The Last Decade in Gaming: A Developer Roundtable

IGN managed to convince a number of developers to participate in a new four-question roundtable discussion about video gaming’s previous decade. Among the participants you’ll find World of Warcraft’s J. Allen Brack and Borderlands’ Randy Pitchford:

What was the best system of the last ten years?

J. Allen Brack (Production for Director for World of Warcraft, Blizzard): Well, I am a big fan of PC. I was raised on PC gaming. I’ve always been a console fan I’ve had consoles and I have consoles right now, but I really appreciate the flexibility that the PC has; I really appreciate the power that the PC has over a lot of the consoles, and of course I think that for many games and many types of games the keyboard and mouse is a superior control mechanism…

Randy Pitchford (President, Gearbox Software): Launched in 1999, the Sega Dreamcast system was very far ahead of its time. Its controller design represented the biggest interface evolution since the original D-pad was introduced by Nintendo with the 8-bit NES. Today, new interfaces are driving a huge percentage of the industry, especially for customers new to gaming. Additionally, the way the Dreamcast anticipated connectivity and storage to be relevant future components of the gaming industry was remarkable. I believe that the Dreamcast was just too far ahead of its time. Perhaps some different positioning and later timing could’ve made all the difference for this greatest of gaming systems.

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What was the best game of the last ten years?

J. Allen Brack (Production for Director for World of Warcraft, Blizzard): Certainly the game I’ve played the most over the last ten years has been World of Warcraft. I have put a huge amount of time, both as a player and as a developer, into the game… so it’s certainly the game I’ve played and enjoyed the most over the last ten years. But there’s a lot of [other] games… I think Prince of Persia: Sands of Time was probably my favourite game on the PlayStation 2… I thought the combat system was good, but not too heavy, I felt it had a really good level of progression, and I liked the mix of the combat to the puzzles.

Randy Pitchford (President, Gearbox Software): World of Warcraft is the first video game to turn a single application into a long-term hobby. It’s been five years since launch and the World of Warcraft user base is still peaking. Moreover, this loot-driven game-play seems to still have a strong hold over people’s lives. As much love as I have for each of the great blockbuster video games that are released every year nothing has been as great as the World of Warcraft in terms of influence in peoples’ lives.