Still No Dragon's Dogma for PC, Missed Opportunity?

After a bit of a Twitter mishap Capcom's crack team of spin doctors have come out and emphasized that the company still has no plans for a PC version of Dragon's Dogma. This came about after someone tweeted them and asked if there would be to which they said yes, but immediately backpedaled on once they realized what they'd said.

Generally I lean towards PC and handheld for my current gen gaming, so I was disappointed by this news. I'm not really inclined to get the 360 version of the game in part because the price has barely budged on the thing since it came out, and also because I find it infinitely more comfy to lounge about with my laptop playing games than actually using a console now. However, this may change if I find it on the cheap, or I give up hope on a PC version, and just capitulate.

Personal biases aside, it still seems a strange choice on the part of Capcom to neglect the PC with this particular game. Firstly it's very much in line with the sorts of RPGs that PC gamers tend to gravitate toward. Dragon's Dogma certainly gives off a bit of an Elder Scrolls / Two Worlds / Risen sort of vibe with its exploration-heavy third person RPG-ing. Second, it feels that Capcom's release choices on the PC are a tad arbitrary. Stuff like Devil May Cry, Lost Planet, and Resident Evil gets a PC port just fine. They even released some Bionic Commando stuff for it, yet no Dragon's Dogma.

An interesting idea I heard recently about PC ports of games is that it seems in some cases a game only gets the port if it under performed on the consoles. An example of this could be Rockstar Games. Everyone was clamoring for Red Dead Redemption to come to PC, but LA Noire was ported instead. What's the difference between the two? The former sold like gangbusters on consoles, the latter not so much. So, it wouldn't be surprising if LA Noire got ported real quick as a means of scraping a few more dollars in on the project. Would Dragon's Dogma need to suffer a similar fate in order to get a PC port?

The game has done alright for itself since releasing, clocking in at a little over one million sales as of late June of this year. So perhaps Capcom is content with that. They've been pretty rigid about the game not only in terms of not porting it, but also refusing to drop the price on it. I usually see it in stores still at $60 and sales only see the thing come down to around $40. Maybe they see no reason to bother investing money in a port, and they are satisfied with how the game has done up until now.

Nonetheless, there are still a lot of people that have not yet picked up the game, and simply aren't interested in it until a PC port is made. The question here is if this is a vocal minority that would want the game. Moreover, could a port see a similar fate as Dark Souls did where many people railed for a PC version of the game, and when they finally got it people complained. Maybe Capcom saw this and decided against a PC version.

If there is genuine demand, though, it's hard to come to terms with Capcom not making a PC version of Dragon's Dogma. The game already has a good reputation, and it is a lot more similar to what PC gamers look for in an RPG than a lot of other JRPGs out there. With that, I just can't shake the thought that refusing to port the game is leaving money on the table.