Changing fortunes for PC gaming..??

Borsch · 23 Feb 2012 at 12:16

orderoftheflame said:
Except they don't have a userbase gap like that at all. You've been comparing console userbase to gaming capable PC machines.

The university I went to had thousands of capable machines in its labs and not one of them would have been used as a gaming machine. You can't just say 200 million machines = 200 million gamers.

If you take all the capable machines sold in business and education alone it must be more than half that number. Let alone enthusiasts that have no interst in gaming (like the folding lot on here), or people that buy a machine higher specced than they need.

My work PC is a quad core with 8gb ram and a graphics card that would play games fine, but it's not a gaming machine. I've got more than one machine at home that could play games. You could be counting some people three or four times in that number.

Its not my research, I did not pluck numbers out of the air. You concentrate on the 195m pcs sold, but ignore the separate gfx cards sold - are those sold to offices too? 80-100 million each year. Do office users update their Nvidia drivers (Nvidia has 180 million active users)?

All of these factors add up to 80-200m gaming pcs, while acknowledging that there are 1 billion PCs in the world overall.

Cutshaw · 23 Feb 2012 at 12:16

Borsch said:
Modern Warfare (historically) had decent single player. BF was always multiplayer focused. BF3 is nearly all about multiplayer- so like Starcraft, WoW it does not count.

It sells on the strength of the multiplayer. The historically and subjectively good single player is a minute(literally) part of the game.

The best AAA pc exclusive title we have seen in a long time(the witcher 2) had no DRM at all and sold very well. The company have went on the record saying that DRM is pointless. Keep in mind these guys came up in eastern europe where piracy is a way of life and people are selling pirate copies of games out in the open.

But as people have said, exclusives and to a lesser degree, strictly single player games are not where the money is.

Borsch · 23 Feb 2012 at 12:24

Cutshaw said:
It sells on the strength of the multiplayer. The historically and subjectively good single player is a minute(literally) part of the game.

The best AAA pc exclusive title we have seen in a long time(the witcher 2) had no DRM at all and sold very well. The company have went on the record saying that DRM is pointless. Keep in mind these guys came up in eastern europe where piracy is a way of life and people are selling pirate copies of games out in the open.

But as people have said, exclusives and to a lesser degree, strictly single player games are not where the money is.

On PCs right now -that is the case, yes. Single player focused PC exclusive is all but gone - and that is the single biggest problem with PC gaming.

Witcher2 - like I said, for discussion to be meaningful we need numbers - not all this " sold well, very well, not well". Ratio of Witcher2 profits pc/console -how many percent.

jorzeh · 23 Feb 2012 at 12:32

Borsch said:
On PCs right now -that is the case, yes. Single player focused PC exclusive is all but gone - and that is the single biggest problem with PC gaming.

Witcher2 - like I said, for discussion to be meaningful we need numbers - not all this " sold well, very well, not well". Ratio of Witcher2 profits pc/console -how many percent.

Why would you want to play alone anyway, It's better to have social aspects to games, AI is fine, But playing Vs real inteligence for me atleast is just more fun, I love playing games with my friends.

orderoftheflame · 23 Feb 2012 at 12:35

Borsch said:
but ignore the separate gfx cards sold - are those sold to offices too? 80-100 million each year. Do office users update their Nvidia drivers (Nvidia has 180 million active users)?.

I know users that buy more than one card for Sli or buy multiple cards over the course of the year. You're way of calculating single active gamers is hugely flawed.

How are Nvidia counting active users? Based on driver downloads? I've downloaded drivers more than once and on more than one machine before. Again, having a capable gaming PC doesn't mean it's being used for games.

jonneymendoza · 23 Feb 2012 at 12:35

Borsch said:
But I cant find reliable (ie coming from developers themselves) data on more games. Some sources just speculate, some ignore digital downloads (whats the point of stats that exclude digital sales!!!?!).
But if you have info on sales for SINGLE player focused games (not BF3, Starcraft and WOW)- please chime in!

Alan wake?

Cutshaw · 23 Feb 2012 at 12:38

Borsch said:
On PCs right now -that is the case, yes. Single player focused PC exclusive is all but gone - and that is the single biggest problem with PC gaming.

Witcher2 - like I said, for discussion to be meaningful we need numbers - not all this " sold well, very well, not well". Ratio of Witcher2 profits pc/console -how many percent.

Single player focussed exclusives are all but gone on all platforms.

http://www.thenews.pl/1/12/Artykul/91023,Witcher-2-computer-game-clocks-up-vast-sales

1.1 million of the witcher 2 and 400k of the witcher(it's almost an antique). Both are floating around the internet DRM free. Keep in mind the lack of advertising these games have in comparison to behemoths from EA/Activision/etc.

orderoftheflame · 23 Feb 2012 at 12:41

jonneymendoza said:
Alan wake?

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-02-20-alan-wake-pc-makes-money-back-in-48-hours

PC releases only make a loss due to piracy right?

Borsch · 23 Feb 2012 at 12:50

orderoftheflame said:
I know users that buy more than one card for Sli or buy multiple cards over the course of the year. You're way of calculating single active gamers is hugely flawed.

How are Nvidia counting active users? Based on driver downloads? I've downloaded drivers more than once and on more than one machine before. Again, having a capable gaming PC doesn't mean it's being used for games.

Its not "my" way of calculating, its JohnPeddie Research, GArtner Inc research, and official nvidia statements. On their own, one may doubt what exactly they mean, but together, the picture is pretty clear. Even taking multiple card users into account, 80-100 mil sparate cards, bought per year, 195 mil full gaming PCs between 05-2010, can not be explained away to somehow amount to less than 40 mil console base.

Borsch · 23 Feb 2012 at 13:09

Cutshaw said:
Single player focussed exclusives are all but gone on all platforms.

http://www.thenews.pl/1/12/Artykul/91023,Witcher-2-computer-game-clocks-up-vast-sales

1.1 million of the witcher 2 and 400k of the witcher(it's almost an antique). Both are floating around the internet DRM free. Keep in mind the lack of advertising these games have in comparison to behemoths from EA/Activision/etc.

These are good numbers, thanks!

Borsch · 23 Feb 2012 at 13:12

orderoftheflame said:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-02-20-alan-wake-pc-makes-money-back-in-48-hours

PC releases only make a loss due to piracy right?

It would be better to see actual numbers and compare them to console ones. Recoup money spent on porting the game is not the same as recouping money spent on MAKING the game, and so sounds misleadingly optimistic. Need actual numbers

Amnesia · 23 Feb 2012 at 13:20

if you want a rough figure at the amount of gamers there are on pc then find out how many steam accounts there are.
pretty much every gamer has one...some may not but some also have multiple accounts so it should even out.

i would say that is a far more accurate way to measure than the amount of pcs sold.

btw dungeon defenders sold better on pc than it did on xbl and psn and that didnt have the strictest drm so your analogy of stronger drm = more sales goes to crap

orderoftheflame · 23 Feb 2012 at 13:27

Borsch said:
Its not "my" way of calculating,

Except it is. You've been taking their numbers for PCs, cards and driver users and saying that it translates directly into "active PC gamers", which it just doesn't.

Amnesia said:
btw dungeon defenders sold better on pc than it did on xbl and psn and that didnt have the strictest drm so your analogy of stronger drm = more sales goes to crap

Super Meat Boy did the same. Iirc it smashed it's total console sales in a mater of days when it hit the PC.

Cutshaw · 23 Feb 2012 at 13:30

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/03/01/beefy-super-meat-boy-pc-outsells-360/

I doubt there is a torrent site out there without a cracked copy of SMB. You could probably just put "super meatboy rar" into google and get it inside 5 minutes.

Borsch · 23 Feb 2012 at 14:16

Amnesia said:
if you want a rough figure at the amount of gamers there are on pc then find out how many steam accounts there are.
pretty much every gamer has one...some may not but some also have multiple accounts so it should even out.

i would say that is a far more accurate way to measure than the amount of pcs sold.
btw dungeon defenders sold better on pc than it did on xbl and psn and that didnt have the strictest drm so your analogy of stronger drm = more sales goes to crap

Number of Steam users= number of PC gamers is just... Are you kidding me, honestly?!

Dungeon Defenders is hardly Heavy Rain, or Witcher 2 is it? ITs a small budget indie game.

orderoftheflame said:
Except it is. You've been taking their numbers for PCs, cards and driver users and saying that it translates directly into "active PC gamers", which it just doesn't.

Super Meat Boy did the same. Iirc it smashed it's total console sales in a mater of days when it hit the PC.

Hello!? "Roy Taylor of Nvidia who recently stated that: "...there is a very large installed base of GeForce gamers. We estimate that we have over 180 million active GeForce users. That's a much bigger installed base than PS3 or Xbox 360."
Is he talking about office workers and their PowerPoint machines?

Super MeatBoy- small scale, low risk indie development - not relevant to this discussion.

Amnesia · 23 Feb 2012 at 14:27

Borsch said:
Number of Steam users= number of PC gamers is just... Are you kidding me, honestly?!

no lets count office pcs instead...who wants to look at how many gamer accounts there are to count gamers ...thats just stupid, lets instead look at how many office pcs there are.

Borsch said:
Dungeon Defenders is hardly Heavy Rain, or Witcher 2 is it? ITs a small budget indie game.

yes lets discard this game because it doesnt fit your theory.....also lets disregard super meat boy because hey well that just doesnt have enough prequels !!!

Cutshaw · 23 Feb 2012 at 14:33

Borsch said:
Super MeatBoy- small scale, low risk indie development - not relevant to this discussion.

I wouldn't write off smaller games as low risk or diminish the work that goes into them. Check this wonderfully written account of SPAZ's development. Click here.

I'm not sure why games with smaller budgets should be discounted in the first place. Especially if they are available cross platform and we can directly compare sales figures.

orderoftheflame · 23 Feb 2012 at 14:52

Borsch said:
Hello!? "Roy Taylor of Nvidia who recently stated that: "...there is a very large installed base of GeForce gamers. We estimate that we have over 180 million active GeForce users. That's a much bigger installed base than PS3 or Xbox 360."
Is he talking about office workers and their PowerPoint machines?

I don't give a flying toss who he is. You cannot count every graphics card sale or user as a garunteed actual gamer. He's probably just trying to big up his sales figures like any other exec would. There are not 180 million active "PC gamers". even including people that are only playing FarmVille or the sims I doubt it's even close.

Also, you can't just dismiss indie games because they don't fit your theory. Indie games are a huge part of PC gaming.

Borsch · 23 Feb 2012 at 14:55

Cutshaw said:
I wouldn't write off smaller games as low risk or diminish the work that goes into them. Check this wonderfully written account of SPAZ's development. Click here.

I'm not sure why games with smaller budgets should be discounted in the first place. Especially if they are available cross platform and we can directly compare sales figures.

Well, it is that the topic is about the fewer big PC exclusives that focus on single player and why there are few of them.
Indie games (with all due respect) are made by tiny teams (was it 2 people with SMB?) and thus their economics are different. Taking a punt with a $20000 (cost to make) is one thing - if it makes it viral - great, if not - no large loss. Kinda like facebook games.
When game's programming team has hundreds of employees, and costs above $100 million to make- different economics principles begin to apply as risk is costly, profit margins are completely different... Its a different ball game.

Borsch · 23 Feb 2012 at 15:10

orderoftheflame said:
I don't give a flying toss who he is. You cannot count every graphics card sale or user as a garunteed actual gamer. He's probably just trying to big up his sales figures like any other exec would. There are not 180 million active "PC gamers". even including people that are only playing FarmVille or the sims I doubt it's even close.

So we dismiss official nVidia statement, we dismiss the fact that 90 million gfx cards sell EACH year, we dismiss that near 200 million Alienware like machines were sold in 5 years- its all bull! :rolleyes:

And your grounds for being dismissive? Just your own opinion that they are all wrong, is it? Please tell us for what purpose people buy gfx cards and gaming PCs, and proportions of gamers as you think.

OCUK advanced users will now tell us now how it REALLy is! Amnesia states there are about as many PC gamers as there are Steam users. What's next?