Why is PC gaming "dead"?

[Istanbul]

Trick question. It's not.

 

[v3n0mat3]

Oh, please. It's just a bunch of developers causing a ruckus. That's all it is. PC gaming isn't going anywhere. Popcap? World of Warcraft? Need I say more?

 

[Vault101]

Oh, please. It's just a bunch of developers causing a ruckus. That's all it is. PC gaming isn't going anywhere. Popcap? World of Warcraft? Need I say more?

while I agree I think when epople refer to PC gaming as dead they are talking about "real" games that arnt MMO'S or somthing

 

[Stoogie]

Pc's are dying because:

1. The Majority of people in the world are too stupid to operate 1.

2. Piracy

3. lack of digital distribution services(steam should be more popular IMO. i have 204 steam games)

 

[the-kitchen-slayer]

Pc gaming isn't dead yet, just dying.

Uh, no, it's not. It's not even flailing. You just have to look harder. So fewer games are made for PC. There's still alot of games on consoles that hit PC (Darksiders, Dead Space, Fallout 3, Fallout New Vagas, hell, Elder Scrolls 5 will get panned by the modding community if it doesn't hit PC.) and are doing just as fine thanks to Steam.

So PC gaming ain't dead, it transcended from CD/DVD to Steam

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Oh, please. It's just a bunch of developers causing a ruckus. That's all it is. PC gaming isn't going anywhere. Popcap? World of Warcraft? Need I say more?

while I agree I think when epople refer to PC gaming as dead they are talking about "real" games that arnt MMO'S or somthing

When people refer to PC gaming as dead they are talking out of their arses.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

PC gaming will never be dead,because of MMO's and other PC exclusives such as Starcraft 2 & others.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Elder Scrolls 5 will get panned by the modding community if it doesn't hit PC.

Pssssht.. like Bethesda would give up all that free troubleshooting their modding communities give them.

 

[bomberfan]

ahem starcraft 2.

Pc gaming is not dead, it is fact in a new stage, A competivie stage. The main people that play pc games these days are ones who play to enjoy the game and mabye even challange themselves into being better.

The producers of console gaming have now realised that any "soccer mum caliber gamer" will pay money for any gamer. Their is no need to make the game "challanging, or hard" it just has to have a sterotypical story line.

The fact is gaming has changed for the worse, and pc might be the only thing left of a good gaming experience.

 

[ShankHA32]

I used to be a hardcore PC gamer, but then FIFA 11 was much better on consoles. I go over to my friends house and play FIFA a LOT now. The only time I play on the PC is to play some Dragon Age: Origins.

I wouldn't say I think PC gaming is dying or dead, but I know there are a lot of PC gamers like me, slowly migrating towards consoles.

 

[00slash00]

its mostly declared dead by console fanboys. it certainly struggles more than consoles because a lot of people dont know what they're doing when it comes to computers and dont want to pay the extra money. however, you can easily see why people would think pc gaming is dying. i dont know what video game stores are like for everyone else, but all the ones near me have entire walls, sometimes 2, dedicated for each console pc games, however, get between 1 and 3 shelves. in my nearest gamestop, there are more gamecube games than pc games. part of the problem, is probably due to the fact that you cant trade in pc games, which means you cant buy used games. i dont know about everyone else, but im a cheap bastard and most of the games i own are used. used or not, this limited supply of pc games, at least in my area, means that if i want a pc game, then im probably going to have to buy it online

all this aside, however, pc gaming has been allegedly "dead" since i was in high school. and yet they still make great pc games. taking a backseat to console gaming, probably, but dead, hardly

 

[repeating integers]

It's not dead. It's a bit smaller than consoles, and might be showing signs of fatigue, but it's still going strong enough to live with vitality and it has a spring in its step.

Consoles are the bigger market in most places (though that stuff I just read on this thread about the Russian-etc. market is interesting). I prefer them, and anyway my PC can't run games made this millennium. But to say PC gaming is dead is an overstatement. I doubt it'll really ever die, people need somewhere to play MMOs and - most importantly - RTS games.

 

[tikalal]

I've always kind of hoped Microsoft would release a solution that breaks the barrier between the 360 and a PC.

They were experimenting with getting Gears 2 games that combined 360 and PC players ...
During playtesting, they found that having a kb+mouse is such a huge advantage mediocre PC players were dominating elite 360 players.

Now, rather than fine tuning their system (not that I'm suggesting this as an option, but making a mouse for the 360 wouldn't be rocketscience), they decided it's too hard and tossed the idea in the bin.

I didn't mean let them play multiplayer with each other.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

PC gaming isn't dead, and it never will be.

1) DRM. Piracy is so much easier on a PC than on current-gen consoles, so the PC versions of games are shipped with stuff like online activation, background programs, etc. The majority of console games don't have DRM, simply because it's a lot tougher to pirate them.

I call bullshit on this. Fallout: New Vegas was already on Pirate Bay a week prior to release, but only for xBox 360. Whiney publishers who don't want to own up to a shit game will fall back on this fallacy every single time.


Note how you don't see Valve, Bioware, Bethesda QQing about piracy. Their shit sells so well on PC they have no need to QQ.

I just have a little something to add to that on PC v Console piracy. Although while it is easier on PC you don't get accurate numbers for consoles. People who I know who have pirated some PC(well I only know they did Plants vs Zombies but still pirating) downloaded it themselves. Now everyone I have ever met who pirates console games does not download it themselves but buys it off a guy. So 1 person has downloaded a pirated console game once and is then selling it on about 15 times. The 15 is just pure speculation as it is even harder to pin the true number of console piracy. You also just have to look back at the million 360s that were banned from XBL due to pirating. So it is just as wide spread on consoles as well as PC.

 

[gigastar]

I guess the main reason why people think PC gamind is dying (NOT to say it is dying) is because of Microsoft. After the advent of the Xbox and the 360 Microsoft shifted most of its gaming support to console games and mostly left all its published, ported and developed PC games to rot.

Still while companies like Valve kick around, PC gaming will be as easy to kill as a kitten made of titanium.

 

[maggot man]

exactly! i agree completely as we can already use msn, facebook and switter on a xbox not to mention the ability to download films and music soon we will be able to simply surf the web on the next gen

 

[Danceofmasks]

I've always kind of hoped Microsoft would release a solution that breaks the barrier between the 360 and a PC.

They were experimenting with getting Gears 2 games that combined 360 and PC players ...
During playtesting, they found that having a kb+mouse is such a huge advantage mediocre PC players were dominating elite 360 players.

Now, rather than fine tuning their system (not that I'm suggesting this as an option, but making a mouse for the 360 wouldn't be rocketscience), they decided it's too hard and tossed the idea in the bin.

I didn't mean let them play multiplayer with each other.

Read my post again ...

What exactly are you suggesting, allowing 360 games to be run on PCs?
For most games, and this includes almost every shooter, PC versions are superior to 360 versions.
Compared to a controller, which requires games to "cheat" for you via aim assistance, kb+mouse is so precise the very notion of even having aim assistance is downright ridiculous.

For games whose control schemes are too difficult to rework, well .. you can already plug in a 360 controller to a PC and use that.
Heck, I have a 360 controller set up for browsing youtube, that's how lazy I am.

The main reasons people use consoles over PC is 'cos it's cheaper, they have bigger TVs than monitors, and they want to play on the couch.
If they have to use a PC anyway, it's throwing out those advantages .. they'd be idiots to actually use an inferior version of the games (by that I mean the 360 version, in case it isn't clear).

 

[Delusibeta]

I used to be a hardcore PC gamer, but then FIFA 11 was much better on consoles. I go over to my friends house and play FIFA a LOT now. The only time I play on the PC is to play some Dragon Age: Origins.

I wouldn't say I think PC gaming is dying or dead, but I know there are a lot of PC gamers like me, slowly migrating towards consoles.

You went back to consoles for FIFA? And for the version with (apparently) the best PC port yet?

Honestly, I'd understand it if it was something like Gears of War or Uncharted, or something similar that's exclusive to consoles and not guaranteed to get a sequel next year (e.g. anything made by Platinum Games), but FIFA?

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

While PC isn't dead, it's certainly not the most attractive choice for gamers.

Errr... what?

Speak for yourself. PC gaming is the most attractive choice for most PC gamers. That's why most of them ARE PC gamers.

Notice how I said gamers and not PC gamers. Most gamers play mainly on the console. It's just a fact.

PC gamers are gamers. You didn't say "most gamers" the first time.

As for your fact, let's see something to substantiate it.

I never said "most gamers" the first time either i know. Stop putting words in my mouth. I just said the word "gamers" I know what I said.

So what are you trying to say? You said the PC isn't the most attractive choice for gamers - no qualifiers whatsoever, so unless you're trying to say that PC gamers aren't gamers or that 'gamers' without a qualifier means non-PC gamers exclusively, your statement was bollocks - There are gamers that find the PC the most attractive choice.

Also you want substantiation? All righty.

Here's a link to a chart done by ARS, a technological research group:
http://ppmartin.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/pc-gaming-loosing-ground-to-console-gaming/

That alone shows that since 1998 consoles software sales have smoked PC sales like pork.

Ah yes, based on NPD Group data I see. You do realise they can't include most digital sales because digital distributors refuse to disclose their numbers, right? I don't think anyone but the most rabid Valve fan would think that omission would be enough to swing the numbers the other way but it is still a rather important sales factor for PCs. To the best of my knowledge NPD Group numbers don't cover MMO subs either, which is a gigantic chunk taken out of PC earning.

The problem is there's no way to know how many PCs are out there being used for gaming. Hell, you can pull up stats for sales of discreet GPU cards but how many of them end up in gaming rigs? No one knows.

Of course, without a more comprehensive set of numbers to work from (ie, ones that don't exclude some of PCs major earners) we can only take a punt... also sales figures don't cover piracy and the like which, if you believe some publishers, is costing them untold billions.

So what are you trying to say?

Go back and read all of the points I said to support that statement, which you aparently chose to ignore.

Ah yes, based on NPD Group data I see. You do realise they can't include most digital sales because digital distributors refuse to disclose their numbers, right?

Well when Valve holds %70 percent of the Digital Distrubution market for PC and doesn't make the billions that most major console based companies make every year that kind of tells me that much more people purchase console software. Meaning much more people play games on console.

 

[Delusibeta]

Well when Valve holds %70 percent of the Digital Distrubution market for PC and doesn't make the billions that most major console based companies make every year that kind of tells me that much more people purchase console software. Meaning much more people play games on console.

Objection: Valve is a private company, and thus doesn't release revenue figures. For all you know, they could be making billions. Also, Sony and Microsoft isn't solely about consoles. Didn't Nintendo post up a loss last year?