(Given this site carries a lot about gaming hardware, I thought I would talk about the state of PC gaming, because as PC gaming goes, so does PC hardware. NVidia have recently announced a 30%+ decline in card sales, and other companies involved in gaming hardware have said similar, therefore I copied this from another thread to start a debate about the future of PC gaming, and by extension, the future of PC hardware.)
(Copied from another thread)
I have become a half empty kind of guy when it comes to PC gaming, maybe because I have been a PC gamer for more than 20 years. This means I was around in the heyday that younger gamers look back on but did not live through. I subscribed to PC games magazines and read them, but you cannot go back and read them now as a most of them have gone.
I lived and worked in the U.S. for 6 years from 1991 to 1997 and saw the goings on in the largest PC gaming market while keeping an eye on the European side, then in 1998 I came back and watched the U.S. side while being in the European market.
I also have ran a independent games store when it was PC, Amiga, ST and still Commodore 64. Before that I owned a distribution franchise selling Commodore 64 games to game stores (all independent back then), and in the States for those years I ran a computer games business.
So I know this business as someone who has worked in it, been to the trade shows, talked to the developers and media editors and subscribed to the trade mags (that told us things consumer mags didn't), and all the while I was doing that in my various jobs I was a gamer too - never interested in console gaming, always wanted to play games that used my brains - and that was PC RPG's, simulations and strategy games, not (for most of the late 90's) arcade/platform console games.
Because of my background and experience maybe I have a different slant on the PC games business, where it's come from, and where it seems to be going than just gamers who have a 360 and PC at home and have been gaming since 2002.
I successfully predicted the computer game recession in 95-97 by pulling my games publisher business out of retail distribution and making it a direct sell games company, lowering our prices by 40% in the process. 80% of all games companies disappeared in those three years. I didn't. What I saw that few in the industry or media did was that everyone and their Uncle were jumping on the CD band wagon when hardly any gamers had cd-rom drives in their PC's. Being a gamer and still in the real world, I saw it would take 3 years or more for gamers to have PC's with this 'new technology'. It was just not reasonable, as the industry and media insisted, that gamers would upgrade. A few would, but the bulk of gamers even today may just about install a graphic card, but would not install a CD-Rom drive.
It's only a matter of being willing to to digest news over the medium term so you can ascertain facts. It's being willing to spend just a few minutes a day educating yourself as a gamer about what's going on. For example, a couple years ago, with the aid of a calculator, I spent about 10 minutes or so adding up all the review scores given by Gamespot the year before, I then divided the total by the number of reviews to get an average. At the end of the current year (at the time) I spent another 10 minutes or so doing the same with that current year. The results were in 2006 the average score was 77% and about 80 games were reviewed, and in 2007, the average score was 67% and about 60 games were reviewed. Anyone can spend 10 minutes and do the same thing for the 2008 reviews, but I am guessing it will be way fewer reviews, because there were way fewer PC game releases, and would also not be at all surprised if the review percentage went down again to show a continuing decline in the quality of PC gaming.
When I started a thread in Gamespot to give these numbers out, you should have read the excuses given! From reviewers getting harder on games than before (why?), to me not doing the math right! About 1 in 10 just said 'Wow, I didn't realise' or actually looked at the numbers and had a serious answer.
Now I shouldn't have had to have done that. Gamespot should have done that. But nobody is really interested in the facts, mostly the industry, media and PC gamers want to keep their heads in the sand.
Well, that doesn't work. You need debate, petitions, complaints, gamers unions, gamers cooperatives, putting pressure on the media and by extension the industry, but we don't have these consumer groups, we don't even have an investigative media. Take away the press release regurgitation and what do you have on most gaming and PC sites? Practically nothing.
When digital camera's started taking off, there was a huge debate in photography magazines about the repercussions and what it meant for the consumer, the market and the industry, some of what was talked about was quite unpalatable for certain groups, but it was talked about anyway. Our gaming media just don't do any of that. That's why when the games industry said 'we're going to put PC games into DVD cases, as it will mean smaller publishers will be able to get on the retailer shelves, the gaming media just went along with it. Even though they knew how the distribution system worked, they knew it wasn't because of lack of shelf space that smaller publishers couldn't get their titles into retail, it was because the big guys had made sure that distribution served their purposes. Their costs meant 70% discount to a distributor and a 40% discount for a retailer was within their budget because of their size, but that it kept everyone else out. I knew that, the industry knew that and the media knew that. It was the media's job to tell it's readers this but it didn't. It's because since around 2001/2 the gaming media has pretty much decided to support the industry, not it's readers/users.
This is why World of Warcraft's 10 millionth subscriber was huge news throughout the media, and yet DOSBox's news of it's 10 millionth download was not mentioned at all in any of the major PC press, print or web.
Given the state of the PC games market 15, 10 and 5 years ago, it doesn't take a lot of work to see that PC gaming has declined markedly. PC sales are around 40% of what they were 10 years ago with around 70% fewer PC titles being released than back then. It's got nothing to do with the consoles either, or Microsoft wouldn't have been able to make grounds into the the console market and the Wii could not have done either. How you succeed is simply giving the customer what they want. The customer doesn't want to upgrade every 18 months, the customer doesn't like that a game with 12 hours of gameplay sells for the same price as one that ha twice that amount. The customer doesn't like DRM or buggy game releases and the customer doesn't like his favourite genres being lopped off so that all games can become action/adventure/roleplaying games, that are actually none of the above!
We gamers get the industry and media we deserve, and that why I think the glass is half empty and the hole in said glass is getting bigger every year.
I will end by listing the main PC hits of 1994. This year is their 15th Anniversary. They are not all the hits, just the main one's. If you have been a PC gamer for any length of time, digesting this list shows the current state of PC gaming and it's dim future more than all my words above, or any articles about how PC gaming is doing so well at the moment......
Doom
TIE Fighter
System Shock
1942: The Pacific Air War
Star Trail: Realms of Arkania
X-COM: UFO Defense
Panzer General
NASCAR Racing
Lords of the Realm
Goblins Quest 3
The Way Things Work
X-Wing Collector's CD-ROM
Under a Killing Moon
Creature Shock
Sam & Max Hit the Road
Beneath a Steel Sky
FIFA International Soccer
Aces Of The Deep
Colonization
Descent
Alone In The Dark 2
Desert Strike - Return to The Gulf
Jagged Alliance
Jazz Jackrabbit
Legend of Kyrandia, The - Malcolms Revenge
(Copied from another thread)
I have become a half empty kind of guy when it comes to PC gaming, maybe because I have been a PC gamer for more than 20 years. This means I was around in the heyday that younger gamers look back on but did not live through. I subscribed to PC games magazines and read them, but you cannot go back and read them now as a most of them have gone.
I lived and worked in the U.S. for 6 years from 1991 to 1997 and saw the goings on in the largest PC gaming market while keeping an eye on the European side, then in 1998 I came back and watched the U.S. side while being in the European market.
I also have ran a independent games store when it was PC, Amiga, ST and still Commodore 64. Before that I owned a distribution franchise selling Commodore 64 games to game stores (all independent back then), and in the States for those years I ran a computer games business.
So I know this business as someone who has worked in it, been to the trade shows, talked to the developers and media editors and subscribed to the trade mags (that told us things consumer mags didn't), and all the while I was doing that in my various jobs I was a gamer too - never interested in console gaming, always wanted to play games that used my brains - and that was PC RPG's, simulations and strategy games, not (for most of the late 90's) arcade/platform console games.
Because of my background and experience maybe I have a different slant on the PC games business, where it's come from, and where it seems to be going than just gamers who have a 360 and PC at home and have been gaming since 2002.
I successfully predicted the computer game recession in 95-97 by pulling my games publisher business out of retail distribution and making it a direct sell games company, lowering our prices by 40% in the process. 80% of all games companies disappeared in those three years. I didn't. What I saw that few in the industry or media did was that everyone and their Uncle were jumping on the CD band wagon when hardly any gamers had cd-rom drives in their PC's. Being a gamer and still in the real world, I saw it would take 3 years or more for gamers to have PC's with this 'new technology'. It was just not reasonable, as the industry and media insisted, that gamers would upgrade. A few would, but the bulk of gamers even today may just about install a graphic card, but would not install a CD-Rom drive.
It's only a matter of being willing to to digest news over the medium term so you can ascertain facts. It's being willing to spend just a few minutes a day educating yourself as a gamer about what's going on. For example, a couple years ago, with the aid of a calculator, I spent about 10 minutes or so adding up all the review scores given by Gamespot the year before, I then divided the total by the number of reviews to get an average. At the end of the current year (at the time) I spent another 10 minutes or so doing the same with that current year. The results were in 2006 the average score was 77% and about 80 games were reviewed, and in 2007, the average score was 67% and about 60 games were reviewed. Anyone can spend 10 minutes and do the same thing for the 2008 reviews, but I am guessing it will be way fewer reviews, because there were way fewer PC game releases, and would also not be at all surprised if the review percentage went down again to show a continuing decline in the quality of PC gaming.
When I started a thread in Gamespot to give these numbers out, you should have read the excuses given! From reviewers getting harder on games than before (why?), to me not doing the math right! About 1 in 10 just said 'Wow, I didn't realise' or actually looked at the numbers and had a serious answer.
Now I shouldn't have had to have done that. Gamespot should have done that. But nobody is really interested in the facts, mostly the industry, media and PC gamers want to keep their heads in the sand.
Well, that doesn't work. You need debate, petitions, complaints, gamers unions, gamers cooperatives, putting pressure on the media and by extension the industry, but we don't have these consumer groups, we don't even have an investigative media. Take away the press release regurgitation and what do you have on most gaming and PC sites? Practically nothing.
When digital camera's started taking off, there was a huge debate in photography magazines about the repercussions and what it meant for the consumer, the market and the industry, some of what was talked about was quite unpalatable for certain groups, but it was talked about anyway. Our gaming media just don't do any of that. That's why when the games industry said 'we're going to put PC games into DVD cases, as it will mean smaller publishers will be able to get on the retailer shelves, the gaming media just went along with it. Even though they knew how the distribution system worked, they knew it wasn't because of lack of shelf space that smaller publishers couldn't get their titles into retail, it was because the big guys had made sure that distribution served their purposes. Their costs meant 70% discount to a distributor and a 40% discount for a retailer was within their budget because of their size, but that it kept everyone else out. I knew that, the industry knew that and the media knew that. It was the media's job to tell it's readers this but it didn't. It's because since around 2001/2 the gaming media has pretty much decided to support the industry, not it's readers/users.
This is why World of Warcraft's 10 millionth subscriber was huge news throughout the media, and yet DOSBox's news of it's 10 millionth download was not mentioned at all in any of the major PC press, print or web.
Given the state of the PC games market 15, 10 and 5 years ago, it doesn't take a lot of work to see that PC gaming has declined markedly. PC sales are around 40% of what they were 10 years ago with around 70% fewer PC titles being released than back then. It's got nothing to do with the consoles either, or Microsoft wouldn't have been able to make grounds into the the console market and the Wii could not have done either. How you succeed is simply giving the customer what they want. The customer doesn't want to upgrade every 18 months, the customer doesn't like that a game with 12 hours of gameplay sells for the same price as one that ha twice that amount. The customer doesn't like DRM or buggy game releases and the customer doesn't like his favourite genres being lopped off so that all games can become action/adventure/roleplaying games, that are actually none of the above!
We gamers get the industry and media we deserve, and that why I think the glass is half empty and the hole in said glass is getting bigger every year.
I will end by listing the main PC hits of 1994. This year is their 15th Anniversary. They are not all the hits, just the main one's. If you have been a PC gamer for any length of time, digesting this list shows the current state of PC gaming and it's dim future more than all my words above, or any articles about how PC gaming is doing so well at the moment......
Doom
TIE Fighter
System Shock
1942: The Pacific Air War
Star Trail: Realms of Arkania
X-COM: UFO Defense
Panzer General
NASCAR Racing
Lords of the Realm
Goblins Quest 3
The Way Things Work
X-Wing Collector's CD-ROM
Under a Killing Moon
Creature Shock
Sam & Max Hit the Road
Beneath a Steel Sky
FIFA International Soccer
Aces Of The Deep
Colonization
Descent
Alone In The Dark 2
Desert Strike - Return to The Gulf
Jagged Alliance
Jazz Jackrabbit
Legend of Kyrandia, The - Malcolms Revenge
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2008
- Messages
- 84
. All joking aside if we do make comparisons between 1994 - 1996 and today then we need to apply scaling mechanisms. Since development schedules seem to have roughly tripled we'd have to compare 1994 - 1996 to 2006 - 2015. And then we'd need to let some 15 years pass for nostalgia to set in so we're in 2030 by now. No, wait, we aren't quite there yet, are we? So, yeah, it's (IMHO) pretty pointless to make comparisons of this sort at this time.