At
PAX East, just a few hours after
NVIDIA announced the launch of the 400 series GPU, a panel comprised of John Kreiner (
Terminal Reality), John Abercrombie (Lead Designer at
Irrational Games), and Michell Shuster (Co-owner of
LanSlide Gaming PCs) came together to discuss the future of PC gaming. Moderated by Jeff Kalles from
Penny Arcade, the panel took questions from the audience to figure out where PC gaming is headed, given the trends and approaches publishers are taking combined with the leaps in technology. Although the room was almost filled to capacity with PC gamers and all three speakers are self-described fans of PC gaming, the mood quickly turned a grim comparison with console gaming. It soon became clear that the future of PC gaming was already going through a long, dark and ominous tunnel into the unknown. The only question is whether there's any hope of seeing light at the end of it.