RAGE is disappointing us on PC even before we've played it

Is the greatest threat to PC gaming piracy, or developers who knowingly release terribly ported games onto PC?

It’s hard not to be paranoid about the state of a developer’s attitude to PC gaming, sometimes.

I mean, you ask a guy like Tim Willits what the biggest issue with PC gaming is, and he’ll say piracy. He said so on a recent trip to Sydney, and we’d like to take that at face value. We’d really like to think that that’s the reason PC review code for the out-now RAGE was only available on release day, and that the only reason we still can’t activate our Steam code is because of a screw-up somewhere in the depths of Bethesda’s marketing department.

However, that paranoid part of us can’t help but think there’s something else at work here. And in the absence of actually being able to play the game, that paranoia is really all we have.

By all reports, the PC version of RAGE is a mess. Terrible pop-in, horrible performance, screen-tearing and bizarre artifacts are all being reported. The PC version also has arguably the most stripped back set of graphical options of any PC game, and more than one site is really bemoaning what an obvious console port the game is.

So, is it any wonder that I have this sneaking suspicion that the game was withheld from PC reviewers, not to stop piracy, but because id and Bethesda knew the game had serious issues on the platform?

Most will probably read this and simply say “Duh! Of course!”, but personally I hate that automatic assigning to malice what can usually be chalked up to error. But this is id – these guys are the smartest in the damn room! They couldn’t not know that game has serious problems on PC, and that they’d be called to task for it.

Hopefully, our paranoia will be unfounded. Hopefully, when the game activates and we finally get to review it, the bugs will be smoothed out (though, again, we can’t help but feel that paranoia...). And maybe the reports that the game sucks even harder on AMD video cards are being overblown.

I just seriously doubt it, which is a shame given id’s pedigree.