PC Gamer - UK (2022-04)

THE SPY
Bought out all the
other spies for a
monopoly on PC
gaming espionage.

omething weird has happened with

The Spy’s trusty sidekick,

Predictabot-5000, the loveable scamp

who makes videogame predictions.

The fan favourite robot – beloved by

many a reader thanks to his frequent

appearances on this page – has

always maintained that, in the year

2843, humanity will be enslaved by a

networked AI that has seeded itself through all matter

using nanofungal spores. That’s Predictabot!

Recently, though, something has changed in the

prediction matrix. Predictabot now tells us that the AI

overlord will be bought out and decommissioned in a

huge merger slated for 2820, thus securing the future of

FLESH, the last publicly traded company, of which all

humanity is both shareholder and employee. When The

Spy tried to uncover more details of what this means, or

even what the company actually makes, Predictabot just

kept printing out the word FLESH with increased volume

and urgency. That’s, er, Predictabot?!

Let us instead turn to the more immediate future,

which is presumably free from

ominous portents of doom. Geoff

Keighley’s Twitter account seems like

a safe place to start.

As you may have noticed, the

games industry is keen to shake itself

up this year. Already two major

acquisitions have been announced.

First Microsoft bought Activision,

which is a pretty big deal, both philosophically and

financially. Then Sony bought Bungie, which is a much

smaller deal to everyone except the handful of PC Gamer

writers still grinding Destiny 2’s Grandmaster Nightfalls

for a god roll Palindrome.

“Have heard from multiple people,” wrote Keighley the

day after the Bungie acquisition was announced. “As you

might suspect, there are a few other big videogame deals

in final stages of negotiations. It’s going to be an

interesting year!”

Keighley, who you may know from The Game Awards

and his tweets about Hideo Kojima, then offered his

thoughts on whether such acquisitions are good for

gaming, “I’m on the fence.” Thanks, Geoff!

BIG SPENDERS

On the one hand it’s not a difficult prediction to make:

eventually, someone is going to buy something. But The

Spy wouldn’t be surprised to see such acquisitions

become a trend of 2022. A lot of people are judging

Microsoft and Sony’s moves in terms of the console war,

but The Spy – who is hip and current – can’t help but

feel like that’s an old fashioned idea. Do you spend $68.

billion to make your £450 plastic box the most desirable?

Or do you do it to corner the subscription market for all

of gaming, on all devices.

Late last year, Bloomberg reported that Sony was

working on a competitor to Xbox’s Game Pass –

codenamed Spartacus. This makes sense, because

subscription services are the future: they can potentially

exist on all platforms, but still operate on an ecosystem

that their company controls. And hey, Game Pass is a good

deal, and so this could be good news, especially here on

PC – the most open of platforms. But it’s worth

remembering that the endgame of any such service is to

create a monopoly so complete that

you’re free to turn it into total dogshit

without repercussion. Just ask Spotify.

Weird, when The Spy finished

typing that last paragraph, smoke

started pouring out of Predictabot’s

chassis. Fingers crossed that doesn’t

mean anything. Spy out.

The Spy

1

Ten years on from our cover

feature, Guild Wars 2

remains one of the best MMOs

for people who like the idea of

World of Warcraft, but don’t

actually like World of Warcraft.

And while it’ll never get the

attention of WoW or Final Fantasy

XIV, it remains active – even

among a handful of PCG’s staff.

3

We round up every major MMO on

PC. As always, these features are a

fascinating list of games you half

remember. But the real surprise is how

many still exist – albeit now in a

free-to-play form. Like, yeah, it turns out

that Rift is still going. Who knew?!

Increasingly MMOs seem to be regaining

popularity, so it would be interesting to

remake this list today.

2

Lurking in the

back half of

our reviews

section, Crusader

Kings II gets just

two pages. We

didn’t know it

would get so huge,

but we did know it

was 87% good.

ISSUE

238, April 2012

ON THE COVER

Guild Wars 2

IN THE CINEMAS

21 Jump Street

S

This month in... 2012

THE SPY WOULDN’T

BE SURPRISED TO SEE

SUCH ACQUISITIONS

BECOME A TREND

NEWS | OPINION | DEVELOPMENT

BUT WHO WATCHES THE SPY?

The Spy