PC Gaming is Dead

Gimpymoo

Gimpymoo

Gimpymoo

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I am not seeing that bantered around so much now as it used to be around 5 years or so ago.

What has changed?

Have the masses finally accepted that its demise was never happening and for the foreseeable future, never will?

Who started this "rumour"? Cliff Bleszinski? Yes "CliffyB", we never forget, you turncoat. He came home to roost while eating crow so is forgiven :p

I find it ironic that in a time when technology has been stagnant for the most part, PC gaming has become stronger while back when hardware improvements were moving along at pace, it was apparently doomed.

I think the strong performance of the PC against the new gen consoles may have helped.

Prior to this console gen, the PC traditionally took a whooping with the new console launches. This time round, the PC was already in a good spot and even after a not even "mid" cycle "refresh", the consoles are still struggling.

I also think that PC "Ports" are being taken much more seriously from the "AAA" publishers, catering to the platforms strengths.

I remember a decade ago, PC ports were rarely given much hope, being able to bind keys was considered a luxury.

We are nearly at the 10 year anniversary of the Resident Evil 4 PC release - LOL
 
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Steam happened. It just exploded with popularity.

I would never say it was dying or dead, but it seems there was a time when consoles were strong and developers/publishers were really concerned about piracy on PC. At the least Steam gives them a little comfort and with its popularity, a ton of sales.

This year has been pretty shocking for PC ports though... kinda dented my confidence a bit.
 
I imagine youtube converted a lot of people, i sometimes click on console streams by accident and notice how terrible they look, i imagine console users do the opposite.
 
Digital distribution and Steam in particular saved PC gaming. It was in danger of becoming uneconomical to develop for PC due to piracy....but the long tail of digital distribution has made a big difference.
 
The master race started to fight back and made people realise that a mouse & keyboard is far superior to a couple of analogue peasant sticks. :D

Also piracy is pretty much non existent now due things like Denuvo, deep sales and cd key sites.
 
Even microsoft want to bring the console and PC Ecosystem closer together. Probably not as close as we would all like but its closer than it ever was few years ago.
 
Consoles offering mid gen upgraded versions means its now ok to do things like a pc

Had a few mates so set on consoles being better, pcs always need upgrading blah blah when in reality they dont. But they happily purchased ps4 pros and the conversation is now dead :D
 
kinger8938 said:
Had a few mates so set on consoles being better, pcs always need upgrading blah blah when in reality they dont. But they happily purchased ps4 pros and the conversation is now dead :D
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Had a few friends over a couple of months ago and we had a FIFA night, they were all console players and they were simply blown away at the lack of loading times between games on the PC compared to the age consoles take.

2 of them have now dumped the consoles and bought proper machines.
 
Does it really matter though?

Majority of games seem to be "mainstream game from big company" + N with N being sequel number, no one (a minority is no one essentially) is asking for quality/original content anymore.

Maybe its just 80s/90s kids growing old (am one), but ugh i just can't enjoy it at all.
 
Gimpymoo said:
I am not seeing that bantered around so much now as it used to be around 5 years or so ago.

What has changed?

Have the masses finally accepted that its demise was never happening and for the foreseeable future, never will?

Who started this "rumour"? Cliff Bleszinski? Yes "CliffyB", we never forget, you turncoat. He came home to roost while eating crow so is forgiven :p

I find it ironic that in a time when technology has been stagnant for the most part, PC gaming has become stronger while back when hardware improvements were moving along at pace, it was apparently doomed.

I think the strong performance of the PC against the new gen consoles may have helped.

Prior to this console gen, the PC traditionally took a whooping with the new console launches. This time round, the PC was already in a good spot and even after a not even "mid" cycle "refresh", the consoles are still struggling.

I also think that PC "Ports" are being taken much more seriously from the "AAA" publishers, catering to the platforms strengths.

I remember a decade ago, PC ports were rarely given much hope, being able to bind keys was considered a luxury.

We are nearly at the 10 year anniversary of the Resident Evil 4 PC release - LOL
Click to expand...

The rumour was started at the onset of the sixth-generation of consoles i.e. PS2, XBox. It continued, garnering various degrees of support from gaming industry figureheads, particularly those who had a vested interest in AAA-exclusives and/or console FPS/action games suited to the more casual gamer. Basically seen as the next logical step for the gamers from every previous generation, the big players and their big partners pushed the narrative as much as they could...and all the while the PC just steadily progressed through generation after generation of GPU power increase, back catalogue increase, emulation increase, consolidation of a single "overall" gaming platform in Steam embodying high quality with very good pricing, and not to mention the ability to mod at will which increases game longevity, as well as the utter proliferation of hardware and now Linux becoming more viable as an OS.

Cumulative years of all-the-above later, and I don't think anyone can still talk about PC Gaming being dead. It has evolved so far ahead of the consoles that they can only be pale imitations at this point. Having said that, they still represent a majority of developer revenue, being the semi-closed walled gardens that they are, and as such, we are still ham-strung by their progress (particularly in the AAA context).

The funniest thing about the last 10-15 years is that while consoles went after PC, mobile came out of nowhere to mess everything else up.
 
I think it may have something to do with the extended life of PC components as well as PC games being much better value that console games.

I'm 33 and have been a PC gamer since my teenage years. From the age of 18 I bought a new rig every other year as the old hardware soon became obsolete.

I'm still running a 2500K which was released in 2011 ~ coming up to 6 years ago! Granted I've treat myself to an R390, SSD and new monitor since then but otherwise PC gaming has become a lot more affordable and I can still run games on max settings and hit 60fps.
 
r7slayer said:
Even microsoft want to bring the console and PC Ecosystem closer together. Probably not as close as we would all like but its closer than it ever was few years ago.
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The only thing Microsoft want to bring "closer together" is Console game pricing to PC :D

Random Guy said:
The funniest thing about the last 10-15 years is that while consoles went after PC, mobile came out of nowhere to mess everything else up.
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Valid point.

In my opinion, mobile has created its own userbase which did not exist before it.

These are people who would not go out of their way to play games before they had a mobile but would gladly play "Snake" on the commute to work. That evolved into the Java games then eventually to where we are now.

Anyone who seriously wanted to play games then "on the move" had a Gameboy or PSP.

Was the Gameboy the most sold gaming device, ever?

In my view, all mobile did was set game quality back 2 or 3 generations.
 
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Last console I bought was an Xbox 360 when Gears of War came out, and that was of a mate lol

Will be coming up 3 years since my last PC component upgrade and with BF1 running Ultra settings and still getting a comfortable 80fps, i'm not upgrading anytime soon.

PC gaming will never die! :D
 
Luckystrike123 said:
I think it may have something to do with the extended life of PC components as well as PC games being much better value that console games.

I'm 33 and have been a PC gamer since my teenage years. From the age of 18 I bought a new rig every other year as the old hardware soon became obsolete.

I'm still running a 2500K which was released in 2011 ~ coming up to 6 years ago! Granted I've treat myself to an R390, SSD and new monitor since then but otherwise PC gaming has become a lot more affordable and I can still run games on max settings and hit 60fps.
Click to expand...

Hitting the "1080p" wall has meant upgrades are not needed as frequently now as they were. The console peasantry has been slowly dictating PC progression. For the most part though, a lot of people are happy with 1080p/60fps for the time being. Personally, it is all about 21:9/120fps+ but we are a little way off that becoming "mainstream", still teething problems.

Anyone chasing 4k/21:9 however may have a different story if chasing that dragon, but that is the beauty of the hobby right? The freedom to do anything, if you wish and have the cash.

I remember gaming at 1024x768 and my rig being pushed to its knees :p

Worth noting though, at the time, consoles were running 480p.

Back then though, the PC ecosystem was independent was not so dictated to by the console market like it is now.
 
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I've always had both as I like console for things like NHL and FIFA and PC for Dawn of War and Euro Truck Simulator.

I tried to play a RTS game on a console and I couldn't work it at all, the mouse and keyboard makes controlling units and selecting buildings so muck easier.
 
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