Who killed PC gaming ?

Developers can only re-invent the wheel for so long until the player base catches on and ****-cans the offending title, just look at how many failed mmo's weve had in the last 2 years.

PC games primarily are of these genre's;
RTS/MMO/FPS/RPG and can only evolve so far, essentially its the same title over and over in a different wrapper.

With the release of D3 and SC2 maybe we will have some balance back in the market come 2010, even then we are looking at popular but not ground breaking titles.
 
Two major companies are actively working on destroying PC as a gaming platform:

1)Microsoft (xbox, vista, games for windows)

2)Sony (securom, ps3)

With that said - PC is immortal and their activities are futile : ).
 
I had a moment of realisation a few weeks ago of how bad the pc game market was in the UK. I wanted to buy Arma2, but couldn't get out of work. I headed off in to oxford, because my local GAME had already closed as it was 5:30.

I went in to PC world first. They always had a large selection of PC games. I went in and tried to find where they had them now, as the entire store had changed layout since the last time i was in there. I walked past 4 (4!!!!) rows of norton 360, and other rubbish inInternetrotection software to find the 5th row with a few pc games on. The row consisted of a few cocopiesf wow:tbc, commandos, age of empires trilogy, and sims 1 and 2, and every sims expansion ever released. That was about it. I asked the first guy i could find if they were still receiving new PC titles, and if they had any out the back of "Arma2".

He took me to a till, and did a search.. "nothing on arma, sorry". Try Armed Assault - i said. "How do you spell Assault" he said. At this point i upped and left.

Then i went over to a big new Dixons superstore that had opened last year. They had 2 small shelves, consisting of wii games, about 5 xbox 360 and 5 ps3. They had more ps2 games than ps3 just out of interest. Not a pc title in sight.

Then i tried Currys, and it was basically exactly the same, so quickly left.

The one final option i had was Argos and Toys R Us. Ive never ever thought of Argos as carrying PC games so never bothered. Toys R Us used to have loads, i remember a wall about 6ft high in ToysRus years ago with PC games and software.

I went in, and walked again to where they used to have them. Could not see a single game. Plenty of console stuff, but nothing on PC. I found this odd, as they always used to carry lots so i asked the first guy i could find what was going on. He took me to a shelf, with honestly 4 games on it.

Guess what they were.

The Sims 2, The Sims Las Vegas, Sims on holiday or somet and Sims3. Couldnt believe this and was extremely annoyed and sad at the same time.

On the way home i remembered the glory days of PC gaming, all those FPS, space combat sims, mech warrior games etc. Now the PC market as far as the uk retail sector is concerned consists of the Sims and all its' expansions and followups.

A very sad time for pc games.
 
My purple near me has allot of PC games on the sells even more than G.

But i mostly buy online now & the G online catalogue is far greater than what they stock in the high-street store.
So its not that bad.
 
Consoles are cheap as they make their money back on the games.

I have the Xbox360 pads for some games, such as driving, but as others have said the pads suck for most other games. The last console I bought was a Gamecube, and that was for 1 game (SSBM). Tell a lie, I bought a PSP, which I used for home brew.

I dont think I would buy a console nowdays, even though I can afford one, they just dont seems as good.

Consoles are becoming out of date and old tech. More people will come back to PC gaming.
 
Heretic1322 said:
Consoles are becoming out of date and old tech. More people will come back to PC gaming.
Click to expand...

I love PC and Console gaming and couldn't do without one or the other tbh, but what I have found to be happening is the opposite of what you are saying. Loads of my m8s have now all but stopped PC gaming and only play on consoles now.
 
Also it has to be said the LOD and lack of AA in consoles is awful..although that could be game specific.

Also even if i do pay more for my PC than console, a PC is more than just a "gaming machine".

It does annoy me though with the lack of PC games in retail now..
 
my opinion in why pc gaming, is dieing is a simple one:

Consoles are plug and play and have the instant playability and are seen as cool

Pcs on the other are seen as 'nerdy' and need fiddling to get the best out of them.

I am a pc player, i used to have PS2 years ago for when friends came around, but serious gaming time was on pc. I have not bothered getting the next gen console as i sincerely think PC is better and doesn't impinge on tv watching time.
 
nIckEl101 said:
my opinion in why pc gaming, is dieing is a simple one:

Consoles are plug and play and have the instant playability and are seen as cool

Pcs on the other are seen as 'nerdy' and need fiddling to get the best out of them.
Click to expand...

Considering this has always been the case forever I don't think this is the reason for the lack of PC games. In fact it's far easier to play PC games now than when PC gaming was at it's peak

Personally I think it's down to Blizzard and there 11 million players. A good percantage of them will be PC gamers that arn't interested in playing anything else, even going back 4 years. I'm still convinved Blizzard will resolve this themselves when Starcraft and Diablo come along, which will reduce WOW numbers and increase PC gaming sales

Edit.. How will this increase PC sales. Well it already has in effect for myself. Once you leave WOW for a bit, you never really feel like going back. eg in my case I've been enjoying a wealth of PC games since I stopped actively playing and I bet other ex WOW players will be the same. Sure lots will flock to consoles, but some will be back on the PC gaming scene. I expect this to happen in huge numbers when Blizzard release those 2 titles.
 
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I dont think PC gaming is dying. The games companies just arnt making decent enough games. The PC market is more mature and possibly careful about wasting money on crap games (I’ve certainly bought a few) and with the temptation to try before you buy (pirate) it’s easy to see why less games are sold on pc and piracy appears higher.
 
PC Gaming isn't dying. It's a shame that PC exclusives are becoming less and less and companies are porting games from console to PC rather than the other way round these days, but generally as long as PCs run with keyboards and mice, do most other things, are upgradeable and if you think about it, not much more expensive than an aging console with inferiro graphics.

Consoles pads are horrible for fps and rts games and some will argue for mmos aswell, though I do prefer playing arcade type games on consoles, such as beat em ups (Street Fighter series, Tekken series, Streets Of Rage series ;)), racing games (usually) and sports games such as Fifa etc...

Then again, despite the console strengths in those games, with a game pad the PC does those well enough...

PC all the way for me.
 
nIckEl101 said:
my opinion in why pc gaming, is dieing is a simple one:

Consoles are plug and play and have the instant playability and are seen as cool

Pcs on the other are seen as 'nerdy' and need fiddling to get the best out of them.

I am a pc player, i used to have PS2 years ago for when friends came around, but serious gaming time was on pc. I have not bothered getting the next gen console as i sincerely think PC is better and doesn't impinge on tv watching time.
Click to expand...

So 10-15 years ago when consoles were just as plug and play and PCs were several orders of magnitude more nerdy and required a lot more tinkering with, how come it didn't die then? rather than go from strength to strength as it has done...
 
Heretic1322 said:
I dont think PC gaming is dying. The games companies just arnt making decent enough games. The PC market is more mature and possibly careful about wasting money on crap games (I’ve certainly bought a few) and with the temptation to try before you buy (pirate) it’s easy to see why less games are sold on pc and piracy appears higher.
Click to expand...

I tend to hold off buying games until i see reviews & user feed back. but sometime will buy a game that is from reputable developers & franchise which i have had previous experience with without much thought.
 
Time to don "flame jacket" but one other thing which I feel is affecting PC gaming is the obsession with "MMO". Now maybe it's because I belong to an older generation but I have absolutely no interest in pitting my wits against what probably turns out to be some 12 year old geek or chav giggling with his mates. I respect the wishes of those who do like to play on line but nothing puts me off buying a game quicker than seeing the single player experience (if it exists at all) is a shadow of the multiplayer element. I want my gaming solo and to amuse me at my own pace, not feel the need to partake in some gathering of strangers.

So we need more single player games which offer every bit as much in the way of gameplay as the multiplayer ones.
 
but they can never offer the satisfaction found in trashing some 12 year old on CoD5 for instance on the PS3...

single player games bore me now, unless its a stupendously good one, i.e Gran Turismo (1-4)...but as for 1st person shooters and the like, it will never be as much fun, or as difficult to take out a bot compared to a human controlled version...

Casual online gaming is here. people who i never thought would get "online" to game now have xbox live, or PSN and seem to do okay for themselves...
 
Fenlock said:
I had a moment of realisation a few weeks ago of how bad the pc game market was in the UK. I wanted to buy Arma2, but couldn't get out of work. I headed off in to oxford, because my local GAME had already closed as it was 5:30.

I went in to PC world first. They always had a large selection of PC games. I went in and tried to find where they had them now, as the entire store had changed layout since the last time i was in there. I walked past 4 (4!!!!) rows of norton 360, and other rubbish inInternetrotection software to find the 5th row with a few pc games on. The row consisted of a few cocopiesf wow:tbc, commandos, age of empires trilogy, and sims 1 and 2, and every sims expansion ever released. That was about it. I asked the first guy i could find if they were still receiving new PC titles, and if they had any out the back of "Arma2".

He took me to a till, and did a search.. "nothing on arma, sorry". Try Armed Assault - i said. "How do you spell Assault" he said. At this point i upped and left.

Then i went over to a big new Dixons superstore that had opened last year. They had 2 small shelves, consisting of wii games, about 5 xbox 360 and 5 ps3. They had more ps2 games than ps3 just out of interest. Not a pc title in sight.

Then i tried Currys, and it was basically exactly the same, so quickly left.

The one final option i had was Argos and Toys R Us. Ive never ever thought of Argos as carrying PC games so never bothered. Toys R Us used to have loads, i remember a wall about 6ft high in ToysRus years ago with PC games and software.

I went in, and walked again to where they used to have them. Could not see a single game. Plenty of console stuff, but nothing on PC. I found this odd, as they always used to carry lots so i asked the first guy i could find what was going on. He took me to a shelf, with honestly 4 games on it.

Guess what they were.

The Sims 2, The Sims Las Vegas, Sims on holiday or somet and Sims3. Couldnt believe this and was extremely annoyed and sad at the same time.

On the way home i remembered the glory days of PC gaming, all those FPS, space combat sims, mech warrior games etc. Now the PC market as far as the uk retail sector is concerned consists of the Sims and all its' expansions and followups.

A very sad time for pc games.
Click to expand...

The main reason for less and less PC games on the high street is the huge expansion of digital distrubution of games (Steam etc.) and PC game manufacturers tend to focus on this medium to deploy games now (and thats why purple has gone from 5 shelves of PC games to 1/2 a shelf :(), whereas console games haven't (up until recently, becoming more common now via PSN and Live) been available in this distribution channels.
 
Vern1961 said:
Time to don "flame jacket" but one other thing which I feel is affecting PC gaming is the obsession with "MMO". Now maybe it's because I belong to an older generation but I have absolutely no interest in pitting my wits against what probably turns out to be some 12 year old geek or chav giggling with his mates. I respect the wishes of those who do like to play on line but nothing puts me off buying a game quicker than seeing the single player experience (if it exists at all) is a shadow of the multiplayer element. I want my gaming solo and to amuse me at my own pace, not feel the need to partake in some gathering of strangers.

So we need more single player games which offer every bit as much in the way of gameplay as the multiplayer ones.
Click to expand...

I like a bit of both.
Most of my games are bought for the singleplayer side of things that usually offer a wider range of enemies & wow factor that they can offer without the need for fairness & balancing.
Online even tho fun is much more repetitive in nature depending on the game because there is no story to play through.
 
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