PC is not dead, but is it dissapearing?

titus

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Just a few hours ago I had a discussion with a friend of mine.
He stated that PC gaming will dissapear completely over the years.

Not by the fact that pc gmaing is dead but because the gaming will completely shift to consoles just because there is more money to make there.

We had a logn discussion but I couldn't say I agree with him nor that I disagree.

So I thought: Let me ask at the watch what hey think and how they fund their arguments.

Fire away
 
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MMORPGs & multiplayer ? No.
Example: WOW ( top selling and ass kickin' )
CS Source: Same.
Will not go away has huge audiance piracy not possible.
Indie and downloadable games? No
Lower development cost, easy to distribute for PC platform.
AAA single player titles by big developers? Aye
Pircay / better earning on Consoles / PC platform requires too much works to adopt controls and fix for all possible hardware etc.
 
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But will this in the end lead to totally no games anymore on pc?
Or by youth used to the consoles no new blood for the pc market?
 
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There may be less studios, but there will pretty much ALWAYS be PC games. They may not be the same caliber (relative to consoles at least) as we see now or in the past, but at the worst it will survive as a niche market.

I mean if there are still vinyl stores out there, there will be people making games for PC's.

I think we'll see a lot more online type deployment though. With broadband, you can effectively play fairly modern games through interfaces like gamefly. No reason that you couldn't have a new release come out on a platform like that, plus it eliminates one problem of PC gaming: dealing with a million different configurations.
 
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That was more my thoughts too Blatantninja
 
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Nope. People still buy PC even if it is just for work related stuff and the Internet. So while big type commercial games might start skipping the PC in general (though I think it's happening for years) but casual games, indies and the like would definately not disapear. Not to mention online Flash stuff, and there most certainly are quite a few good games in there. PC probably is still the cheapest platform to develop low cost casual friendly (or not) games and niche ones. And there are a couple of genres that fare way better on PC than on consoles - such as RPGs as we know it (currently branded PC style RPGs), strategy (especially the few die-hard turn-based strategies), space and flight sims and a couple more.

So is the PC gaming going to disappear in general - probably not. It's just shifting focus from what was known.
 
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Anyone who thinks that a big company like Blizzard who thanks his succes too the PC will ever make PC/platform games or switch totally to the Console?
 
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Anyone who thinks that a big company like Blizzard who thanks his succes too the PC will ever make PC/platform games or switch totally to the Console?

Blizzard is a special case. They have pretty much 4 game lines: Warcraft (RTS), World of Warcraft (MMO), Starcraft (RTS) and Diablo (strong online component). The first 3 are just not good in consoles, the 4th one could be, I wouldn't be surprised if it's ported to the 360.
 
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They will continue to make games for the PC until it is no longer profitable for them.
 
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MMM I doubt that D3 will be ported. It is not a real known title in the console gamng community.

+ the reaction of the pc community, many would probably think of it as a betrayal.
 
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Fallout wasn't a title that was largely known to the console world, but it caught on, and no one bothered about the backlash or being betrayed feelings from the PC community. RTS seems to be catching up on the consoles, if the recent surge in numbers is any sign - the latest being Halo Wars, but there is the latest C&C titles, and MMO aren't technically impossible on the consoles, there just hasn't been a really high profile title there. Yet.

So I wouldn't be surprised if a high profile PC developer like Blizz jumps ship soon, especially under the Activision management.
 
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There will continue to be more PC's sold every year than all consoles combined. Not necessarily 'gaming PC's, so it is up to publishers and developers to exploit the massive install base.
 
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I'm not too worried. Claims that PC gaming will die/ disappear has been around for at least 15 years. And like other prophetic claims it still hasn't happened.

PC gaming will remain viable until everything ends in 2012.
 
The only difference in the future will be the budget size - and I for one would welcome less focus on production values, in the hope developers will realise that quality gameplay must be present without the primary focus on explosions and cinematics.
 
The only difference in the future will be the budget size - and I for one would welcome less focus on production values, in the hope developers will realise that quality gameplay must be present without the primary focus on explosions and cinematics.
I agree, but that will entail a bit of "training the customer". PC gamers will have to be redirected to value gameplay over bloom and AA. That will take a little time and result in some loud wailing for a bit.
 
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One thing that will likely help the PC gaming cause is the continued increased ability of on-board GPU's. For a lot of people it's hard to justify spending $200-300 every year or so to get a new graphics card so you can play the latest games when you can spend that amount once and have a console that is good for 4-5 years.
 
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I agree, but that will entail a bit of "training the customer". PC gamers will have to be redirected to value gameplay over bloom and AA. That will take a little time and result in some loud wailing for a bit.

Nah, not really.

The market will shrink significantly as the majority moves to consoles. Naturally, some will stay and start appreciating a different kind of game - but it won't be a lot.

The market will return - somewhat - to what it was before we were invaded by casual players, and the mass market in general.

At least, that's how I see it.
 
I guess I'm not convinced that the graphics whores are all casual gamers (or even the majority). Similarly, the younger gamers, some of whom are legit hardcore, might not remember ye goode auld days when gameplay was king and CGA was good enough. You're looking at some culture change there. You're right though--a portion of the folks needing to refocus won't stick around anyway. The transition might not be too painful or time consuming.
 
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I guess I'm not convinced that the graphics whores are all casual gamers (or even the majority). Similarly, the younger gamers, some of whom are legit hardcore, might not remember ye goode auld days when gameplay was king and CGA was good enough. You're looking at some culture change there. You're right though--a portion of the folks needing to refocus won't stick around anyway. The transition might not be too painful or time consuming.

No no, it's not that casual gamers are graphics whores.

It's that they're CASUAL - as in they don't want deep, demanding, and complex gameplay and they certainly don't want games that require endless patching. They just want to have some fun and be done with it.

That's why casual gamers prefer consoles, though I'm sure they appreciate aesthetics - but don't we all. Piracy is getting all the blame, but in reality it's the fact that consoles are a hell of a lot easier to support and develop for. Piracy is the same problem it always was. Yeah, it's a lot easier today but the market is gargantuan in comparison to what it was. Games cost more to develop, but as I've argued before - they don't have to.

That's why I expect something very similar to what we knew ~15 years ago.

That said, I'm not suggesting we go back to archaic interfaces or downright rotten production values - and developers should certainly use the knowledge gained these past years. Also, the tools and hardware available are much more powerful and easy to use than back in the day, and as a result you don't need the same kind of manpower to produce games on a big scale, nor is it impossible to make them look pretty damn good without zillions of dollars.

It's the movie-style cinematics and audio we're going to have to live without, and I have no problem with that.
 
i don't believe for a second pc gaming is dying from view of amount of players.

But what I do fear is that companys will stop producing pc games because console games generate a better profit. and so just stop producing pc games. Excepft for a litte nich of developers then.
 
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