In the great bastion that is the video game industry, there was one company that still catered to the few, the proud, the hardcore PC gamer.
That company is called id Software, the maker of such cult classics as Doom and Quake. Even in a world where gaming is being overtaken by consoles, iPhones, and casual titles, id remains faithful to its hardcore audience.
At least, that’s what its mission statement might say. But it appears the company’s latest release, Rage, is not up to snuff. All over id’s forums and game websites around the Web, gamers are complaining about graphical problems with the game on their PC.
Curiously, it does not appear to be an issue with those playing the console version of Rage. Could it be that id is now slipping into the convention of catering to the console audience? It is, after all, a much more lucrative market these days.
John Carmack, id figurehead, sent a Tweet to calm the anger, saying, “Everyone, make sure you have latest Nvidia/Ati drivers to play Rage!” That was little consolation to gamers who insist they have the latest drivers installed in their souped-up PC rigs.
This isn’t just a story about a computer game that failed to live up to expectations. It is symbolic of the massive shift that the video game industry has undertaken in the last several years. If a company like id has more satisfied console gamers than PC gamers, that tells quite a story.
