Well, in a conventional sense, it is dying. None of the major publishers and developers will survive. Who I believe will survive are those who are not tied into the stone rock foundations. In a sense, it is dying, just being replaced. That said, I don't feel it is dying. What I feel is not what is true, always. I know it is dying, due to a sad realization that people prefer playing on a console where they can get the game and play in an hour over a three-hour+ process. Also, the dearth of decent commercial games leads to the market for low-power-users drying up quickly, as Indie games often require time to scout out and find.

Yeah, but must we pay for progress? Why not build off of the existing framework. I've seen awesome Q3 (Tremulous) and Q2 (Paintball 2) games in the open source that have unique twists and provide an engaging experience.

Nonsense. So long as there are computers, people will play games on them. And so long as Valve and Blizzard make great games, people will play them.

Yeah, but there are always alternatives, and there's more or less at least one for every commercial game out there.

People who say PC Gaming is dying should stop focusing on b&m sales and try looking at online transactions.

The hardware requirements are a symptom, not the cause. The cause is that people are stupid and/or lazy. If they had the IQ to find out what the best price/performance computerparts are (which is very easy, just go to your local hardwaresite and see what the sites staff recommends) and either learned to puzzle the computerparts together or asked someone that know how to do it then they will get monsterperformance cheap!

Somebody said that the hardcore gamers bild their own rigs <-- duh! But anybody can do that. Those that buy OEM stuff (prebuilt computers) are either dumb or lazy or both.

I see this in one of my childhood friends even! Always had consoles and he's too dumb to handle computers skillfully (can't even get internet working with WinXP! Vista did it automatically and now he's spoiled....). Also gave the lamest excuse to as why he didn't get a gaming computer...."uuuuhh my girlfriend will say I play too much then" <-- But having a Wii and a 360 (and now a Wii & PS3) that you play on every chance you get will make her stay??) She left him btw....(said it's because of other reasons but I know it isn't so).

So the reason for the decline of PCgaming is that people are dumb and/or lazy.

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/50962

Do people need to spell it out for you guys?

Edit to reply #21

The edit function doesn't work if someone replies after you so I have to do the edit here. Stupid forumsystem....

Replace "stupid" with "dumb or ignorant" (yes, both words).

Note: I assume that "ignorant" means "unknowledgeable".

    I would count download statistics in my count, but I can't find any. Also, box statistics are truly saddening. So I go off of what I have. Fewer games are being made in the market. Fewer people are able to buy $500+ systems to play what they can on a lower-cost system. My laptop cost almost two grand one-and-a-half years ago and now can run less than one fifth of newly released commercial games.

This is the problem with the Hardcore. They don't understand this one simple fact:

People don't want to be bothered.

People who can't program their VCRs aren't stupid; they simply cannot be bothered to learn how. They have more important things going on than reading a manual and poking at some vaguely clear instructions until they riddle everything out. People who don't know much about their computers aren't stupid; they simply don't care. They know enough to do the things they need to, and that's sufficient. They have more important things to do than to explore the capabilities of a box.

Why should computer game developers force people to care about things that they really don't want to care about just to play their games? I mean, is Crysis really worth the effort? Seriously, is Crysis worth learning about all kinds of trivial minutae that has no other bearing on their lives? For most people, they just flip Crysis the bird and move on.

The primary reason console games sell more than most PC games is this fact: they just work. Most reward for the least effort. Crashing is utterly unacceptable to most people who might enjoy gaming. Having a game not work due to drivers is unacceptable to most people who might enjoy gaming. They don't care that it isn't the developer's fault; the fact is that the game isn't working. And for them, no game is worth the effort of poking at stuff that they barely comprehend. Downloading a patch or new drivers isn't worth the effort; if the game isn't going to work with what they've got, then the game is broken just as sure as a microwave that doesn't cook food is broken.

PC games have come a long way in this regard; look at the horrific history of having to edit autoexec.bat to free up memory, etc. But the simple fact is that there are plenty of people who might enjoy PC gaming who simply will not put up with the needless crap that you have to go through to make the game work.

Alfonse



I agree with you, some people just want it to work ... That's it ... if it
doesn't work ... send it back ...

I just purchase a new HP laptop because the prices are low ...
As soon as I started it up ... It has a lot of crappy apps and a lot of
trial ware software installed... Also, I'm not a big fan of Norton
AV software ...

It's took me 1 hour to delete all the crappy software on my new laptop.
As soon as I got it to a point I wanted it. I made a ghost image in case
something went wrong with the HD ..

Bottom line ... people just want to install the game and play it ... If
it too complex or to hard to get it to run ... They return the game ..
an pick something else ..

Basically - I agree with what Alfonse says and would add ...

PC's are now sold in supermarkets and laptops are given away free with mobile phone contracts in the UK. They are, wrongly in my mind, treated as appliances and the current generation of users get frustrated with the inevitable problems that crop up as soon as they try and use them for anything more than email and browsing - heck they even break doing that if you don't "know what you are doing".

Add on the frustration of virus checkers, firewalls, spam filters, online security, backup and recovery ...

Those of us that do know what we are doing can keep a machine ticking over with minimal effort - but then spend our time sorting out the problems on every machine owned by our group of family and friends.

Even if those people switched to consoles for their gaming it would, unfortunately, leave a hole a lot of them still want filled:

- browsing
- email
- digital photos, music (and maybe video)
- simple household data/book-keeping

A secure, stable and foolproof system (appliance) for the above could easily be built now that would last for decades. One of those plus a games console would cater for 70/80% of the PC market.

But that would be a dead-end market so no-one will bother. It is far more profitable to convince people that they always need the latest and greatest new toy. In fact, from what I see, that battle has already been won - you would struggle to convince todays consumers that this box would do them perfectly well for a decade or two.

I have to say that as a software developer and outright geek, I love to see what the new games are capable of and how far they have come in the quality and sophistication of their graphics and sound - and gameplay (when there is any).

I do, however, feel that ever shifting specifications of PC's has led us down a road of OS and driver bloat where a vast amount of the potential of the hardware at our fingertips is wasted just catering for all of the potential differences and trying to keep things stable.

Hmm, I might have got a little off topic there - I better stop before I put everyone to sleep.

Yep, I had the same problem with my HP laptop. Actually, both of 'em. The first one was refurbished, the disk drive didn't work, so it was returned and replaced. The disk drive is a LightScribe drive, and is CRAP. Won't install the abomination that is Tribes: Vengeance. I know it's probably good taste, but I wanted the story mode, darnit.

Also, I use Comodo for all my security. Free, rave reviews. Plus, it's really simple, as far as my experiences go.

just for your information, i work at futureshop/bestbuy and do you know wich gaming platform is selling the more game?
pc.
at each shipement we receive 4 or 3 time more pc game then 360 game.
and pc game are still dicting the way to go and this is from an xbox and sony rep.

 

I didn't know that PC's were selling more games. I thought that consoles were. Are they the same games, or pure volume?

I'm assuming that you mean deciding or dictating in the final sentence. Yeah, PC is the forerunner, but it's often a dying console. Really, I only find Strategy games on PC before consoles.

Helpful Link