In fairness, I haven't read what Carmack said as he has yet to make a game I've enjoyed playing. Wolfenstein was his closest, but I was bored in ten minutes and gave up in thirty.
I seem to remember back in the 1980's having a Dragon 32 and I'm not sure how many users there were but Dragon User Magazine had a circulation of about 700 at one point and went up to about 2,500 readers. Companies made games in 32kb and they competed with each other for a games market.
I've read a few of these developers saying the PC is dead, but if that was true then no-one would make games for them. There are 100's of games scheduled for release each year. Why are they even saying the PC is dead? Actions speak louder than words - just don't make any more PC games.
If the big companies do ever give up on the PC, and I seriously doubt they will, then it will be positive because the market will be really open for the smaller developers and their innovation is something the big companies can't compete with. If that happened it might come full circle - boring games on the consoles by EA whilst innovative, cutting edge ideas on the PC. Then console gamers might flock back to get themselves a PC.
An open, easily programmable medium like the PC will always have a larger base of developers than a locked down console. Perhaps one day the consoles will have a keyboard and mouse and allow easy development, but, as someone pointed out, then they just become PC's too. Whilst that's not the case, guys like Mark are empowering the PC developer with tools like Blitz.
The only real danger here is that the reverse happens and these companies flood the PC games market with all their console-style games and it becomes difficult to distinguish the real PC games anymore... or has that already happened?
I seem to remember back in the 1980's having a Dragon 32 and I'm not sure how many users there were but Dragon User Magazine had a circulation of about 700 at one point and went up to about 2,500 readers. Companies made games in 32kb and they competed with each other for a games market.
I've read a few of these developers saying the PC is dead, but if that was true then no-one would make games for them. There are 100's of games scheduled for release each year. Why are they even saying the PC is dead? Actions speak louder than words - just don't make any more PC games.
If the big companies do ever give up on the PC, and I seriously doubt they will, then it will be positive because the market will be really open for the smaller developers and their innovation is something the big companies can't compete with. If that happened it might come full circle - boring games on the consoles by EA whilst innovative, cutting edge ideas on the PC. Then console gamers might flock back to get themselves a PC.
An open, easily programmable medium like the PC will always have a larger base of developers than a locked down console. Perhaps one day the consoles will have a keyboard and mouse and allow easy development, but, as someone pointed out, then they just become PC's too. Whilst that's not the case, guys like Mark are empowering the PC developer with tools like Blitz.
The only real danger here is that the reverse happens and these companies flood the PC games market with all their console-style games and it becomes difficult to distinguish the real PC games anymore... or has that already happened?