Why PC Gaming is Surging

Boomstick777 · 4 Sep 2013 at 23:27

More than just sweet graphics.

Dig far enough under all the news about the tussles over mandatory Kinects and indie support for either the Xbox One and the PS4, and you'll find a shocking bit of info: PC gaming is at its best since the 1990s. Were it John Lennon, PC gaming would be making haughty claims about how it's "bigger than Mario" and scoffing at the petty squabbles of its box-bound competitors.

The console as we know it… has become somewhat redundant.

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2013/09/04/why-pc-gaming-has-exploded

Thorper · 4 Sep 2013 at 23:30

Cool RSS Bro.

ci_newman · 4 Sep 2013 at 23:32

Urm, ok

[FnG]magnolia · 4 Sep 2013 at 23:35

"Like waking up in a lukewarm pool of your own spittle" - Forum Review Monthly

StriderX · 4 Sep 2013 at 23:42

Is this...post everything in GD day?

However, the surge in small time indie games is likely to be a main cause, the acceptance of the culture (Esport bars?) and the rising sport scene in general (especially in Eastern Europe/Russia).

dirtychinchilla · 4 Sep 2013 at 23:48

They're also becoming very cheap. I never really buy games outside steam sales and the humble bundles, so if you're not bothered about getting the latest game, it can become a cheap thing to do (after buying your pc, of course).

Boomstick777 · 4 Sep 2013 at 23:49

^^ Lol

thought it might make for some interesting discussion, PC gaming on the rise VS consoles etc.. A lot of people still keep touting the death of PC gaming, PS4 and Xbox One will finally kill PC yay ! Yet year after year it's still here and getting more popular..

Boomstick777 · 4 Sep 2013 at 23:51

dirtychinchilla said:
They're also becoming very cheap. I never really buy games outside steam sales and the humble bundles, so if you're not bothered about getting the latest game, it can become a cheap thing to do (after buying your pc, of course).

Humble Bundle is the shiznit, do I feel bad about getting Dead Space, Dead 3, Crysis 2 Maximum Edition, Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box, Medal of Honor and Mirror’s Edge for $1 dollar.. Hells no

Actually I couldn't do it.. I paid $5 dollars

dirtychinchilla · 4 Sep 2013 at 23:54

As did I. I got Battlefield 3 and The Sims 3 instead of burnout and something else. Great though!

Castiel · 5 Sep 2013 at 00:00

I have noticed that my 14 year old and many of his friends are recent,y moving away from their xbox's and PS3s and playing on their PC's more and more...my boys Xbox has basically become a communication device between him and his friends while they are playing something on Steam rather than a gaming console.

Xordium · 5 Sep 2013 at 00:03

You get a better variety of games on PC and games you'd never get on a console. But I suspect most PC games being included in all these metrics are not the ones you get from Steam but from Facebook.

Castiel · 5 Sep 2013 at 00:07

Xordium said:
You get a better variety of games on PC and games you'd never get on a console. But I suspect most PC games being included in all these metrics are not the ones you get from Steam but from Facebook.

Perhaps,but I still completely kick their arses in Splinter Cell though....

my son has banned me from playing now...

Bennie-Mac · 5 Sep 2013 at 00:16

Xordium said:
You get a better variety of games on PC and games you'd never get on a console.

But on the other hand PC gamers seem to get screwed over quite a lot with console games either not making it to the PC at all or being delayed for months after the console release.

Steampunk · 5 Sep 2013 at 00:25

Bennie-Mac said:
But on the other hand PC gamers seem to get screwed over quite a lot with console games either not making it to the PC at all or being delayed for months after the console release.

That's down to money changing hands for exclusives. I reckon we'll see less of those as PC gaming surges and porting becomes ever so much easier with AMD GPU/CPU in both consoles in order to take advantage of the PC development ecosystem.

Publishers will make more money being able to develop for all three platforms at little more cost than for one platform, than they will get from an exclusive deal.

EdGey · 5 Sep 2013 at 04:32

Good news.

I await the new GTA.

Scrutinize · 5 Sep 2013 at 07:05

This doesn't surprise me but the article missed out or only lightly touched on the following:

1) PCs for gaming are cheaper and more diverse than they have ever been. 10 years ago when the xbox and PS2 were king a gaming PC was £1200 -£2200. Even during the early PS3 and 360 years a good gaming PC was still close to £1k. Now £500 gets you a perfectly capable gaming PC with quality graphics. You don't need an i7 with £500 graphics card to get a good playable experience. Equally a £500 laptop will game quite happily at lower res and a £1k laptop will be really good. 10 years ago you just didn't game on normal laptops bar some easy RTS.

2) Consoles were great for split screen social multiplayer which is where mp gaming was at, whereas the PC has always been network/internet based multiplayer. As social interaction has changed and consoles have moved to network/internet based multiplayer there are no discerning benefits to them over a PC. In many ways the PC was ahead of its time on this.

3) The back catalogue of PC games from the last few years with graphics that still make the consoles weep is huge and ridiculously cheap. The content of PC strategy and RPG games can be measured in the hundreds of hours for many, most console games seem to be done in 10-20 hours. I can still re-play through the command and conquer RTS series and not get bored. I will still happily play the X beyond the frontier series with game mods. The only older console games that have replay value to this extent are the GTA series (also on and better on PC) and the odd final fantasy game (also on PC), oh and Skyrim (also on and better on PC).

4) Many big seller games are cross platform and this gives the intrinsic advantages of the PC even more headway such as; greater OS/Software flexibility, ability to do everything else (that consoles don't) other than games, mouse and keyboard etc etc etc. RTS and MMORPG games are never done as well on consoles as they are on the PC.

5) We have a more technical generation that have come through now. When I was at uni we had only just had the computer labs in for coursework. Some people still submitted hand written assignments. Consoles were plug and play and nearly everyone had a PS1 or N64. Gaming PCs were for the nerds/geeks and techies whereas now, the majority have one, and understand and can make the most out of PCs with confidence.

spoffle · 5 Sep 2013 at 07:11

Steampunk said:
That's down to money changing hands for exclusives. I reckon we'll see less of those as PC gaming surges and porting becomes ever so much easier with AMD GPU/CPU in both consoles in order to take advantage of the PC development ecosystem.

Publishers will make more money being able to develop for all three platforms at little more cost than for one platform, than they will get from an exclusive deal.

Porting typically doesn't happen, and putting together PC builds of games has never been "difficult".

SeraphX · 5 Sep 2013 at 07:11

Well that was a quick recovery, I am so glad I stuck with PC gaming after it died...

Scrutinize · 5 Sep 2013 at 07:19

SeraphX said:
Well that was a quick recovery, I am so glad I stuck with PC gaming after it died...

It never died though, just became digitally distributed. Shops and physical media distributors claimed it died as they couldn't compete with the business model rather than admit defeat. It has always remained very strong in other continents especially asia.

Zenduri · 5 Sep 2013 at 07:22

One thing to always remember too is that when you read all the doom and gloom reports about pc sales being down, these are always based on info from dell and hp etc which dont at all represent that something like 85% of pc gamers self build so their sales arent quantified.

I would be interested to see what unit sales are for components direct to the end user over the last 10 years