PCGA - PC Leads Gaming Market

Dhruin

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The PC lobby / special interest group the PC Gaming Alliance has released a 33-page report detailing the strength of the market. They highlight major trends of online distribution, free games with virtual goods, game cards at retail, the growth of emerging markets and total 2008 sales of ~$11B:
Gaming software (retail, digital distribution, online subscription, advertising and other business models) generated $10.7 Billion which according to most industry studies would make PC game software responsible for nearly one third of every dollar generated in the gaming software industry.
You can grab the report from this page.
More information.
 
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WAIT JUST ONE SECOND HERE!

PC gaming is dying. It's been dying since 1984. Stop with the nonsense reports that say otherwise.

/sarcasm off
 
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So somehow the 250 million gaming PCs out there (according to the report) are only responsible for 1/3rd of the revenue of the gaming industry? Seems poor for the numbers advantage. Other contributors obviously generate more revenue per unit. PC sucks :p
 
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PC Gaming hasn't been dying, it's just been going downhill. If you've been playing games since the olden days like I have, wondering into a Gamestop these days is still creepy. Where'd the PC games go? They just haven't been there for years now. Flagship PC developers hedge their bets with simultaneous release on consoles and PC, but in those rare cases where a console developer bothers with a PC port, it's a pleasant surprise out of left field. The kind of traditional single player PC gaming which unites us here is already archaic. The times they have passed us by.

As a matter of fact, the big PC releases that generate the vast majority of the non-casual revenue for PCs? They're the kind of games that are spurned right here on these boards. Look to WoW. Look to Oblivion. Look to the Sims. Look to Diablo III...

Intel hasn't been doing PC gaming any favors either. Mmm, starting off with $300 motherboards for Core i7. That'll get more people on board.

As long as people have to use PCs for work, then PCs will be an awesome platform for Bejewelled clones. As long as consoles don't develop mouse and keyboard technology (pray that they don't), MMOs will still stay on desks. As long as there are dedicated PC gamers who are willing to pay for games like Avernum, Dominions, GalCiv, etc, there will be small publishers making games. God bless them, especially Illwinter.

No one really thought PC gaming was disappearing, but if you think it retains the kind of prominence it once had, you're not thinking straight. PC gaming is king of like the U.K.; it's not going to vanish, and it's still important... it's just nowhere near as powerful or central as it used to be.
 
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PC gaming as we used to know it isn't dying. It's dead. What is classified as "PC gaming" now is just MMORPGs and flash games. There is no such thing as a PC-targeted first person shooter anymore. Crysis: Warhead was the last one and there isn't a single PC-targeted shooter known to be in development. There will almost certainly never be another one. This is pretty much true of any action genre. This is also pretty much true of RPGs. The only reason why Dragon Age appears to be a mouse-and-keyboard game is because it was conceived over six years ago, and it has obviously been delayed because of the console versions. Real-time strategy games are already being moved to consoles and their days as PC lead are numbered. You don't believe me? Look at Creative Assembly's latest game. Is it another Total War game for the PC? Nope, it's a multiplatform RTS. The RTS genre is about where the FPS genre was five or six years ago and it is going through the exact same cycle. The only difference is that the console RTS has yet to find its "Halo", but that's just a matter of time.

As long as people have to use PCs for work, then PCs will be an awesome platform for Bejewelled clones. As long as consoles don't develop mouse and keyboard technology (pray that they don't), MMOs will still stay on desks.

MMOs won't stay on desks for much longer. You don't need a mouse and keyboard to play an MMO if you gimp it enough. This has worked (commercially speaking) for every other genre, and it would work for MMOs as well. All it will take is one example of a game with a million+ subscriberes and the PC MMO will also be a thing of the past.

Intel hasn't been doing PC gaming any favors either. Mmm, starting off with $300 motherboards for Core i7. That'll get more people on board.

None of the hardware manufacturers have been doing PC gaming any favors. High end PC gamers have subsidized cheap console hardware since the original X-Box. It makes you wonder who's going to subsidize the next generation of hardware when nobody is buying $500 video cards anymore (since there will be no games that you need them for).
 
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PC gaming as we used to know it isn't dying. It's dead. What is classified as "PC gaming" now is just MMORPGs and flash games. There is no such thing as a PC-targeted first person shooter anymore.

I kind of disagree, but agree in other parts.

When I browse through a PC gaming mag, I see nothing but Shooters, Strategy/Wargames, MMORPGs, and the like.

What's totally missing are non-streamlined games and rather innovative games.

Few Adventures, no Jump & Run, no games like Little Big Planet, nothing colourful, nothing "just fun" ... Only shooters, strategy and wargames, in my point of view.

Just do the experiment: Browse through a PC gaming mag and sort all of the there presented games to genres ... There'll be only 5 to survive. I'm sure.

The PC platform used to be much more colourful, used to contain many more "just for fun" games, and much lesser combat-oriented games, overall. And almost no streamlined games at all, in a distant past.

Creativity is absent, PC gaming is like going to MucSwampling or to MurderKing.

I become jealous when I look "over there" at other platforms (consoles) and see what kind of non-combat-oriented games are there. Little Big Planet wouldn't be commercially developed for the Pc platform at all, because it just wouldn't sell in an environment that prefers that narrowed-down list of available gaming genres.

To me, it's like the publishers grew up their own kind of customers, too. It's like getting an animal getting accustomed to a certain diet; later, because of just being accustomed to that diet, the animal wouldn't want to eat something else.

I still believe a similar thing happened with the PC market. And with consoles likely, too.

The PC as a gaming platform is imho going down because the variety has been narrowed down - down to a level where it becomes unhealthy for the platform (like missing Vitamines, for example).

Browser games are in my opinion the only exception to that. They provide a variety of games I otherwise wouldn't see on the PC platform.


Edit: Did I mention that 4-pages ad by Microsoft for xbox-Halo-Wars in the PC gaming mag "Gamestar" ? Happened this month.
 
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Even the shooters that come out aren't as good. Lately, the MO for developers that used to be PC exclusive (e.g. Irrational) is to take their old work and produce what is essentially an inferior/gimped/streamlined/dumbed down version of it on consoles, where people think that it's brand new and revolutionary because they have been playing Japanese RPGs and fighting games all their lives.
 
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Is really creativity lower in games of last years than during the first years of the 90's for example? I though that until I tried list games that really create a new gameplay design. I'm not an expert but I didn't get a better number per years for the 90's.

For the diversity, the genre diversity is here but the genre diversity isn't well spread. And this is even stronger for blockbusters. But is this that important and isn't more games are released per month so that counter balance a bit the problem?

I don't know anything for sure but I have the feeling that those points require a more in deep analysis than just general feeling. For the general feeling, I also feel creativity lower and diversity lower but I have some doubt it's so true.
 
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To me, PC or console is just a platform. I could care less if PCs die or if consoles die. To me, it's about the games. I would rather play in my comfortable bed watching my 50" HDTV & 6.1 home theater than sitting on my computer chair watching my 19" monitor and 2.1 computer speakers, but overall I do prefer the mouse/keyboard interface for most games. If the same games that come for PC (using mouse/keyboard) also come for consoles (using mouse/keyboard), I'll play them on console.
 
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Man I'm old and never get used to pads so I'd hate see pc gaming die. All the problem is how keyboard+mouse (well in fact for me, mouse or trackball but I'm more shared about the keyboard) could become a standard on consoles. Console isn't for a desk that's all the problem.
 
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11% I wonder from what you get this number, 11% is quite important.
 
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11% I wonder from what you get this number, 11% is quite important.
Couldnt find it but in US PC game sales dropped 20% last year while console sales rised 10%:
http://www.tekniikkatalous.fi/incoming/article39211.ece (sry just finnish source)

Even if the lost sales were all just due to digital sales replacing physical then we should also consider that large portion of pc sales are due to few titles only like world of warcraft, diablo, call of duty and sims. World of warcraft alone holds multiple spots on the top10/20 charts of pc games (different boxes).
 
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The PC platform used to be much more colourful, used to contain many more "just for fun" games, and much lesser combat-oriented games, overall. And almost no streamlined games at all, in a distant past.

Creativity is absent, PC gaming is like going to MucSwampling or to MurderKing.
Do me a favour, look up Steam :)

There you will find a HUGE catalogue of very colourful, just for fun, non-combat games. They are alive and kicking on the PC.
 
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People who lament the width of PC gaming are usually just not looking further than their nose is long. PC gaming is fine, and there's heaps of brilliant games out there, they're just not being presented to us by Gamespot and their ilk, and you have to know where to look for 'em.

The "11% down" comment is from NPD numbers. It's about time we forget about those. NPD numbers, being retail-focused, are losing relevance even in the console world (where they can't track Live and similar services) but is - in fact - completely irrelevant to PC gaming. NPD simply does not track enough to even provide a mildly accurate guesstimate of PC sales numbers. Just ignore NPD for PC purposes, its time is done.
 
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Do me a favour, look up Steam :)

There you will find a HUGE catalogue of very colourful, just for fun, non-combat games. They are alive and kicking on the PC.

Yes, I do know, thanks. :)

But being rather conservative as I am, I personally prefer physical CD or DVd releaes. ;)

Last evening I was playing Tropico Gold again, for several hours ! I just couldn't stop ! :lol:
 
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lol, I just found an article in the German mag PC Games which supports my view ;) :

http://www.pcgames.de/aid,680044/Fr...2-denn-nach-vier-Stunden-ists-vorbei/PC/News/

It says that games contain much more action than in previous times - but are also much shorter nowadays, shooters, especially, with the example of Crysis 2.

"Breathing space: None." It says. ;)

This just supports my theory of the PC platform being more & more dominated on adrenaline-rushing action games.
 
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Someone else agreeing with you does not support your theory, it just says there's more people that think that way. Evidence would support your theory.

I think you're overstating your case. Many major publishers have abandoned the PC or treat it as a secondary platform. If you've got shutters on and just want to focus on what they're doing then yes, there's not much of interesting on the PC platform. If you just want to take the mainstream view, then yes, it's just an MMO-supporting platform with no interesting variety.

I am curious why you would target the PC platform with these remarks. How does it not apply to Xbox 360 and PS3? Hell, with the demands in cost made for console, the console market is significantly more risk-averse and apt to standardization than the PC.

Even ignoring the MMO and RTS dominance, the PC has such a rich portfolio if you just take a second to look around; Trine, Zeno Clash, The Path, Machinarium, Tension, The Whispered World, Simon the Sorcerer 5, Not the Time for Dragons, Drakensang, Deathspank, Eschalon: Book II, Age of Decadence, Scars of War, Frayed Knights, King’s Bounty: The Princess, Mount & Blade: Warband, Gish 2, Fez, Collapse. That's all exclusives, and picked from my fairly narrow tastes are all games I'm either really or somewhat interested in. Not one game is remotely similar to the next, and they're all non-US and/or non-mainstream.

Games like Tension, Zeno Clash or Machinarium have more setting imagination in their little pinky than any of the mainstream consoles have shown this year. Trine, the Path or Gish 2 offer gameplay experiments that not even remotely about action gaming. Your criticism of the mainstream PC industry is valid. So why are you sticking to just mainstream PC games?

Sure, if this is your only point of reference, PC gaming looks extremely poor. But I can shake a dozen titles from my shirtsleeve that I'm interested in on the PC just like that. I can think of only one title in the past 3 years that makes me regret I don't have a console, and that is Street Fighter IV.
 
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It's coming out on PC too ;)

I know, but somehow, I can't think of playing a fighting game (or beat 'em up) on the PC. I could buy a pad for it and play it online, but to me fighting games will always be about living room tournaments are just playing it deep into the night with a friend.

That's why it's my lone regret. GTA IV, Mirror's Edge? Titles that interested me and came to PC later, I don't care, I'm not in a rush (though the localization of GTA IV was a genormous mess), but Street Fighter IV? I'm just not getting that one, and it's a shame. Not a big enough shame to have me get a PS3 or Xbox 360, tho'
 
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