Yes. It’s dead. Other than Blizzard pc gaming has nothing to offer.
Jesus, it’s worse than I thought.
The same old bullshit from the same old fanboys. Blizzard is an outlier in that it makes MORE money on the PC than ANY OTHER SINGLE PUBLISHER makes on ANY of the current gen consoles.
But as I mentioned before, other publishers have a competitive source of revenue from PC software sales. PC comes in second at EA, for example, PS3 comes in third.
Oh and there are NO sales figures for Civ V yet. The 300,000 number is from VGA charts, and lol if you’re trying to use them as a cite.
Like I said above. And Blizzard is not just a developer, it’s a publisher. One of the biggest publishers.
More bullshit. PC has plenty to offer, Cubsfan, not so much.
PC still gets more A-AAA exclusives than the consoles. Steam has more active members than xbox has users with xbox live accounts. MILLIONS more users. Publishers and developers make more money on the PC per unit sold thanks to digital sales, easier, unfettered development, and the fact that there isn’t a company that needs to be paid a development fee and receive a cut of the sales. Consistently, multi-platforms releases are being rated higher on the PC, simply because most reviewers point to that version as the superior one in terms of graphics, performance and occasionally gameplay and stability (funnily enough - for example Fallout: New Vegas PC has been called the more stable and better looking/performing version of the game by many reviewers).
If PC was dying/making no money for anyone other than Blizzard/Activision, then there would be no developers bothering to make PC games. Yet the majority fo devs are either making PC exclusives, or including the PC in multi-platform releases.
If that’s dead, then I don’t want to be alive, baby! 
I know several dozen Bejeweled and Farmville players who don’t even think of those as “Computer games” because “I’m not a gamer!”: if Denial was a river, it would sure carry a lot of water. They don’t even download anything as far as they know, they’re either playing in their browser (and no more conscious of downloading the Flash or the icons than they are of downloading their email to read it) or in their phone (and again, not conscious of any data transfers, and depending on the phone the game is as browser-based as the one in their bigger computer).
At first, if you wanted to play WoW you had to buy it in a store.
Later they made it possible to download directly; IIRC, it was after the first expansion.
For the second expansion, you still had to buy the expansion disk if you were in a hurry to play it close to the release date, but a few weeks post-release date it was possible to upgrade your account, spend several hours downloading and play.
For the expansion being released next month (the third one), a large chunk of the data needs to be downloaded anyway whether you upgrade the account or not - and they’ve made it possible to buy the upgrade directly from them and finish downloading in advance. Pay, download, wait for the release date, play the new bells and whistles.
I wouldn’t say PC Gaming is “Dying”, but visiting EB Games in Australia is usually depressing if you’re a PC gamer- walls full of X360/Wii/PS3 games, a tiny corner devoted to PC software, and maybe a dozen “New Release” games on the shelf.
There’s some great stuff on PC- Fallout: New Vegas being an excellent example, some stuff that will be great once some expansions show up (Civilisation V), and World of Warcraft.
Bioshock: Infinite looks freaking awesome, too, and I have no doubts there are a few other Primarily PC Games on the way that will turn out to be Very Good Indeed.
The other thing in PC Gaming’s favour at the moment: System specs have been stable for a couple of years, so the average gamer doesn’t need to spend a thousand bucks every ten months or so keeping their computer up to spec just so they can run whatever games are coming out. A decent gaming system from two years ago will still quite happily run whatever’s coming out now, for example.
Because of a single MMO and a single RTS that has an enormous cult following in Korea. Like I said, that’s hardly an indicator of a vibrant industry. (And Starcraft 2 isn’t even really a new game, because Korea would have declared war if it was.) It may be that the industry still is vibrant, and certainly I haven’t played a console game in nearly a year despite being a heavy gamer, but Blizzard is not an indicator.
I wouldn’t call it depressing, but I’ve seen the same thing in the US, and it’s certainly strange. I played a lot of PC games in high school, but more or less lost interest until after I graduated law school - when I bought an Xbox 360 and started playing a lot of console games. (A first-gen MacBook makes a poor gaming machine). When I’d last spent serious time in EB or other game stores, at least half the shelf space was devoted to PC games - now, it really is a tiny niche.
(Also, getting carded at 27 to buy “M” rated games gets old rather fast, but that’s another topic.)
This is ridiculously untrue. The PC has more little games that aren’t done on a console (like all the indie stuff on Steam), but as far as big name exclusives go, the PC has WoW, Civ V and StarCraft II right now. Oh, and they get a year with the latest Sims release before EA puts it on every system under the sun.
And if we’re counting Steam indie titles as exclusives, then the DS gets way more exclusives than every other platform combined.
Steam is free. Xbox Live requires a $200 expenditure at a minimum (you know, to actually buy the Xbox 360 console). But even still, there are 41 million Xbox 360 systems in the wild versus 30 million Steam users (as per Valve and MS internal numbers).
Saying it’s dying is stupid, I agree. But the majority of devs are not making PC exclusives. And the number of devs that actively court the PC (versus those that toss off a PC port because it’s easy) is a vanishingly small number.
You really are clueless on this subject aren’t you?
Count the numbers yourself:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AriQpIFbPoEacGM1b0xxcGVucFQ3OFc4N3BNZmd2QkE&gid=0
You mean a crippled, dumbed down version of the Sims, right? 
Oh and it’s WOW, Civ, Sims, Diablo, and I’d toss into the mix the Total War series and Guild wars as fairly big budget and money making games.
Steam users, however, are NOT the entirety of PC gamers. Unfortunately there is no solid way of tracking all PC gamers. But we have huge communities. Over a million people play some version of counter strike everyday, a little more star craft. There are 12 million active WOW accounts. 30+ million Steam accounts. Several untold millions over a large group of other MMO’s and digital download services.
Good. Most accurate thing you’ve said thus far.
The majority of devs aren’t making ANY exclusives. Almost all games are multi-plat now a days. The fact that the PC has the most exclusives in the current market is telling, IMHO.
Wrong. ALL the major publishers (Microsoft included) have been making very vocal statements about how the PC as a platform is extremely important, and how they want to continue to provide it with quality titles that take the PC’s strength’s into account.
The only real things anyone needs to know about the state of PC gaming is that it is a several billion dollar a year market. That almost all publishers cater to it and consider it important. That it’s where you get the best gaming experience.
AND
That it’s all of those things WITHOUT having some company behind it spending untold billions of dollars in marketing trying to convince people that it’s the ebst thing since sliced bread.
Without those untold billions in marketing, and subsidizing of hardware the PS3 and xbox 360 would be DOA.
Without any of those things, PC gaming is where it’s at 
Your argument was that the PC as a platform has more exclusives than “consoles.” My argument was that that’s only true when you include the small indie games that are the PC’s specialty.
But even counting all those games, according to this spreadsheet, the PC falls short of the Xbox 360 + XBLA columns (they’re the same platform after all) and well short of “consoles” as a whole.
Try again.
Nor is Xbox Live accounts the sole measure of console gamers. Or are you forgetting a little system called the Wii that dwarfs the PC in both software totals and sales dollars?
Here’s what I said:
The chart I provided you confirms what I said. I don’t care if you want to dismiss titles with smaller budgets. They are still highly rated, excellent games. Of which te PC has more of - exclusively.
Isn’t that what matters to gamers? the amount and quality of the games available to them on any particular platform?
My friend, there are adult education courses near you that might help you with that arithmetic problem you seem to have.
PC - 180
Xbox + XBLA - 72
Ps3 + PSN - 64
Xbox + PS3 total: 136
I was only talking about “next gen consoles - really current gen”. Only when you bring the Wii do you go above the PC, and only by ~20. Yeah, makes sense to compare all three platforms vs just the PC. I guess you have to fight dirty when the PC is just that much superior 
It might dwarf it in terms of software (though only first party). It consistently comes in third place at most other publishers as a source of software revenue. Hardware? Not in a million years.
You’re using “AAA” differently than most people use it. To most people, it means the video game equivalent of a summer blockbuster movie. High production values. Mass appeal. You’re just listing any well-reviewed game. Like, GTR 2? That’s super niche. SoaSE? Niche. All of those expansion packs? Seriously?
If they make a mouse and keyboard for consoles and console games that work with them, PC Gaming can die happily.
You’re right. The yellow threw off my eyes and I thought the total listed above (in readable black) were the exclusives. However, I stand by my point. The only reason the PC wins is by including MMOs that don’t exist anymore and adventure games that are a small niche of all gaming, but are very popular within that niche (and thus get good scores).
OK, now tell the one where we compare games that are only on the PS3 and Xbox 360, but not on the PC. I’d be very interested in those numbers.
Nintendo consistently puts out 10-20 very highly rated games every year. I’ve seen others discount the first party effect on the Wii before and I never really understood it. They’re games aren’t they? They’re good games aren’t they? The fact that third parties can’t compete with that is not Nintendo’s fault. The Wii still dwarfs everything.
I suppose.
I can’t muster much antagonism over the Wii. It’s precisely what the console experience used to be. Back when it was worth owning one. It provides a truly unique experience. The other consoles ruined things by trying to be PC’s and only succeeding in acting like shitty PC’s.
There’s absolutely no reason for me to own a xbox 360 when 99% of the games I care about on the xbox are also on the PC and they are all better on the PC. Whether that’s because of better graphics, better performance, better gameplay, or simply more options in terms of controls and mods (or all of the above).
That didn’t used to be the case. I love me my N64 and super nintendo, and the PS2 as well for the most part. Owning one of those systems along with a PC gave a gamer a lot of unique and interesting gaming experiences. Now? Not so much. I’d rather play the better version of a game than suffer through a console experience just to save a couple of hundred bucks, which I’ll make up for with cheaper games anyway.
So in summary: OP - no, PC gaming is not dying. It’s still growing in popularity. It generates lots of money for publishers and developers even if a title technically sells less, digital sale son the PC means publishers and devs make just as much or even MORE money on the PC (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/97583-1C-Executive-Clarifies-Digital-Distribution-Prediction).
No need to worry. The hobby will outlive all of us.
I wouldn’t say it’s dying but I would say it’s declining for a couple of reasons:
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It is more difficult for developers to develop for PCs due to the variety of hardware.
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Pirates. Yes, Pirates. You aren’t sticking it to the man; you are stealing.
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MMOs. There is only a finite amount of gaming time in the day and once people get hooked on MMOs they spend much of that gaming time playing them. I know I bought fewer games per year once I started playing City of Heroes.
Combined, many software developers have pushed console games vs. PCs even though PCs have a lot of advantages.
Untrue actually. The barrier of entry to the PC gaming market is MUCH lower on the PC. You don’t have to pay Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo to develop a game, give them a cut of sales, and go through them for every major decision. In terms of the technical aspect of development, again, no. That’s why API’s were invented. DX9 is DX 9 on every PC. As long as your aiming at a particular market (mid- to high end or low to mid-end) the issues exist (specially in Q&A) but are few. It only becomes a bit more difficult if you plan on targeting a very wide range of PC’s.
Agreed.
True. As I mentioned above, PC doesn’t have a company willing to subsidize 50% of the cost of a new GPU.
Even so, PC’s can easily stand up to any single console platform in terms of overall sales. Maybe not come in first in all cases, but a close second? Sure.
The requirement to cater to the puny underpowered shrimpy hardware of the “current”-generation consoles strongly hamstrings PC game development. Control schemes in particular have to be very simplistic since controllers have so few input options.
It’s very easy, and usually frustrating, to tell when you’re playing a console-first game. There’s a certain clumsy impreciseness to the whole thing.
every console currently on the market (I could be wrong about the wii) is perfectly capable of keyboard and mouse controls.
can you imagine what would happen if shooters started supporting them though? all of those halo fanboys would suddenly realize what pc gamers have been telling them for years.
I really want servers that allow pc v console multi player for FPS games.
This has never been the case, and it’s always been a lie propogated by people with a grudge against PC gaming. I’m as an enthusiastic a PC gamer as they come, and I don’t think I’ve spent more than more than $400 over any yearly period if you average it out (ie if I buy a $1200 comp that lasts me 3 years, I’d consider that $400/year). Sure, if you wanted absolutely cutting edge stuff, you could pay as much as you wanted, but it was never necesary. PC games have always scaled well with the option to run games at lower settings several years into the future. But even that’s generally not necesary - I’ve gotten at least 2-3 years of running at high settings out of every computer I’ve ever built.