PC Gaming is dead, Jim!

[heavy_depends]

PC gaming is never going to die.
Certain genres of games will never be as satisfying (FPS) or possible (RTS) with a console. And like others have stated before...modding and patching are a HUGE advantage to have over the consoles.

That said, People prefer a couch in their living room to a desk in their office, bedroom, kitchen, your mother's basement or wherever you have your system.

The real problem is 2 things. 1) The publishers rule...and that is never a good thing for innovation. They will always direct the market towards the consoles...more money to be made. 2) The PC's hardware can't compete with the consoles in price. $600 for the newest PC vid card vs. $350 for the next gen console...not a difficult question. And consoles don't require any "opening of cases"...which still freaks the sh*t out of too many consumers.

How to keep PC Gaming alive??? Well, number one is not pirating PC games. Alot of people do it...add it all up over time and that's a huge chunk of lost profit. Bad sales = closed dev house, because the publisher gets theirs...you're not hurting the publisher and the suits.
Devs start taking fewer risks which means more of the same. And on and on...it IS a trickle down effect.
I just don't think the people who CLAIM to love PC Gaming, yet pirate games, really think they're part of the problem...they are.

As far as the vid cards and the cost of PC hardware...I dunno...it's tough to see that changing. Unless there's a real push from PC chipmakers to compete directly with consoles...it may not happen.

But they've been calling PC Gaming dead for what...6 years???
The best games at E3 were PC games.
The console makers and the publishers who would rather focus entirely on consoles are calling PC Gaming dead...because they want it to be.

[Skinypupy]

I will never purchase a console unless they can figure out a way to patch the game or add mods to the gameplay (a la Morrowind).

And this is one of the problems I have with PC gaming. The fact that most developers rush products out the door with the "release-first, patch-later" mentality is what has killed my enjoyment of many PC games. I'm sincerely hoping this attitude never permeates the console world, although I'm sure we're headed that way.

[The Preacher]

I'm sincerely hoping this attitude never permeates the console world, although I'm sure we're headed that way.

I don't own an Xbox, but didn't this happen with KOTOR2?

[heavy_depends]

...KOTOR2
absolutely...it was no where near "complete", but they forced it out the door rather then bump the launch date.
It had been a REALLY long time since I had gotten caught in collision before KOTOR2

[raydude]

How to keep PC Gaming alive???

Convince people that the argument of buying $600 video cards and upgrading every few months for a PC is a straw man argument.

[jg93]

I will never purchase a console unless they can figure out a way to patch the game or add mods to the gameplay (a la Morrowind).

And this is one of the problems I have with PC gaming. The fact that most developers rush products out the door with the "release-first, patch-later" mentality is what has killed my enjoyment of many PC games. I'm sincerely hoping this attitude never permeates the console world, although I'm sure we're headed that way.

Just FYI - Xbox has a very strict 'no patch' policy in place for the 360, for this very reason. There are actually quality assurance standards on consoles, there are none whatsoever on PC, which is painfully evident on many recent RPGs and throughout this platforms history. This, with piracy, spells the end to major publisher PC-only game releases. Support digital distribution in any way you can!

[Buatha]

Well, not to be sarcastic, but we have "policies" where I work as well. Unfortunately, all it takes is the following to extend our deadline (Tuesday) for Saturday's changes:

1) A project making millions of dollars.
2) My boss's boss's boss wants it NOW.
3) A deadline that can not be pushed back any longer to "follow policy".

To their credit, they may even do succeed with no errors, but it sucks when you can't tweak/balance gameplay or improve AI over time.

[scuba]

PC Gaming will never die, we will more likely see a lot of foreign publishers coming out with cool games that will be localized into English. Definately the next year or 2 don't look good for pcgaming but we have been through this before when Xbox and PS2 were released and history will repeat itself once again. There is in interesting article on Gamedaily you might want to check

http://biz.gamedaily.com/features.asp?a ... ion=myturn

[baron calamity]

Yeah you knew I was going to comment...

When people talk about the death of PC gaming, they are referring to mainstream pc gaming. If you enjoy freeware and shareware that wouldn't even be considered a crappy alpha by most consumers, this conversation doesn't apply to you.

The article mentioned at the start of this thread is really laughable. Basically he assumes that pc gaming is doomed because next gen consoles will have better graphics. News flash, that’s ALWAYS been the case. Computers always had other advantages that consoles didn't have. Even back with the NES, it had better graphics AND sound (out side of high resolution text) than any computer could hope to achieve. (at least till the Amiga and Atari ST came out) This hasn't been a factor, this will NEVER be a factor.

That said, I think its hard for anyone to stick their head in the sand and say pc gaming is fine. Sales have been in a downward spiral for six years and show no sign of flattening out. That fact alone can not be explained away by the generation cycling of console hardware. Computer game sales are below their level in 94. Less than half their peak in 1998. Publishers are pulling out of PC development and developers who stay pc only have been folding at an alarming rate the past 2 years.

So what is the cause of it?
Two things it is not: piracy and the cost of hardware. I don’t have an exact link for it but the vast majority of pirated software are console games and particularly the Xbox. In fact I've read that its believed that the Xbox might be the most pirated platform ever. Want to know why the Xbox 360 is coming out so soon? That’s your reason. PC piracy is there but it isn't as a force as it once was. As for the cost of hardware, prices have been going down as sales have always been climbing (even if a small amount) We might want to bemoan the cost of a $500 video card but the truth is, even $100 video cards can play games fine and even entry level pcs can run virtually everything reasonable well.

After a lot of digging, I at long last have the answer. There are three things responsible for the decline of pc gaming. I bet you will be surprised. The answer is:
1. Dell 2. Backwards compatibility 3. Microsoft.
None of these are intentional evils; they just work out that way.

Dell was a though one to figure out and believe or not, might be the most responsible. When Dell started out competing against Insight, Mid West Micro, Gateway, and others, they did something different. They packed in applications with their computer beyond the basic os. People no longer had to go to the store to buy a new application; virtually everything they need came with the computer. Remember the days when PC software filled half the store? Half of that were applications. People coming in to buy applications for their new pc were also likely to pick up a game or two and become regular customers. Once that foot traffic went away, pc software shelf space shrank. Not only did the applications go away but so did those customers. Microsoft takes some blamed here too buy buddling so many apps with their os. Also Dell sells too many computers (even those slightly above entry level) with crappy graphics chips.

Backwards compatibility is another killer. So many gamers out there are still holding on to their old games and playing them instead of buying new ones. We all know these people. They just bought a high end computer with top of the line graphics card and what do they play? Diablo 2, Star Craft, and Counter Strike. Even if they didn't buy them new. Often us gamers are giving away out old games free to fiends who just bought a pc.

Lastly there is Microsoft. They should of been organizing and pushing pc games in unified packages, promoting the platform to publishers and developers, and getting retail space for pc games in prime spots. The truth is, pc gaming has been shoved in the background and nothing at Microsoft will be done to jeopardize the Xbox line. And the fact is, Microsoft doesn't feel it has to do anything. The Win XP platform complete dominates the home market and if gamers by games on a pc or Xbox, they don't care. Its all money for them.

So what can we do about it? Well, nothing actually. Buying games to support pc developers doesn't help if a game never sees a shelf and generates real sales.

So is it all over?

Well.... there are some possibilities of a turn around within 2 years.

1. Microsoft, EA and other developers of middleware are making it real easy to port future games from consoles to the pc. So there could be more games out there, paired with Longhorn could be more stable, with less pc issues that kept general consumers away from gaming with the pc they already own.

2. Not everyone at Microsoft has been happy with the turn of events for pc gaming side and there have been some power struggles. With the launch of Longhorn, there might be a small rebirth of pc gaming. In fact its being sold to developers that Longhorn isn't just another Microsoft os but a whole new platform that you want to reach for gamers on. There is talk of a unified marketing scheme, and some interesting titles in development that will reach people late next year to show the pc with Longhorn is something different.

3. Lets say there is another console crash. After all, all the major companies are pushing another generation very fast. Consumers might not bite and if consumers lose interest in games, game consoles aren't going to stick around. PCs are in the house and are staying for the long haul. If consumers reject single use devices like consoles, developers and publishers might return to the pc in droves. Yeah its far fetch but not as far as the next one..

4. Apple. That’s right, Apple. A lot of people are calling doom and gloom for Apple after the announced switch to Intel. Some are even saying that gaming for the Apple will be killed. However.. lets look at another possibility that has been mention. What if Apple and Intel are making a gambled push, Sensing weakness at Microsoft, in any turn of events, if truth, both companies will try to stimulate developer interest in their platforms to get an advantage

So... That’s all I got

[Kraken]

Some interesting ideas in baron calamity's post. I don't agree with them all, but don't feel like quibbling right now. I would just like to add two things:

- Overproduction. In the Golden Age, far fewer titles competed for shelf space and gamer attention. A retailer stocking 50 titles pretty much offered everything on the market, and customers could tell pretty easily which five of those were worth playing. Even without the Internet to inform us, we had at least a 10% chance of choosing a winner. Our money went to a small number of companies, which could turn a reasonable profit on very modest sales -- anything over 50k was successful, and 100k was a big hit. Today, a retailer would have to stock 200 titles to offer a comparable representation -- how many retail buyers have the expertise to pick the winners? Even with the Internet, it's harder for customers to find the five games worth playing in such a crowded field. A larger number of companies compete for the dollars, and rising costs have eliminated the possibility of earning modest profits on modest sales. Note that the retail price of a PC game is the same today as it was 15 years ago, but the cost of producing and marketing them has skyrocketed.

When I worked for Sierra about 1998, word came down from on high: "No more B titles." Our studio had built a very successful business on B titles, so this was serious cause for concern. The revenues that made a development studio happy were insufficient to feed corporate overhead and please shareholders. I have written about the blockbuster mentality many times before, and won't belabor this point again.

- The living room has triumphed over the office. I still want to play games in the privacy of my office. My living room TV set is for watching DVDs with the Bride. I don't understand why I'm in the minority now, but where and how we play games has changed. Maybe it's because of the huge TVs that people buy these days, or maybe technology really is converging on the living room entertainment center.