f13.net

I know it's been discussed alot over recent years and proclaimed by practically every major gaming outlet but lately it is really starting to feel true.

Here is what caused me to think about it:

-Most local stores carry very few PC games.
-I personally haven't played a PC game since Star Wars: Empire at War, before that it was the last Vampire game and Halflife 2
-I buy usually 15-20 games a year and the percentage of PC games has dropped drastically.
-I've finally hit a point where if a game comes out on PC and console both, I'm getting it on the console for various reasons.
-Everybody I know who games is doing the exact same as me. Every single one.

I know this is mostly an anecdotal list but still, it makes me think.

Opinions?

I think I read this exact text a few months back.

It's not dying, it's just being overshadowed by consoles.

Singleplayer PC gaming is by no means dead - go look at a release list. There've been quite a few titles released recently, but few of them are stellar or exclusive.

The PC is probably going to have indies, FPSes and MMOs as its prime drivers for a while, and two of those are good candidates for digital distribution.

It's almost dead as a retail force. Except for the big-time publishers and the occasional sleeper hit, it's on life support at best. Consoles are too profitable for developers in comparison to ignore. The emergence of things like X-Box Live Arcade is doing even more damage, because even indy developers get better return on that than a straight PC game.

Embrace the niche, bitches. PC gaming has always been niche, it just needs to take more advantage of it than it has.

MMOG's throw this off, because they can be extremely profitable if built right on the business side, and consoles aren't yet a viable platform for them. But they take a large amount of upfront money and risk.

Embrace the niche.

Heh. I disagree about store stocks, the only place with a shrinking pc wall is ebgames. B&M stores are really only good for bargain bins, anyway. A pc gamer can just buy online.

PC vs console? Oblivion was $10 for the 360, and you're stuck with a gamepad and no mods. No thanks.

There is always a market for quality, and a pc is a hell of a lot more than a game machine.

I agree to an extent with Haemmy. I can live without NASCAR and Madden 2008. Fuck the mainstream. Give me Spore and Huxley.

What do we mean when we say a platform is "dead"?  Is it that nothing is being produced for it anymore ("the Jaguar is dead, man!"), or what?  As far as I can see:

-PC continues to be the platform of choice for niche games, casual games, and other low budget titles that don't want to shell out for a Nintendo developer kit.

-Console games continue to outsell PC games, so consoles are where most of the titles by major developers are going.

-Earth continues to rotate along it's axis, continents remain firmly attached.

Probably there will be some bigger releases around the holidays.  Even on consoles I haven't seen a whole ton of awesomeness in the last few months.

unless they figure out how to bring a modding community like there is for the PC to consoles without charging me some micro fucking fee for every god damn map/model I think the PC will be fine

At least I can develop games on my PC, something a console can never do as effectively.

It's just, consoles have a whole lot more creativity and a much lower price tag going for them.  $500 for an X-Box 360 that never needs to be upgraded starts to sound reasonable when compared to $1000 for monitor and a PC that can run games just "comfortably" until it needs to be upgraded in a few months.  A PC game generally runs a few dollars more, too.

In case your thinking, "But I can pirate PC games", I'm afraid you're the source of the problem.  Ease of piracy is perhaps the greatest reason why the PC game industry has become as stagnant as it is.  The PC pirates have won (http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3152680), they's just too many of them and no amount of technology can stop them from severely impacting the profitability of the PC platform.  This is because, unlike a console with a proprietary medium format, the PC relies has a standard DVD-ROM interface and there's no shortage of DVD burners in the world.  Piracy killed the Dreamcast (http://www.eidolons-inn.net/segabase/index-segadchistory3.html), I'm not sure how it is combatted on the PS2 or XBox, but the Gamecube with their funky tiny formatted CDs have a system where you can't just burn something from your computer to play on it.  Just having a seperation between those who own PCs and those who own consoles probably helps.

The rise of subscription-fee based games like MMORPGs or systems with online software restriction like Steam is where it's at for PC games right now, because that's pretty much all they can do to save their nickles from the pirates.

How is that you managed to find the shift key when entering your user name, but it has since eluded you? Feel free to slap in some punctuation as well.

Worst case scenario for the PC gaming market is that it will go back to it's pre-late 90's stage. As long as people have acess to computers like they do today it will never die completly.

I think 11 million WoW subscribers might say differently.

6 million is 11 million now? Sorry for the punctuation...didn't realize that people cared.

Except, WoW's success is a giant neigh-impossible to repeat fluke, to the manitude that it is sucking the audience away from other PC games, and Blizzard Entertainment is looking at developing console games.

Perhaps consoles are not perceived as difficult as PC's. With PC's you have operating systems and installation and security updates and all these cables and keyboards and WASD and mice and .... and ... and ... and...

But with consoles, you buy a title, slap it in the thingy and off you go.

Consoles are more accessible. I hate consoles.

No, PC gaming is just resting his eyes.

When a peice of culture dies.  No says "X is dead."  They ignore it and move on. A decade later, someone says "What ever happen to X?" and someone replies, "Oh! I remember X.  I don't know." "I use really like X." "Me too, but seems pretty dumb now." "Ya, we were pretty stupid back then." and they laugh.

No, not really. Modding means jack and shit for game sales, and the lack of modding has not stopped console video games in the slightest.

The truth of it is that most people don't give a shit about modding, they don't give a shit about piracy, and they don't give much of a shit about a customizable interface. What they give a shit about is putting a disc in the drive and playing. That's it. End of story. That's why consoles "win" in as much as they can and are part of mainstream America and PC games are not. There was a time when PC games had a chance, but that time is past.

That doesn't say that PC gaming is dead as disco. It's more like dead as 80's hair band heavy metal. It's there, there will always be titles for it, but the user is going to have to work to find them. The best thing PC game makers can do is either get the money to make an MMOG and not fuck it up, work the fuck out of some digital distribution tracks and eschew retail as the first option, or start developing console games. Steam, Direct2Drive, and outlets like that are where PC games need to go. They need to embrace their nicheness and do some seriously targeted type of games that you can't get somewhere else. Games like the Movies, which just couldn't be done very well on consoles, those are the kinds of things they need to focus on.

Let the mainstream engorge itself on console titles. Let it choke on the Maddens and the Final Fantasy and the like. Five years from now the consoles will be looking at ways to integrate some of today's PC game developments into the console medium.

Embrace the niche, bitches.

PC Gaming is pretty much done with for me. I only find one or two appealing titles every 6 months to a year these days.

Of course, that's partly a reflection of my own tastes, but either way, PC games are hardly what they used to be. Back in, say, 93 to 97, I was like a kid in a candy store when I looked at a PC gaming shelf (or even a Mac one). Nowadays I hardly give a fuck.

A lot of the initial selling points of PC Games (for me) are all but gone now. Space shooters are few and far, far between. Adventure games have almost died off (though I guess there's been a slow resurgence in the past couple of years). TBS's are nil. Great games like X Com or Jagged Alliance aren't even thought about anymore. Sims have all replicated into "The Sims". Doom and C&C have been done a million times over. EQ won the MMO war (and the two ideas that attracted me to the genre -- virtual worlds and play2crush -- or a mixture of both -- are barely represented). Pretty much everything that I liked about PC games is dead.

They are making a new version of Jagged Alliance, BTW.

Huh. Well shit. Coupling that with Darkstar One might hold me off for a few more weeks.  :lol:

Morphiend has it right. WoW is the PC gaming industry. When was the last time any of you fuckers activated a piece of shareware? Also, Spore and Huxley? Yea, ok. Right. Not Mainstream. All those advertisements I see proclaiming Will Wright as god and Spore as the second coming of the Sims (Best Selling Game Ever by the way - bigger than Madden) must make him some hardcore underground shit. Spore is to the Sims what Head Coach is to Madden. But Spore won't suck. And Webzen is anything but niche. They're just not doing very well at breaking into the mass market - mostly because they don't have one of their big titles out. Even then, Huxley will probably still do better on the 360.


That doesn't mean PC Gaming is alive and kicking. That means it's innovating because it's free to develop for and it's only a matter of time before consoles implement the best shit in the best way and send the PC folks back to the drawing board. Cycle of gaming. Been happening for 20 30 years.

PC Gaming isn't going to die simply because Blizzard, Valve and a few other companies won't let it. They've got you and the rest of gamers by the balls, nearly requiring ownership of a modern computer if you want to play 3 or 4 games a year that are worthwhile. And every now and then something super stellar comes from an indie house. That last sentence applies to console gaming as well.

I thought it said there will always be titties for it.

If by 'work' you mean load up ebgames.com or something, then yeah.

PC gaming ain't going anywhere. Goddamned kids.
Heh. Sez the console junkie.

Def Leppard played a free concert at the local Wal-Mart parking lot recently. That's probably where PC gaming will end up soon.

Says the guy who buys at least twice as many PC Games as you.

Piracy simply landed the killing the blow, Dreamcast was never going to make it even without piracy.

I think that PC gamers just have gotten spoiled. Spoiled rotten! Its an expectations curve, really. 10 years ago, I was happy as hell fiddling with sound card IRQs on my pentium I so I could play Mech Warrior. I had died and gone to heaven when I got that game to finally run, and by god, it was just an amazing game to me at the time. Nowadays we take that level of sophistication so for granted that nothing phases us much anymore.

Perhaps dead wasn't the best word since dead implies long gone to most people. Dying? Comatose?

I am like the poster who said that alot of what they loved on PC's is gone these days:

RPGs - There will never be another Baldur's Gate. Neverwinter Nights is fun, but it doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath. Hell, Bioware going mainly console alone may have caused my PC to become dusty.
Space Sims - the last good one I remember was Freespace 2.
Adventure Games - seem to be moving to consoles, though games like Dreamfall still give me hope. (which come to think of it I did buy on my PC but only because it wasn't backwards compatible on the 360 at the time.)

Maybe my friends and I are just having changing tastes as we get older. It's weird, we "matured" from consoles to PC and now we've come full circle. My PC these days is used for the internet, email, and buying stuff online.

I also think that spending $500 for a graphics card versus $500 for an entire gaming system has influenced my thinking in alot of ways. That and I love putting the disk in and playing, as opposed to putting the disk in then spending the next 6 hours searching message boards for a workaround to get the damned game installed.

Probably because you don't read your own posts.

Anyway, in 1983? I bought Ultima III, I forget what store it was but probably one that doesn't exist anymore.  I distincly remember that there was a whole isle full of Atari and Colecovision games and maybe 5 PC games.

Same as it ever was.

PCs and consoles are going to be the same thing in another ten years anyway.

It will be interesting to see what effect the PS3 launch will have on the gaming market.

I lean towards the idea that it's not dead... just taking a nap. This stuff is cyclical.

If anything, I worry that most creative developers that can attract big budgets are abandoning the platform, and/or dwindling away. I think of the best games that came out in the 90's (the nadir of PC gaming, IMO), and look at those companies today. LucasArts: No more in-house original IP development, console-heavy focus. Sierra: Consumed by parent company and shut-down, re-opened as an umbrella of console-heavy developers. Microrprose: Fell apart from the inside. Westwood: Consumed by EA. Origin: Consumed by EA. Bullfrog: Consumed by EA. (hmm...)

So maybe a better statement, is that while PC gaming is still popular, PC development is looking pretty sickly? Or maybe we can safely say that EA killed PC gaming as we knew it.

I own exactly 7 games for my Xbox 360, and I tend to only buy games that are either company-friendly, or interesting in their own rights.

Chromehounds = Persistent online mech game.  I've been begging the PC world to make this, they haven't listened.
Madden 2006 = A football game is always good for when friends come over.
Dead Rising = PC world has no equivalent.
Jade Empire = PC version, as always, is coming out a year after the console version.
Outlaw Golf 2 = See Madden.
Crimson Skies 2 = Loved the original game, but apparently they didn't feel like porting the sequel over to PC.
Worms Forts = Another company game.

For everything else; shooters, MMO's, most RPG's, strategy, and sims I go with the PC.  It's still the best overall platform, because shooters suck on consoles (maybe the Wii will change this), and because consoles tend to toss out 5 Fast and the Furious racing game clones per month.  The only game I'm looking forward to next on the 360 is that Marvel Universe game.

EA, Doom, and Command & Conquer.

Not that I don't like the last two....But still. I saw a big dropoff in variety and imagination once those two came on the scene.

Honestly, I think we are getting closer and closer to a merge. Pretty soon it wont be console vs PC, cause they console will be your PC. Look at xbox live on the 360, this is the first step IMO to merging the two machines. How long is it going to be really until we have one box and a nice TV? Not long. Also, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GIVE ME A MOUSE AND KEYBOARD FOR MY XBOX.

Computers, consoles, the Internet and gaming are all just fads. You'll all be dead before they are though.

We'll? You plan to live on, though? What's your secret?

PC gaming isn't dead.

Did you play Indigo Prophecy or Dreamfall?
Galactic Civilizations 2 called. It says you are psycho.
Played Space Rangers 2 yet?
City Life? Flight Sim 2004? X3? Silent Hunter 3?

Hello...? Is this thing on?

You forgot to put Fight Night Round 3 on your list.  I'm sure it was just an oversight on your part.  Please address soonest.

PC games seem to be their own worst enemies.  Someone makes a unique and fun FPS, then 300 titles come out in the next 5 years that are basically exactly the same in terms of the experience they offer.  Same with MMOs.  Same with RTSs.  There are too many choices, and no consensual favorites.  Now every fucktard on the planet has a PC, and I'm expected to share my gaming experience with them...too bad we can't agree on which game to play.   The tech advances so quickly, and the publishers are so fast to jump on the most convenient band-wagon...that nothing comes out any more that has that "special" appeal about it.  We are like the typical spoiled child - so many toys in the closet, that we can't bring ourselves to appreciate any of them.

After years of mostly PC gaming, I am finding myself slowly going back to the console.  A lot of people talk about the 360 and how it is lacking in appealing titles.  While that may be true, I can't help but feel that this generation of consoles is somehow going to help re-invigorate gaming for me.  I have a sore left thumb to prove it...from an anolog stick, which I didn't think could happen...playing an EA title of all things (FNR3).  It's been nearly 10 years since I last got a sore thumb.

There's no reason to mention Indigo. I already gave the present status of Adventure games some credit....It's right there in your quote.

Still though, most of the new titles are all made by the same company. Not sure what to say about that.


Great. You mention one indie game and call me a psycho (I'll add Civ 4 to that small list though).

Anywho, don't take me too seriously for saying "nil". I'm just talking about trends here. And I thought it was clear that my entire post was comparing current PC gaming trends with those of the past. The options for good games in any given genre have been on a steady decline. Just pointing out one game proves my point even more.


Nope. I'll check out a demo.
 

Haven't played City Life, nor do I plan to. It's Sim City, more or less, and I've already played at least 10 urban sim games like this (beginning with the first Sim City).

Not to say I don't like building games though. I just want some variety. It's the same deal with any genre. I don't want every shooter to contain Nazi's, Mutant labs gone awry, or Nazi-Mutant labs gone awry either.

Or to put it another way, if you're going to clone a sim/building game, at least clone something that isn't totally played out. Give me a Tropico clone. I'd be down with that. There aren't enough of those yet. Or better yet, come out with something original (i.e. The Movies).



MS used to update that annually. Now they don't. Kind of proves my point about the "steady decline" thing I mentioned.

Besides, they're not even games.

Take combat flight sims instead. Remember how many of those things there used to be out there? It was like how many FPS's there are now. The Jane's series of games alone could probably make a stack 5 feet high.

Nowadays (as far as I know), only Ubi is cranking out good combat/flight sims. Il-Sturmovik and Lock-On. And those are already 3 or 4 years old, man.


I wasted enough time trying to like 1 and 2. They were pretty games, but buggy, badly translated, with dogshit storylines to boot.

Furthermore, the X games are made by Europeans. Europeans don't understand a thing about "space jockey" sci-fi. Or just fighter pilots in general. Too cerebral, too much techno. No Han Solo-ish/Bruce Campbell-ish attitude in sight.

I'm a bit skeptical about Darkstar One for the same reason, but I'm gonna buy it anyways. Just like I gave the first 2 X games a chance.


This is all about taste, I guess. Never enjoyed the old ones much either.

It's all about the accessibility. McDonalds sells billions of hamburgers not because it is fine cuisine, but because it is fast, cheap and I don't even need to get out of my car. As gaming moves mainstream, you need to factor in the lowest common denominator.

Embrace accessibility, bitches.


This is where I think things need to be going. At some point someone is going to wake up and realize that I don't want to have to buy a specific game console just to play one game with my friends. It would be nice if we could all just get along...

Civ 4 isn't indie. Firaxis is Take Two. City life is shit. Silent Hunter and Space Rangers 2 have Starforce.

And what is with all the EA games talked about in this thread. You fuckers should be shot.

Not going to happen as long as Microsoft can and continues to charge monopoly prices for its OS. It would be financial suicide for MS to allow people to run general applications on the Xbox/Xbox 360. Just imagine what would happen to MS's (and Intel's) stock if you could run IE and hook up a printer to a $299 Xbox 360.

It's not about general applications on a console.

It's about getting rid of the PC as a gaming device. You kinda looked at it backwards.

I was responding to Morphiend who wanted one box. I can definitely see PC games going away (particuarly because of the piracy issue) but if you can't run general apps on the console you'll still have two boxes.

I never ever ever want to see productivity short of maybe an address book with nothing but names, phone numbers and gamer handles on a console.

Also, Daeven, that list does NOT make a strong argument for PC Gaming. In fact, it pretty much rips PC Gaming to shreds. Two games with Star Force, a shitty Urbz ripoff, 2 great adventure games that prove adventure games are going to be huge on next gen hardware (Can we say Heavy Rain, Rain, Alan Wake, and Sadness - I know I can), and a game with a lot of math vs the sort of game Stray was talking about (Disgaea, presumably, if not I have no clue what he's talking about). Hell, there are GBA/DS TBS titles that are more immersive and enjoyable than the vast majority of PC TBS shit.

Edit: Now I'm not saying TBS stuff is dead on the PC. It very much isn't. It's also gaming disguised as math disguised as gaming. At least games like Disgaea wrap a hilarious story around gameplay that's faster, more solid, and (comparatively) less repetitive. Makai Kingdom took that multiple steps further (despite a weaker script and shorter core game). I mean we've had this debate a thousand times here. Before we have it again, I think everyone who hasn't played the console TBS stuff since the Genesis era (yea, all the way back to Langrisser, bitches) needs to catch up.

I still prefer RPGs on my PC over Console most of the time.

That's because you're fucking crazy. The PC still hasn't gotten an RPG (Exclusive) better than Planescape. And that was 1999.

I don't see that happening again either whatwith Black Isle gone and Obsidian relegated to Lucas Arts' bitch. Oh, and Bioware working on the 360.

It's really a keyboard and mouse thing. Sure, there will still be a few freaks and a few decent indie games one KB/M hit the consoles, but right now that's the only seperation of the beasts. FPS titles and MMORPGs might as well be PC Exclusives (I'll clarify FPSs btw, the competitive type. Call of Cthulhu rocks ass on the Xbox).

Yup, and that makes me a sad panda.  :crying_panda:

I can't help it - JRPGs get on my nerves. I don't even have the heart to try anymore. The fact that the Xbox has a RPG library of about 4 games doesn't help, either.

Also, even if consoles eventually adopt KB + Mouse setups, how the heck am I supposed use it, with a damn food tray or something? That'd be retarded. I'd rather just play the shit on my PC, where I already have an optimal setup.

I'm rambling. Someone decided that our dryer needed to be fixed Today, and that I have to stay up for these chucklefucks to get here....after working overnight.  :sad_panda:

 JRPGs aren't the only RPGs out there ya know. I mean, it's unfortunate but if you want to play all the best games you have to have all 3 consoles, a computer and 2 portable systems. Oh well, hobby of choice and whatnot.

You may not, however I have a feeling others may. Why the hell would there be a browser on a cell phone if internet browsing was only a PC thing? Maybe not a MS Office thing or other applications like Photoshop, but browser on a console I can see for sure. Maybe that is what you meant by productivity.

Whoever said internet browsing? Internet browsing is the least productive thing EVER.

Heard of the Dreamcast?

Edit: In other words, of course I meant actual productivity. Internet Browsing is the number 1 time waster in the world. Pretty sure it isn't an example of productivity in Websters. Or spelling bees.

"Productivity"

"Can you use it in a sentence?

"Internet browsing killed office productivity."

I'd say the Gothic games were decent attempts. NWN1 had ok parts to it once the modders got ahold of it and expansions came out.

I'm with you in mourning the death of Black Isle. As for Obsidian, all I can say is they better be working on KOTORIII

You are being an idiot. IE running on an Xbox 360 means email, shopping (B2C Web apps), B2B Web apps, blogging (okay maybe that's not such a good thing), word processing, spreadsheets, image editing, Web site admin (for people who can't handle a command line), and so on and so forth. And that doesn't include the perhaps billions of dollars businesses have spent building intranet Web applications. The browser is still not quite the full fledged applications platform Netscape envisioned ages ago (in Internet years) but it's getting there.

Can't wait to send email with a controller.

There's still time to brush up on your T9 skills.

How am I being an idiot? People already shop for shit on the 360. Sure it's 360 centric shit, but that's to be expected. Maybe some people will use the web browser on a console for some of that stuff, but it's far more likely that it's used to watch Youtube. See, you're assuming people would adopt it to GET THINGS DONE.

Inertia is a bitch and if there's a controller near me and I can turn the system on and play a game in 20 seconds. Guess what? I'm not going to write a fuckin blog post and fill in a spreadsheet and neither is Joe Sixpack.

It's neat that you assume people would use the console for that, but that's not how people look at consoles. Even the poorest people in the poorest ghettos use real computers in libraries and schools to get real things done. A web browser on the 360 _really_won't_change_that. Particularly since the odds of Microsoft releasing a full fledged utilitarian web browser (or Sony or Ninty) is uhm, zero. Multiple windows won't happen. Tabs probably won't even happen. Being productive would require too much discipline from folks who've no reason to be productive on a console.

I know what the internet is used for. And I know that a browser on a console isn't going to be used for the vast majority of that. Odds are it's most common use would be throwing porn on the tv screen - if the 360 isn't already used for that :P.

Edit: Roac, this entire string of conversation is kind of a hypothetical involving the release of a wireless keyboard. Or at least I thought so. And even then, I still don't think people will be productive.

Warning:  Wild speculation to follow!

The day my console also acts as a reasonably good internet browser and can handle KB and mouse input is the day my console, for all intents and purposes, becomes my home PC.   I don't like the thought of that AT ALL.  Just to throw out a completely arbitrary number, let's just say that for a large portion of us, 90% of our home PC usage is either games or internet browsing.  For me, it would probably be 99.9%.  In other words, I and a whole shitload of people, no longer need the PC.  I can't even begin to imagine the effect this would have on the whole of the PC industry and the related advances in technology, but it can only be bad.  Bad for us, even.

Combine that with the fact that consoles as we know them today are essentially non-upgradeable and that all of the software is 100% platform specific, propriety stuff.  Sony are saying all kinds of silly shit about how their machine virtually is a PC, but at the end of the day I would put my money on Microsoft to win that particular battle.   They already know how to do the PC shit.  I'd just as soon not live in a world where all of my choices are taken from me.

I bet people would have said that not to long ago about sending email via cell phone. Blackberry anyone?



Generally people don't want to have to upgrade their computers. Joe Sixpack, or more accurately Joe Boomer does not even set the time on his DVD player (that his kids bought him to replace his betamax), thinking about PC upgrades makes him only want to remain in his tech insulated cocoon (not to mention keeping virus software up to date or installing op system patches). The money is in mass appeal, not niche. That money is made in volume, not in margin. Niche money is made in the margins.

Just because you don't like it does not mean it won't happen. Savvy business people are already looking at a way to bring these together and PC makers better think of how they can profit from this convergence and how their product needs to change to remain relevant.

Don't get me wrong, I have a strong feeling that it will happen eventually.

My specultion regarding the technological advances has little to do with whether or not Joe Sixpack wants to upgrade his rig, and EVERYTHING to do with the fact that with consoles lasting 3 to 5 years that there won't be either a need or incentive for companies like Nvidia and ATI (to throw out an example) to develop tech at the rate that they currently do.

Blackberry != T9.  Even so, it's still somewhat of a pain to use, but it offers something the PC does not; mobility.  Consoles don't offer anything that the PC in the next room don't already have in spades.  If it's a choice between email on the console, and email on the PC, I suspect most people are going to use the PC, because the PC trumps via ease of use (for emailing/browsing) and functionality.  Consoles will only replace PCs when they have the same ease of use and functionality for end users as PCs do.  The potential is there, and no doubt all companies involved see it.  Certainly MS would  :heart: to dominate the console market and have both hardware and software, as they do the PC market with software only so I don't think there's any shortage of desire on behalf of companies.  The pieces just aren't there yet.  At this point it's still "neat", a curisoity, and potential.

At this point, I think the only "ease of use" and "functionality" missing is a mouse and keyboard.

A keyboard and the applications actually. A mouse really isn't needed, but a controller doesn't double for a mouse well. Things like the Wiimote is where that kind of thing needs to go. Hell, even the PS3 motion-sensing could double for the functionality of a mouse.

But the real trick isn't even the hardware, it's the software. 360 Live is a good first step, and if you think it isn't the first (really second) step to invalidating the PC and making Microsoft the owner of the settop box/computer/gamemachine/media center, you're high. The X-Box strategy has never been about ruling the gaming roost, it's been about putting a Microsoft box in the TV room to run your media/entertainment. The 720 (or whatever the next X-Box is) will have Internet applications, or remote applications like word processing, email, Internet browsing, and media delivery (TV, movies and music). You won't own the software like you do PC software, you will rent it as part of your Live membership.

Or at least, you should be. If that isn't Microsoft's long-term plan, they are fucking idiots. This kind of thinking goes back to 1995, when Microsoft first tried to put out set-top boxes for movies on demand and interactive TV. The success of the PS1 and PS2 is what led them to take the path through consoles instead of WebTV.

But you COULD write this post with a mouse and keyboard in your hands, and some decent gaming 20 seconds away.

One media system to rule them all.

Applications as a service in the webworld. You don't need the software. It's all part of the "on-demand" world.

Exactamundo.

Not to derail, but since TBS was mentioned, I'm wondering if anyone can recommend some good TBS games for Gamecube, PS2, or PC.  Age of Empires DS has rejuvinated my interest in the genre.

Medieval: Total War, Rome: Total War, Shogun: Total War.

I'm sold! (http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?cookie%5Ftest=1&product%5Fid=646651)  Thanks, carry on.

Gladius was quite a lot of fun (a 'lite' TBS with twitch/rhythm elements) and should be pretty cheap used.

The Total War series are barely TBS. The combat is RTS. Just without the micro'ing typical of other RTS's. Only the map/management portions in campaign mode are set apart for turn based pacing.


I liked Gladius too. But I guess that's more of a tactical combat game than it is a strategy game. Still turn based though, and definitely worth the 10 dollars you can find it for these days.

You can pause and issue orders in Freedom Force vs 3rd Reich, which counts as TBS in my book. Great game.

I'm not even sure it infected my pc with Starforce compared to the way Space Rangers 2 slaps it in your face every time you boot the game...

Damn shame about Starforce and Space Rangers 2, but I'm actually willing to bear abuse from Russian security software to run it.  So hard to find good PC games these days.

If they don't make Gladius backwards compatible on the 360 soon I'm going to be forced to go out and rebuy an XBOX.

Sweet. Can you get that on a games platform?

Also, consoles will never replace PCs. Not that they couldn't, they just never will, because there are too many industries involved and they have no real incentive to converge.

Definitely won't replace PC's per se. Just that the status of the PC as a serious gaming platform could disappear one day.

I don't know it I'm re railing or re derailing but heres a glimpse of the future. I'll say 5 to 7 years your cell phone like device will browse the web, do email...Do the dumb stuff that 99 percent of internet users do. It wont do massive exell spreadsheats but it might let you view them. Same with word. Yes I know some of that is today but theres battery technology on the way and power is the only thing really holding that back. So... What am I trying to say. Well it all depends on the interface. There are speech recognition programs out right now that can do a pretty good job. Keyboard and mouse you say, well think interface, if you could interface by speaking what would a PC look like? If your PC like device can run 10 hours, clip on your belt and interface with the Borg like over the ear mike and earplug and interact with your PC (capable machine) at your desk are you more productive? If you are you just sold bookoo of them. Connectivity is really the story of the last 5 years and we will never go back from here. This depends on the nano battery tech (as does a revolution in automobiles). But there is a lot of money to be made here. How many batteries have you been buying? Thats really a function of the last 5 to 10 years. Of course this is all in my opinion, just a casual observation. But as the poet of my generation said "You don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows"

Well cell phones can already browse the web to some extent. Will some cell phone like device be more popular to browse the web than a computer + monitor setup? I think not, to small of a display.

Just as some others I think that consoles and PC will become one at some point, however I think that's more like 20 years or something like that in the future. I don't think a wiimote kind of device will replace the mouse either, in fact I think you will a fairly sore arm after waving the thing around for extended periods of time.

Direct2Drive (http://www.direct2drive.com).  Starforce free.

I'd hope they'd stay the hell away from KOTOR3 and BioWare gets it again.  Cause, y'know, I'd like an entire good game, instead of maybe half a good game.  With an ending.  But that's probably a pipedream.

Me, I love PC gaming although I have to agree that it's in distinct decline at the moment.  Whether it'll ever pick up again I don't know, but at the moment, if a game is available on a console and PC, my preference of PC vs. Console seems to depend on what the current state of my PC hardware is, but whenever I have the option, I prefer the PC.  When KOTOR came out, I preferred the console version.  Why?  My PC wasn't that great and would hardly run it.  Now, I've just put together a PC that runs on a Core 2 Duo and a GeForce 7950GX2.  For the forseeable future, I'll be preferring PC games, since I can run them at much higher resolution than a console is capable of.  And the modding is a big thing to me.

However, the PS2's $600 pricetag seems high, but considering I just bought a $600 graphics card, it stops looking so expensive.  Even adding another $400 for a 360, and what, $250 or $300 for a Nintendo, it all costs less than my new computer.  So really, I do have to wonder, except for MMOG's, would I really have been better off spending $1300 on a triad of new consoles this year instead of $1900 on a new computer?  Probably.  And for Joe Sixpack, my $1900 would be at least $3000 since he's not putting his computer together himself.

Rome: Total War with the Total Realism mod is unparalleled. Get it. Play it. On PC. Ha.

There's been a starforce-free .exe replacement for Space Rangers 2 for a long time now. It's on gamecopyworld or if you don't TRUST THEM, I can email it to you.

I wouldn't trust me though.

edit: more on this, if you're really wary of starforce (SCHLID)

1) Install SR2, but don't start up the game.

2) Replace the exe with the one you get from gamecopyworld.

3) start game.

4) wish someone would give these guys tons of money to further develop their ideas

Thanks for the info Nija.

Come see my crackpot theory (http://www.grimwell.com/index.php?action=fullnews&id=355) about another reason why PC gaming may be dying.

I enjoyed Half-Life 2: Episode One, but now that that's done I've been fishing out old console games and having 50x more fun than most PC games.  The PC used to be my favorite platform, but they've just fallen into such a rut.  Whether pirates, lack of creativity, or the lack of defined endings in many PC games is to blame is probably impossible for one person to determine.

Now that you mention it, I replay console games many more times than I reply most PC games...

I, on the other hand, tend to replay the PC games I enjoy the most more often than console games.  Referring primarily to the best series such as Baldur's Gate, Knights of the Old Republic, Planescape: Torment.  Every time I come back to these, I use different sets of mods which gives me numerous differences in my play experience.

There's a good chance I'll be buying Jade Empire for the PC although I already own it for XBox.  Ironically, my main complaint with KOTOR, and I suspect will be with JE's pc version, is that I can't use my PC gamepad to play it with.  Having gotten used to a controller on the XBox version, I find that control system more comfortable.  Whatever I get used to playing a game with first tends to become my preferred control method.

Yikes.  That's almost as bad as your "WoW will fail" article.  I completely disagree with the premise and the conclusions, but it's Friday night.. so that's all you're getting out me.

"A" for effort though!

Weak.

Now, don't do that again.

Geldon, MMORPGs are like entrees in restaurants. They serve enough such that you can enjoy the parts you like until you are content. You are not supposed to clean the plate at every sitting. To claim that they undermine the snack food of the industry is silly. You owe me a beer.

Would someone be so kind as to provide a more detailed description of Space Rangers 2? It sounds really quite interesting.

I get the feeling my article would have been better received if I just wrote, "If your playform is littered with nothing but shitty treadmills you're bound to figure it sucks", but retrospect is a bitch that way.
It's a tough one to describe.  An oddly well done-fusion between a turn-based 4E Space Strategy game and an open-ended Space Trading/Exploration/Fighting game with real time strategy, top-down 2D action, and text adventure minigames.

I consider PC gaming dead enough that I switched to a Mac just before the Intel changeover.

I really do not regret my decision.  Outside of not being able to easily play Dawn of War or Galactic Civilizations 2, I haven't missed much of anything.
I now avoid the upgrade grind, and all I lose out on is MMORPGS, RTS, and FPS games I wouldn't want to play anyhow.
(Almost) No virii, no spyware, no adware, no malware, no Steam or Starforce.

And I have such a backlog of console games to either buy or play I am packed with games to play.
(Even if Dead Rising is currently fucking me right in my ear for daring to not waste money on an HDTV.)

My Windows laptop will handle any 2004 and earlier games without a hitch, outside of those lovely Win 98 and earlier titles that don't do XP.

Some of the best XP games end up on the Mac anyhow, and in 2007 when 10.5 comes out ill grab the newest 20" iMac, run Boot Camp, and
the few I want that don't get ported (or Cidered if that upcoming system does what it claims) can be run on a partition if I am willing to go into Windows.

The old days where computers had THE games unless you were a total arcade or Japanophile is long gone.  Everyone has moved on.

Besides the Wii, I still have not seen anything, in person, worth moving on to. Sure, some of the 360 stuff sounds cool, like Chromehounds. And I'm going to miss out on Mass Effect...

I'm still not convinced there's much to move on to. Sure, Chromehounds might be cool....but I thought the Mechwarrior games were cool too. I just didn't end up playing them that much. Same with Halo2. I played extensively on all 3 consoles of the last generation. I own an Xbox with a handful of games that I think are worth the bother, and I owned a PS2 that I traded in because I disliked the vast majority of the library back then.

My PC still gets all of my play time.

PC gaming isn't dead.

But it is fair to say that a wave of console Madden-esque shit is driving interesting stuff on both consoles and PCs into smaller corners of retail space. That's the cost of a mass market I guess /shrug.

It's also fair to say that a lot of what could have been great PC games have been hamstrung by developer's desire to resuse the same assets on both console and PC platforms. But even that doesn't stop things being available on PC. It's not as if there is a whole bunch of console innovation going on that isn't also being delivered on a PC (with the possible exception of Nintendo stuff designed for younger players and groups of drunk people).


People continue to dismiss screen resolution, but it really is a big deal - since it drives the amount of information a gamer can manage. Enormous text and a need to add extra controls to scroll interfaces around really do reduce the scope of a player to keep track of a game world.

HDTV is nice and all, though PCs continue to move onward and upward as well.

Also, tiny HDs and limited RAM amounts used to keep costs down in a console continue to restrict console gamespace and production values.

MMORPGs, especially WoW, have hurt the rest of the PC gaming industry. Millions of former singleplayer PC gamers now almost exclusively play WoW. They buy far fewer PC games than they did before WoW and their future spending patterns will also be massively multiplayer. That's by no means everyone, but it's a significant slice of the market that has almost stopped moving.

A lot of people don't notice this. I own an HDTV and I play my Xbox on it, but its still not nearly the quality I get from my PC. And it really makes the difference for a lot of games. Battlefront 2 multiplayer on the Xbox compared to Battlefront 2 multiplayer on computers... on the Xbox I couldn't even tell who was on my team/what weapon a bot was using to save my life, all because of resolution. Part of it is because of the split screen, but even linking two Xboxs its nearly impossible to tell what something is at far range.


I wouldn't say that MMORPGs in general are, just the ones that are trying to give a single player game/experience but want to do it online. And even then, I don't care that there are games like that as long as everyone has their fun. Though MMOs in the future are likely to try to do what games like WoW has and make single player geared MMOs, so its affecting the industry as a whole.

My theory: PC gaming will recover once the Second Videogaming Bubble goes pop.

With the introduction of multiple platforms, the video game indsutry is not just one bubble anymore.

To say that PC gaming will entirely "die", as in, there are no more players playing games on the PC, is an impossibility on niche factor alone.  No matter how crappy you think a game is, there's probably somebody who plays it.  So, basically, the whole question is one big overgeneralization.  Need to establish some better criteria.

In support of the idea that PC gaming is in decline, we've no shortage of criteria to look at:

• Does the console game market generally exhibit more creativity than mainstream PC game market?

More often than not.

• Has the PC game shelf space in retailers been reducing in comparison to that devoted to console games? 

Yep.

• Is piracy hitting the PC game industry much harder than the consoles? 

That's what I've been hearing.

• Do console games sell better? 

Taking the last two factors into consideration, definately.

• Do players who devote all of their gaming time to World of Warcraft buy other games? 

Unlikely, so there's up to 6 million players who aren't getting much use out of Half Life 2 right now.

But then, I can come up with some reasons why PC gaming isn't going anywhere, too:

• Can consoles be upgraded like PCs? 

Not unless you count accessories.  Thus, the PC will always be the most computationally powerful platform, provided the users are willing to sink the moolah into upgrading it.

• Can people develop games for their consoles on their consoles?

There's some game making titles for consoles, but not full programming development suites.  The PC is used to develop games for consoles.  As the origin of all modern games, the PC needs to be able to play them.

• When some hot new hardware comes out, which is most likely to get it first?

The PC, although it won't instantly catch on with all of the platform users.

• Is there popular online sources that distrbute PC games through routes other than the local retailer stores?

Yes, Direct2Drive and Steam being two of them.

Etc.  So, while we're definately more tempted to get a console than we ever have been before, games will continue to be made and played on the PC.

That established, lets see some good ones, eh?

This is part of the reason I really hate speculation on the game market.

I recall seeing a lot of doomsday "SECOND GAMING CRASH!?!?!?" articles over the last few years, and now all the sudden "CONSOELS ARE TEH FUTUR!!!" and PC Gaming is dead?

Strange, because I've played a lot of good PC AND Console exclusive titles this year. The only thing I've noticed with the shrinking shelf space for PC titles in most retail outlets is that the remaining shelves are dominated by what I would consider good titles. The never ending barrage of shitty Myst clones is now a tiny, dusty section of shelving at all my local retailers, while the rest is filled (well, provided it isn't sold out. There were 3 copies of Titan Quest left at my local Best Buy today, surrounded by empty space where large numbers of them used to be) with stuff like WoW, Oblivion, Prey, Battlefield 2, and older titles that keep getting reprinted over and over due to sales, like Neverwinter Nights, Morrowind, Age of Empires 2, Sim City 4, Half Life 1, etc.

That's better than the mess that used to comprise the PC Game shelves ~5+ years ago.

If the market is shrinking it seems to be separating the wheat from the chaff, which is just fine by me.

Five years ago saw the release of PC titles like CS, Deus Ex, Thief II, Shogun:TW, Baldur's Gate II, and the Sims. Instead of "crappy Myst clones", Lucas Arts was still pumping out great adventure games like Monkey Island (and Grim Fandango a little before that). The Mech Warrior series was still around. EQ had not yet made the entire MMO genre in it's own image. And the only title worth cringing at was Daikatana.

Not sure how today is better.

The premise was that PC gaming was dead. That premise is wrong. There always were better times and worse times. For every year with exceptional titles you can look at another year with mainly trashy games and clones in a particular genre or subgenre. There were always ups and downs. The role playing genre has already been deemed dead and buried before Baldurs Gate revitalized it. I only play PC games, and the amount of games I buy and enjoy are about the same over the years. For every oldtimer that quits and/or moves to consoles there is a new developer unheard of who brings something enjoyable.

"Hey, Oblivion is cool"
"I had a blast playing Titan Quest"
"Prey is really innovative, I enjoyed it"
"Heroes of Might and Magic 5, yummy"
"Looking forward to Hellgate:London"
"When is NWN2 due?"
"PC gaming is dead"

One of those is not like the others.

When is NWN2 due?

I mean, no one REALLY wants to play that shit.

Edit: As for the other comments, and instead of just being snarky, I'm pretty sure Oblivion and Prey on the 360 will outsell the PC versions 10:1. At least Oblivion did. I don't think Prey is doing well on any system.

Why should it be a problem for a PC gamer on how many other system the game is sold as well as long as it is sold on the PC? If the game isn't blantantly worse than it could be just to make porting easier (*cough* Deus Ex 2 *cough*) a console version doesn't take away from the PC gaming experience and vice versa. With the new consoles this danger doesn't present itself in the immediate future, so crossplatform development is a bonus for the PC market. A bonus not easily going away because those crossplatform titels just have to exceed the porting cost, if they routinely do its fine for the developers.

Yes, buying that Xbox-360 controller for my PC helped to improve my view on this tremendously.

Ok, I'll agree that PC gaming isn't dead (I've said as much before anyways). Certainly on the decline though. In danger of being niche, as Geldon pointed out. Every year in the past may have had it's "ups and downs", but certainly not in the way it is now. PC gaming companies have spent the last five years making bets on all the "sure things" like never before (and at the expense of destroying some of the genres, ideas, and dev houses that made the platform unique).

Secondly, the barbarians (i.e. consoles) are finally in the position to be at the gates. Before they just kind of screamed and grumbled from a long distance. You can say things have happened before in the PC gaming world, but the challenge it faces now with console advancement hasn't. It's a new problem.

Ignoring those issues by drooling over NWN2 isn't going to help much (then again, I'm not sure what would help really...So have it, I guess). That's not exactly rose colored sunglasses territory or anything, but I can't help but think that some of you diehard PC fans could very well easily end up there. That you'll be exactly what Amiga fans are like now in 10 years. Grateful for your niche, grateful for your sloppy seconds ports of Wolfenstein 3D, grateful for having such an awesome platform to play with (despite the games).

I remember the majority of shelf space in my local EB/GameStops being dedicated to awful Myst clones and buggy shooters from no-name devs, with the first two shelves towards the front having multiple copies of the A Titles. This was back the PC Game shelves went from the front of the store to the back. Daikatana was the only awful game people remember from around then, since the other awful titles lacked hordes of frogs.

There is less shovelware for the PC now. Guess where it all went? That's my theory on increased console shelf space, and I'm sticking with it.

Also, isn't Vista supposed to be compatable with 360 titles out of the box? I thought i read that somewhere....

No.

Would be awesome, but yeah, Microsoft isn't about to shoot themselves in the foot like that.

It just happened that yesterday I was at my favourite electronics store and having this discussion in mind I browsed the PC+Console sections. The console sections were stocked with subpar games, the actual number of good games per console barely exceeded the number of good PC games (for somebody like me that neither likes sport games nor action games lacking a story). Of course there is shovelware on the PC shelves as well, its still easier to create a PC game than to create a console game after all.

I realized something else. The percentage of European developed PC games is much much higher than it was in "the good old days". Might be that US developers really concentrate more on consoles and our folk pick up the slack. I don't know how many of these games make it over the pond in a timely fashion, might distort the PC:console ratio some more.

Because decent RPGs on consoles are as rare as rocking horse shit. At some point, somebody will make subscription model games for consoles that are halfway worth playing, and console games sales will go into free fall too. Right now, consoles have good sales not because the are "better" gaming devices, but because folks can better afford consoles than gaming PCs, the hardware has a longer refresh cycle, each game has about two whole days worth of play and cannot be copied using console alone, parents don't need to check to see if kids are chatting to child molesters on them, and they don't bust into flames as often as Dells.

Don't you own a PS2?

I think that has more to do with having fewer large corporate games houses to suck in all the talent than anything else.

Without the EA equivalents, Europe just isn't capable of producing the same quantity of shovelware, and as discussed above, happily that tends to targetted on consoles these days.

Well,in Europe,the situation is reversed:PC Gaming is way more popular than console gaming,because of piracy.Atleast,this applies in Eastern Europe.

Now wait. I though that was a feature.

"Jimmy! Stop cybering that Night Elf or Jehova will make your computer EXPLODE!"

Or something along those lines.

There is a rather simple explanation for this - your vanilla Xbox is not capable of sending a signal in the same high resolution as your HDTV is displaying.  The higher resolution display of your HDTV may even amplify the poorer graphical capabilities of your Xbox (in other words, it makes bad look worse)...this is even more of a tendency if your HDTV is also an LCD...not a rule, but plasma tends to upscale better.

It is a whole nother matter if you have a 360 on an HDTV.  I suppose a high-end enthusiast PC setup could match it, but my rather mainstream PC sure doesn't (2.8 P4, 1.5gb RAM, vanilla 6800 card).   I'll admit that my love for my TV possibly makes me subconsciously rate the graphics higher than they deserve.   Regardless, if you have an HDTV to display it in all its glory, the leap from vanilla Xbox to the 360 is enormous.

He said DECENT RPGs.  Not lolicon linear anime shitfests.

I'm trying to come up with a linear lolicon anime shitfest and I can't. Unless of course you have no sense of humor whatsoever. The best RPG I've played this year comes out in....oh. Well, I guess we'll find out soon.

You're such a tease.

Hell, even that crap EQ single player rpg on the PS2 isn't that bad. Better than regular EQ at least.

See, consoles are better.

[edit]

Ok, I'll just admit it. It's actually a good game. Not just better than regular EQ. The only horrible thing about it is that it's in the EQ universe. Otherwise, it's just as good as Baldur's Gate: DA (there's another non-anime console rpg better than the shite you PC folks can come up with).

I expect turn based combat and multiple playabe characters in the party from something I call a decent RPG. Which doesn't mean Baldurs Gate:DA is a bad game, I liked to play it together with my Brother-In-Law on his PS2. Nice mindless Action game.

The EQ game was both online and co-op ready. Wasn't turn based though. It was made by the same people who made BG:DA. The same type of action RPG, but bigger and in the EQ world.

As for turn based combat, there's more of that on the PS2 than on the PC (in fact, I can't even think of any recent PC rpg that is turn based). This is where the anime argument has some merit though. The only turn based rpg on the PS2 that I can think of that isn't Japanese is Gladius. Which we've already mentioned, I think. And it isn't even a true RPG really. Just a tactical combat game with a basic story, levels, and items. It's great though.

Err...huh? I know it's a matter of taste and all...but seriously? BG2? Planescape? Bloodlines? Gothic(s)? Arx Fatalis? Arcanum? Divine Divinity? Gold Box D&D? Ultima? The pc has tons of great rpgs.

I, too, felt BGDA was more like Gauntlet than BG. Though turn-based is rare in rpgs, they do tend to be good with 'pause and give orders', which in my book is as good or better in some places. I'm always micromanaging in Freedom Force, and pausing is often cool as something blows up or a big power goes off and you get a nice rotatable freezeframe of it.

Had. Man, you're going all the way back to Gold Box and Ultima! Heh.

Besides Bloodlines, none of those were recent, which is all I (and I assume, this entire thread) was talking about (sorry if I wasn't clear though). Of course, there's been great rpg's on the PC throughout the years.

[edit] Oops. My bad. I suppose Divine Divinity is fairly new-ish. Never played it though, because I couldn't expect anything good from a title like that.

Gothic 2 is fairly recent as well, but I didn't stick with it (I'll be nice. I've heard you singing it's praises before ;)).

Divine Divinity was a fairly shitty Diablo clone. Beyond Divinity had Star Force.

Just when I'd thought I'd heard the dumbest thing schild ever said, out comes another one.

Diablo is a hack & slash dungeon crawl. Divine Divinity is an rpg. Quests, game world, etc. It was far superior to Diablo in my opinion.

Nobody mentioned Beyond Divinity.

Hello? Oblivion and Morrowind?

Hi!

Not exclusives, but both were better on the PC, especially Morrowind.

Dear Lord, not Morrowind.

Can't speak for Oblivion. Never played it. Don't want to play it. Know why?

Morrowind.

BG:DA wasn't even a game - it was a diversion, and a bloody short one at that. I think there was around a dozen hours of scripted "gaming" in it.

Cerebral it was not. But it didn't put me in a coma at least. I could dodge, jump, and directionally target things. Just those minor features alone made it more of a game than most other rpg's. Other console hack and slashers inspired by BG:DA have introduced blocking and other tactical options, so substitute it for one of them if you wish.

I think you play rpgs for different reasons than me. I don't give a shit about player skill in RPGs. If I want that I play a First Person Sneaker or Shooter. I don't dodge in my roleplaying games, my characters do.

I could very well say that if I really wanted RPG's like that, I'd play PnP RPG's. At least then they'd be taking full advantage of their medium. Not having simple tactical options like player controlled dodge though, in a real time medium fully capable of providing it, is disappointing to the say the least.

In short: I like CRPG's that try their best to be video games. Else the "C" in CRPG carries very little meaning outside of presentation. At the very least, if they fail at providing "video game" combat, then they'll have to compensate in other areas in a big way --- Which they rarely ever do.

And if you would say that you were right. problem with PnP RPGs, the older you get and the more RL everybody has its harder to keep commited to a regular group. Once every two weeks when we are lucky. More like once a month most of the time.

And what you say is fine when you only play one character. Try real time combat with 4 or even 6 characters. As I said, both has its allure at different times. But thats an either/or decicion. You can't have a whole party all by yourself and make them fight real time at the same moment (pausing isn't real time in that regard. I suspect we are talking instant reaction skillbased combat here). I played the heck out of Oblivion, but its a different playing experience than ToEE. Doesn't mean you can't enjoy both.

Your opinion seems a little borken.

Because your opinion is the right one, eh?  :roll:

In BG DA2, you could unlock Drizzt and Artemis Entreri.

I wonder if you can cheat to unlock Entreri. I'll try eventually.