![<h2>The best modern PC games</h2> <h3>(August 2020 update)</h3> <p>With 2020 more than halfway through and many great PC releases coming out over the past few years, we thought it was high time to revisit our picks of the best PC games you can play right now.</p> <p>To be clear, this list doesn’t attempt to single out the “best” or “most influential” PC games of all time since comparing the original DOOM’s gameplay to its 2016 reboot isn’t exactly fair. Nor is it a list of the most popular games out there or the top games in each genre. No, this is a list of games from the last decade that we at IGN – after much internal debate – collectively recommend the most based on our own tastes. Consider it our staff’s personal recommendation for games that we think you should play if you haven’t already. To that end, these are our picks for the best modern PC games.</p> <p>Let us know <a href="https://www.ign.com/articles/best-pc-games#comments-section">in the comments</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/IGN">on twitter</a> what made your list, what didn’t make ours!” src=”https://assets-prd.ignimgs.com/2020/08/20/topmodernpcgames-slideshow-1597948371613.jpg?width=888&crop=16%3A9&quality =20&dpr=0.05″ class=”jsx-2920405963 progressive-image image jsx-294430442 rounded expand loading”/></div></div><p></button></div></div><p></output></p>
<p>According to Romero, Sierra became aware of id Software after Romero sent Ken and Roberta Williams a copy of one of the studio’s Commander Keen games. Ken Williams was impressed and invited id Software to California to talk business.</p>
<p>At the time, Sierra Online was a PC development powerhouse, enjoying great success with the King’s Quest series and a host of other releases in the mid to late 1980s. Romero recalls being impressed by Sierra’s quaint studio, which had more than 200 developers and was located in a town not far from Yosemite National Park. In contrast, id Software had only four employees.</p>
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id Software showed Ken Williams an early version of Wolfenstein 3D, and Romero recalls being “baffled” by his response.
“After about 30 seconds of watching, he wanted to show me the new game they were working on, Red Baron Online,” Romero said. “I was amazed. Here is the future, the dawn of a new genre: the first-person shooter. And Ken couldn’t pay any attention to him.”
For his part, Williams was reportedly shocked to hear that id Software was making $50,000 a month from its shareware model, which gained popularity in the early ’90s. He offered to purchase id Software for $2.5 million in company stock.
According to Romero, id Software was excited about the offer but decided to ask for an additional $100,000 in cash upfront.
“Ken thought about it for a second, then he said, ‘No thanks, but good luck with everything.’ So 100,000 was a bit too high for him,” says Romero.
Wildly divergent destinies
The fortunes of Sierra On-Line and id Software diverged widely after this encounter. Just a few years later, Sierra On-Line was acquired by CUC International, putting it on the path to collapse and closure. Meanwhile, id Software made DOOM, which propelled it into the ranks of the most famous studios of all time, which was later acquired by Bethesda and eventually Xbox.
Had id Software decided to go ahead with the deal, it might have met the fate of Red Baron developer Dynamix, which was shut down in 2001 as part of a reorganization. Either that, or DOOM’s success could have deterred Sierra On-Line from its fateful acquisition. However, gaming history could have been very different.
Coincidentally, Ken and Roberta Williams recently returned to the gaming industry after a long hiatus. They are currently working on Colossal Cave 3D – a massive update of the classic 1970’s text adventure. As for Romero, he recently created a new level for DOOM 2, with all proceeds going to help refugees from the Ukraine conflict.
Kat Bailey is Senior News Editor at IGN and co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Do you have a tip? Send her a DM @the_katbot.
https://www.ign.com/articles/id-software-sierra-online-gdc-2022 John Romero recalls how Sierra On-Line almost took over id software in one of the biggest “what if” games
