News Blizzard: PC gaming is not dying

think blizzard is going to have some competition for warcraft finally when guildwars 2 releases.. I hate anet is doing the duke nukem 'it's ready when it's ready'

blizzard is so rich.. I mean imagine- you have monthly income and a set server/staff cost.. reminds me of oil

 

I think PC gaming is dying.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to London to tell the Queen that the sky is falling.

 

Disagree there but that's off topic.
Digital downloads will be the main way of acquiring games in the future, it most likely already is for the PC, as far as im aware there's no easy way of telling how many games have been brought for the PC other than from retail shops?
Like i mentioned earlier i have stopped buying hard copies of pc games and i know many other people have to.
Partly reason why you see either no or very little pc games in retail shops these days,
It's normally cheaper to buy them online, normally get access to play them quicker to and of course the fact you cant sell 2nd hand pc games.

I also think 2nd game sales will eventually be the ruin of console's as we know them but that's for another topic

 

That's why I got a PS3. Now my games just work.

 

Says who?! How do you know?

And just because it's the number one seller on steam and d2d, doesn't mean it's a good seller. There is a lot of blind denial in this thread which is sad for a supposedly high tech forum.

I'd have thought it would help. Look at WoW. Old school looking with basic graphics, but does incredibly well because anyone can play it, even on laptops.

 

I started gaming on a 486DX2/66 with 4MB RAM and a Cirrus Logic 5428 1MB VLB graphics card. I moved onto a Voodoo2 and over time and many upgrades arrived at a Q6600, 4GB and GTX275 OC. I've ploughed many years and a lot of money into gaming over the years.

Not being a self righteous, up my own arse, elitist, self proclaimed "hardcore" gamer though I have over this same period owned a MegaDrive/MegaCD (which I sold to help buy my first PC), Saturn, Dreamcast, PS1, PS2, Xbox, Xbox360 and PS3 - the missus had a Wii and DS too.

I consider myself to be a gamer. Someone who plays - and can enjoy - games on a variety of platforms regardless. If you chose a single platform (PC) that doesnt make you "hardcore" or more of a dedicated gamer than someone who plays on console. Of course consoles can be more accessible to certain gamers who simply want to play the lastest (console) games but so what. Are they less of a gamer because they didnt build their own rig!

The platform does not make a gamer. The PERSON is the gamer.

And the suggestion that consle gamers do not know dross is a load of crap too. I bought NV on 360 and yes it uses an old engine, still has the same old bugs, is limited graphically on the 360 too. But you know what, as an experience its a pretty good one. I'm 13 hours in and really enjoying it.

What do I know though. I'm playing it on 360 so I'm just not "hardcore".

 

Seems like pc gaming is kind of in a rut.

We have some pretty powerful GPU's and CPU's out now, but developers really aren't making games to take advantage of it all. Developers need to start using all this hardware to create more intricate experiences for players to become immersed in.

I think that a platform is only as good as the titles that are released on it. For me, that means that the PC is lacking right now. The number of good titles coming out on consoles outweighs PC releases right now. I would really love to play No More Hereos or GoW2 but I don't own any consoles ATM (I have a PS3 but the BD is dead...).

Seems to be a lack of new IP's these days. I'd like to see more NEW and original games, not sequels.

 

Greetings!

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

 

People get caught up focusing on all kinds of things that have little to do with the actually practical aspects of PC vs Console gaming. Generally they argue about processing power and storage and networking and expandability issues, but considering how they constantly evolve over time and hardware generations to allow space for increasingly hungry and feature-laden games no matter what platform you're on, let's ignore them for the moment. Let's also ignore anything but gaming as well and take all the extra crap all these platforms are capable of (web browsing, video processing, work etc) as read.

A PC typically has a keyboard, mouse, monitor and speakers. A games console sits under a TV somewhere and has a custom-designed controller. That's the difference. It's entirely practical. Everything else is transient.

PCs are more suited for FPS and RTS games, anything that needs a complex control system or unassisted aiming, and are best suited for a single user. Consoles are more suited for multiplayer games where all the players are in the same room. When you boil the arguments down and generalize the whole argument (which you should - we're talking about the entire market here, not just personal preferences) that's what you're left with.

 

Greetings!

 

http://www.chart-track.co.uk/index.jsp?c=p/about/methodology/index.jsp

 

I figured someone would link to the Steam survey. According to their survey, just under 18% of their users have 1TB or more.

The next question is how that percentage can be expanded to generalize the entire PC gaming market. For that, we need to create a clear set of guidelines so that we know exactly what we're trying to measure. What is PC gaming? Is it just the hardcore titles? does it include all the fun LEGO games? What about all the casual games, such as Plants Vs. Zombies?

Like I said, it's kind of a fruitless debate.

 

For New Vegas, note that Steam sales can not be reported. For sure is much more than 10% as at some country's PC gaming is bigger than consoles. Germany for example.

 

I'd say that's the unfortunate state of gaming as a whole. As it has become more mainstream it has also been dumbed down, in the same way everything must be to become mainstream. Personally I'd like to see more developers taking a risk with deep and complex games, they might just be surprised by how well they sell. Look at stalker, which has done well despite the numerous (understatement alert) bugs.

 

Personally, I feel it's fair to assume that anyone with Steam is a PC gamer, regardless of their purchases. I say purchases are unimportant because "PC gamers", as defined by only those who buy hardcore titles for PC, are roughly equivalent to the term "hardcore gamer" anyway since console games of all types are rarely considered to be hardcore. So the "PC gamer" group would include all of those who purchase games for the PC, games which run as their own application or through a digital distribution application. This cuts out browser based games such as Farmville or online poker.

With that definition, Steam is obviously not required to be a PC gamer, however the nature of all Steam users being PC gamers (by my view) shows that Steam can be used to determine the approximate hardware and games purchases of PC gamers who do not have Steam based on the hardware an games purchases of those who do. There's little reason to believe that being a PC gamer without Steam has any impact on a person's hardware.

In addition, Steam has a very large number of users. A survey of millions covers so many different potential users that its data can be safety applied to similar users outside the survey. Those with an inclination towards playing games of all sorts on their PC will likely be well described by the Steam survey.

 

That's certainly fair enough, but it does bring something else to mind. The steam survey was brought up as a reference to the point about a PC gamer's hard drive. It was suggested that PC gaming benefits from larger hard drives, and consoles suffered because their hard drives were small and not easily upgraded.

It's interesting that in the context of this debate, one has to distinguish between being a PC gamer and being a console gamer. In reality, as demonstrated in this thread, a person can be both.

Perhaps the reality is that as some game developers have been opening up the casual gaming market over the last few years, the distinction between gamer and non-gamer isn't as clear as it once was. It's more of a gray area as casual gamers go on to try out the occasional big title. Quite a few of my friends play WoW, but don't really engage in any other gaming save for the odd party game on the Wii.

 

This is a known issue, and it's because of the consoles. There are very few PC exclusive games anymore. Most stuff comes out on all formats so graphically it all gets dragged down by the lowest common denominator, which is the Xbox 360. If they make the graphics too good, it just wouldn't run on the X360. The only alternative is to make multiple versions and that is far more costly.

With a PC exclusive it's far better for us. Look at Crysis for example, it's still better looking than most games out there.

Fair enough. I still think it looks bad though.

 

Does the great unwashed even know PCs are capable of gaming? Seriously.

 

Not that they suffer right now but unless something changes then i think they will suffer.

 

With regards to actually getting TRUE PC games, it is in bad shape. Low res graphics, console inerfaces, yadda, yadda, yadda. No one in their right mind thinks PC is in good shape. Not dying, but its surely not in a good position.