PC’s definitely became a contender
and it was because for the most part PC’s were more than just for gaming so
that sold it off at the beginning but focusing on the gaming side of it, it
broke out with the help of its breakthroughs that let it stand out over the
others.
One of
these breakthroughs was soundcards. Having only had a trying level of sound
from most PC’s it was an exciting addition and as it became more common it
certainly made PC’s a more viable option for gaming. With the introduction of
CD-ROMs however, it completely opened the doors for more video games on the PC
and allowed for the creation of three games that could be considered the
“killer applications” allowing the PC to skyrocket as a viable gaming platform.
One of the
games was Myst and a lot of its
popularity came from its surrealistic adventure with elaborate puzzles. It’s
sort of interesting as it was first released on gaming consoles through Sunsoft
and it didn’t take the scene as they expected but still earned quite a bit of
money. Through Broderbund it was released on the Macintosh and it was a great
success, later releasing it on the PC as well and that version became a hit as
well. It quickly became the firs CD-ROM game to sell over one million units it
remains on the computer game’s bestseller list for three years. The next game
was The 7th Guest brought
about a similar bit of puzzle solving and exploring but it was nothing like Myst. Showing off the technology though
was what made it shine as it had a photo-realistically rendered virtual haunted
house with live action video of actors portraying ghosts. The final game was Doom I’m sure a lot of people have
heard, played, and enjoyed this game to some degree. It was a game the
revolutionized the FPS genre. It was created by id Software where their first
hit game was Wolfenstein 3D and it
sold really well. It was a game with a bit of gore that players enjoyed, Doom built upon that and added even more
gore and increased their shock value. Another thing that Doom did was bring attention to the idea of shareware as a viable
way to get software out to people and showed the entertainment capacity of
multiplayer games. With all of these things compiled together it opened the floodgates for the PC as players would then be able to see it as another means to getting to play video games.
