Is PC gaming dying?

An burning question, and one way to perceive it.

By vindKtiv on October 21, 2009 6:37:13 PM from

In my many years spent posting/trolling on the forums, one question that appears a lot is the legitimacy of the death of PC gaming. Is PC game dying out?

Yes, and no. What?

Well, before I elaborate, it will probably be better for everyone if I went into some history. Dead Space 2 is not coming out for PC [check GameSpot for the article]. Grand Theft Auto IV (a very well respected game) is poorly optimized for the PC and released as an afterthought. Empire: Total War is given a very half-hearted release and has an expansion coming out. Do I really need to go into all the woes of the modern PC gaming industry? Piracy is at an all time high, even for relatively solid and bug-free games such as Call of Duty 4[1] and more and more companies are screwing over PC gamers.

On the other hand, a company like EA, known to give PC gamers the short stick, are doing very well well after realizing that actually listening to their customers is a good thing[2]. Even a game hit hard by piracy like Demigod has made the publishers "happy" [3]. Many blockbuster games have done well, including Fallout 3 [4]. Also, if you are ever bummed on the year 2009 for PC gaming, there is a very nice site for you[5].

So is PC gaming dead? Yes and no. Most of the biggest games aren't coming out for PC anymore and more attention is given to the console exclusives. If gamers are going to look back on this era, they are going to see a PC gaming industry that is not as strong and not as exclusive. Games that use to be made with the PC in mind are made instead on the consoles and then given a port to the PC as an afterthought. Series that have made the PC industry strong are now being released for the consoles. But despite this, PC gaming lives on and even thrives. PC gaming is living as healthy as ever, but you have to find where to look. Finding where PC gaming is thriving is going to lead us to find where PC gaming is headed. One thing is clear however, PC gaming is certainly not headed in the same direction as the consoles no matter how consoles try to emulate the PC.

The thing is, PC gamers are not console gamers. Yes, consoles have been becoming more and more like PCs and historically strong PC developers have been starting projects on the consoles, but the audience and creators are not the same. If the endless forum threads are any indication, many features we take for granted as PC gamers are quite foreign to consoles gamers. Features such as dedicated servers, command consoles, and fan-made maps and mods are alien to console gamers and often tossed away as insignificant. The depth and and expansiveness of PC games are rarely attempted at on consoles because there isn't an audience for them.

PC gamers have grown up. They have grown up and learned new tricks. Networking? Building your own PC? Easy. Setting up your own dedicated server? Pshh. In order to appease these people, games need to become more and more complicated which is going to require more and more money. From a business standpoint, however, spending more and more money to appease a small group is not going to get you as much as, say, trying to appeal to a mass market who isn't interested enough to learn more than how to hook up their 360.

In fact, spending money to make a great game is absolutely a horrible business practice. If FreeSpace 2[6] and System Shock 2[7] shows us anything, it is that great games does not automatically equal great sales. I chose these two games because of their indisputable greatness. Labelling modern games as "classics" is often easily disputable, but there are a lot of modern maybe-classic games that have received the bad end of business.

On the reverse side, many mediocre games have achieved great sales. Games like Star Wars: The Force Unleashed[8], which failed to do its series any justice, have found success. TFU rose up only on a venerable title (Star Wars) and a great advertisement campaign.

THAT IS THE KEY TO WHY PC GAMING IS PERCEIVED TO BE DYING.

Making a great game is not necessarily the key to success now. Success can be found more easily in a great marketing campaign than appeasing finicky hardcore gamers.

But do not blame the console gamers. Console games, for the most part, have evolved. Multiplayer (surprisingly unheard of last generation) is not a very key component in games. WRPGs, FPS, and even RTS can now be translated to the consoles with a greater degree of success. And all that WITHOUT forcing the player to mess with complicated computer jargon. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, pat yourselves on the back.

So now, there IS a market for games with less depth and lesser gameplay because most of its budget spent on marketing. But there is also a market for PC gaming, and that is where the truth is revealed.

PC gaming is not dying, it has never left its true home: games by gamers for gamers. When Richard Garriot, id Software, Will Wright, and the legends started developing, they started small. They started in their garage. When the classics of yesteryear was made, they were often made by small groups who were so dedicated to gaming that they were willing to put up with a risk of unemployment or small pay to make games. The spirit of those people still continue on, and today, some of the best games are the "indie" games.

These indie developers don't have a good series to ride the coattails of, they don't have a massive budget for marketing. All they have is their will and their fans. It is people like those that make the best games. Some of the mods and the $20 games are absolutely amazing. They don't push the graphics and they don't have a cool commercial. What they do have however, is the whole reason why we play games: entertainment.

[1]http://kotaku.com/344848/piracy-makes-call-of-duty-4-devs-sad

[2]http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/59088

[3]http://frogboy.joeuser.com/article/349758/Demigod_So_much_for_piracy

[4]http://www.pcworld.com/article/153399/47_million_copies_of_fallout_3_shipped_to_stores.html

[5]http://adrianwerner.wordpress.com/games-of-2009/

[6]http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/editorials/04-14-00a.shtml

[7]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Shock_2
(yes, I just did cite Wikipedia)

[8]http://www.forceunleashed.org/2009/02/21/star-wars-the-force-unleashed-sells-57-million-units/

+7 Karma | 48 Replies

PC Gaming brings in more income than Console gaming, granted MMO income is HUGE, but that just goes to show that PC gaming and Console gaming are different breeds, PC gaming has always been about multiplayer aspects, MMO's, competative RTS and FPS.

I have both PS3 and a hardcore gaming PC, and I tend to rent those single player type games for PS3 (Hello Batman) instead of buying them on the PC.

So no PC gaming isn't dying, if anything its about to get bigger once again due to the recent hardware advances (Crysis 2 will really show a valid comparison between consoles and PC), and if consoles start going to motion controllers (/facepalm), I think PC gaming is going to gain a lot of hardcore gamers.

PC Games won't die. The same is being repeated over and over again about rock music; it's old, only elderly people listen to it, everything is derived from <any famous, old rock/metal band> etc. The point is that it hasn't died (and probably won't for next 100 years), just like the books haven't - it's still much more pleasurable to read a book, than a damn e-book on whatever screen (e-book readers included).

Back to the PC games. Here are several reasons for their long life:

It's easier to develop games for PC, than on other platforms.
While PC games might be unstable (crashes) and slow (high requirements) it's much easier for companies (especially indie ones) to develop a PC game due to the amount of libraries/tools present and the fact that they are not tied to a specific company and their restricted (in terms of memory & CPU/GPU power) platforms.
It's much easier to write mods for PC games.
In order to mod a game you have to own a game that has it's internals presented in front of you. Console games (great majority, if not all) are hard-coded. Of course for the developers it's easier to write such game, but in the end, after some time, the game will get boring, and the only thing you can do, is to play multiplayer. Even worse - some games are so flawed that without serious moding they are unplayable (ex. UFO: Extraterrestials). Gaming world without CS 1.6, DotA, mods for Sins of the Solar Empire/Civ4?
Much bigger PC audience.
Let's face it: you need a PC at home. Console is mostly used to play games, and while some enable you to surf in the internet, the ease of use of such solution is rather poor. That's why the first thing you will buy will always be a PC. Then you might buy a console. So right from the start, the developers have bigger group of customers.
Some game types are not meant to be played on the consoles.
Good RTS, MMO or FPS for console? Sure, there are a few, but let's face it: mouse and keyboard provides us (PC gamers) with MUCH better controls for some games. I've played a few RTS & FPS games on the consoles and to tell you the truth, it was a major pain in the ass.
PC games are generally better.
Ok, I know it's very subjective, but that's my opinion. Maybe I should start with saying, that there are a lot of great console games that I would like to see on PCs (MGS4, FFXIV, etc.). That said, I will have to add that apart from those gems, most games are very similar to each other and bring nothing new to the table - just the old formula. This can be of course said about PC games, but let's be honest, due to the fact that independent studios can develop games so much easier, the inflow of new ideas is much bigger. On the top of that, most console games are shifted towards action-oriented gameplay. While this is ok with some games, many titles are hurt by this. That's because that games tend to be shallow, too shallow; as you can't get enough action with mind-crushing game.

to sum up what everyone has said

PC Gaming is not dying it never will

PC gaming is dying? Is this some kind of a joke?

No, it isn't. Even if the mainstream abandoned it completely in favor of consoles, even if large publishers like EA decided not to even bother to port their games to the PC, even if PC-friendly companies like Stardock and Valve were to die, we'd *still* have a thriving indie market and the 'hardcore sim' crowd simply by virtue of the ease and cheapness of development for PCs, and the fact that PCs are so prevalent in our society.

There's a reason we're never gonna see Europa Universalis on the Wii, and that reason is why PC gaming will never die.

For what now, about ten years "PC gaming is dying, PC gaming is dying"? It's just a broken record that is brought up every year again and again. Great and innovative PC games are still being made and there is still plenty of us gamers to appreciate them, with more coming all the time. I've outgrown consoles and have watched friends grow up to appreciate the depth and flexibility of the PC in comparison to consoles also. PC Gaming will always be here.

As others have already said, no, PC Gaming isn't dying.

I think one of the issues comes in w/system requirements.

I, for one, got my lappy 2 years ago - and it has trouble playing Sins even when not at maxed graphical settings. It's for reasons like this that I find myself unable to play games like Red Alert 3, Crysis, or other such games that I would LOVE to own, but my crap-tastic computer would either have SERIOUS issues running them, or wouldn't be able to run them at all.

Even those beefy Alienware Computers, which are specifically tailored for PC games, seem to be having a hard time keeping up with the graphics that PC games these days present.

Just my 2 cents.

I went into a mall electronics chain game store this last weekend - - Game Stop.

The wall displays and racks were all for console games. The PC inventory was limited to a little free-standing rack in the back, not even up on a wall. One side had new games, and the other had "pre-owned" ones. I'd guess the display percentage to be about 5% of the store, maybe less. Checked another in a different mall yesterday - same thing.

It was lunch time on a week day, so things were slow. I asked the guy at the register about relative sales amounts. based on his description, the PC games account for well under the 5% allotted for display. i asked him also when PC games lost wall display status. He shrugged, said it must have been over a year ago, because it happened before he started there about one year ago.

PC games may be great income generators but, if so, they're not selling them out of mall stores.

Consoles = You are absolutely sure the game you purchase will work well with your system. Consoles also are less anti-social when you have company over because most console games have multi-player options where you can use the same TV. However..

-You cannot legally mod your game in an online environment for fear of banning.

-Most games except some of the FPS games are watered down.

-Games are a tad more expensive unless bargain-bin diggging or using trade-ins. (not including subscriptions)

PC = You will always have to keep on top of upgrades to your PC or buying new PCs or graphics cards. There are also less games to choose from (at least commercially) However:

-Most games can be modded and have great communities. This provides for better replay.

-PC games have deeper and more complex gameply exeriences.

-PCs can do more than just game. Word processing, e-mail, web surfing, shopping, ect.

No, PC games are not dead. PC games just have quite a bit more replayability due to modding and other factors. Hence, folks tire less of it and buy less PC games. Console kiddies typically have to buy a new game each month. Most PC games nowadays are also subscription games, so you casn buy one game and it keeps getting updated for years. Not tooo many console games can match that. Its quality versus quantity. Consoles have lots of shovelware. But i bet the limited PC game selection on the rack at EB has alot less shovelware to good game ratio than the console racks.

Some friends and myself were talking about this too.

I don't think it's dieing, but it could do with more players. The biggest argument I hear is hardware upgrading. Most people don't want to have to keep buying new gfx cards all the time, and cpu etc....because PC games seriously push the limits.

An interesting consept would having one gfx card for PC come out every 2-4 years like consoles. Instead of having new cards every month. And have developers stick to that hardware specs.

It won't die, but eventually the two are going to merge

Quoting LTjim,

reply 8

I went into a mall electronics chain game store this last weekend - - Game Stop.

The wall displays and racks were all for console games. The PC inventory was limited to a little free-standing rack in the back, not even up on a wall. One side had new games, and the other had "pre-owned" ones. I'd guess the display percentage to be about 5% of the store, maybe less. Checked another in a different mall yesterday - same thing.

In the US perhaps, but here in Chile my local friendly store still dedicates a whole wall to PC titles, while another one is shared between X360 and PS3 titles, and the Wii stuff sits on a stand in between.

Outside of big-name FPSs and console ports, for the most part they don't. The demo for the newly released Race On, for instance, ran perfectly at 1280x1024 and the highest settings on my ATI 4670, same thing for Sins of a Solar Empire which only came out last year, this year's Killing Floor and last year's Left 4 Dead similarly run great, and that's all on a card that's not old, but certainly not new and was never high-end, at a resolution that by the console world would be considered "high definition".

C'mon, PC gaming is more than Crysis and Call of Duty, and outside of those I've yet to see a game that requires a high-end GPU for somebody not running a 24" monitor at 2560x1920 resolution or something crazy like that.

Dying? Ha! For the past decade I've heard this numerous times, and yet, here we are.

PC gaming will die when the non-existent Hell freezes over.

Dead Space 2 is not coming out for PC [check GameSpot for the article].

Couldn't find it, got a link? Damn shame though, since i really liked the first one.

On topic, PC gaming is not going anywhere, actually big developers leaving PC could actually be a good thing: no more half-assed ports, no UI and and control schemes designed with console limitations holding back, games designed for more powerful PC hardware to begin with.

Actually, IW might be planning that with MW2, they raise the price and take out features, then when the games sells poorly on PC, they use it as an excuse to abandon PC platform. [/tinfoilhat]

No.

Your mom.

I hope I wasn't being too misleading. What I meant to say is that the the AAAAAAA titles (in terms of budget) is dying. The indie and artistic PC scene is alive and kicking. I know some people got that, but to any others, that pretty much sums up my wall of text.

(Crysis 2 will really show a valid comparison between consoles and PC)

Unfortunately, Crysis 2 is going to be on the consoles. Crytek has expressed disappointment in the PC market and if Crysis 1 and Warhead was any indication, Crysis 2 won't have much effort put into it. Both games were full of bugs and featured gameplay that in my honest opinion really wasn't that appealing after the first three levels.

It's easier to develop games for PC, than on other platforms.
It's much easier to write mods for PC games.
Much bigger PC audience.
Some game types are not meant to be played on the consoles.
PC games are generally better.

Your first point is very arguable. The vast amount of different hardware configurations often times impose much stress on the developers to code the game for many different "platforms." With the consoles, you are coding for only one platform with relatively uniform hardware across the board.
Your second point is pretty true. Actually, the only game that I am aware of in which you can write mods for is UT3 for the PS3.
A much bigger audience is disputable. According to Frogboy (check his blog), the amount of people using Steam and Impulse combined is less than the amount of people playing Halo 3. Yes, you can argue the PC audience is much bigger than people using Steam and Impulse, but I can argue that the console market is MUCH MUCH bigger than the amount of people playing Halo 3.
Yes, some games definitely are not made for consoles. With developers becoming more and more competitive though, I wouldn't be surprised if they made and M+K combo for the consoles (in fact, they already have here)
Yeah, I was hoping I wasn't too biased for historical PC games in my blog post.

Couldn't find it, got a link? Damn shame though, since i really liked the first one.

Oh sorry. I forgot that GameSpot (in its console-kissing-big-publisher-loving ways) stuffed such an important piece of news in an obscure part of an article. When I was first writing this, the news was frontpage of the news section so I didn't really feel the need to link it.

Here

Dying? No, just changing form. Those pretty looking, big-budget console games are shunning the PC because of many reasons:

a) They need to recoup a lot of money, and console game sales are generally much stronger

Excusive contracts. They pay big bucks to insue their AAA titles don't get ported to other systems. It is somewhat ironic that Microsoft actively hurting PC gaming by making titles 360 only.

c) Console game makers have little experience with netcode (especially Nintendo). PC gamers expect competant online functionality. Many console games with online capability are about 5 years behind in reliablity and functionality. Look at Capcom for good examples of this. Don't get me wrong, the PC versions of their recent games are well optimized and I applaude them for it; but the online interface for SF4 and RE5 make me want to vomit.

d) Media scare on piracy. You'd think that for every copy of a PC game sold, three were pirated. Newsflash for console game makers: Piracy exists on consoles too! The Dreamcast died mainly because it was so easy to pirate games for it. The PSP was popular not because it had great games, but because it could be hacked to be a great SNES/Genesis/Gameboy emulator. Oh the irony of buying a PSP to play DS games on it instead! Only the PS3 seems resistant to piracy thus far, and it's only a matter of time before PS3 mod chips start showing up.

e) DLC. Releasing half-finished games and charging $5-15 extra for little add-ons is becoming a big trend. PC gamers are generally unamused by this shit, as content updates used to called patches are were given as free support, and are likely to steal the add-ons instead; thowing full well many of these should have been included with the original game. Day 1 DLC is particularly hilarous. Consoles are better locked down in this regard, and so if you want those alternate costumes you're going to have to shell out the $5-10.

Result: Big publishers are moving to console exclusivity because they can make more money for less work. However, as pointed out in other posts most everyone owns a PC and it is easiest to develop for. Smaller companies are/will move in to fill the void. Their games may not be as flashy as Halo Clone #173, but move back to the days of gameplay > graphics.

Quoting lbgsloan,

reply 17

[...]

e) DLC. Releasing half-finished games and charging $5-15 extra for little add-ons is becoming a big trend. PC gamers are generally unamused by this shit, as content updates used to called patches are were given as free support, and are likely to steal the add-ons instead; thowing full well many of these should have been included with the original game. Day 1 DLC is particularly hilarous. Consoles are better locked down in this regard, and so if you want those alternate costumes you're going to have to shell out the $5-10.

[...]

I will quote you on that.

People have been saying this for as long as I can remember. I'm pretty sure that PC gaming was supposedly going to die with the SNES if I remember my console fanboy history correctly. It's sad really that people are still believing this.

As far as Crytek complaining about Crysis sales being dissappointing, maybe if they made a game that more than 10% of "gaming PC's" could actually play above low detail settings... Seriously I remember when the game first came out and tons of people on PC gaming forums were having to upgrade to play the game on medium-high settings and ultra-high settings were nearly impossible to use and still have a playable frame rate. Remember, these are people that frequent a PC hardware forum for enthusiasts, they always have high end machines and having to upgrade for any particular title is a rare occurence. So... I can't possibly think of any reason why sales for such a game would be poor... can you?

PC gaming is not going to go away any time soon.

I will quote you on that.

The Sims playerbase excluded of course.

Quoting lbgsloan,

reply 20

I will quote you on that.

The Sims playerbase excluded of course.

The Sims playerbase aren't gamers. They're just casual schmucks.

Quoting lbgsloan,

reply 17

The PSP was popular not because it had great games, but because it could be hacked to be a great SNES/Genesis/Gameboy emulator. Oh the irony of buying a PSP to play DS games on it instead!

The PSP still can't emulate the DS. In fact, it wouldn't be viable at all even with the PSP's better hardware. Imagine playing Star Fox: Command with only one screen and no touch screen!

I really don't understand this big 'PC Games are Dying!' issue that pops up every couple years. Admittably, I prefer playing games on a console or handheld, but computers are just too pervasive to be rejected as a gaming system. And of course, mods and fan-made additions makes PC games all the better to buy in favor of their console release. That alone is the reason I'll be buying a new computer instead of something like an Xbox 360; fan additions makes game longevity so much greater.

I'm not going to go into no big discussion posting figures and such, I'm just going to answer your question with another.

Do you think this is a good investment?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G35djrupRMU

what do u think im on a right now

joshuaam98

what do u think im on a right now

dman right

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The content will remain as a historical reference, thank you.

Is PC gaming dying?

An burning question, and one way to perceive it.