What does Napoleon have to do with PC Gaming? A look at the significance of the recent changes of the PC gaming world.

            PC gamers have been watching some dramatic changes happen to our platform of choice over the past few years. Digital distribution has grown to the point where virtually any new release can be pushed through the internet tubes into your rig in less time than it takes to buy and install a game from a disk. It has such a hold on the industry that vendor giant GameStop has shrunk PC game inventory at its stores to one minuscule shelf, if the customers of a particular store are lucky. In my last venture to a GameStop, I had to ask for a printed list of stuff kept in the back if I wanted to see what PC games they stocked that weren't WoW: Cataclysm.

            Also piggybacking on the strides of cheap and fast internet has been the rise in MMOs in the past few years. Since WoW started bringing in $15 a month from millions of users at a time, everyone has been trying to grab some of that yummy market share. Think about it: how many major game studios can you name who aren’t developing an MMO title right now?

            And there are plenty more changes to name. Achievements have made their way to our rigs, starting with a few Valve games and creeping all over Steam and even into WoW (can I write even one paragraph about PC gaming without mentioning Warcraft?). Games based on social media have exploded, expanding the casual games market far past the former Cult of Maxis. And now PC gaming is going truly mobile? 

I’m writing to discuss two specific changes to our ever-evolving brotherhood: a sad but inevitable tragedy and its saving grace. But before I even do that, I’d like to refer back to the title of this little story. What does Napoleon have to do with PC gaming? Now I'm sure a few of you have already thought of a way or two. But I've got something more specific in mind.

Let's consider what it takes to be a leader. First and foremost, a leader needs a strong vision in order to achieve anything notable. The leader needs to have ideas as well as the will and means to make them reality. But being a worthwhile leader takes more than the interesting stuff, like making fundamental changes to the policy of one's organization. A leader has got to be able to handle the trivial needs of his or her position.

Now consider Napoleon III. I'm no history buff, but a little bit of research showed me that Napoleon III had the vision I mentioned earlier. Almost immediately after being elected, he dissolved the French National Assembly and turned his presidency into an empire. Following that, he had a strong foreign policy and stuff that I didn't feel like reading about, much less writing about.

The point is, the man had to take care of the little things, too. Yes, there were countries to invade and subjects to rule and stuff, but there were also petty matters, such as law enforcement and water distribution. These all needed taking care of, with solutions such as hiring constables for the law and founding a company called the Compagnie Générale des Eaux to handle the distribution of water.

Creating a video game is a long, expensive process that takes a variety of highly-qualified people working lengthy (and costly) hours to produce the subject of our greatest pastime. Like any development process the company doesn't earn even a morsel of profit until the product ships. This leaves companies with incredibly high costs with an uncertain long-term payoff. Developing PC games is nothing but a high stakes gamble. And investors have had their share of huge disappointments over the past few years, especially in the ever-popular MMO market.

The results of these stakes are nothing the avid blog reader hasn't crossed before. The big-shots want to reduce the risk involved in their big investments, so they force games that use more proven gameplay mechanics so as to guarantee a product with which the consumer will be comfortable. This is great when it ends in an improved variation on a well-loved genre, but is painful when every freaking new release feels the same.

And then gamers have nothing new. Where are we going to go for exciting new content when everything coming out feels like something we've played through time and time again? Is it even worth it to buy new games? Many gamers stick to what's good, like the hordes of people playing World of Warcraft today who recall their glory days in vanilla... suggesting over five years of playing the same game. And then you've got people like me who cling to their childhood favorites.

Look at the last five major titles you've purchased for your computer. How many of them are sequels? Now, don't get me wrong, there are quite a lot of sequels I myself can't wait to play, but it's very rare that anything truly original is released by a big name publisher.

So what must a market do when faced with such stagnation? It must change. Remember Compagnie Générale des Eaux, that company Napoleon created to deal with water distribution in France? By the late 1900s it could only grow so much in its market, so it changed. Through a series of takeovers, the French company started providing energy, transportation and construction services. As the years passed, it diversified into communications and mass media by helping to create Canal+, a French television station. The company had to change, so it did. And you know what? The PC gaming market is changing, as well.

Strangely enough, however, it isn't the big publishers who are finally conceding and publishing something new. Two paragraphs ago, I asked you to think of the last few major titles you've purchased. Mine would include Starcraft 2 and WoW: Cataclysm – nothing new. But I underlined “major titles” for a reason, and if you remove that stipulation it produces a quite different list. Even more recently than I purchased Cataclysm, I purchased Minecraft, DEFCON and Magicka.

Indie games have been taking off rapidly in the past few years. But it's not like indie games are anything new; they are as old as PC gaming itself. In fact, many of the most famous classics that began the use of PCs for gaming had very humble beginnings in studios that very closely resembled what would be labeled an indie game studio today. Some would argue this new surge is a result of easier distribution services, such as Steam or Direct2Drive. But do you remember indie games making the headlines back in 2007? Back then, would you have seen Minecraft appear on the front page besides upcoming AAA releases? Also noteworthy is the fact that Minecraft itself, one of the greatest phenomena of indie PC games, is not available on any of the major online distributors.

Today it's different. Not only has digital distribution grown to a near-standard, but the unwillingness of big business to explore uncharted territories has left open a big hole in the market for fresh concepts. And while the big shots are right in believing that gamers are hesitant to try something unproven, it's a lot easier to take a risk on something new and strange when it's only going to lighten your pocketbook by $10 or $15. And because the projects (and thus, the studios) are much smaller, such a pricing model works just fine for the publishers. Add to this a strong focus on public relations and word-of-mouth marketing and just one bright communications professional can vastly increase indie game sales on a tiny budget.

So there you have it. Although publishers are consolidating and AAA games are becoming more and more scarce, PC gaming is by no means dying. It is merely changing, like the water company Compagnie Générale des Eaux did when its market (quite non-literally) dried up. You need no further proof than the recent massive increase in high-performance hardware sales with matching forecasts. So fear not, gamer. Your hobby is alive and well.

But what of Napoleon? Is that really as close as they're related? Some metaphor about an obscure utilities company? Not at all--the metaphor ends here. In 1998, Compagnie Générale des Eaux sold off its construction and property ventures and renamed itself to Vivendi Universal, and eventually Vivendi SA. It expanded its ownership in electronic media, including electronic entertainment. It bought majorities (and entireties) in various telecom companies and electronic entertainment companies, including Universal Studios Universal Music Group and, last but not least, Blizzard Entertainment. That's right, Blizzard Entertainment. The conglomerate responsible for Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo was originally created by Napoleon III. Not so obscure after all, was it?