Quake lives!

I know I opened with a lofty and intellectual post, but the first thing that came to my mind afterward was Quake Live.



I do not know if John Carmack was trying to tease Microsoft with the title of the game (Ha! You do not own the word Live, Mr. Gates!), but I do believe that this game does represent, in more ways than one, the future of PC gaming. This should hardly be surprising given the history of Carmack and id Software, who have a proven track record of innovation.

Reasons why the web browser is where PC games will go in the future:

• Where else will they go?

With PC game publishers and developers all but panicked about DRM and lost revenues due to piracy, many have jumped ship and sold their souls to the console-kiddies (I like to call them Panther Moderns). Many still make money from their efforts, but the world of media remains in a daze from the several unanswered blows to the head from P2P networks and direct download services such as UseNeXT. Well, John Carmack is not one to whine and get litigious. Rather than get bogged down and discouraged like the carebears over at RIAA, Carmack and friends decided to adapt the medium to a not entirely new, but newly polished format: Deliver a quality game for free, on demand and make your money from advertising.

On top of this, PC games on discs inside real cardboard boxes seem to be a dying breed in most of the gaming stores I frequent. On top of browser based games, I see PC game sales/revenues of the future coming from online services such as Steam and Direct2Drive. But that will be a whole other article...

• Runescape sucks. Quake Live does not.

This browser-based 3D experience is not new (there are many examples), but it has never been done like this before. Just like Ultima Online made the MMORPG but WoW made the MMORPG a serious prospect, now id Software takes the first-person shooter flash game and puts some real production muscle (and a bit of legacy) behind it. Presto! You get a slick presentation and good community support wrapped around one helluva fun game to play, all in the comfort of any web browser. Expect emulation and imitation of this format on a massive scale sometime in the near future.

• Quake Live is FREE! Therefore, perhaps piracy-proof...

Perhaps I shouldn't say that too loudly. Some work around may be attempted to get an ubermodded client that covers up the advertisements somehow. To me that seems like a lot of work and trouble to get a free product. The advertisements actually kind of fit into the whole dystopian, urban hell zone quite well. And hey, did I say it's free?

• PC Games and Web Browsers have been neighbours for a while now...

They have lived side-by-side on your PC for a long time, but they have never teamed up to great effect in the past. I used to play Laser Squad Nemesis, but apart from that game I always found it frustrating and/or annoying when games linked to webpages or vice-versa. I never used services like GameSpy or XFire, I preferred games that had their own built-in lobbies and game finders. Maybe it is just me, but Quake Live works. It is the perfect union of web browsing and gaming. On top of this, it is one definite advantage that PCs have over consoles: PCs are multipurpose machines that offer a lot of services that consoles do not. Sure, I know there is online functionality in pretty much every console of this generation, but their functionality is Internet Lite. The internet remains a largely PC thing, and Quake Live is something that would not work on consoles, but may work exceptionally well on the PC.

I intentionally say "may work" because Quake Live has only been live for about a week now, and there is no way to be certain that it will work as brilliantly as I hope. It is still in open beta testing, and not all of the community features are functional yet. Nevertheless, Quake Live reeks of professionalism and thoughtful planning and already thousands of people have signed up. All of these are encouraging signs that id has done it again.