RPG News - Is PC Gaming Dying

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