John Romero says PC is "decimating" consoles thanks to free-to-play and Steam sales

Former id Software designer John Romero says the PC is once again dominating the videogame industry, not because of any inherent technological superiority over consoles but because of the rise of the free-to-play payment model and ultra-cheap Steam sales.

"With PC you have free-to-play and Steam games for five bucks. The PC is decimating console, just through price. Free-to-play has killed a hundred AAA studios," he said. "It's a different form of monetization than Doom or Wolfenstein or Quake, where that's free-to-play [as shareware]. Our entire first episode was free - give us no money, play the whole thing. If you like it and want to play more, then you finally pay us. To me that felt like the ultimate fair [model]. I'm not nickel-and-diming you. I didn't cripple the game in any design way. That was a really fair way to market a game."

Romero said studios are getting better at "the freemium design," and that's helping gamers accept the proposition that it can be done well, and also making it easier to differentiate between "fair" and "dirty" implementations.

"That's what everybody is working hard on. People are spending a lot of time trying to design this the right way," he said. "They want people to want to give them money, not have to. If you have to give money, you're doing it wrong... For game designers, that's the holy grail."

Of course, the underlying technology is a factor too: Romero said the closed systems and long life cycles of consoles put them at a serious disadvantage when compared to "continually evolving" PCs. "If I want to play a game that's [made] in DOS from the 80s, I can, it's not a problem," he said. "You can't do that on a console."

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.