RPG News - Is PC Gaming Dying

[Corwin]

Playfuls .com has an interesting piece on the perennial question of whether or not Consoles are killing PC gaming. Here's the introduction:
During the last month, the launch of Sony’s PS3 and Nintendo’s Wii consoles and the upgrades the Xbox 360 received, have conquered the attention of the entire mass-media. So how grim is the future of the PC as a gaming platform?
Read the entire article here. (http://www.playfuls.com/news_05311_Analysis_Did_Consoles_Killed_the_PC_as_ a_Gaming_Platform.html)

Thanks Lucky Day.
More information. (http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=2882)

[Dr. A]

They probably posed this question during the Saturn, PS era and yet again during the PS2, XBox era...

Sheesh...:rolleyes:

[Arma]

Actually I find the whole debate ridiculous, and the article in question more so. Blaming consoles for what the publishers/customers are responsible. Lack in sales in PC games is declining thanks to sub-par games being sold/bought.

Also some of their numbers, specifically the amount of PC games revenue, is outright wrong, as it does not include numbers like sales from Steam and other direct-to-download services, which, as noted in the article, have gained much popularity, nor does it take into consideration revenuew from MMOGames monthly payments.

[Dhruin]

*yawn* This article doesn't include mention of the new figures from NPD, which have increased PC figures from the previous .9 Billion to 1.5 Billion once online revenue was included. It's also self-contradictory...consoles are cheaper 'cause I can still play PS2 games -- just buy a PSP! It also fails to mention (as usual) multiple systems and new generations...sure, PC hardware gets outdated...but how much was that Xbox + PS2 + Nintendo+ Xbox 360 + PS3 + Wii + PSP + Gameboy + DS +... again? Or did I get that wrong, because consoles don't need upgrading do they?

Consoles are taking a big slice of the pie -- sure -- but let's take a balanced look if we are going to bother with this sort of thing.

[guenthar]

This article is bs

I upgraded my computer last year for $900 (if I only upgraded for games it would have been under $600) and I can still play the newest games at maximum settings very well. Not one game that is coming out will change that so it is bs to say that you will have to upgrade every year and it also will not surpass the cost of the ps3. (for now)

If they would get more good games out for the PC (like some were this year) then PC game sales would icrease a lot and would certainly pass the sales of the xbox/xbox360 and brobably the gamcube/WII.

[txa1265]

This isn't really newsworthy ... as has been mentioned, the article itself isn't well written and the author comes across like a whiny person who is upset and complains because their significant other has to go to a family funeral rather than on a date with them!

[Corwin]

This isn't going to go away. I can't imagine a time when we won't have to defend PC gaming. At least, collectively, we can provide a voice where it's most important; in the publishers' ears- they control the money!!

[sealight4]

At Thanksgiving I asked the younger gamers what they thought about pc gaming, console gaming etc. All had pc's but couldn't afford to upgrade yet have xbox 360's or Wii consoles (on order). So games sell the hardware according to this survey of 7 gamers. Also they liked playing online with their buddies in the room. I excused myself and no one my age played videogames anyway except Texas Holde'm online with an old Dell, (1)70 year old. I've been out of the demographic for a while. (60)
Buggy releases were brought up also.
Guenthar, Please give me your specs as I spend $900 on a videocard and memory alone, almost.

[doctor_kaz]

PC gaming might not be dead, but it is in very very serious trouble, and it is most definitely because of consoles. More specifically, the X-Box. The X-Box has developed a library by cannibalizing a lot of the PC's best developers and best franchises. Four years ago, a game like Gears of War would have been a PC game. 2006 is the first year in recent memory where there wasn't a single PC exclusive game that came out that wasn't technically impressive. At least a dozen great PC franchises in the past few years have gone done the tubes because they were dumbed down for the X-Box. (Deus Ex, Rainbow Six, etc). Numerous other franchises are at least good, but have mediocre ports to the PC (e.g. Oblivion). People say that the same thing happens with every console launch, but this is definitely the worst it has ever been. Nowadays, if a developer like Crytek actually develops a game for the PC, it's a newsworthy event.

The decline of the RPG genre on the PC is partially due to developers like Bioware putting the PC on the backburner and targeting the X-Box instead. D&D on the PC nearly died because Atari decided to make a bunch of console button mashers instead of the spectacular epics that made D&D a great product on the PC again. Of all the events that have damaged PC gaming in the past six or seven years, I would say that Atari acquiring the D&D license is near the top.

[Arma]

That is not true. Bioware games like BG/NWN are already greatly dumbed down pretty much to appeal to a broader audience (I give them credit for that, since it was a Bioware's BG2 that hooked me on to RPGs), they have now switched their focus, but still pump out PC titles. Same goes for most X-Box games, even the system selling Halo and Halo 2 eventually found their place on the PC (though much later).

On the whole, the X-Box itself cannot be singlehandedly given the "I drove PC gaming into extintion" award, for starters, as it is far from extintion. It's just that being a console produced by a non-japanese manugfacturer it has a different focus - it manages to appeal to PC gamers, as many titles available on the PC are also available on it, but it is cheaper to play them on the X-crate since it does not require extensive upgrades. And other things.

With all the talk, let us not forget that PC gaming still has quite a few tricks in its sleeve. Modding, for example, is by far a great game selling point, looking at NWN and Half-Life, for example. And it is hardly achieved on a console for now.

[txa1265]

A few thoughts:
- If you play RTS, then you are probably thinking 'decline? what PC decline?'. Because it has been a great year - Company of Heroes is just the latest in a great year of real time strategy games.
- Similarly, the BFME X360 showed that it was *possible* to do the RTS on console ... but PC is still much better.
- Prey is a reminder that the same game on PC and console will be better on PC .. but sell better on console.
- If you look at the sales data for the last year, you'll see that the only growth area was handhelds. PC remained flat, which is better than the consoles which all dropped. Taking subscriptions and digital sales into account only tips that further.
- Console data includes hardware as well as software, so the PC is more or less equivilent to an average console in terms of sales. That isn't too bad, really.
- Of course, the heyday of PC dominance is gone, but it seems like it is doing OK these days ...

[doctor_kaz]

Modding is a small portion of gaming, despite the conventional wisdom to the contrary. Anyone would take a great game out of the box over a mediocre game with modding tools any day. I don't consider it to be much of an asset to PC gaming. The overwhelming majority of mods aren't worth playing, and most of the ones that would be worth playing are never finished.

If you think that Bioware's games were dumbed down on the PC, then I'd hate to think what you think of Kotor, or Atari's button mashers like Demon Stone. I'm not sure what you're looking at when you say that Bioware "still pumps out PC titles". They haven't produced a PC title for four years, unless you count NWN expansions. Yet in that time, they released Jade Empire for the PC and they are getting set to release Mass Effect next year. Dragon Age pretty much looks like an afterthought and I'll bet that they'll make it a joint PC/console release.

A few thoughts:
- If you play RTS, then you are probably thinking 'decline? what PC decline?'. Because it has been a great year - Company of Heroes is just the latest in a great year of real time strategy games.

The days of the great PC RTS are numbered. I give it about two more years. I'll bet that EA is considering making C&C 3 a joint console/PC release, which would make it crap on the PC. Playing an RTS with M&K that was designed for a console controller is going to suck. If you don't believe me, then tell me who predicted five years ago that FPS's would become console dominated like they are now.

Another problem with PC gaming is World of Warcraft. Thanks to WoW, developers are jumping onto the MMORPG bandwagon left and right to try to capture a piece of the market. Everyone who doesn't play MMORPG's suffers for it.

[Pinhead]

With Microsoft comiting themselves to PC gaming with Vista and their new trademark "Games for Windows" I dont see PC gaming going anywhere for the time being.

And me personnaly, having both Xbox and Xbox360 and planning to buy the PS3 when it gets to Europe, I still think PC is the best platform to play games. Sure take a game like Knights of the Old Republic, playing it on Xbox is for me the best way to do it and many other games play better on consoles, mainly because you can lay back in your couch and just relax. But then take a FPS game and the PC will be far superior than a console.

[bjon045]

If you got a wireless keyboard and mouse and a 24 inch + screen you can lay back on your couch with your pc :)

[TheMadGamer]

With Microsoft comiting themselves to PC gaming with Vista and their new trademark "Games for Windows" I dont see PC gaming going anywhere for the time being

I thought the same thing... funny timing of this, 'PC Gaming is Dying' article #1,987,284 at the dawn of Microsoft's renewed focus on PC Gaming. This current month's 'Games For Windows' magazine has published a complete opposite argument regarding PC Gaming siting many reasons why the PC Gaming platform will succeed.

I'm starting to think that publishers post a 'PC Gaming is Dying' article to attract attention because perhaps readership has flattened or gone on decline. Gotta get those advertisement clicks up to pay the bills...

Anyone who's been a gamer a decade or longer has probably seen these articles come and go over the years. This one will be no different. This is just a provocative subject to garner attention. Like when you see a car wreck on the road... you may have seen car wrecks a milion times before... but it's still hard to look away.

[Pinhead]

If you got a wireless keyboard and mouse and a 24 inch + screen you can lay back on your couch with your pc :)

Thats true =). But it wouldnt be the same.

I will always have a fondness for consoles as I have in my years owned alot of them. And what TheMadGamer said is so true, each year a couple of these crybaby articles comes out and stirs up a discussion on various forums, but a few days later noone remembers them and life goes on. I dont think PC gaming will ever die out.

[Yates1968]

As long as the console games are generally marketted to the teenage over-testerone'd, under-thinking, i-want-it-all-now-and-easy demographic, the selections of games will not be for me. Despite more and more pc games porting to xbox/consoles, the selection of games available to the pc is much more interesting to me. I look at the software first, then the hardware, I guess.

Oblivion for the x-box? sucks as a game in my opinion---as does the stock pc version of Oblivion. However, add 100+ player-made quality mods onto the pc version (since x-box version you can't mod), and the game becomes much much better. NWN2? does it come out on consoles, i don't think so. And that is just an example of a game that isn't totally easy and takes -some- effort to excel in. And look at all those console games that are 'the same-old' game as 100 or so previous games that have been released in the past. That aspect is bad enough as far as pc's, but really bad for consoles. Geesh, at least -attempt- to be novel with a game. heh.

[Dyne]

I always get sucked into commenting on "PC gaming is dying!!11!1" stuff, even though everyone knows such articles come out every few months :)
They cite a drop in game sales, fewer developers making games exclusively for the platform etc. Why not change tack and turn the argument around? No-one makes an enormous loss on every PC sold, and developing for the platform requires no hefty licence fees to the manufacturer.

Only Nintendo manages to turn an actual profit on hardware sold, and they manage that with thrifty, arguably out-dated components. How much longer can the console companies keep it up? Sony made a huge loss this year. As a certain opinionated website put it, if you earned $1 this financial year you made more money than Sony.

All this is common knowledge, and yet people always default to pointing the finger at PC gaming, ignoring the enormous financial losses that the supporters of the console market are making. Sure, Microsoft have deep pockets, they can suck it up for a while. Sony does too, but then SCE found its profits actually propping up the rest of Sony's departments. Which rather invalidates the assumed safety-net of being part of a company with fingers in other, equally lucrative pies.

Of course I'm not saying console gaming is going to die, but "people in glass houses" and all that. The backlash over the PS3's price, blu-ray etc. was pretty much unprecedented.

As always I think the PC market will tick over quietly like it's always done. It's pretty much the only gaming platform that's endured all the way from the 8-bit console generation to now. For some reason that achievement never occurs to the doomsayers before they go into another "It's dying!" schtick. Which is pretty much the opinion the article ends with, somewhat invalidating the writer's entire article prior to the penultimate paragraph.

Oh, and consoles seem to be well on the road to turning into PCs anyway :)

[TheMadGamer]

As always I think the PC market will tick over quietly like it's always done. It's pretty much the only gaming platform that's endured all the way from the 8-bit console generation to now. For some reason that achievement never occurs to the doomsayers before they go into another "It's dying!" schtick.

This is probably the single best counterargument ever posted on the subject.

[HiddenX]

The PC has one big advantage for me:
I can do a lot of other things than only gaming:

Internet
Programming
Photoshop
Music
1001 cool Freeware proggies

I can install more than one operating system
and with some emulators (DosBox, Bleem ...)
I can play old PC and console software.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

A few thoughts:
- If you play RTS, then you are probably thinking 'decline? what PC decline?'. Because it has been a great year - Company of Heroes is just the latest in a great year of real time strategy games.

To me, that is one of the problems.

When I browse through a cuirrent gaming mag, 90 % of what I see is RTS or FPS games or near genres.

Therefore I don't read gaming mags anymore. I love RPGs and Aventures, so 90 % of the mag is wasted for me.

Jump & Run, for example, has practically died out. On the PC. Although it's fun.

With Microsoft comiting themselves to PC gaming with Vista and their new trademark "Games for Windows" I dont see PC gaming going anywhere for the time being.

That reminds me of Microsoft having cut down EAX for Vista. No joke. Source : The German magazine " c't ".

[xSamhainx]

The Sky Is Falling! The Sky Is Falling!

[LordRac]

Let's see....in addition to current titles, there are thousands upon thousands of PC games available on abandonware sites, or for sale on Amazon/Ebay. Not to mention all the freeware/shareware titles.

So the answer is no. As long as there are PCs, there will be PC gaming. :)

[txa1265]

I think it is also interesting that as the consoles have added PC-like features to differentiate themselves, they have also come up with the same problems - patches, instability, complexity and hardware issues.

[Hedek]

I too am convinced pc gaming isn't anywhere close from dying, and everyone here gave excellent arguments why. What I am concerned about though is the impact of console gaming on PC games. I feel quality is going down to conform to console, the focus is put on graphics and of course there's a specific way to how games are played on consoles. There's more than just graphics to great games, Planescape: Torment and Fallout 1&2 are among my favorite games yet their graphics were nothing to awe at.
Market sales just dictate what publishers fund developpers to create, and right now that's console friendly games or WoW clone attempts.
Perhaps my expectations and conception of a quality game are that of a minority of people and as such we have no weight. But buying a game is like voting, voting for the developers we want to see continuing making games and not buying a game is sending a message the developer is too crap and shouldn't be allowed to continue. Yet I bought almost every game from Black Isle (except Fallout Tactics, Brotherhood of Steel, BG Dark Alliance and all that console crap) and that didn't help avoiding the end of the studio... So I'm not even sure it changes anything. I guess I'll have to accept the fact most games from now on are developped for several platforms, which means adding up all the limitations from each platform.
On the other hand, it's because they're planning on selling for different platforms that they have the money to fund the project to begin with. So I can't really blame consoles either.

[Droniac]

The article comes across very biased (yes, I know - I'm biased too, but the article just seemed to be overly biased for the extinction of PC gaming). Seems like a console-favoring gamer writing about the PC platform being doomed right after the launch of yet another new console - as happens every single time a new console is launched.

I'm certain some of you were around when the Xbox and PS2 were released as well. Those of you who were must remember how console-fanboys proclaimed that PC gaming would die a trillion deaths. And yet what happened? Oh, that's right: Absolutely Nothing.


I wonder why PC game sales might have died down since 1998/1999... might it have something to do with those two years being the greatest years in all of gaming history!? Come on, we had Half Life, Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, Team Fortress: Classic, Counter Strike (however much I might dislike it, it does deserve to be in this list), Unreal, Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, Starcraft, C&C Tiberian Sun, Age of Empires 2, Outcast, Freespace 2... every single one of them amazing and truly memorable classics in their genre that any gaming fan will remember. Additionally a wealth of awesome and memorable, but not quite as classic, games were released in the same 2 year timespan.
In all the years since then, the only games that truly stick out as memorable to me are: Guild Wars, Baldur's Gate 2, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Medal of Honor, Red Alert 2, Dark Reign 2, Ground Control, Neverwinter Nights 2, Battle Realms, The Sims, Black & White and World of Warcraft.
The final three of those games are merely memorable because of their impact, not because of great gameplay. Similarly interesting to note is that (bare NWN2, WoW & GW) all of those games were released in 2000/2001, almost like an aftershock of gaming's greatest years... (Note: no mention of Warcraft 3, because Battle Realms was a superior predecessor)

It's obvious that the amount of quality games being released has diminished severely since 1999. It's no miracle that PC game sales were to drop when game developers suddenly stop producing stellar games after treating us to one amazing classic after the other for two years in a row.
I think console gaming hasn't damaged PC games nearly as much as PC game developers have. If they'd still been producing stellar games like they were during the last century (and the beginning of this one) then sales would most certainly be significantly higher.


I could rant about a lot more things regarding this article. Like how it's merely focusing on the American market, when everyone knows there's a vastly bigger market for PC games in Europe and Asia. Statistics not accounting for the massive amount of (legal!) free games being played on PC. Statistics not accounting for games sold online. The price for PC gaming being 'supposedly' so much higher than console gaming, when it's really not that much of a difference. PC games still (despite their poor quality, compared to previous years) raking in more awards than games for any other platform at pretty much every game show. Etcetera.


The fact remains: PC gaming was supposed to have died out roughly when the Dinosaurs went extinct. It's still here, so it's highly unlikely that some Xbox360 or PlayStation 3 could change that in any way...

[araczynski]

good lord, why is this crap reported incessently like clockwork, year after year afte year...

but, i do think when the real 'next-gen' consoles roll around (the successors to today's 'current gen' drivel (ps3/360/wii)) THEN the pc might get break a serious sweat.

[txa1265]

good lord, why is this crap reported incessently like clockwork, year after year afte year...
The same reason Britney Spears is front page news whenever she gains or loses 5 lbs (or a husband) ... it sells papers, or in this case it sells hits.

[Corwin]

Hey, look at all the feedback we've got on this!! :) That's why we post these stories, to garner gamer's gibberish!! :biggrin:

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I think console gaming hasn't damaged PC games nearly as much as PC game developers have.

I would put it a bit differently : The publishers did damage, too.

They are not interested in "stellar games", as you put it, only in sales. A sub-optimal game which provides better sales is even better than a true classic, from their point of view.

[cutterjohn]

Direct X 10 (yeah, I’ll need to buy a new graphics card to have Aero work…)
Got to this line then stopped reading as the author is clueless. DX9.0L supports all Aero effects. There were some other factors in there that were not well thought as well IMO, such as Vista not providing goodies for game developers... and... etc. The biggest benefit from DX10 will be somewhat better performance granted by, theoretically, decreased CPU loads, newer more efficient chipsets, and more uniformity of features offered by compliant cards.

Also, I've seen several posts by various developers basically telling gamers no need to rush out and buy Vista as they won't be jumping on the DX0 bandwagon for a while, negating his little cost argument wrt GF8800. I've never spent, nor intend to spend more than $150 for a GPU, and I will use that GPU for years. My last card lasted me for c. 5y as it's only been in the last year or so that GPU memory requirements have exploded, and I like the shader effects... (I also like how he had to compare a now $129 obsoleted console to a brand new limited supply GPU. He'd've been better off comparing the PS3 to it, but then, that would've killed his cost argument...)

[Lucky Day]

Hey, look at all the feedback we've got on this!! :) That's why we post these stories, to garner gamer's gibberish!! :biggrin:

heh heh. I'm amazed at the reaction this had too. I though the article was pretty good too otherwise I wouldn't have brought attention to it.

Anyway walking into a local Gamestop and loking at the 1.5 shelves now reserved for PC games could tell you the same thing.

What I liked about this article is some of the analysis on sales figures and even acknowledges some massive contradictions in estimates.

--

When I was selling computers back in the mid to late 90's Apple Computer was running a Secret Shopper program. I got myself a pair of Rockports because I talked the the thing up to her. The one mistake I made she said was I didn't say that there was plenty of Mac software available on the internet.

[kalniel]

This is a topic close to my heart. The answer is of course no, however what people define as PC Gaming is changing.

Without going into it in detail, the main thing PC gaming is bringing to the table today (IMO) is the ability to utilise creative talent in designing additional game content itself. This may be for use on the PC itself but will increasing be used to design content for consoles as well.

[TheMadGamer]

Anyway walking into a local Gamestop and loking at the 1.5 shelves now reserved for PC games could tell you the same thing.

This gets said a lot. And it's true that less space is allocated to PC Games in botique computer game shops compared to 5 years ago. But there are a few other observations that could be made regarding this besides, 'PC Gaming is dying.'

1) Botique gaming stores such as EB and Gamestop typically occupy the smallest shops in a mall. So the stores have to dedicate what little floorspace they have to the most top-selling titles. Walk into a Fry's Electronics and there are no less than 2 to 3 full aisles of PC Games... and the aisles at Fry's are quite long. Walk into a Comp USA and/or Best Buy and I see the same amount of floorspace given to PC Games as was given to them 5 years ago.

2) That the smaller gaming botique outlets have provided less space for PC Gaming doesn't reflect a decline in PC titles inasmuch as it likely reflects a growth in videogaming titles.

3) I'm still not convinced that the smaller gaming botique outlets such as EB and Gamestop even stock less PC Titles as they did 5 years ago. What they really appear to have done is stopped stocking as many 'bargain bin' PC Games. Even 5 years ago, any given EB or Gamestop tended to stock the 'top 10' newest PC Titles (a few copies of each) and everything else was bargain bin crap. The bargain bin crap seems to have diminshed greatly. But the 'top 10' PC Games are still there. So yes, there is less shelf space given to PC Titles at these stores, but it really seems to be because they stopped shelving as much of the bargain bin stuff.

[xSamhainx]

If you need comfort in seeing lots of pc games for sale, go look at the pc games aisle at Walmart, Target, Best Buy, or Circuit City!

[Droniac]

If you need comfort in seeing lots of pc games for sale, go look at the pc games aisle at Walmart, Target, Best Buy, or Circuit City!

Or just go to Europe where PC games still get just as much shelf space as 5 years ago, regardless of what shop you're in. Haven't seen any change in the amount of shelf space alloted to PC games at all, it's still about as much as the total amount of shelf space for console games.

[doctor_kaz]

I could care less about PC games and shelf space. It's the energy and innovation that developers devote to the platform that is in serious decline. Six years ago, you would have never seen a game like Deus Ex: Invisible War.

Somebody pointed out that console manufacturers are losing lots of money. I know that this is true of Microsoft, but I'm not sure about Sony's Playstation division. Either way, it's going to be interesting to see if console gaming still thrives like it's thriving now once Microsoft gets sick of losing money and either quits the business or tries jacking up prices to recover more costs. I saw an article that showed that the individual parts that comprise the XBox 360 cost about $123 more than the price, before assembly, distribution, retail, etc etc. That's a huge loss to eat on every console.

[txa1265]

Somebody pointed out that console manufacturers are losing lots of money. I know that this is true of Microsoft, but I'm not sure about Sony's Playstation division.
The PS3 loses nearly $350 for every unit sold ... much more than the $125 loss for X360 and the *profit* for the Wii.

[doctor_kaz]

The PS3 loses nearly $350 for every unit sold ... much more than the $125 loss for X360 and the *profit* for the Wii.

And the XBox 360 loses more than $125. The $125 is the loss just on buying the parts. I'm guessing that by the time it gets in your hands, the loss on one of those is about $300 or sol.