and distributed through hobbyist groups and gaming magazines, such as Creative Computing and later Computer Gaming World. These publications provided game code that could be typed into a computer and played, encouraging readers to submit their own software to competitions.[5] Microchess was one of the first games for microcomputers which was sold to the public. First sold in 1977, Microchess eventually sold over 50,000 copies on cassette tape.

As with second-generation video game consoles at the time, early home computer game companies capitalized on successful arcade games at the time with ports or clones of popular arcade games.[6][7] By 1982, the top-selling games for the Atari 400 were ports of Frogger and Centipede, while the top-selling game for the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A was the Space Invaders clone TI Invaders.[6] That same year, Pac-Man was ported to the Atari 800,[7] while Donkey Kong was licensed for the Coleco Adam.[8] In late 1981, Atari attempted to take legal action against unauthorized clones, particularly Pac-Man clones, despite some of these predating Atari's exclusive rights to the home versions of Namco's game.[7]

Industry crash [edit]

See also: Video game crash of 1983

As the video game market became flooded with poor-quality cartridge games created by numerous companies attempting to enter the market, and over-production of high profile releases such as the Atari 2600 adaptations of Pac-Man and E.T. grossly underperformed, the popularity of personal computers for education rose dramatically. In 1983, consumer interest in console video games dwindled to historical lows, as interest in computer games rose.[9] The effects of the crash were largely limited to the console market, as established companies such as Atari posted record losses over subsequent years. Conversely, the home computer market boomed, as sales of low-cost color computers such as the Commodore 64 rose to record highs and developers such as Electronic Arts benefited from increasing interest in the platform.[9]

The console market experienced a resurgence in the United States with the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). In Europe, computer gaming continued to boom for many years after.[9] Computers such as the ZX Spectrum and BBC Micro were successful in the European market, where the NES was not as successful despite its monopoly in Japan and North America. The only 8-bit console to have any success in Europe would be the Sega Master System.[10] Meanwhile in Japan, both consoles and computers became major industries, with the console market dominated by Nintendo and the computer market dominated by NEC's PC-88 (1981) and PC-98 (1982). A key difference between Western and Japanese computers at the time was the display resolution, with Japanese systems using a higher resolution of 640x400 to accommodate Japanese text which in turn had an impact on game design and allowed more detailed graphics. Japanese computers were also using Yamaha's FM synth sound boards from the early 1980s.[11]

New genres [edit]

Increasing adoption of the computer mouse, driven partially by the success of adventure games such as the highly successful King's Quest series, and high resolution bitmap displays allowed the industry to include increasingly high-quality graphical interfaces in new releases. Meanwhile, the Commodore Amiga computer achieved great success in the market from its release in 1985, contributing to the rapid adoption of these new interface technologies.[12] Although at first hampered by poor PC speaker sound and limited (when compared to the popular home computer platforms of the day) EGA graphics, the VGA standard gave the PC graphics that outmatched the Amiga.

Further improvements to game artwork were made possible with the introduction of FM synthesis sound. Yamaha began manufacturing FM synth boards for computers in the early-mid-1980s, and by 1985, the NEC and FM-7 computers had built-in FM sound.[11] The first sound cards, such as AdLib's Music Synthesizer Card, soon appeared in 1987. These cards allowed IBM PC compatible computers to produce complex sounds using FM synthesis, where they had previously been limited to simple tones and beeps. However, the rise of the Creative Labs Sound Blaster card, released in 1989, which featured much higher sound quality due to the inclusion of a PCM channel and digital signal processor, led AdLib to file for bankruptcy by 1992. Also in 1989, the FM Towns computer included built-in PCM sound, in addition to a CD-ROM drive and 24-bit color graphics.[11]

In 1991, id Software produced an early first-person shooter, Hovertank 3D, which was the company's first in their line of highly influential games in the genre. There were also several other companies that produced early first-person shooters, such as Arsys Software's Star Cruiser,[13] which featured fully 3D polygonal graphics in 1988,[14] and Accolade's Day of the Viper in 1989. Id Software went on to develop Wolfenstein 3D in 1992, which helped to popularize the genre, kick-starting a genre that would become one of the highest-selling in modern times.[15] The game was originally distributed through the shareware distribution model, allowing players to try a limited part of the game for free but requiring payment to play the rest, and represented one of the first uses of texture mapping graphics in a popular game, along with Ultima Underworld.[16]

While leading Sega and Nintendo console systems kept their CPU speed at 3–7 MHz, the 486 PC processor ran much faster, allowing it to perform many more calculations per second. The 1993 release of Doom on the PC was a breakthrough in 3D graphics, and was soon ported to various game consoles in a general shift toward greater realism.[17] In the same time frame, games such as Myst took advantage of the new CD-ROM delivery format to include many more assets (sound, images, video) for a richer game experience.

To enhance the immersive experience with their unrealistic graphics and electronic sound, early PC games included extras such as the peril-sensitive sunglasses that shipped with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or the science fiction novella included with Elite. These extras gradually became less common, but many games were still sold in the traditional over-sized boxes that used to hold the extra "feelies". Today, such extras are usually found only in Special Edition versions of games, such as Battlechests from Blizzard.[18]

Contemporary gaming [edit]

By 1996, the rise of Microsoft Windows and success of 3D console titles such as Super Mario 64 sparked great interest in hardware accelerated 3D graphics on the IBM PC compatible, and soon resulted in attempts to produce affordable solutions with the ATI Rage, Matrox Mystique and S3 ViRGE. Tomb Raider, which was released in 1996, was one of the first 3D third-person shooter games and was praised for its revolutionary graphics. As 3D graphics libraries such as DirectX and OpenGL matured and knocked proprietary interfaces out of the market, these platforms gained greater acceptance in the market, particularly with their demonstrated benefits in games such as Unreal.[19] However, major changes to the Microsoft Windows operating system, by then the market leader, made many older MS-DOS-based games unplayable on Windows NT, and later, Windows XP (without using an emulator, such as DOSbox).[20][21]

The faster graphics accelerators and improving CPU technology resulted in increasing levels of realism in computer games. During this time, the improvements introduced with products such as ATI's Radeon R300 and NVidia's GeForce 6 Series have allowed developers to increase the complexity of modern game engines. PC gaming currently tends strongly toward improvements in 3D graphics.[22]

Unlike the generally accepted push for improved graphical performance, the use of physics engines in computer games has become a matter of debate since announcement and 2005 release of the nVidia PhysX PPU, ostensibly competing with middleware such as the Havok physics engine. Issues such as difficulty in ensuring consistent experiences for all players,[23] and the uncertain benefit of first generation PhysX cards in games such as Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and City of Villains, prompted arguments over the value of such technology.[24][25]

Similarly, many game publishers began to experiment with new forms of marketing. Chief among these alternative strategies is episodic gaming, an adaptation of the older concept of expansion packs, in which game content is provided in smaller quantities but for a proportionally lower price. Titles such as Half-Life 2: Episode One took advantage of the idea, with mixed results rising from concerns for the amount of content provided for the price.[26]

Platform characteristics [edit]

Fidelity [edit]

In high-end PC gaming, a PC will generally have far more processing resources at its disposal than other gaming systems.[27] Game developers can use this to improve the visual fidelity of their game relative to other platforms, but even (and in fact particularly) if they do not, games running on PC are likely to benefit from higher screen resolution, higher framerate,[28] and anti-aliasing. Increased draw distance is also common in open world games.[29]

Better hardware also increases the potential fidelity of a PC game's rules and simulation. PC games often support more players or NPCs than equivalents on other platforms[30] and game designs which depend on the simulation of large numbers of tokens (e.g. Total War, Spore, Dwarf Fortress) are rarely seen anywhere else.

The PC also supports greater input fidelity thanks to its compatibility with a wide array of peripherals. The most common forms of input are the mouse/keyboard combination and gamepads, though touchscreens and motion controllers are also available. The mouse in particular lends players of first-person shooter and real-time strategy games on PC great speed and accuracy.

Input Fidelity & Game Genres [edit]

Main article: Video game genres

Because the mouse gives PC better input fidelity, the real-time strategy genre which accounts for 28% of all PC games sold[31] has found very little success on video game consoles, with releases such as Starcraft 64 failing in the marketplace. Real-time strategy games tend to suffer from the design of console controllers, which do not allow fast, accurate movement.[32]

Openness [edit]

The defining characteristic of the PC platform is the absence of centralized control; all other gaming platforms (except Android devices, to an extent) are owned and administered by a single group.

The advantages of openness include:

Reduced software cost
Prices are kept down by competition and the absence of platform-holder fees. Games and services are cheaper at every level, and many are free.[33][34]
Increased flexibility
PC games decades old can be played on modern systems, through emulation software if need be.[35] Conversely, newer games can often be run on older systems by reducing the games' fidelity and/or scale.
Increased innovation
One does not need to ask for permission to release or update a PC game or to modify an existing one, and the platform's hardware and software are constantly evolving. These factors make PC the centre of both hardware and software innovation. By comparison, closed platforms tend to remain much the same throughout their lifespan.[2][36]

But there are also disadvantages, including:

Increased complexity
A PC is a general-purpose tool. Its inner workings are exposed to the owner, and misconfiguration can create enormous problems. Hardware compatibility issues are also possible.
Increased hardware cost
PC components are generally sold individually for profit (even if one buys a pre-built machine), whereas the hardware of closed platforms is mass-produced as a single unit and often sold at a loss.[34] Games will also use PC hardware less efficiently than that of a closed platform, since the huge variety of possible makes and models prohibits focused optimisation.[citation needed]
Reduced security
It is difficult, and in most situations ultimately impossible, to control the way in which PC hardware and software is used. This leads to far more software piracy and cheating than closed platforms suffer from.[37]

Mods [edit]

Main article: Mod (video gaming)

The openness of the PC platform allows players to edit their games and distribute the results over the internet as "mods". A healthy mod community greatly increase a game's longevity and the most popular mods have driven purchases of their parent game to record heights.[38] It is common for professional developers to release the tools they use to create their games (and sometimes even source code[39][40]) in order to encourage modding,[41] but if a game is popular enough mods generally arise even without official support.[42]

Mods can compete with official downloadable content however, or even outright redistribute it, and their ability to extend the lifespan of a game can work against its developers' plans for regular sequels. As game technology has become more complex, it has also become harder to distribute development tools to the public.[43]

Modding is prohibited on consoles; on those platforms the term "mod" instead refers to either a third-party cheat or a hardware alteration which allows pirated software to be used.[44]

Dominant Software [edit]

Although the PC platform is almost completely decentralized at a hardware level, there are two dominant software forces: the Microsoft Windows operating system and the Steam distribution service.

Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces (GUIs).[45] Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal computer market with over 90% market share, overtaking Mac OS, which had been introduced in 1984.

Valve does not release any sales figures on its Steam service, instead it only provides the data to companies with games on Steam,[46][47] which they cannot release without permission due to signing a non-disclosure agreement with Valve.[48][49] However, Stardock, the previous owner of competing platform Impulse, estimated that, as of 2009, Steam had a 70% share of the digital distribution market for video games.[50] In early 2011, Forbes reported that Steam sales constituted 50-70% of the $4 billion market for downloaded PC games and that Steam offered game producers gross margins of 70% of purchase price, compared with 30% at retail.[51] In 2011, Steam served over 780 petabytes of information, double what it had delivered in 2010.[52]

Digital Distribution Services [edit]

Main article: Digital distribution in video games

PC games are sold predominantly through the internet, with buyers downloading their new purchase directly to their computer.[2][31] This approach allows smaller independent developers to compete with large publisher-backed games[1][53] and avoids the speed and capacity limits of the optical discs which most other gaming platforms rely on.[54][55]

Valve Corporation released the Steam platform for Windows computers in 2004 as a means to distribute Valve-developed video games such as Half-Life 2. It would later see release on the Mac OS operating system in 2010 and was released on Linux in 2012 as well. By 2011, it controlled 70% of the market for downloadable PC games, with a userbase of about 40 million accounts.[56][57] Origin, a new version of the Electronic Arts online store, was released in 2011 in order to compete with Steam and other digital distribution platforms on the PC.[58] The period between 2004 and now saw the rise of many digital distribution services on PC, such as Amazon Digital Services, GameStop, GFWL, EA Store, Direct2Drive, GOG.com, and GamersGate.

Digital distribution also slashes the cost of circulation, eliminates stock shortages, allows games to be released worldwide at no additional cost, and allows niche audiences to be reached with ease.[59] However, most digital distribution systems create ownership and customer rights issues by storing access rights on distributor-owned computers. Games confer with these computers over the internet before launching. This raises the prospect of purchases being lost if the distributor goes out of business or chooses to lock the buyer's account, and prevents resale (the ethics of which are a matter of debate).

PC gaming technology [edit]

An exploded view of a modern personal computer:
  1. Display
  2. Motherboard
  3. CPU (Microprocessor)
  4. Primary storage (RAM)
  5. Expansion cards (graphics cards, etc.)
  6. Power supply
  7. Optical disc drive
  8. Secondary storage (Hard disk)
  9. Keyboard
  10. Mouse
Main article: Personal computer
See also: Gaming computer

Hardware [edit]

Modern computer games place great demand on the computer's hardware, often requiring a fast central processing unit (CPU) to function properly. CPU manufacturers historically relied mainly on increasing clock rates to improve the performance of their processors, but had begun to move steadily towards multi-core CPUs by 2005. These processors allow the computer to simultaneously process multiple tasks, called threads, allowing the use of more complex graphics, artificial intelligence and in-game physics.[22][60]

Similarly, 3D games often rely on a powerful graphics processing unit (GPU), which accelerates the process of drawing complex scenes in realtime. GPUs may be an integrated part of the computer's motherboard, the most common solution in laptops,[61] or come packaged with a discrete graphics card with a supply of dedicated Video RAM, connected to the motherboard through either an AGP or PCI-Express port. It is also possible to use multiple GPUs in a single computer, using technologies such as NVidia's Scalable Link Interface and ATI's CrossFire.

Sound cards are also available to provide improved audio in computer games. These cards provide improved 3D audio and provide audio enhancement that is generally not available with integrated alternatives, at the cost of marginally lower overall performance.[62] The Creative Labs SoundBlaster line was for many years the de facto standard for sound cards, although its popularity dwindled as PC audio became a commodity on modern motherboards.

Physics processing units (PPUs), such as the Nvidia PhysX (formerly AGEIA PhysX) card, are also available to accelerate physics simulations in modern computer games. PPUs allow the computer to process more complex interactions among objects than is achievable using only the CPU, potentially allowing players a much greater degree of control over the world in games designed to use the card.[61]

Virtually all personal computers use a keyboard and mouse for user input. Other common gaming peripherals are a headset for faster communication in online games, joysticks for flight simulators, steering wheels for driving games and gamepads for console-style games.

Software [edit]

Computer games also rely on third-party software such as an operating system (OS), device drivers, libraries and more to run. Today, the vast majority of computer games are designed to run on the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems. Whereas earlier games written for MS-DOS would include code to communicate directly with hardware, today Application programming interfaces (APIs) provide an interface between the game and the OS, simplifying game design. Microsoft's DirectX is an API that is widely used by today's computer games to communicate with sound and graphics hardware. OpenGL is a cross-platform API for graphics rendering that is also used. The version of the graphics card's driver installed can often affect game performance and gameplay. It is not unusual for a game company to use a third-party game engine, or third-party libraries for a game's AI or physics.

Multiplayer [edit]

Main article: Multiplayer computer game

Local area network gaming [edit]

See also: LAN party

Multiplayer gaming was largely limited to local area networks (LANs) before cost-effective broadband Internet access became available, due to their typically higher bandwidth and lower latency than the dial-up services of the time. These advantages allowed more players to join any given computer game, but have persisted today because of the higher latency of most Internet connections and the costs associated with broadband Internet.

LAN gaming typically requires two or more personal computers, a router and sufficient networking cables to connect every computer on the network. Additionally, each computer must have a network card in order to communicate with other computers on the network, and its own copy (or spawn copy) of the game in order to play. Optionally, any LAN may include an external connection to the Internet.

Online games [edit]

Main article: Online game

Online multiplayer games have achieved popularity largely as a result of increasing broadband adoption among consumers. Affordable high-bandwidth Internet connections allow large numbers of players to play together, and thus have found particular use in massively multiplayer online role-playing games, Tanarus and persistent online games such as World War II Online.

Although it is possible to participate in online computer games using dial-up modems, broadband internet connections are generally considered necessary in order to reduce the latency between players (commonly known as "lag"). Such connections require a broadband-compatible modem connected to the personal computer through a network interface card (generally integrated onto the computer's motherboard), optionally separated by a router. Online games require a virtual environment, generally called a "game server". These virtual servers inter-connect gamers, allowing real time, and often fast paced action. To meet this subsequent need, Game Server Providers (GSP) have become increasingly more popular over the last half decade. While not required for all gamers, these servers provide a unique "home", fully customizable (such as additional modifications, settings, etc.) – giving the end gamers the experience they desire. Today there are over 510,000 game servers hosted in North America alone.[63]

Emulation [edit]

Main article: Emulator

Emulation software, used to run software without the original hardware, are popular for their ability to play legacy video games without the platform for which they were designed. The operating system emulators include DOSBox, a DOS emulator which allows playing games developed originally for this operating system and thus not compatible with a modern day OS. Console emulators such as NESticle and MAME are relatively commonplace, although the complexity of modern consoles such as the Xbox or PlayStation makes them far more difficult to emulate, even for the original manufacturers. Even though it is difficult, the designers now developed an emulator named PCSX2 and it is being used for PlayStation 2 games.[64]

Most emulation software mimics a particular hardware architecture, often to an extremely high degree of accuracy. This is particularly the case with classic home computers such as the Commodore 64, whose software often depends on highly sophisticated low-level programming tricks invented by game programmers and the demoscene.

Controversy [edit]

Main article: Video game controversy

PC games have long been a source of controversy, particularly related to the violence that has become commonly associated with video gaming in general. The debate surrounds the influence of objectionable content on the social development of minors, with organizations such as the American Psychological Association concluding that video game violence increases children's aggression,[65] a concern that prompted a further investigation by the Centers for Disease Control in September 2006.[66] Industry groups have responded by noting the responsibility of parents in governing their children's activities, while attempts in the United States to control the sale of objectionable games have generally been found unconstitutional.[67]

Video game addiction is another cultural aspect of gaming to draw criticism as it can have a negative influence on health and on social relations. The problem of addiction and its health risks seems to have grown with the rise of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs).[68] Alongside the social and health problems associated with computer game addiction have grown similar worries about the effect of computer games on education.[69]

Computer games museums [edit]

See also: Video game#Museums

There are several computer games museums around the world. In 2011 one opened in Berlin, a computer game museum that documents computer games from the 1970s until today. The Museum_of_Art_and_Digital_Entertainment, in Oakland, California also exhibits PC games in its general collection. The Video Game Museum in Rome is dedicated to the preservation of videogames, and includes Pss games in its collection. The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California holds a collection of PC games, and allows visitors to play Spacewar!, the first computer game, on a restored original PDP_1.

See also [edit]

Portal icon Video games portal

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  69. ^ "Tom Maher discusses the effects of computer game addiction on classroom teaching". dystalk.com. Retrieved April 24, 2009. 

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Action
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Adventure
Role-playing game
Simulation
Strategy
Vehicle simulation
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