Is PC gaming on the way out?

The Game Room
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I am a dedicated PC gamer, because I don’t own any console systems. But sometimes I wonder if I’m on a dying platform. As silly as it sounds, hear me out-

On a console, say, an Xbox360 or PS3, the hardware specs are known to developers. When they develop a game, they only need to adapt it on that platform. But when developing on a PC, they have to try to get it to work on multiple operating systems, hardware, etc. Its quite a challenge, I imagine. Even when its SUPPOSED to work on your computer, sometimes it doesn’t because of something (firewall, port, driver, etc).

When I go to stores I see a depressingly tiny assortment of PC games. Worse, many PC games these days require you be online to play (Diablo III for example). That, or they are ‘ports’ of the console version, something more suited for a controller than mouse and keyboard.

Console games, in comparison, are flourishing- Xbox and Playstation have huge libraries, many of their games are backward compatible from older systems, consoles are offering features PCs have had all along (online play, hard drives, DVD players, etc). Sometimes I kind of wonder if I’m using the Jaguar 64 of gaming consoles :frowning:

Is this true? As time goes by, I find it harder and harder to find unique titles that run reliably on a random computer, dont require an internet connection to run, and offer a lot of replayability.

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While certain aspects of this may be Great Debate material, as a whole this topic will garner both more interest and will live more comfortably in the Game Room.

Moved: Great Debates -> Game Room.

  • Gukumatz,
    Game Room Moderator
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On to my personal opinion.

There are fully 15 games being released on the PC between today and Christmas that I will buy and play. I also own a 360 and a PS3, but prefer the PC even for most of those which are multiplatform. (Torchlight 2, Borderlands 2, War of the Roses, ARMA 3, Dishonored, Of Orcs And Men, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Medal of Honor: Warfighter, End of Nations, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Assassin’s Creed 3, Epic Mickey 2, Baldur’s Gate: Enchanced Edition, Far Cry 3, Hawken)

Of those 15, 7 are PC exclusives. That’s not counting expansion packs for existing games, like King’s Bounty and so forth.

Beyond those, 2 of my 3 most anticipated 2013 games - Rome 2: Total War and Company of Heroes 2 - will almost certainly be PC exclusives as well. (Bioshock Infinite is the last.)

It’s fair to grant that there are areas consoles are now solidly beating the PC on, but I can’t say diversity is one of them. And you say consoles have huge backlogs of games - but the PC has 25 years of them while most consoles struggle to go back even one generation. With places like GOG working on keeping the classics alive and revitalization projects like Baldur’s Gate: Enchanced Edition bringing them into the limelight, I can’t resign that advantage to the consoles.

And don’t even start me on how much fun I’ve had the last year with Skyrim mods. :stuck_out_tongue:

(About the 25 year figure, I just replayed the original Populus this summer holiday for the anniversary. Still fun!)

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The basic desktop I bought for work and leisure can play any game available on Steam today. Why should I also buy a console?

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The PC is always good for some games, and with Steam and other online distributors, it is still something to reckon with.

There are some games which is best played on the PC, such as MMOs, ARPGs (D3 and TL2), simulators (a small market). The resurgence of old games, as mentioned above, is a big factor too.

Another thing is you don’t really need a high end PC to enjoy games. A decent machine may be unable to use uber-sampling and all those fanciful graphical effects, but it’s still able to play games at a decent frame rate.

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I suspect that most PC gamers these days download their games online rather than going to a physical store. I know that I have far more games that I’ve gotten from Steam or GOG than I have physical boxes for.

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Hell, I’ve bought games I already own from Steam because I didn’t feel like looking for the box.

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In fact, I’d add that with their insistence on physical disks, consoles are falling far behind the technological and cultural curve.

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PC gaming is in a pretty good place right now. With PCs being required for most peoples daily lives and consoles being a prohibitively expensive luxury. A much greater percent of people are going to opt for PC’s over consoles. The console technology is up but that has come with a price tag.

Game developers are always going to develop games for the most popular platforms. Right now PC’s are that and will remain so for years to come. That will change some day but it’s far enough in the future not to write off PC’s as a top end gaming platform.

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Is it really that challenging, though? Developers have been dealing with PC’s forever. And really, there aren’t “multiple” operating systems for PC games. There’s Windows, a small fraction of Mac games (and I think many games on Apple computers have you using some kind of Windows interface to get it to run…just guessing there, never used a Mac) and that’s pretty much it, isn’t it?

And I am trying to remember the last time I had some kind of an issue getting a game to actually run due to driver/port/firewall issues. It seems like I hear about those kind of issues a lot more than they actually happen. That’s definitely one issue console fanboys cling to that I think is bullshit: “Well, my game is ready to go! You have to download all that junk and even then the game might not work!”

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I’m surprised nobody has mentioned piracy. Piracy is a big reason game makers shun the PC.

Ubisoft said last week that 93%-95% of people who play their PC games didn’t pay for it. I’m sure that number is pretty much pulled out of their asses, but it shows the perception in the gaming industry.

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Technological? Maybe. Cultural? Not even a little bit.

When Skyrim came out, I determined that my purchasing strategy would be as follows:

  1. Purchase a PS3 copy.
  2. Play the crap out of it for a few weeks.
  3. Trade it in at Gamestop for 35 bucks (plus 10% for my membership thingamabob)
  4. 6-12 months later, purchase at 60-75% off on a Steam sale and do a second playthrough with all the awesome mods that had been developed in the meanwhile.

Generally speaking, I’m going to buy on console if all other factors seem equal, for no other reason than because of the trade-in factor.

I know there’s at least one case working its way through the pipes about the right to buy and sell ‘used’ digital content. If Steam ever implements some kind of trade-in program, I doubt I’ll ever take another look back at consoles for non-exclusive games.

But to answer the original question: no, I don’t think PC gaming is on the way out. People have been asking this question for over a decade now. I think what’s far more likely is that PCs and consoles will converge at some point 10-20 years from now and the question will simply become moot.

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There’s still no substitute for PCs for web browsing, word processing, spreadsheets, and all the other things we use computers for, so pretty much everyone will have a computer, completely regardless of games. Given that huge existing market, game makers would be fools to not tap into it. By contrast, consoles are really used for nothing but gaming, or maybe occasionally playing movies, and so most people don’t have them. If I want a computer version of a game, I’d have to pay about $50, and that might be worth it to me, but if I wanted the console version, I’d have to pay more like $200, to buy the console and the game both, and there’s no way that’s worth it.

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11-13-2009 You can make a superior gaming PC for less than a console
09-08-2010 Will PC gaming make a comeback?
11-08-2010 PC Gaming: Is it dying?
02-03-2011 PC Gaming Dead! Oh no wait, Steam just made a billion this year.
03-16-2011 To the “PC Games are better than console games” crowd.

Same question, same arguments over and over. I probably could rework my search terms and double or triple the responses in just the past 2-3 years. Are there any new arguments for or against PC gaming?

For the record, 99%+ of my gaming is PC, with the remainder split between old PS2 JRPGs, Wii, and iOS.

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And from 2004 you have my PCGamer, SMAC, and the continuing decline of the PC gaming industry.

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I’ve never resold anything in my life, other than books, and then only because they were taking up too much space on my shelf. I’ve never felt the need to resell games. I have a feeling that people like you who do are about to become a thing of the past.

These days, I get my music from iTunes, my books from Amazon to my Kindle, and my games from Steam. Actually owning a physical copy of something feels… primitive.

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The bigger problem is that some major publishers are trying to find ways to block reselling games. They see a customer purchasing a game second hand as a lost sale.

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Or not; the game makers tend to lie a lot about piracy. “Sales are low because people are just pirating our game” puts the blame for poor sales on pirates; “sales are low because no one wants to buy our game” puts the blame on themselves, so naturally they’ll blame pirates.

And I don’t buy 93%-95% for a moment.

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I’ve heard the same thing about piracy. But it seems to me Steam is more than making up for it. I think that’s what we’ll get to - PC games will be 99% downloaded.

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Gosh, is it Wednesday already? We have this thread every month, it seems.

Another Doper said it best; as long as people have computers, they will want games to play on them.

Just this month “Guild Wars 2” has made a bazillion dollars. The WOW expansion will be a huge commercial hit. Heck, a little $10 roguelike game is making waves. There’s all kinds of PC gaming out there. As long as people have computers they will want games to play on them.