Is PC gaming dying?

CyberGhost

Dcully wrote: »

Cyberghost there are far better racers on pc than forza and GT.
They tend to be racing simulations as opposed to arcade style racers on consoles.

Yea, I've played them, GTR2, LFS, rFactor, hell, Test Drive Unlimited even, they are good games, especially GTR2, which is fun with M3 on nurburgring.

But I still want something arcady/simulatory type of thing, and that's where Forza and GT come on, they are not full on real simulators like GTR, and they aren't too arcady like Burnout, good balance of fun and realism.

The only franchise that comes close to that is Need For Speed, but I'm pretty fed up of NFS, with their blurring and other useless crap special effects, the last decent NFS was Hot Pursuit 2.

lmimmfn

CyberGhost wrote: »

Yea, I've played them, GTR2, LFS, rFactor, hell, Test Drive Unlimited even, they are good games, especially GTR2, which is fun with M3 on nurburgring.

But I still want something arcady/simulatory type of thing, and that's where Forza and GT come on, they are not full on real simulators like GTR, and they aren't too arcady like Burnout, good balance of fun and realism.

The only franchise that comes close to that is Need For Speed, but I'm pretty fed up of NFS, with their blurring and other useless crap special effects, the last decent NFS was Hot Pursuit 2.

Have you tried the Race Driver: Grid demo? its a fun arcade racer

MooseJam

GTR2 is a great racer

Blowfish

CyberGhost wrote: »

Here's an interesting article...

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080513-dell-xps-phase-out-symptomatic-of-declining-pc-gaming-sector.html

PC gaming has fallen by a lot as the graph indicates.

If with the next generation of consoles has the features that I want, I might go "console" too.

That article is hilarious, saying "MMO sales are important, but it's only one genre so we'll ignore it" is ludicrous. Lets actually have a look at this genre:

World of Warcraft: Total 10 Million, however since the payment scheme is different in Asia to EU/US, we can only really calculate the EU/US sales.

2.5 million in US X $15 per month X 12 months = $450 million.
2 million X €13 (roughly $20) x 12 months = $480 million.

Lineage 1 and 2: 1 million each X $15 per month X 12 months = $360 million

FFXI: 500k X $15 per month X 12 months = $90 million

Add them all together and you get a total of $1.38 billion. That's more than the total value of PC retail sales, in only 4 games. Add it to the retail sales and you end up with $2.2 billion. This still isn't including digital distribution, 5.5 million Asian WoW players, any smaller MMO (LOTRO, EVE, etc.), any box sale of any MMO or expansion, microtransactions, etc.

With all of that, plus the fact we are only a year past the time when The Burning Crusade shattered the PC sales record, how can anyone seriously say PC gaming is dying?

Dcully

But I still want something arcady/simulatory type of thing, and that's where Forza and GT come on, they are not full on real simulators like GTR, and they aren't too arcady like Burnout, good balance of fun and realism.

Yeah i know what you mean,i do enjoy the odd blast of Forza for exactly that reason.

CyberGhost

lmimmfn wrote: »

Have you tried the Race Driver: Grid demo? its a fun arcade racer

I'm going to take a look at that, thanks!

projectmayhem

lenny_leonard wrote: »

You can't take one game (Crysis, I assume) and make an all-encompassing statement like that. Name one other PC game that was a "glorified tech demo".

my point is that it was the biggest game of dx10 with a lot riding on it. it was to prove microsoft right about their move into dx10, and prove to ea that pc gamers will still buy good titles.

however... it didn't sell. neither did UT3. or BF2142 for that matter. the point wasn't about glorified tech demoes, it was aimed at the fact that major pc releases aren't selling, while console titles are blazing along in sales.

Maximilian wrote: »

I
People bought the game, installed it on their slightly out-of-date machines, turned the detail way up to radioactive and then promptly complained about how sh!t it was.

Turn the detail down - it still looks great & plays fine.

again, my point has nothing to do with this stuff. i haven't made a comment about the game itself. i actually thought it was very good. either way, my point is that EA had good projections for the game, so much so they didn't push crytek for console versions. but then the people who DON'T have uber leet machines (like me ) didn't buy it, at all. it fell far short of it's projections... and it's not like the market got confused with all the new titles out!

Azza

Crysis did not sell badly it just started slow in the US and had very high sales in Japan (the thought of shooting Koreans was a big plus) and as of Feburary 2008 had sold 1 million copies exceding the expections of the publisher EA.

Plus Crytek has said Crysis is the first part of a trilogy and have made no plans to change this. Althought its highly probably the sequels will also be on consoles as well as PC's.

PC games have longer sales time then the massive but quick rush sales of major console release. Crytek have stated they expect the game to sell for quite a while as newer hardware is released and people then decide to buy the game when they have the hardware to play at its best.

If your looking for another big selling PC game try the Witcher which sold over 1 million copies in Europe alone this year.

Ross_Mahon

Azza wrote: »

Crysis did not sell badly it just started slow in the US and had very high sales in Japan (the thought of shooting Koreans was a big plus) and as of Feburary 2008 had sold 1 million copies exceding the expections of the publisher EA.

Plus Crytek has said Crysis is the first part of a trilogy and have made no plans to change this. Althought its highly probably the sequels will also be on consoles as well as PC's.

PC games have longer sales time then the massive but quick rush sales of major console release. Crytek have stated they expect the game to sell for quite a while as newer hardware is released and people then decide to buy the game when they have the hardware to play at its best.

If your looking for another big selling PC game try the Witcher which sold over 1 million copies in Europe alone this year.

I would love to see Crysis on console, i would say it would do really well compared to most of the FPS games out. But i think you would have to downgrade the graphics a lot or upgrade the PS3/xbox 360.

Maximilian

projectmayhem wrote: »

again, my point has nothing to do with this stuff. i haven't made a comment about the game itself. i actually thought it was very good. either way, my point is that EA had good projections for the game, so much so they didn't push crytek for console versions. but then the people who DON'T have uber leet machines (like me ) didn't buy it, at all. it fell far short of it's projections... and it's not like the market got confused with all the new titles out!

My comment actually wasn't aimed at you. or at anyone in particular. Just a general observation on peoples view of crysis all over the internets

thelordofcheese

lmimmfn wrote: »

ok, so by your assumption and logic you are assuming that if there was no PC gaming, those who( now game on PC ) would game on console and would all have PCs. Which is silly.

Actually, your right, theres no way a PC does anything other than play games and why nobody but gamers own one. None at all.

lmimmfn wrote: »

I never purported that the market share of OS's to gamers was massive for M$( not Microsoft ) in the first place. In fact i never once used the 'massive' word. If you read my post again you will see that i said M$( not Microsoft ) would lose a lot of revenue from those gamers who buy OS's especially is jey jumped ship to say a PS3 or whatever.

A lot, massive, whatever. Silly semantics.
And no they wouldn't.

lmimmfn wrote: »

Your point on if PC gaming died and those guys moved to console but they'd still buy a PC is honestly stupid. They're mutually exclusive,

No, they aren't.
Not now, not ever.

MOH

th€lordofch€€$€ wrote: »

Though you're right about PC FPS games being nothing more than glorified tech demos, if more companies took the blizzard/valve approach and made a game for a wider range of machines, they'd probably be better off.

Huh? The only FPS game I'm aware of that is in fact a glorified tech demo is Valve's The Lost Coast.

L31mr0d

MOH wrote: »

Huh? The only FPS game I'm aware of that is in fact a glorified tech demo is Valve's The Lost Coast.

A "tech demo" in gaming terms refers to a game that puts the technical achievement of the game above its gamplay/storyline. Under this definition Crysis is definitely a tech demo. In fact, I now see benchmark scores from Crysis more than I actually see people talking about the game itself.

MooseJam

a tech demo is a technology demo, like a demo of a new engine, I wouldn't call crysis a tech demo, it's a game

thelordofcheese

MOH wrote: »

Huh? The only FPS game I'm aware of that is in fact a glorified tech demo is Valve's The Lost Coast.

"th€lordofch€€$€"

you cheeky son of a bitch.... :P


But anyway i meant 'games' who's sole purpose is to pimp the engine thats powering them. L31mr0d is spot on with his post, crysis is probably the definition of tech demo.

lmimmfn

thelordofcheese wrote: »

Actually, your right, theres no way a PC does anything other than play games and why nobody but gamers own one. None at all.



A lot, massive, whatever. Silly semantics.
And no they wouldn't.



No, they aren't.
Not now, not ever.

FAIL

MOH

thelordofcheese wrote: »

"th€lordofch€€$€"

you cheeky son of a bitch.... :P


But anyway i meant 'games' who's sole purpose is to pimp the engine thats powering them. L31mr0d is spot on with his post, crysis is probably the definition of tech demo.

Sorry, couldn't resist it.

Fair enough, never actually got around to Crysis, mainly because my rig isn't up to it, so hadn't realised it was that much show over substance.

Overheal

Nope, PC Gaming is far from dead. when you think about its one of the now-leading readons for hardware advancement; so its fuelling a lot of industries right off the bat. As well as that lots of other Software vendors and industries benefit also from the spec boost; remember ACAD in the 1980s? Thats scary compared to today: now you can design anything from the ground up inside a computer and run thousands of simulations on it. And the Large Hadron Collider as well, taking huge advantage of the state of technology to be able to process its findings when it is used for the first time later this year.

So yeah, if games are pimping the engine then fair ****s to it. There will always be a demand for PC gaming. There has been since the first computers hit the labs way back in the 50s and 60s. Its questionable whether there will always be a demand for console gaming in contrast: the PC owes itself to being a far more versatile tool. In a low income situation would you rather have to choose between a PC or a gaming console, for instance? I'd pick the PC every time.

MooseJam

I've heard the large hadron collider uses Quad SLI

Maximilian

One of the points myself & few others have been making is that the sales figures for PC games don't take into account digital downloads. Well read the following -

If you look properly you'll find that PC game sales are even, if not bigger, than all of the next-gen consoles, says Valve's Doug Lombardi, who "laughs" at 'PC is dying' stories.


"We sort of laugh at it," the marketing man told Shack News.

"Because we've been wildly successful--we're very fortunate, you know. Our games have all done really, really well, Steam has taken off and become this whole other business for us, Valve has never been in better shape--and yet everybody is talking about how in the PC world, the sky is falling."

Valve released its first in-house console game last year with The Orange Box, which received rave reviews and no-doubt made the Seattle developers lots and lots of moolah.

"We've been doing this for 10 years now--actually 12 years since the company started, 10 years since the first game came out--and we've never been in better shape, financially or otherwise. The company is over 160 people now--it was 20 people when we shipped Half-Life. We've got multiple projects going--we were always a one-project-at-a-time group."

Alright, so Valve's making some money from PC games then, but what about everybody else? "NPD, god love 'em," continues Lombardi, "they release a US retail sales report, and people take that and say that's the world picture. And it's just not true."

Siriquelle

There is a specific type of person that is into PC Gaming. Hardcore computer heads that like to trip out their rigs and squeeze everything they can out of their machines.

It's still is and will remain a big industry. It's teetering right now. Consoles are just about on a level playing field.

In three or four years PC games will again be more cutting edge. People will be spending big to attain the graphical and physics based wows that brought them to PC gaming in the first place.

I'll start to get worried when I can't but PC Gamer anymore.

projectmayhem

Siriquelle wrote: »

There is a specific type of person that is into PC Gaming. Hardcore computer heads that like to trip out their rigs and squeeze everything they can out of their machines.

It's still is and will remain a big industry. It's teetering right now. Consoles are just about on a level playing field.

In three or four years PC games will again be more cutting edge. People will be spending big to attain the graphical and physics based wows that brought them to PC gaming in the first place.

I'll start to get worried when I can't but PC Gamer anymore.

i don't think the issue pc gaming faces is necessarily about being cutting edge. my pc could dominate a ps3 when i bought a ps3, easily. the problem is i haven't upgraded from my hd2900xt yet because buying a new card is too expensive for the performance i'd gain. i just can't justify buying new cards, and with ati & nvidia reporting lowering profits (nvidia are going after intel onboard chipsets to gain money) it's very clear that i'm not the only one.

if you're not "mad" into pc gaming, but want to play crysis et al, would you really shell out on a graphics card that costs more then a ps3/360? it's easier to buy a console and not have to worry about the processor, ram, etc.

HomerJay

PC gaming is not dying... just finding its own niche. I used to work for Vivendi games (when Value was part of them) so used to meet with a lot of pc game developers..And yes, the market for good PC games is shrinking. From now on, its going to be RTS and FPS games for PC.. and poor ports of console games.

With the variety of PC specs out there, its just way easier to make an Xbox game, than to make a PC game that will work on multiple Windows OSs and gfx cards

Having said that, you'll probably see some good indie games on the pc

Pete

Sephiroth_dude

It ain't dieing,its just coming to life :-)

Maximilian

Some more interesting words from Valve re piracy & digital distribution

Full articles here & here on EG

He noted how famous the Russian market was for its piracy, and explained that this was a direct result of games releasing there six months after North America and Western Europe.

"We see sub ten per cent growth rates in our core, packaged retail business," Newell said. "Right now we're seeing close to 200 per cent growth in the alternative ways of connecting with customers.

"It will actually pass over in the next three months, how much of our business is coming from retail versus how much is coming from other channels,"

Also, the new Steam Cloud thing they are bringing in is a fantastic idea. Of course some people will still say Steam is crap.

Kiith

Maximilian wrote: »

Of course some people will still say Steam is crap.

Thats cause they're stupid :pac:

ambro25

It's been "dying" for 20 years and, in that time, seen rise and fall of consoles thrice, taught consoles (and other media, e.g. mobiles/PDAs) how to play remotely/online, and still never yet been bettered technologically or in terms of gameplay diversity.

There's a reason I've owned all sorts of 'gaming platforms' over the last 20 years or so for varying periods of time, yet always and constantly had a PC

Maximilian

Some more interesting views from Blizzard founder Mike Morhaime

seraphimvc

ah,there were some silence years i say,but now,thanks to bliazzard,i cant stop praying those games come out asap!!