The Big Picture: PC Gaming Is Dead - Long Live PC Gaming!
- Thread starter MovieBob
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Tablets, phones, and smaller devices are massively overpriced for their capabilities compared to a full desktop. With a desktop, you get more power for every $ you spend. Portable devices will never be able to match the cost effectiveness of non-portable ones.
PC games themselves still have greater modding capabilities and better custom content. Creating indie games for PC is easier than making them on console, because your creating the content on the same device which will run it.
Also, although I do not agree with this, a PC can emulate every console in existence anyway.
PC games themselves still have greater modding capabilities and better custom content. Creating indie games for PC is easier than making them on console, because your creating the content on the same device which will run it.
Also, although I do not agree with this, a PC can emulate every console in existence anyway.
No hate for you Bob. Though I actually think PC games and gaming will be getting more attention over the coming months/years as compnonents that outclass the current consoles become available at a cheaper price than a console. The only reason I've stuck with PC gaming over Xbox Live for instance is because of how much more crap I can do with it. Want to watch a film whilst you browse the web? No problem. Want to play music and games at the sime time? No problem.
And so on.
I would say more but I'm due at work so I'll edit this post later.
Long live the PC!
And so on.
I would say more but I'm due at work so I'll edit this post later.
Long live the PC!
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-(
There is a lot of ignorance and lack of information in this video. Laptops are PCs. Laptops are becoming more common and there are lot of them suitable for gaming. There are tons of notebooks made with gaming in mind. There is bright future for PC gaming and even Apple knows that.
For example if you buy newest Apple Macbook pro 15 inch you can play any game all settings set to max. I don't know any gamer who would buy macbook for gaming, but the technology is still there. All Macbooks will have new sandybridge chip which is huge step. You probably won't be able to play games BF3, but definetly games like L4D2, Starcraft2, MW2, Portal 2 in very high settings. Thats where pcs and technology overall are going.
And what you mean pcs won't have motion controllers? Of course they will. Have you heard that Microsoft and Sony wants their motion controllers on PC? Have you heard of this device called Razer Hydra?
You say that if only your xbox could browse internet and do other things necessary for your work, well thats why there are people who only use their PCs. They work on their Pcs, they use it to render videos, they watch movies, browse youtube AND game on PC. Why would they ever need iPad (btw you could get good laptop for work for the price of that that thing) or console?
They say that "Trolling is a art". And you sir are very good at it.
For example if you buy newest Apple Macbook pro 15 inch you can play any game all settings set to max. I don't know any gamer who would buy macbook for gaming, but the technology is still there. All Macbooks will have new sandybridge chip which is huge step. You probably won't be able to play games BF3, but definetly games like L4D2, Starcraft2, MW2, Portal 2 in very high settings. Thats where pcs and technology overall are going.
And what you mean pcs won't have motion controllers? Of course they will. Have you heard that Microsoft and Sony wants their motion controllers on PC? Have you heard of this device called Razer Hydra?
You say that if only your xbox could browse internet and do other things necessary for your work, well thats why there are people who only use their PCs. They work on their Pcs, they use it to render videos, they watch movies, browse youtube AND game on PC. Why would they ever need iPad (btw you could get good laptop for work for the price of that that thing) or console?
They say that "Trolling is a art". And you sir are very good at it.
HARDCORE PC gaming dead? Maybe.
But yeah, PC games themselves aren't going anywhere. STEAM is proof of that.
Seriously, I just started getting into it and I REALLY like it.
But yeah, PC games themselves aren't going anywhere. STEAM is proof of that.
Seriously, I just started getting into it and I REALLY like it.
I'm going to keep this short. PCs are used to make video games for the consuls.
This year's GDC introduced Frostbyte2 engine (Battlefield 3), Unreal 3 engine, and Crytyk 3 engine (Crisis 2). These engines are super powerful, something no current gen consul can run. This tells me that the next consuls are being built as I write this.
Where do you think they are going to test all this new tech on? PCs will get the first glimpse at the future of consul gaming. And for a time everyone will be clamoring to get a PC and play Battlefield 3 as good as the tech demos looked.
PC gaming is on the decline it is true, but it is hardly dead. As long as there are consuls, there will be PCs to play-test their crap.
This year's GDC introduced Frostbyte2 engine (Battlefield 3), Unreal 3 engine, and Crytyk 3 engine (Crisis 2). These engines are super powerful, something no current gen consul can run. This tells me that the next consuls are being built as I write this.
Where do you think they are going to test all this new tech on? PCs will get the first glimpse at the future of consul gaming. And for a time everyone will be clamoring to get a PC and play Battlefield 3 as good as the tech demos looked.
PC gaming is on the decline it is true, but it is hardly dead. As long as there are consuls, there will be PCs to play-test their crap.
I had no idea these guys [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consul] had so much impact on the gaming industry 
OK, Bob, I can see where you're going with this (although even 3/4 insulting someone is still insulting someone) and it may be true in the future, but at the moment, PC gaming is going strong.
Here's what PCs have over consoles:
Modular capabilities for games.
Directly downloading games after you pay for them, allowing the bypass of retail markups and other various issues, which makes sure that your games are cheaper and the developer gets more of your money (and it works for full games, not just little ones).
The ability to download thousands of free games from the internet (I know that XBLA and App stores have this, but you can get full on, full version, full length games for absolutely free, whereas most free XBLA and App games are very, very cut down).
The ability to make your own games without a devteam if you have the proper training and software.
Online gaming is free as long as you pay for a connection (which is required for consoles anyway) and doesn't suck (like PSO and Wii online).
A much MUCH smoother and more precise targeting system (If you have ever played an FPS or RTS on a console and then tried it on a PC, you will see the vast improvement. Have you ever tried playing Quake 3 (or Quake Live) on a console? No, because it would have taken all the flow and fun out of that game).
The ability to upgrade the system so it can play next-gen games without buying a new system.
Modular controls for almost all games.
The ability to use alternate controllers.
The ability to emulate consoles (wow, that alone should probably be enough).
And you get all this, plus all the internet browsing, Microsoft office using, data storage, and so many other things that only a personal computer can do
Someday, the PC may be replaced. For now, your argument holds no water.
Here's what PCs have over consoles:
Modular capabilities for games.
Directly downloading games after you pay for them, allowing the bypass of retail markups and other various issues, which makes sure that your games are cheaper and the developer gets more of your money (and it works for full games, not just little ones).
The ability to download thousands of free games from the internet (I know that XBLA and App stores have this, but you can get full on, full version, full length games for absolutely free, whereas most free XBLA and App games are very, very cut down).
The ability to make your own games without a devteam if you have the proper training and software.
Online gaming is free as long as you pay for a connection (which is required for consoles anyway) and doesn't suck (like PSO and Wii online).
A much MUCH smoother and more precise targeting system (If you have ever played an FPS or RTS on a console and then tried it on a PC, you will see the vast improvement. Have you ever tried playing Quake 3 (or Quake Live) on a console? No, because it would have taken all the flow and fun out of that game).
The ability to upgrade the system so it can play next-gen games without buying a new system.
Modular controls for almost all games.
The ability to use alternate controllers.
The ability to emulate consoles (wow, that alone should probably be enough).
And you get all this, plus all the internet browsing, Microsoft office using, data storage, and so many other things that only a personal computer can do
Someday, the PC may be replaced. For now, your argument holds no water.
im a new pc gamer, and have been for the last 6 months or so. Me and my friends were hardcore ps3 nazi zombie lovers, so when are pc gaming friend told us that l4d2 was on sale for 5 dollars on steam, we couldn't pass it up. and then we all got into minecraft. that was pretty much sink line and hook after a few months of non-stop minecrafting. then i got into rts (starcraft more to the point). so try to tell me that pc gaming is dead when there are millons of gamers like me who just became pc gamers, not to mention the mountain of money valve is sitting on. and i do this all on my laptop computer, with is a computer with sit on your lap. so its still a computer, not a tablet, theres a big difference
The internet is doing to PC gaming/development what it is doing to nearly every media industry that hasn't totally locked itself down yet: breaking up the Old Boy's Club and letting the new guys in. Let me explain.
News, movies, episodic shows, writing, music and other mediums have long been dominated by just a handful of media corporations. If you wanted to get into the industry, they were the only way in (as they had the capital and connections you needed).
Not anymore though. You can post some videos on Youtube and distribute them a bit and GET FAMOUS. You can write stories/articles/comics and then compile them into books (maybe with some extra content...) and GET RICH. You can sell music, get advertisers for your independant blog or news site... The internet has allowed the little guy to get into the media industries with far less effort and capital involved. But the most important part is, it doesn't affect their opportunities for income!
So what does this have to do with games? Well, independant games and application developers were the first people to take advantage of the freedom the internet supplied them. No longer do you need a publisher and investors to get a game to the masses: you can do it yourself. Why do you think EA recently opened a big indie publishing division? They want in on that income! These publishers HATE the freedom the internet has provided, as many have chosen to bypass them in favour of higher profits. So, some think that big publishers like EA, Activision, and Ubisoft moving away from PC means the death of PC gaming. That's idiocy at its finest. Publishing giants like these 3 moving away from PC only makes more room for smaller studios offering games like Minecraft, Soldat, or Star Ruler. Better yet, we'll eventually see AAA studios that don't bother with a publisher at all. I can't wait to see what happens then.
Lastly, I'd like to agree with CleverNickname. Why should anyone have to prove PC Gaming is NOT dead? The burden of proof lies on those claiming it is, not on those defending an industry that has been very successful for a very long time. Not everybody wants a dumb terminal XBox/PS3/Mac, and unless you can convince them they do, I just don't see it coming. But enough of that. As they say on the internet: PROVE ME WRONG
News, movies, episodic shows, writing, music and other mediums have long been dominated by just a handful of media corporations. If you wanted to get into the industry, they were the only way in (as they had the capital and connections you needed).
Not anymore though. You can post some videos on Youtube and distribute them a bit and GET FAMOUS. You can write stories/articles/comics and then compile them into books (maybe with some extra content...) and GET RICH. You can sell music, get advertisers for your independant blog or news site... The internet has allowed the little guy to get into the media industries with far less effort and capital involved. But the most important part is, it doesn't affect their opportunities for income!
So what does this have to do with games? Well, independant games and application developers were the first people to take advantage of the freedom the internet supplied them. No longer do you need a publisher and investors to get a game to the masses: you can do it yourself. Why do you think EA recently opened a big indie publishing division? They want in on that income! These publishers HATE the freedom the internet has provided, as many have chosen to bypass them in favour of higher profits. So, some think that big publishers like EA, Activision, and Ubisoft moving away from PC means the death of PC gaming. That's idiocy at its finest. Publishing giants like these 3 moving away from PC only makes more room for smaller studios offering games like Minecraft, Soldat, or Star Ruler. Better yet, we'll eventually see AAA studios that don't bother with a publisher at all. I can't wait to see what happens then.
Lastly, I'd like to agree with CleverNickname. Why should anyone have to prove PC Gaming is NOT dead? The burden of proof lies on those claiming it is, not on those defending an industry that has been very successful for a very long time. Not everybody wants a dumb terminal XBox/PS3/Mac, and unless you can convince them they do, I just don't see it coming. But enough of that. As they say on the internet: PROVE ME WRONG