Is PC games being faded out in shops

Are PC games being faded out in shops? Yes. Like all good little delivery systems online is the way to go. Steam is the ultimate antithesis of the market and stores are the begrudging, run down high street presences that cling on to their doom.
 
Ravenger said:
You can't sell modern PC games second hand due to DRM and CD keys, so each PC game can only be sold once. Console games can be sold, traded in for paltry sums and then resold at £5 less than the new price multiple times, each time making a fat profit for the retailers, while none goes back to the developer and publisher.
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I wonder how long it will be before console games start suffering the same restrictions, having games tied to a single live or equivalent account.
 
accod said:
I wonder how long it will be before console games start suffering the same restrictions, having games tied to a single live or equivalent account.
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It's already here with the PSP Go, and probably with the next PSP too. More and more console games are now having DLC or multiplayer locked out for second hand buyers. This is a direct consequence of the retail market being skewed towards second hand sales. The retailers only have themselves to blame, and unfortunately the customers will lose out as their games will be more and more tied down to logins, accounts and other DRM, just like PC games.

I'm not against private second hand sales, but when a retailer asks you if you'd rather buy a second hand copy of the new game you took to the counter, then you know there's a problem.

As I said, it's had the side effect of killing PC games at retail because why sell a PC game once when you can sell a console copy multiple times? Note that online retailers selling boxed games are doing well out of PC games, and they don't sell second hand stock.
 
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The market is in little kids buying Wii and Nintendo DS games, Dads buying Xbox and PS3 games and teenagers getting the odd PSP game or movie to play at college.

Basically, the retail market isn't in a few nerds who own an i7/i5 rig to play whatever game just came out.
 
franco_22 said:
The market is in little kids buying Wii and Nintendo DS games, Dads buying Xbox and PS3 games and teenagers getting the odd PSP game or movie to play at college.

Basically, the retail market isn't in a few nerds who own an i7/i5 rig to play whatever game just came out.
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Unfortunately the whole PC market is dying in my opinion.. Maybe even OcUK are starting to feel the pinch. No longer is it as necessary to keep upgrading your pc to play the latest games... What games have been out since Crysis that push your machine? It use to be that you had to have a top notch PC to play the pinnacle of gaming. In the last 24months or so, I've noticed a slide in gaming no longer needing the latest and greatest...

I think that's more of a worry personally. That we don't slip into a niche market.
 
thedoc46 said:
Unfortunately the whole PC market is dying in my opinion.. Maybe even OcUK are starting to feel the pinch. No longer is it as necessary to keep upgrading your pc to play the latest games... What games have been out since Crysis that push your machine? It use to be that you had to have a top notch PC to play the pinnacle of gaming. In the last 24months or so, I've noticed a slide in gaming no longer needing the latest and greatest...

I think that's more of a worry personally. That we don't slip into a niche market.
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You are both sort of right really. The reason there hasnt been huge jumps in pc power or graphics needs is purely down to devs being constrained to console limitations which set in around 2 months after the current gens release xD. Well we had about a year of devs making the most out of the sudden jump in tech and since then its been a hindrance to development really. Next gen we will see the next big leap forward with upgrades being needed rather than just wanted.

Nothing wrong with pc gaming really. Surely games such as Warcraft and online sales are showing that there are still a great many pc gamers (Valve and Blizzard would have fully jumped ship along time ago if not), its just they cant be bothered going to a shop when they can get it online (either through preference or laziness). Pre orders, big releases and budget games will always have a place in shops and the only way all games shops will stop selling PC games is when they stop selling games altogether i.e. close.
 
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thedoc46 said:
Unfortunately the whole PC market is dying in my opinion.. Maybe even OcUK are starting to feel the pinch. No longer is it as necessary to keep upgrading your pc to play the latest games... What games have been out since Crysis that push your machine? It use to be that you had to have a top notch PC to play the pinnacle of gaming. In the last 24months or so, I've noticed a slide in gaming no longer needing the latest and greatest...

I think that's more of a worry personally. That we don't slip into a niche market.
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We are talking about games not PC hardware needed to play them.
And i disagree with your points by the reviews & users posted benchmarks show there is plenty of room for improvement with many people turning down/off in game content to hold frame rates because few people hold 60fps solid in most games with anything but the top end hardware even though some people don't mind playing below the optimum because they have simply become accustomed to it.
 
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90% of my purchases are from Steam and GOG (by far my two favourite Digital Distributors). Ones that I consider exceptionally great I'll pick-up boxed versions for...and a digital copy :D
 
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Steam (IE Digital Distribution) will most likely be the only platform for PC games within the next 5 years I reckon, you can't trade in PC titles.
 
I wonder if Steam will ever provide the (legal) opportunity to trade 2nd-hand games. Although I never do, It would be valuable for someone who is used to buy / sell on the second-hand market. I bet the publishers would welcome digital publishing that way, as a way to lock-out the second-hand / renting market for good. Plus the added benefits of the non-existent manufacturing cost (replaced by bandwidth costs though :)).
 
It would be a very sad day indeed if Steam were the only distributors, no competition means high prices. I very much doubt this will be the case though, there is money to be made and therefore other companies will offer publishers etc. better profits by using their system and maybe they do get better margins selling through online shops in particular.

I do like Steams delivery service which saves you going to a supermarket at midnight to buy a game when you can preload it on your cpu ready to unlock, which is what I've done with Fallout: NV.

The post above regarding selling back games for second hand sale is a very good concept indeed.
 
olivier renault said:
I wonder if Steam will ever provide the (legal) opportunity to trade 2nd-hand games. Although I never do, It would be valuable for someone who is used to buy / sell on the second-hand market. I bet the publishers would welcome digital publishing that way, as a way to lock-out the second-hand / renting market for good. Plus the added benefits of the non-existent manufacturing cost (replaced by bandwidth costs though :)).
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You can not apply the second-hand of physical media to digital only media like steam, as the digital only media has no degradation due to use.
 
This thread always comes up :P

Personally haven't bought a game at a store in years, so much easier and cheaper to buy online via steam deals, or amazon etc.
 
PC game are surprisingly well represented here. Carrefour, Virgin Megastore and Geekay all have a decent selection. Geekay also do a whole host of PC gaming peripherals, such as the Logitech G series keyboards, Razer mice (including Mamba and Naga, high end mice) and Belkin/Logitech onehanded keyboards.

I'd still probably get all my stuff online, but its nice to have the option. The guys in virgin are also happy to import stuff in. Takes an age (6 weeks) but might be handy for larger, electronic items. Certainly cheaper than Delivery charges to out here.
 
thedoc46 said:
Unfortunately the whole PC market is dying in my opinion.. Maybe even OcUK are starting to feel the pinch. No longer is it as necessary to keep upgrading your pc to play the latest games... What games have been out since Crysis that push your machine? It use to be that you had to have a top notch PC to play the pinnacle of gaming. In the last 24months or so, I've noticed a slide in gaming no longer needing the latest and greatest...

I think that's more of a worry personally. That we don't slip into a niche market.
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I don't see the link between falling sales ("PC market is dying") and lower hardware requirements. This should the other way. The lower the hardware requirements, the more PCs will play a game, and the bigger the potential market for a game.

As someone else in this thread said, PC gaming has phased out the high street.The problem for me is like the one faced by magazine publishers. They get by far the biggest cut (fewer middlemen, like digital distribution) from people who subscribe to their magazine, so they want lots of subscribers, but the only way to replace the people who stop subscribing is to be out on the shop shelves (like bricks-and-mortar retail) so new people can see it, buy it, and start subscribing.

How will PC gaming attract new people if they don't know PC gaming exists?
 
Ravenger said:
One of the major reasons for the decline of PC games at retail is that retailers are now glorified pawn shops - 80% of their business is second hand games.

You can't sell modern PC games second hand due to DRM and CD keys, so each PC game can only be sold once. Console games can be sold, traded in for paltry sums and then resold at £5 less than the new price multiple times, each time making a fat profit for the retailers, while none goes back to the developer and publisher.
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CEX sells second hand PC games. Some of which I see stocked I know have only a limited number of activations or a tied serial. I don't know how this works for them - I don't buy anything there.
 
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