The New Old Wave of PC Games
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It's easy to forget that some of the PC's industry-changing success stories are more than just high sales numbers. The archetypal such case is id Software's Doom. Our recently-reprinted profile on the game serves as a reminder that it wasn't truly record-breaking sales that made Doom a success so much as it was a combination of a small, dedicated team, a business model that connected directly to consumers and allowed for higher margins, and a fresh gameplay concept.
Over time, those crucial elements became obscured by the rockstar lifestyles and Ferraris that were cited in every magazine article about "game gods" published throughout the 90s. The reality is that, with rare exceptions like The Sims and WoW, PC games have traditionally not had the per-title sales numbers that the most successful console games muster.
This is only a shock if you try to treat the PC as just another console, like so many modern-day publishers do -- loading it up with ports of multiplatform games whose franchises (and sometimes entire genres) have never had a strong base on the PC to begin with, then expressing disappointment when they underperform.
What many of these publishers, particularly those relatively new to the PC, don't realize is that this has never been a successful business model -- why would it be now?
