Evolution of PC gaming By 1987 the IBM PC market was growing so quickly that the formerly business-only computer had become the largest and most important platform for computer game companies. More than a third of games sold in North America was for the PC, twice as much as those for the Apple II and even outselling those for the Commodore 64. With the EGA video card, an inexpensive PC clone was better for games than the Commodore 64 or Apple II,[12][13][14] and the Tandy 1000s enhanced graphics, sound, and built-in joystick ports made it the best platform for IBM PC-compatible games before the VGA era.[15] Industry experts stated that the enormous popularity of the Nintendo Entertainment System by 1988 was (as Trip Hawkins said) the last hurrah of the 8-bit world, but were unsure whether it affected 16-bit computer games;[16] Hawkins in 1990 nonetheless had to deny rumors that Electronic Arts would withdraw from computers and only produce console games.[17] By 1993 ASCII Entertainment reported at a Software Publishing Association conference that the market for console games ($5.9 billion in revenue) was 12 times that of the computer-game market ($430 million).[18] By 1989 Computer Gaming World reported that the industry is moving toward heavy use of VGA graphics.[19] While some games were advertised with VGA support at the start of the year, they usually supported EGA graphics through VGA cards. By the end of 1989, however, most publishers moved to at supporting at least 320x200 MCGA, a subset of VGA.[20] Although at first hampered by poor PC speaker sound, VGA gave the PC graphics that outmatched the Commodore Amiga. Increasing adoption of the computer mouse, driven partially by the success of adventure games such as the highly successful Kings Quest series, and high resolution bitmap displays allowed the industry to include increasingly high-quality graphical interfaces in new releases. Further improvements to game artwork and audio 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 PC sound cards, such as AdLibs 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] By 1990 DOS comprised 65% of the computer-game market, with the Amiga at 10%; all other computers, including the Apple Macintosh, were below 10% and declining. Although both Apple and IBM tried to avoid customers associating their products with game machines, the latter acknowledged that VGA, audio, and joystick options for its PS/1 computer were popular.[21] In 1991, id Software produced an early first-person shooter, Hovertank 3D, which was the companys 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 Softwares Star Cruiser,[22] which featured fully 3D polygonal graphics in 1988,[23] and Accolades 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.[24] 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.[25] In December 1992 Computer Gaming World reported that DOS accounted for 82% of computer-game sales in 1991, compared to Macintoshs 8% and Amigas 5%. In response to a readers challenge to find a DOS game that played better than the Amiga version the magazine cited Wing Commander and Civilization, and added that The heavy MS-DOS emphasis in CGW merely reflects the realities of the market.[26] A self-reported Computer Gaming World survey in April 1993 similarly found that 91% of readers primarily used IBM PCs and compatibles for gaming, compared to 6% for Amiga, 3% for Macintosh, and 1% for Atari ST,[27] while a Software Publishing Association study found that 74% of personal computers were IBMs or compatible, 10% Macintosh, 7% Apple II, and 8% other. 51% of IBM or compatible had 386 or faster CPUs.[18] By 1992 DOS games such as Links supported Super VGA graphics.[28] 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.[29] The CD-ROM had much larger storage capacity than floppies, helped reduce software piracy, and was less expensive to produce. Chris Crawford warned that it was a data-intensive technology, not a process-intensive one, tempting developers to emphasize the quantity of digital assets like art and music over the quality of gameplay; Computer Gaming World wrote in 1993 that publishers may be losing their focus. While many companies used the additional storage to release poor-quality shovelware collections of older software, or enhanced versions of existing ones,[27] new games such as Myst included many more assets 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 Hitchhikers 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.[
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 16:45:01 +0000
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