Dear Future Gamer

Referring to your recent comment, "I appreciate what you're saying, but it's rubbish..." regarding PC developers approaching games design from the wrong end (Coders Fight Back, FG62). Well said, sir - thanks for being on our side. I dread to think how much money PC games developers have lost due to the fact that their games won't run on most peoples PCs. A year ago my friend bought a state-of-the-art PC and announced to the world (well, to his mates), that he was well chuffed and probably wouldn't be buying any more PlayStation games as the PC was the future.

A year and countless re-installs later, he told me that he was cheesed off with PC games manufacturers. He can no longer play the latest games at any decent frame rate or resolution and was so relieved that the latest PlayStation games still work fine.

How many others have had the same experience? Surely it's bad business practice to alienate a large proportion of your audience every six months?

Steve Brindle

FG: You've hit the nail on the head, Steve. It's extremely bad business practice to cut out the majority of your potential audience and yet we see publishers doing it time and time and time again. Why? Because they're developing games from the top down (ooh! What can we do with this spunky graphics engine?) and not from the ground up (ooh! That's a great idea for a game, I wonder how we can make it look really good on a low-end machine?). Just imagine the fun we could be having if publishers weren't scared to look at gameplay first and market share second. I'll take these silly glasses with funny coloured lenses off now.