Dawn of War 2 Interview

I read an interesting interview with the developer of Dawn of War 2 with Tom Chick. In it, they talk about how the genre has gone stale when compared with other, more successfully genres (such as first person shooters).

While I completely agree with what is being said, I think part of the shrinking sales is to do with the PC as a whole. Halo Wars has not saved the RTS genre (more information about this some time next week) but only showed that RTSs are almost always better on the PC, hence RTS survival is completely dependant upon the PC.

Sadly, however, the PC market is dying. It is, in part, to do with piracy. It was reported (I have sadly lost the link) that one game had a piracy rate of 85%! Compare this to the current generation of consoles, where it is virtually impossible to pirate games and even harder to distribute them, you can see where the money is going to go.

None the less, they raise a couple of interesting points about how console games are changing and why PC games need to do the same; and they are right. Console games are being simplified and shortened. Even Civilization on the console can be played through in a single play. Personally, I liked the depth that PC games offer. However, what might speak more is I love being able to dip in to console games for maybe 10 minutes - and I do probably spend more money on the console than I do on PC.

For those who are interested in Dawn of War 2 itself, I have a review copy of it which I am currently playing. I am not allowed to post anything before Friday though. My plan is to post my (detailed) first impressions on Friday and the full review on Sunday, allowing me to get a good feel for the game and what not. However, if I am allowed one sentence it would be this: Thankyou Relic for not making me repeat my sentiments that I have used so frequently in the past 12 months; "it's just another sequel". Stay tuned for more!