For several years, GameTrailers has played host to Pach Attack, a weekly, 7-minute Q&A segment featuring games industry analyst Michael Pachter as he answers related questions submitted by viewers. In this episode, which was posted on Saturday, he talks about the closure of Pandemic and the departure of BioWare founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk.
"I think that we've seen a lot of nasty stuff lately," he said. "I think that the whining about the ending of Mass Effect 3 really very much could have been the straw that broke the camel's back for the doctors. I mean, if you look back at the BioWare blog, Ray Muzyka said he notified EA in April of his intention to retire in November. April was right about when all that Mass Effect 3 noise was hitting."
He then goes on to address all those gamers directly. "I think you guys who were out there whining vocally about how BioWare screwed you out of a happy ending in Mass Effect should really look in the mirror and wonder... now you're not getting anything like those games again with the two doctors gone. You might get good games, [but] they won't be the same," he added.
Ouch. He goes on to tell gamers that whining "pisses everybody off, it pisses off creative people, and every once in a while, [developers] say they would rather do something else." He then points out that Zeschuk is moving on to pursue his passion for craft beer, and Muzyka is moving on to pursue his passion for helping animals. Gamers won't get anything out of these new pursuits, he said.
"Shame on you, you whiners," he said.
Over two years ago, Pachter answerd a question about the death of PC gaming in Episode 108, saying that (at the time) packaged PC game sales were only 6 to 7-percent of the overall games sales. It's becoming a declining industry because you can get a near-PC experience on a console right now, he said.
"And I know flamers, you all have PCs that just crap all over the PS3 and are much more powerful, but the PS3 is a pretty powerful box, and is probably more powerful than 90-percent of the PCs out there," he said. "The Xbox 360 is probably more powerful than 85-percent of the PCs out there. Again, I'll wait for the flamers to tell me that's wrong, and that it's 79-percent."
Eventually he said that PC gaming isn't dead as long as the industry has MMOs which is "perfect for that market" – just look at World of Warcraft and you'll see it's a "robust market." What's more, as long as Valve is around, PC gaming will be around, he said.
