The Big Picture: PC Gaming Is Dead - Long Live PC Gaming!
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
This was a really simplistic interpretation of the situation which I do not agree with. I accept the fact that the usage of the PC is changing, but the idea that it is an outmoded form of computing is ludicrous. The strength of a computer is that it does everything in one place, whereas most handhelds, laptops and other devices have some limitations. Of course these devices will advance to compensate for this, but at the same time, the PC will advance to become just as useful in new ways.
Computerised centralisation can only go so far.
Computerised centralisation can only go so far.
Wow! I mean, wow. Bob really does live in a parallel universe.
First person shooters have pretty much migrated fully to the consoles.
Haha, no, really not. They port shooters to consoles, yes. The sell quite well, yes. But it's a completely other kind of game. Gamepad-wielding consoleros do not have half of the control a PC gamer has using a mouse. Analog mini-joysticks suck. End of story.
And PCs won't have the superiority of the Keyboard and mouse even anymore to hold on to
Yes, they will. Keyboards and mice do not sell well for consoles and the simple reason for this is that console gamers do not sit at tables. They sit on sofas.
Really Bob, have you even actually played console and PC games? I cannot help but doubt it.
And for the rest of the video Bob got most of it wrong, too. Awfully so.
PC dominance pretty much only on sim-style god games and flight simulators.
Yeah, right! Have you heard about MMORPGs? Many million users (Wow alone has 12 million) paying every single month. Real time strategy? Action RPGs?
Really Bob, I like unusual aspects on a subject, but this is just uninformed BS. The outlook to the future is plausible and makes a lot of sense, the evaluation of the status quo does not. Not a bit.
First person shooters have pretty much migrated fully to the consoles.
Haha, no, really not. They port shooters to consoles, yes. The sell quite well, yes. But it's a completely other kind of game. Gamepad-wielding consoleros do not have half of the control a PC gamer has using a mouse. Analog mini-joysticks suck. End of story.
And PCs won't have the superiority of the Keyboard and mouse even anymore to hold on to
Yes, they will. Keyboards and mice do not sell well for consoles and the simple reason for this is that console gamers do not sit at tables. They sit on sofas.
Really Bob, have you even actually played console and PC games? I cannot help but doubt it.
And for the rest of the video Bob got most of it wrong, too. Awfully so.
PC dominance pretty much only on sim-style god games and flight simulators.
Yeah, right! Have you heard about MMORPGs? Many million users (Wow alone has 12 million) paying every single month. Real time strategy? Action RPGs?
Really Bob, I like unusual aspects on a subject, but this is just uninformed BS. The outlook to the future is plausible and makes a lot of sense, the evaluation of the status quo does not. Not a bit.
Is it the PC that's circling the drain or just the desktop PC?
The point about the PC's role being filled in just as well by other devices, while technically true, might sort of miss the point that for most people the desktop PC's role is just being filled in by some variation of of a laptop, and those are increasingly capable of performing just as well as a desktop for running games.
It could well be that we just stop buying a tower and filling it with a handful of circuit boards and putting our games into it, and start just leaving a power plug on top of a desk where we can plop down our portable computer, plug it in, and play basically the same games with basically the same peripheral devices.
There is always still going to be a market for a PC-like device with a versatile operating system that can run utility applications and games both, so there's going to be a market for games to play on it, and why not offer the same kind of games you'd sell on a console. Plenty of people are going to find it preferable to have a single all-in-one device versus probably spending more money to distribute that to multiple devices that are either narrow in focus or offer redundant functionality.
Is it dying, honestly, or is it just getting different?
The point about the PC's role being filled in just as well by other devices, while technically true, might sort of miss the point that for most people the desktop PC's role is just being filled in by some variation of of a laptop, and those are increasingly capable of performing just as well as a desktop for running games.
It could well be that we just stop buying a tower and filling it with a handful of circuit boards and putting our games into it, and start just leaving a power plug on top of a desk where we can plop down our portable computer, plug it in, and play basically the same games with basically the same peripheral devices.
There is always still going to be a market for a PC-like device with a versatile operating system that can run utility applications and games both, so there's going to be a market for games to play on it, and why not offer the same kind of games you'd sell on a console. Plenty of people are going to find it preferable to have a single all-in-one device versus probably spending more money to distribute that to multiple devices that are either narrow in focus or offer redundant functionality.
Is it dying, honestly, or is it just getting different?
Honestly Kouryuu I don't see what we're arguing about here. I agree with 90% of your points and don't see how they conflict with mine.Kouryuu said:
I do think you're getting a bit too philosophical on your definition of what a PC is. Everybody in this forum understands that when we use the term PC we're referring to "the big gray box" or the laptop if you will. When I talk about "the big gray box" its not a derrogatory term, I'm just trying to make it clearer.
Probably our biggest disagreement is over whether the relevance of PC at home will decline or not. We'll have to wait and see.
I love games as well, and wouldn't like to see a world where Angry Birds is considered an AAA title. But sadly, is not for me, or any single individual, no matter how passionate, to decide. That has always been my message. Its about the vast majority out there. The market.
Thanks for the history lesson btw. But just for reference, I've been playing videogames for over 35 years, and developing them as a hobby for over 20.
This is the same MovieBob whom claimed anyone that disliked Metroid : Other M's themes was being racist against Japan [whom he also seems to beleive invented video-games - which just isn't true either], Bob also claimed the same game was [paraphrasing] a "masterpiece" of game design...
Yeah, I'll pay attention when he talks about Films, but when he discusses gaming it's just laughable...
Yeah, I'll pay attention when he talks about Films, but when he discusses gaming it's just laughable...
You can talk about how bad console gaming Is but without console gaming there is no Pc gaming.
You hardly every see a top selling game just for one port. The money makers are your consoles so If they didn't exist Pc gaming would die out. Just like If the pc was never invented the console would never have been made.
You hardly every see a top selling game just for one port. The money makers are your consoles so If they didn't exist Pc gaming would die out. Just like If the pc was never invented the console would never have been made.
I just saw a bit of irony, I started up this video again and saw a large border ad for Alienware M11x laptop(which is a PC). I laughed out loud, then I rolled on the floor laughing!
Heh, thanks. I wish I had posted it somewhere more prominent than on page 32 of a thread people just use to get their daily dose of internet arguing out of the way.
I Disagree Completely. Not with the ideas or facts presented but with the premise. Consoles are not winning, they are dying. The current generation (7th gen) will be one of the last. I would wager there will be no 9th generation as we know consoles.
The number of uses and operations a console has is approaching a PC with movie downloads and social networkign. It will be impossible for the next few generations of console makers to justify the existance of a 300-700 dollar machine (adjusted for inflation) that will only play a select list of games. Gamers will demand game support on everything and players like Sony or microsaoft won't get away with console exclusive games. There will be no point in owning a machine that just plays games since even our phones are better than an N64. THe only future for consoles is full Wii style motion control and family oreinted play which the bro gamers on the Xbox will not go for.
Part of the problem with your logic is the mistake in thinking that a PC is a desktop. Laptops and tablets are PCs. My MP3 player and digital reader have more processing power than my first desktop (not to mention more pixels). the remaining benefit of a desktop is the better cooling system and the lower cost of parts since laptops are mostly not standardized. A problem which is even bigger with other electronics.
The PC, and the desktop have a long life ahead of them mostly as a cheaper alternative to other gaming platforms. The mouse and kayboard are still better than motion controls (See Minecraft on Kinect video) and the novelty of jumping around your living room will wear off. The only reason games aren't being put on the PC is developer laziness.
The number of uses and operations a console has is approaching a PC with movie downloads and social networkign. It will be impossible for the next few generations of console makers to justify the existance of a 300-700 dollar machine (adjusted for inflation) that will only play a select list of games. Gamers will demand game support on everything and players like Sony or microsaoft won't get away with console exclusive games. There will be no point in owning a machine that just plays games since even our phones are better than an N64. THe only future for consoles is full Wii style motion control and family oreinted play which the bro gamers on the Xbox will not go for.
Part of the problem with your logic is the mistake in thinking that a PC is a desktop. Laptops and tablets are PCs. My MP3 player and digital reader have more processing power than my first desktop (not to mention more pixels). the remaining benefit of a desktop is the better cooling system and the lower cost of parts since laptops are mostly not standardized. A problem which is even bigger with other electronics.
The PC, and the desktop have a long life ahead of them mostly as a cheaper alternative to other gaming platforms. The mouse and kayboard are still better than motion controls (See Minecraft on Kinect video) and the novelty of jumping around your living room will wear off. The only reason games aren't being put on the PC is developer laziness.
Yes, I read through your entire speech (I even read it out loud to myself), and I thought it was decently written. And I hope you don't mind my tl;dr version to those that don't like reading walls of text:CleverNickname said:
tl;dr: Don't shoot the messenger, which this time around is Bob, ignore the ignorant baby-boomer politicians that can't comprehend our hobby and instead choose to demonize it, and stop saying "PC gaming is NOT dead" because human brains naturally filter out the word "no". Instead, aim your ire at the publishers responsible for releasing tripe and raking in the money while ignoring a significant playerbase.
This sounds exactly like one of my cousin's rants about the future of video games. Predicting that in the future PCs will become obsolete isn't mindblowing at all for me, predicting the absolute collapse of the gaming industry would be a lot more interesting topic. People might call them something else in the future instead of a personal computer, but you get the most power, best graphics, and usually better gameplay on a PC so I don't think it's going to die, not at least until the xbox 1080 comes out, or the playstation 5.
It also seems as though the first half of your video was dedicated to pissing off people who play games on the PC, I thought that kind of stupidity wasn't allowed on the escapist but I see here that I was wrong.
It also seems as though the first half of your video was dedicated to pissing off people who play games on the PC, I thought that kind of stupidity wasn't allowed on the escapist but I see here that I was wrong.
Nah Pc gaming isn't dying It'll probably grow actually as more and more people enter the gaming hobby and maybe try out the pc and get hooked. I know I did.
Not even then. Any technological superiority a console enjoys is short lived as PC tech constantly evolves whereas consoles do most of their tech evolving between generations - by the time a console reaches technological parity with a PC it only has a few months before the PC tears past them again. To kill off the PC consoles would have to become PCs and would then inherit many of the disadvantages of the PC with very few of it's advantages.Bullfrog1983 said:
Laptops won't kill off PC gaming or even threaten the Desktop PC. A person who wants a PC but doesn't feel the need for a portable unit or wants more power than a laptop delivers will most likely turn to desktops to fit their needs. Laptops will become more common, certainly, possibly even becoming the most common form of PC but desktops will have a place in many homes for the foreseeable future.
A lot of people have been saying how powerful smaller units are becoming but the thing is, so are desktop PCs. The desktop monolith will always have more space to cram in processing and storage than a device 1/4 it's size. That's a physical restraint and until everything is kicking out more processing power than anyone could ever need desktops won't be going anywhere.
Dear Fellow PC Gamers who are slightly irritated by not just Bob's latest video, but the whole sentiment that comes up way too often,
You're doing it wrong. It's not your fault, but you can stop it. We're arguing about the wrong thing. It isn't the PC that is dying. At worst it's, as Bob pointed out, mutating into decentralized deviced that, at this point in time, are inferior in almost every way; once they're as good, we won't care, will we? At best, it's not going anywhere, because it hasn't gone anywhere (but forward) for decades.
No. This discussion should never be about the PC. It's about how the PC is treated. By ignorant console gamers (note: ignorant console gamers exist; it doesn't mean all console gamers are ignorant), by the publishers they throw their money at, by the devs who are chained up in EA's and Activision's basements and by the worst offender Microsoft. Microsoft because they wouldn't have made half their money without the PC Gaming industry; Microsoft who created not just the "death of the PC" but the death of quality gaming in general, by conjuring up the XBox in some dark and twisted ritual during a moon-eclipsed Winter Solstice. Or something.
No. Listen to Bob. Not to the trollish nonsense in this latest Big Picture, but to his GameOverthinker persona. That smart brilliant man noticed something very true about the world of Gaming, something he should tell this nigh-on-4chan-brained BigPicturePerson. In this episode [http://screwattack.com/videos/TGO-Episode-33-Building-A-Better-Gamer] he remarked how us Gamers were doing something wrong when engaging the ignorance of politicians and lawyers and other idiotic old people who were badmouthing our glorious hobby.
That episode tried to remind everybody that those people are idiots, and their points are stupid and their arguments made no sense. Refuting stupid points and arguing based off their nonsense, is equally stupid and nonsensical. Most importantly, it doesn't get us anywhere.
GameOverthinker's point was that Gaming isn't evil just because some 80-year-old politician doesn't understand why Liara T'Soni is having sex with Bayonetta in a Russian airport, and that arguing on their idiotically ignorant level is a waste of time and will never lead to satisfying results.
In the same vein, we should stop arguing about "The Death of PC Gaming". We need to stop telling everybody "PC Gaming isn't dying". Humans instinctively filter out "not", and talking about PC Gaming not dying still has the death of PC Gaming as its topic.
PC Gaming itself cannot die. The PC itself is very unlikely to die, unless in the far future we really do only have the choice between 3 different model of eye-implants (and even then...).
The very notion is silly. If you argue that notion, you are being silly.
We are PC Gamers. We play on the PC. We play what we have, and we have plenty. If we don't have anything, we make something. I don't, because I'm not smart, but a lot of us are smart. Gaming started because smart people wanted to play. Humans want to play with everything. We play with fire, with chalk, with cars, planes, high-end computers, even eating utensils.
These people say that a portion of the human population will have to buy something else if they want to play something, instead of doing it on something they use every day. If I told you your penis was rainbow-colored, would you get into a lengthy discussion with me, or would you contort your face into a mixture of confusion and hysterical laughter?
Then why am I typing all this nonsense that only like 3 people will read anyway? Well for one, everything else I could do (gaming for example) plays sounds, and I'm blasting the S&M DVD right now because my day has been kinda crappy.
No, I'm writing this because something is dying. It's not PC Gaming. Remember my second paragraph? It describes Death. The Death of support for our platform of choice (which isn't actually a "platform" in that sense, which doesn't make things any easier). Big budget mainstream Triple-A development and support for the PC is dying. It's not dead, as you're likely to quickly point out. Blizzard and especially Valve are still there. Unfortunately for our insatiable thirst for content, they're probably the slowest developers in history, but we usually forgive them due to the quality. And their support. And their active, unprecedented work toward the advancement of PC Gaming.
Unfortunately, they are the only ones (not those two specifically; I forget who else is there, but I count them nonetheless). We probably can't really blame EA and Activision and Ubisoft and the others. They want to make money and throwing together some corridor-cover-shooter is easy and highly profitable. I can't fathom why, but that's how it is. Nevertheless, it is extremely sad and quite frankly unfair.
It is at them we should direct our ire and disappointment, not at people like Bob who make up grand tales just to make "PC Gaming is dying" sound less dumb. Just like the GameOverthinker suggested Gamers should make good intelligent points about the benefits of Gaming in general, we should think what would be best for our big hulking highly ventilated power-monsters, instead of keeping the "Death of PC Gaming" topic alive so eagerly.
So let us shout at the Publishers of Neglect: Give us a great shooter worthy of our mouse-aiming and we will throw money at you. Give us frequent patches and interesting DLC-content and we will pay you more attention than our own hygiene. Show us that you still care and you will not find your name in the same sentence as the word "evil" on the internet.
But give us Console of Duty, Port Effect 2 and Cry-about-it-being-dumbed-down-sis 2 and you will be grossly outsold by a Swedish man who gave us alpha(!)-blocks covered in pixels as large as the egg on your face.
We are PC Gamers. We play on the PC and we will play on everything that will truly replace the PC. Treat us like twitchy Toaster-enthusiasts though and we will just not play/buy the drivel you aim to sully our hard-drives with. That is not the death of PC Gaming. That is the death of your PC market revenue and you only brought it upon yourself. On ourselves we will bring something else. Something better. Something fun, something new, something made for us and the cards and plastic we paid good money for.
So what say you, fellow PC Gamers (all 1-and-a-half of you who read this)? Let's not focus on what people who don't care about our great hobby think. Let's focus on the few remaining who do care, on those who probably should and those who might care in the future. Let's also not be like those others and wish upon the death of the consoles. We're all Gamers. Nintendo has done as much for computing as many PC Game studio. Sony was too busy competing with first Nintendo, then Microsoft to have any noticably negative impact on PC Gaming - and where would we be without the CD-ROM?
Let's be nice and intelligent and forward-thinking. That's how digital Gaming was invented, that's how it should face the bright-looking future.
...
So, how do we kill that annoying-as-fuck XBox? X-(
You're doing it wrong. It's not your fault, but you can stop it. We're arguing about the wrong thing. It isn't the PC that is dying. At worst it's, as Bob pointed out, mutating into decentralized deviced that, at this point in time, are inferior in almost every way; once they're as good, we won't care, will we? At best, it's not going anywhere, because it hasn't gone anywhere (but forward) for decades.
No. This discussion should never be about the PC. It's about how the PC is treated. By ignorant console gamers (note: ignorant console gamers exist; it doesn't mean all console gamers are ignorant), by the publishers they throw their money at, by the devs who are chained up in EA's and Activision's basements and by the worst offender Microsoft. Microsoft because they wouldn't have made half their money without the PC Gaming industry; Microsoft who created not just the "death of the PC" but the death of quality gaming in general, by conjuring up the XBox in some dark and twisted ritual during a moon-eclipsed Winter Solstice. Or something.
No. Listen to Bob. Not to the trollish nonsense in this latest Big Picture, but to his GameOverthinker persona. That smart brilliant man noticed something very true about the world of Gaming, something he should tell this nigh-on-4chan-brained BigPicturePerson. In this episode [http://screwattack.com/videos/TGO-Episode-33-Building-A-Better-Gamer] he remarked how us Gamers were doing something wrong when engaging the ignorance of politicians and lawyers and other idiotic old people who were badmouthing our glorious hobby.
That episode tried to remind everybody that those people are idiots, and their points are stupid and their arguments made no sense. Refuting stupid points and arguing based off their nonsense, is equally stupid and nonsensical. Most importantly, it doesn't get us anywhere.
GameOverthinker's point was that Gaming isn't evil just because some 80-year-old politician doesn't understand why Liara T'Soni is having sex with Bayonetta in a Russian airport, and that arguing on their idiotically ignorant level is a waste of time and will never lead to satisfying results.
In the same vein, we should stop arguing about "The Death of PC Gaming". We need to stop telling everybody "PC Gaming isn't dying". Humans instinctively filter out "not", and talking about PC Gaming not dying still has the death of PC Gaming as its topic.
PC Gaming itself cannot die. The PC itself is very unlikely to die, unless in the far future we really do only have the choice between 3 different model of eye-implants (and even then...).
The very notion is silly. If you argue that notion, you are being silly.
We are PC Gamers. We play on the PC. We play what we have, and we have plenty. If we don't have anything, we make something. I don't, because I'm not smart, but a lot of us are smart. Gaming started because smart people wanted to play. Humans want to play with everything. We play with fire, with chalk, with cars, planes, high-end computers, even eating utensils.
These people say that a portion of the human population will have to buy something else if they want to play something, instead of doing it on something they use every day. If I told you your penis was rainbow-colored, would you get into a lengthy discussion with me, or would you contort your face into a mixture of confusion and hysterical laughter?
Then why am I typing all this nonsense that only like 3 people will read anyway? Well for one, everything else I could do (gaming for example) plays sounds, and I'm blasting the S&M DVD right now because my day has been kinda crappy.
No, I'm writing this because something is dying. It's not PC Gaming. Remember my second paragraph? It describes Death. The Death of support for our platform of choice (which isn't actually a "platform" in that sense, which doesn't make things any easier). Big budget mainstream Triple-A development and support for the PC is dying. It's not dead, as you're likely to quickly point out. Blizzard and especially Valve are still there. Unfortunately for our insatiable thirst for content, they're probably the slowest developers in history, but we usually forgive them due to the quality. And their support. And their active, unprecedented work toward the advancement of PC Gaming.
Unfortunately, they are the only ones (not those two specifically; I forget who else is there, but I count them nonetheless). We probably can't really blame EA and Activision and Ubisoft and the others. They want to make money and throwing together some corridor-cover-shooter is easy and highly profitable. I can't fathom why, but that's how it is. Nevertheless, it is extremely sad and quite frankly unfair.
It is at them we should direct our ire and disappointment, not at people like Bob who make up grand tales just to make "PC Gaming is dying" sound less dumb. Just like the GameOverthinker suggested Gamers should make good intelligent points about the benefits of Gaming in general, we should think what would be best for our big hulking highly ventilated power-monsters, instead of keeping the "Death of PC Gaming" topic alive so eagerly.
So let us shout at the Publishers of Neglect: Give us a great shooter worthy of our mouse-aiming and we will throw money at you. Give us frequent patches and interesting DLC-content and we will pay you more attention than our own hygiene. Show us that you still care and you will not find your name in the same sentence as the word "evil" on the internet.
But give us Console of Duty, Port Effect 2 and Cry-about-it-being-dumbed-down-sis 2 and you will be grossly outsold by a Swedish man who gave us alpha(!)-blocks covered in pixels as large as the egg on your face.
We are PC Gamers. We play on the PC and we will play on everything that will truly replace the PC. Treat us like twitchy Toaster-enthusiasts though and we will just not play/buy the drivel you aim to sully our hard-drives with. That is not the death of PC Gaming. That is the death of your PC market revenue and you only brought it upon yourself. On ourselves we will bring something else. Something better. Something fun, something new, something made for us and the cards and plastic we paid good money for.
So what say you, fellow PC Gamers (all 1-and-a-half of you who read this)? Let's not focus on what people who don't care about our great hobby think. Let's focus on the few remaining who do care, on those who probably should and those who might care in the future. Let's also not be like those others and wish upon the death of the consoles. We're all Gamers. Nintendo has done as much for computing as many PC Game studio. Sony was too busy competing with first Nintendo, then Microsoft to have any noticably negative impact on PC Gaming - and where would we be without the CD-ROM?
Let's be nice and intelligent and forward-thinking. That's how digital Gaming was invented, that's how it should face the bright-looking future.
...
So, how do we kill that annoying-as-fuck XBox? X-(
This may be one of the smartest things I've ever read since I joined The Escapist, I applaud to you, good sir.
