Is PC gaming dead?
PC GAMING IS DEAD!!!
Well that is what Ive heard several times over the holidays from several different gaming podcast, specifically Shane Bettenhausin of 1up. Why is PC gaming dead? I ask myself. Me personally, I see some troubling things going on when it comes to PC gaming, but I wouldn’t consider it to be dead. Shane basically uses the lackluster sales of 2 AAA PC titles as fuel for his argument that PC gaming is dead. Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3 were both released this past holiday season, and haven’t done that well on the sale’s charts.
- Crysis is the big release from Crytek (makers of Farcry). Boasting a highly advanced graphics engine that will give the best machines available today a performance workout.
- Unreal tournament 3, the next iteration in the successful UT series, also boasting a pretty well known graphics engine and a IP.
Those 2 games shouldve been the biggest sellers this holiday season on PC, but they weren’t. And why is that? The answers are pretty simple. No one thinks their system will run Crysis, and UT3 is so similar to UT2004 that interest in the game got lost in the sea of other gaming goodness available this holiday season (there was a lot of competition this year). Those 2 games have their own problems as to why they didn’t sell, and are not signs of a PC gaming death.
Listening to the conversations that were going on about the death of PC gaming made me realize how different the "Console Guys" are from the "PC Guys". And how clouded some of the console guy’s observations are when it leaves the console gaming realm. There is a problem with PC gaming right now, game developers that were PC game developers are all starting to either make games exclusively for consoles, or make games for consoles and PC. That hurts PC gaming. There has still been some good gaming on PC in 2007, enough to know that the market is still alive and limping along.
You have games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Supreme Commander, C&C3, and World in Conflict, all decent games, all released throughout the year in 2007. And how can you forget the monster PC release of The Burning Crusade. There is a lot of PC gaming that got overlooked by those console guys that labeled PC gaming dead. But the thing that really contradicts the argument is all of the "PC Games" that were released on Consoles and PC this year. Games like Bioshock, Call of Duty 4, The Orange box. THOSE ARE ALSO PC GAMES!!!. Many of them are PC franchises that got its start on the PC and later brought over to console’s. They overlook that those are also a part o the "PC gaming" they are declaring dead. Thats where the clouded outlook I was talking about above comes into play.
To me it seems that many look at PC gaming from a console perspective, expecting big sales numbers and exclusivivity to justify the platform’s worth. but you cant look at it the same way. PC gaming has always been somewhat of a niche or secondary activity. Even though the PC is a platform, There is no platform holder. Microsoft makes the OS, and created the "Gaming for Windows" initiative, but they are not the platform holder for PC gaming. Thats why there has never really been any PC game commercials. Most PC game developers have been smaller independent companies.
More PC games to check out
Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
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January 15th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
That’s what it seems. Using a PC for gaming has been dwindling over the years. It looks more like the consoles revenge to me!
January 16th, 2008 at 11:43 am
With how much shorter of intervals you can upgrade processor speed and graphics cards with PCs, I think they will make a big comeback when game size and demands continue to increase at faster speeds.
January 16th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
I don’t think that gaming on PC’s are dwindling. Console gamers are now paying attention more to pc gaming.
1. because now there are consoles that are capable of doing some of the things PC have been doing and 2. some developers that use to only make PC games are bringing PC gaming, and PC franchises over to consoles.
Consoles bombard you with gaming with tons of releases, some good some not and since there is always a console war, gamers are always bragging and hyping their console’s games.
With PC there isn’t the whole console war, or bombardment of Games 24/7. PC gamers dont brag or hype games because its on their system. for example, SOCOM is nowhere as good of a game as it is hyped, but it is hyped to no end because at the time, it was the only thing on the PS2 (the most popular platform) that was similiar to a FPS / Ghost recon and had online multiplay.
There are years where there are tons of FPS’s, then there are years where there are a lot of RTS’s, then there are years when theres a baulders gate, Diablo or an MMORPG. Its never been consistent year to year. Think about it, when halflife released, that year was a ton of good FPS’s: Quake 3, Halflife, Shogo: MAD, Unreal etc. That was about 97-98. but afterwards, it was quiet until about 2000-2001 when NOLF, Tron 2.0, Wolfenstien, call of duty / medal of honor etc. no one thought PC gaming was dwindling then, because console gamers wasn’t paying attention to PC gaming.
another thing, and this is slowing down a little bit because there are more to choose from than the old days, PC games usually last a lot longer, with mods and addons keeping games alive. its not uncommon for a game to be played for 4-5 years or more look at halflife 2, or even better, counterstrike.
January 17th, 2008 at 2:47 am
It’s the end of an era. But then again, with a Wii and a PS3, I don’t really care! LOL.
January 18th, 2008 at 1:16 am
Its not really an end of an era, especially not compared to the Wii and PS3…hehe just kidding. but seriously. what I was trying to say in the blog post by saying console gamers are looking at things through console eyes. They mentally exclude games that are on the PC for some reason.
There are about 6 games in 2007 that were contenders for game of the year.
Super Mario Galaxy, Bioshock, Call of Duty 4, The Orange box, Mass Effect, and Halo 3.
Out of those 6 games, 3 were also PC games. Call of Duty was on PC, the franchise started on PC.
Bioshock is a PC game from the System shock / System Shock 2 line of games (PC games).
The orange box are all PC games, some are even a few years old and were actually a re-released in the Orange box.
Those were the games that Console gamers claim for themselves and exclude the fact that they are also PC games.
Then you can forget WOW, one of the most successful games of the year, console included.
Yea there were console games that weren’t contenders but still good that aren’t on PC but at the same time there were also PC only games that fall into that same category, the Witcher, S.T.A.K.E.R, World in Conflict, Supreme Commander.
But they are also excluded from most console gamers minds because they are games they don’t know about. Its sortof like how when Bioware first made KOTOR, Console gamers were calling Bioware a unproven developer, even though they were very well proven with games like Baulders Gate. Console gamers didn’t know about Baulders Gate, so they excluded it from their memory and looked at Bioware like a new company
January 18th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
I am an old school gamer and have noticed this downward trend too. However, there are more gamers than ever, including PC. Do you know how many people are addicted to World of Warcraft? That is a strictly PC game that is thriving and making Blizzard a Powerhouse on the PC gaming scene. The main stream gamer tends to stick with platforms such as PS3, XBOX, or Wii. Ironically, these gaming systems are becoming more PCish. My belief is that as these systems converge with the PC, gaming will only get bigger and better. The PC gaming scene is only evolving, not diminishing.
January 20th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
We are not big PC gamers, mainly because our main system is a Mac and we are too busy using it to play on it.
However, we did just purchase a Wii and love it (though the graphics are nothing like you will find on the higher end systems).
Here is our take on the whole PC versus console issue. At least with a console game, you know that it will run on the equipment that you have, so that you don’t have to worry about if your system is powerful enough.
There is something to be said about just putting the disc in and having fun!
January 23rd, 2008 at 4:25 pm
This may sound cynical, but was it ever alive to begin with???
February 27th, 2008 at 11:24 am
I don’t think it is dieing. I think there are many games that are still huge. I play counter-strike, cod4, and c&c3. Those are all very big when it comes to number of gamers and popularity.
April 29th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
PC games does seem a bit flat at this time. Games become less niche oriented and more geared to the mass public.
Atleast thats what i find EA are doing, meanwhile buying out the smaller independent companies and flooding the market with crap games.
Maybe im a bit off base but i think things are going in the wrong direction.
June 11th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
PC gaming isn’t dead, it’s just that there hasn’t been recent innovation where a blockbuster has come out that has blown away the sales charts. Games like WoW are tough to beat… there’s a lot of games coming out all across the board as everyone’s looking for the next hit, but it makes the competition fierce.
July 10th, 2008 at 6:56 am
its not dieing… but its d grafix dat demand very expensive hardware… and at dat price many ppl choose to go d console way fr a better experience!!
Dats d way i wud put it!
October 22nd, 2008 at 2:04 am
We did just purchase a Wii and love it (though the graphics are nothing like you will find on the higher end systems). Atleast thats what i find EA are doing, meanwhile buying out the smaller independent companies and flooding the market with crap games…
January 1st, 2009 at 3:25 pm
[...] Is PC gaming dead? [...]
January 18th, 2009 at 12:00 am
i never could get into online pc gaming for me it was always awkward? especially the games where you have 50 different keystrokes you have to memorize to play. wii is awesome, put i’m still a playstation fan
January 19th, 2009 at 4:05 am
PC gaming is so not bad. When you tire of one thing you just go back to the previous game you were addicted to and get readdicted. Right now my addiction is counterstrike on steam. I will be back to day of defeat in a minute. Combat arms is cool for just killing. I LOVE PC GAMING!!!
January 24th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
ps3 good but pc gaming tecnology grow up everyday
February 28th, 2009 at 11:42 am
I think there are many games that are enjoyed by people all around the world. For example GTA 4, World of Warcraft.. PC gaming never dead.
May 30th, 2009 at 10:48 am
In no way is PC gaming dead. Until the Wii HD is released there is no better system for FPS games. No 360 or PS3 fanboy can argue with that.