The rumors of our humble Greatest Platform in the World's death may have been greatly exaggerated, but the causes of its recent “resurrection” are a bit muddled. Typically, though, we get a repetitive song-and-dance composed of echoing praises for social gaming and a slide-to-jazz-hands flourish that's somehow supposed to represent casual titles and simpler interfaces. That's a double-edged sword if we've ever seen one. World of Warcraft lead developer Tom Chilton, however, isn't ready to let the Farmvilles of the world turn PC into their infinitely milkable cash cow just yet. Complexity, he says, is actually a selling point.
“In a lot of ways I see the PC as potentially a re-emerging sort of platform,” Chilton told PC Gamer. “I think that the PC has always offered ways to approach games that you can’t necessarily approach on console, even if it’s just because of UI restraints.”
“Keyboard and mouse opens up options that you can’t get replicate as easily with a controller in RTS games like Starcraft 2. If you look at the way we do an MMO like World of Warcraft, our communication method and all that kind of stuff, it kind of implies a level of UI complexity that would be really hard to pull off on console. I think that combined with the digital distribution in a lot of ways has the potential to me to make the PC a really strong gaming platform going into the future,” he concluded.
The man has a point. Say what you will about Blizzard, but its games work like a charm on PC and PC alone. Sadly, though, it's the exception – not the rule – in the big-budget sector. Console ports rule the roost, and then they venture beyond it and fight, like, a lion or something just 'cause. Here's hoping Chilton's right, and that trend turns around in a big way. Because seriously, if we can't obsessively hotkey every action in existence, what's even the point?
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