Yesterday PacManPolarBear of the Sarcastic Gamer forums wrote his own parody news story about Games for Windows. I really enjoyed it, so I thought I would share it with you.

Recently leaked emails, minutes from staff meetings and interviews within the growing Games For Windows developer community shed new light on the future of the program.Here are the highlights from the interview GQ Smooth had early this week at the Microsoft office in Redmond, WA.GQ Smooth: “So what are Microsoft’s plans for the new Games For Windows Line-Up and how does that relate to the intended merger of PC and console gamer?”J Allard (Corporate Vice President at Microsoft) replied: “Games For Windows is the first step in converting PC gamers into Xbox gamers…”.

“By supporting our Xbox titles and community over their PC counterparts, we intend to make the Xbox 360 the only place to turn to play functional titles…”.

When asked if the extremely lengthy certification system for PC game updates was necessary. Shane Kim (Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Game Studios) had this to say:

“It is very necessary. With the growth and huge success of PC Beta testing, we needed to make sure PC titles are not released bug free. If people ever realize how much more advanced PC titles are, who would want to play the spec’d down version on the 360?”

“By forcing all of our affiliates to wait 2-6 weeks for a Microsoft certification for their updates/patches, we ensure those titles will be unplayable during that time…”

GQ Smooth: “But won’t those same patch/update delays also hurt the Xbox version of your games?”

Shane Kim:“Of course not. We force our affiliates to work on a separate division dedicated to improving the Xbox version of our Games For Windows Line-Up. We can release the patch on Xbox Live within hours of the patch being finished.”

Just yesterday staff emails from Petroglyph Entertainment (Makers of Universe At War) surfaced containing their feelings on the Games For Windows Program.Adam Isgreen (Creative Director): “Man am I glad I left Westwood when EA took over. Working under the Games For Windows banner is amazing. It’s fun to get paid to twiddle my thumbs waiting for certification of a patch. Just because I have put almost two years of my life into this game does not matter to me. I hope the PC version of UaW really sucks…I mean who wants to play an RTS with a keyboard and mouse anyway?”

Leaked staff minutes from a recent Flagship Studios (makers of Hellgate: London) meeting revealed their take on the certification and Xbox Live issues.Erich Schaefer (Chief Creative Officer): “I look forward to killing the PC MMO genre. Upon release, when we become fully under Microsoft control for our servers and updates, we should really see people flee from PC MMO’s into the waiting arms of the Xbox community…”“Sure we have gone to extreme lengths to make this game LOOK amazing, but we all know it is a trick. People will buy it because we have hyped it so much…but once they have to start waiting months for new content and bug fixes, they will gladly trade in the game for cash towards an Xbox purchase. And if that does not do the trick, the terrible Xbox Live to PC stability issues will. Which is just…just great…” GQ Smooth hit the streets to gage the reaction to this news from a gamers perspective.Average PC Gamer: “You know, at first it was fun to play games at their best, at the bleeding edge of tech. But then I stopped and thought about it. Stepping back 3 years in equivalent PC tech to play on a console sounds great. I don’t want my games to look TOO good you know? Besides the PC gaming community has gotten too mature. I miss hearing “I’m so drunk”, “hack0r newb” and random ethnic slurs…jumping into the younger Xbox Live community sounds great…”

Average Xbox 360 Gamer: “At first I was like “I’m so gonna pwn these PC gamers when they join our community using titles with both Xbox and PC connectivity”….I mean how can mature gamers who have been playing for years possibly defeat 14 year olds on a sugar high? Now I am worried…if all these PC gamers come over to the Xbox side of life we will actually have real competition online…sorry gotta go, my Mom is calling me…”

Despite being repeatedly asked if the PC versions of Halo 3 and Gears Of War were already completed, but purposely held back to improve Xbox 360 sales, GQ Smooth received no definitive answer. Though both Allard and Kim exchanged knowing looks and winks…which we assume relates to the two games.

Some of you may have heard of Sarcastic Gamer, those of you who have will know about Rothbart and his famous “rants”. Today he posted about First Person Shooters (FPS’) and asked “What’s the frickin’ point?!“. The primary goal of his rant was too piss people off, but it did get me thinking, why do we buy FPS’, and why is there such a large quantity of them?.

To which I answer:

People, like, to, shoot, stuff. Failing that, they like to feel as though they’re shooting stuff.

With that in mind, some company had the bright idea of putting people in a game where they got to do so.

On screen you have the image of an arm holding a gun, they almost never show you the face of the main character. That way, you have an easier time imagining that the character is actually you.

Developers release new games with new graphics, new story (or lack of), new guns etc, because they know it’s like stealing from the blind. They’ve found something that doesn’t need reason, that doesn’t need justifying. Other than to say “let people shoot things and they will come”.

But the same can be said for any product.

Why do people buy sports/super cars even though the speed limit will always be 50Km/h? Because it makes them feel as though they can go fast.
Why do manufacturers keep releasing new sports/super cars even though the speed limit will always be 50Km/h? Because this new Ferrari will make you feel like you can go even faster!

Why do people like First Person Shooters – because they get to feel as though they’re shooting stuff.
Why do developers keep making First Person Shooters? Because now you get to feel what it’s like to shoot down a helicopter with an RPG!

That being said. Developers these days do try to make their shooters have more of a story behind them, they like to be able to say “we’re bridging the gap between RPG (Role Playing Games) and FPS”. Why?
Because now they’re tapping into two vaults, those who like to shoot stuff, and those who like a story.

Personally I think that for an FPS to be interesting in the long term it does need to take aspects from other genres. Whether it’s a story line like in BioShock, or if it requires a lot of strategy like in Rainbow Six: Vegas. I personally wouldn’t see myself playing any FPS for more than an hour if it didn’t tap into these other areas.

But cmon. Lets face it. They don’t need a story, or new weapons to sell big. Take Unreal for example. There’s no story there, and has anyone else noticed that Unreal Tournament 3 is almost exactly the same as Unreal Tournament 2k4? Of course! But do we care? No! Because now we get to play Capture the Flag with a tank!

I’ve heard people talk about FPS’ as being the lowest rung in gaming, and I think they’re right. Out of all the gaming genres I’d say it’s the one that takes the least effort to make, the least effort to play. But it has it’s purpose. They’re the type of game that you can just pick up and play, and then put back down once you need/want to.

So, really there is no happy ending to this post. There is no grand philosophical reason behind it all. The unfortunate fact is that FPS gamers will buy into whatever crap they sell. We pray that they will give us something of quality that we’ll be able to really get into, but the simple fact is that when we want to shoot something, we have only one place to go (well, only one place to go if we don’t want to end up in jail). We’re at their mercy, not the other way around.