PC as a gaming platform may not be dying but in shops...

I do wish Britboy would shut up.

We have ALL had a dodgy mp3?, film?, video tape of a film recorded off bbc1 4 years ago?, cassette (sp?) tape?, game? and anyone that claims otherwise is telling porkies. It is about as likely as saying no-one has ever gone over the speed limit at all ever even by 1mph.

Britboy needs to stop posting about piracy as at some point in his life he will have strayed off the 'piracy saint' footpath that he seems to walk on.

To the OP: I never ever buy pc games in shops, they are always cheaper on online retailers from my experience, by a significant margin too. The current steam deals we have seen are what steam should be more like imo, some fantastic deals on there and a good way of selling more copies of games that came out a few years ago.
 
10 years ago if you walked into a game store 80% of the stores shelves were full of pc games.
the middle part of the store was full of pc controllers , mice, graphics cards etc and in the corner near the door they had a tiny area for the consoles lol.
 
arknor said:
10 years ago if you walked into a game store 80% of the stores shelves were full of pc games.
the middle part of the store was full of pc controllers , mice, graphics cards etc and in the corner near the door they had a tiny area for the consoles lol.
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I can see why some people have gone to consoles - As they are just plug and play for those who aren't into pc hardware.

I will always have PC for gaming though due to keyboard and mouse and constant hardware superiority:)
 
uvarvu said:
Not happy with that. I don't want to be tied to games that I'll only play once.
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The biggest reason i can think of for an increase in piracy. Don't want to be lumbered with a £30-40 game that turns out to suck? No possiblity of flogging it to a 2nd hand shop to get some of that lost money back. DL and buy it if you think its worth keeping.

Over the whole year i've preordered Killing Floor, Dragon Age and Left 4 Dead 2. All of them done digitally.
 
PapaLazaru said:
Amen to that. Cannot see any shops selling any games for PC, or consoles in a few years. Digital download is the way forwards.
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It really isn't if game sizes are going up and download speeds/limits remain the same. People are going to max out their broadband rental pretty quickly.
 
Tefal said:
you can burn your steam games to disk...

or put them on an external drive.
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You're still relying on the internet with Steam, as your account requires internet to play or internet to go in offline mode.

mglover070588 said:
We have ALL had a dodgy mp3?, film?, video tape of a film recorded off bbc1 4 years ago?, cassette (sp?) tape?, game? and anyone that claims otherwise is telling porkies. It is about as likely as saying no-one has ever gone over the speed limit at all ever even by 1mph.
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This. But personally I've only pirated a couple of games and I bought them both after liking them.

Totally agree about comments about the publishers' crusade against the 2nd hand market. One of the reasons I only use Steam for Valve games only is that I refuse to buy games I don't have the choice to sell or give away. I can pick up 5, 10, 15 year old games from a charity shop and play them on any PC I own. Won't be able to do that with many of today's games due to this Steam/internet activation stuff.

Edit: Sorry for double post.
 
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Fromez said:
You're still relying on the internet with Steam, as your account requires internet to play or internet to go in offline mode
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Yes but this isn't 1980. Agreed its annoying that you can't go into offline mode properly while without internet, but if you're going to be without it for the long term, getting an internet connection for 2 seconds isn't much to ask for to have a whole range of games at your finger tips anywhere in the world.
 
Could the most recent reduction in shelf space for pc games maybe just over christmas as they're expecting an even higher percentage of console sales over this period in time.
 
Robert1986 said:
Steam > going out to buy games
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Not when your ISP rapes your connection for "excessive downloading". :(
Been capped for months now, so downloading a game from Steam takes a millenia.

But apparently they haven't capped my line, oh no, of course not. My line speed just went down by 2MB to 1MB after years for no particular reason! *goes off to grumble in Internet sub-forum* :(
 
theo said:
Could the most recent reduction in shelf space for pc games maybe just over christmas as they're expecting an even higher percentage of console sales over this period in time.
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doubt it most places will probably only stock mmos and mmo time cards soon i would imagine.

i dont remember any store ever having a midnight opening for a pc game yet its very common for console games
 
I had this problem over the past week or so, went down town to buy some pc games as I was bored and I only have 2mb ADSL (so takes forever - eg: GTA4 14GB)

Found very few games in the shops and when I did find one of the games I wanted (Dragon Age Origins) it was £39.99 :eek: :rolleyes:

Seems like certain places have games cheaper online than in store aswell which gets annoying :(
 
I guess I must be one of the rare few who likes owning case manuals an Discs. I like to physically own something. I'd also be scare that downloaded games from EA or Steam might be tied to my PC so if I upgrade I lose all my games.
 
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WatchTower said:
I guess I must be one of the rare few who likes owning case manuals an Discs. I like to physical. I'd also be scare that downloaded games from EA or Steam might be tied to my PC so if I upgrade I lose all my games.
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This isn't a problem with EA or Steam - as long as they are both going and have activation servers, then you can reinstall games on your new PCs.

But I dislike the control that present game publishers/services have over future ability to play games.
 
WatchTower said:
I guess I must be one of the rare few who likes owning case manuals an Discs. I like to physical. I'd also be scare that downloaded games from EA or Steam might be tied to my PC so if I upgrade I lose all my games.
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+1

Not even signed up to steam and have only downloaded one game from EA, which was through this forum, a free game of Medal of Honour - Airborne I think? Haven't got around to installing it yet though, but will one day to see how it is.
 
britboy4321 said:
IMO Pirates are smashing the whole industry to pieces (would you develop on PC as oppose to consoles - bearing in mind your work will probably be stolen by most ..?), although digital downloads are also causing mayhem in the PC retail sector ...
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Yes.

I'd release via Steam.
 
bare in mind also that steam isnt totally safe for that sort of thing, it is harder through
 
I worked for a high street games retailer throughout my time at college and then Uni and to be honest I rarely ever sold PC games even back in 2003/2004. People just buy them online.
 
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