magerette
Hedgewitch
- Joined
- October 18, 2006
- Messages
- 7,834
We haven't had any articles lamenting the death of PC gaming for a few weeks, especially one playing devil's advocate to the usual facts and figures of doom as this one does. Bit-tech.net has posted an editorial called The Sky is Falling, and Brett Thomas, the author, takes a little different view of the phenomonon. His editorial piece is in response to this story at Shacknews: PC Games 14% of 2007 Retail Sales and he disputes both the methods and the conclusions of the whole 'PC gaming is dying' argument:
The author maintains the main flaw in this and other studies is the fact that digital distribution sales is ignored::PC Games account for only 14 percent of total game sales."
There we go. That's some pretty heavy stuff. Only 14 percent - that means 86 percent of games sales are consoles! Clearly, we are going down, ladies and gentlemen. Like the Titanic...
Needless to say after looking at some of the responses in our own forum thread (amongst others who published this 'news'), you're still not buying it...There's one very obvious flaw, but before we get to that I'd like to touch on some of the less obvious implications.
...First of all: what are we counting as PC games? It's a pretty broad topic, don't you think? What about Internet-based Flash games? Things like Bejeweled, Sudoku and countless other little brain-teasing, time-wasting gifts of productivity loss courtesy of Popcap, Pogo, et al. What, you don't think they're paid for? Advertisers salivate over those things like a Pavlovian dog!
...Many people will argue that these don't constitute "video games" proper - but I strongly disagree. After all, one of the top sales for the Nintendo DS is the Brain Age series. And another great release, Puzzle Quest, is Bejeweled on steroids with a plot. So why are these things ignored when they're on PC, but counted on consoles?...
...And while we're on the "console" point, isn't it about time we separate handheld from home-based? After all, I can't exactly tote either my PS3 or my PC around. Therefore, buying decisions for my handy DS aren't really going to be influenced by what I have on the shelf for the big systems. Adding these in doesn't even make sense - they're not direct competition at all.
So, that drops our list of consoles down by two, one of which just happening to be the biggest seller in games and units - the Nintendo DS. Suddenly, PC sales may look a little rosier...Suffice it to say, there are a lot of missed factors in this "study" (we'll continue calling it that for lack of a better name that isn't insulting)..
The whole subject isn't complete without a little doom and gloom, however, and it comes in the conclusion:...How relevant is digital distribution to PCs? Well, let's think about this. When was the last time that you brought home a disc of updates for your operating system? Maybe browsed the Internet via CD copies of the sites? Perhaps you've recently sent email by copying the text to a floppy and mailing it?
No? Why is that? Oh, it's probably because the Internet has been so thoroughly integrated into the PC that it is impossible to ignore its impact any further..
Granted, you can't blame the study providers alone. I've attempted to get some figures for just what constitutes the digital sales perspective..[but]..Valve doesn't discuss Steam sales. Direct2Drive, part of IGN, doesn't really respond to phone calls - nor does anyone specifically answer questions regarding this topic when you can corner them....
And here, we reach a conundrum - how do you account for sales figures that aren't released, even when you know they're substantial enough to impact the equation? The answer, it seems, is that we don't ... What bugs me, though, is the industry's pretence like it doesn't matter.
And what bugs me even further is that they do have volumes of information on one form of digital distribution: piracy. That figure will be subtracted from brick-and-mortar retail market sales to come up with the 'net sales' of the PC industry.
More information....It's almost as if the industry secretly wants the PC to fall - and it's not that hard to understand why. The beat of ever-marching technology improvements means PC games require more work and go obsolete faster, meaning more money on engine development and less on sheer production. Nobody really buys a year-old PC game; whereas, since consoles don't change technologically, an older game can look as new and crisp as a fresh release - but with the added benefit of an established gamer base.
Look, the truth is, PC gaming does have its share of problems...But none of these things have been a death knell. They've always existed - and for nearly as long as there have been PCs, there have been consoles. None of this has really changed anything. The continual evolution and multipurpose nature of the PC makes it always at the forefront, even if it's never at the top of the sales charts.
In fact, only one thing has changed - the industry itself. What used to be a myriad of independent developers, each working to create the next best mousetrap for mere survival and to eke out a decent living, has turned into a wasteland made up of a few giant conglomerates stomping on the users below in a struggle for who will dominate the whole market...
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2006
- Messages
- 7,834