Is PC Gaming dead?

[Riggswolfe]

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?

[Yegolev]

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

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

[Yoru]

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.

[HaemishM]

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.

[Sky]

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.

[Kail]

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.

[WindiaN]

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

[geldonyetich]

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, 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, 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.

[WayAbvPar]

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

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.

[Rodent]

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.

[Morfiend]

I think 11 million WoW subscribers might say differently.

[WindiaN]

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.

[geldonyetich]

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.

[edlavallee]

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.

[Nija]

No, PC gaming is just resting his eyes.

[tazelbain]

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.

[HaemishM]

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

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.

[stray]

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.

[HaemishM]

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

[stray]

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

[schild]

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.

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.

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.

[Sky]

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

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.

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.

Heh. Sez the console junkie.

[stray]

PC gaming ain't going anywhere. Goddamned kids.

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

[schild]

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.

Heh. Sez the console junkie.

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

[Sairon]

Piracy killed the Dreamcast

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

[Engels]

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.

[Riggswolfe]

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.

[Murgos]

Sorry for the punctuation...didn't realize that people cared.

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.

[Samwise]

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

[Simond]

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

[Jobu]

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.

[Big Gulp]

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.

[stray]

Or maybe we can safely say that EA killed PC gaming as we knew it.

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.

[Morfiend]

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.

[Righ]

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