The new face of PC gaming

Computer games have been changing a lot lately. I remember when I bought a game, it came in a box, and I took the game home to play it. Well times are changing for PC gamers. As I see it the three major options for PC gamers will be Valve’s Steam, GameTap, or Microsoft’s Games for Windows.

If you get your games through Valve’s Steam or GameTap your games don’t even come on a disk anymore. Instead of buying a physical product you are buying a subscription to a game that is downloaded to your computer over the internet. Steam games are similar to games you buy at the store because once you buy a subscription to a game it is permanently tied to your account. With GameTap you pay a monthly subscription which gives you access to all of the games available from the service as long as you are a subscribe. Games for Windows still uses games that come with disks and boxes, but they are unified by features of the platform and Windows Vista.

A view of the Steam storefront.

All of these platforms focus on giving you a multitude of features to improve your gaming experience. Most of the new feature that developers are trying to deliver are community features because they seem to be very important to gamers these days.

Personally, I am a user of Steam and while I find the chat and groups features useful, I don’t see them as essential. After all if I want to chat, I’ll chat, and if I want to play a game, I’ll play a game. Maybe I’m just not much of a multi-tasker.

Then again these features aren’t really that new. I remember GameSpy Arcade back with Battlefield 1942 that offered similar features for gamers. I think what is changing more than gamers is the market. The reason developers of Steam, GameTap, and Games for Windows are pushing new features for their PC gaming platforms is because gaming lineups among the platforms are becoming more and more similar as they start to overlap into each other’s territory. It’s going to start being these extras that make the difference in who makes money and who doesn’t.

Regardless of your opinion on the importance of having achievements, gamer scores, or friends lists with your games, these features are already commonplace, with some being potentially useful. We should certainly expect to see developers releasing many new ones soon.