i think you're wrong. steam by itself might not be larger than the console market (though it has more active accounts) but steam + lol + wargaming.net + blizzard sure as hell are, and there's lots more platforms than just those big ones.
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Computer gaming tends to get the short shrift from gaming journalism
- Thread starter DocSeuss
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i think you're wrong. steam by itself might not be larger than the console market (though it has more active accounts) but steam + lol + wargaming.net + blizzard sure as hell are, and there's lots more platforms than just those big ones.
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
You're either uninformed or have hilariously narrow taste
I'm sorry, but I'm confused. I'm not the one distorting data to suit an agenda, because I don't have one. I've been a PC gamer since the 90s, and have been building my own custom PCs since then.
I thought we were discussing sales data between consoles and PC using BF4 as a metric since we don't have a means to measure retail vs digital. Just because several different consoles exist, doesn't mean they are not the same for the sake of this particular discussion.
Regardless of whether someone chooses the blue box or the green box, they are still choosing to buy a console over building a PC.
PCs alienate the mainstream consumer for several reasons. All of the reasons mentioned as PROs for PC gaming by some of you are actually CONs to many people. The cost of entry, the actual building of the PC, the yearly/biyearly hardware upgrades, the number of different settings, platforms, applications, mods are all so much more intimidating than a device that is just plug and play. Even the multiple games and genres available are not attractive to the average person.
The Xbox 360 can play every single Call of Duty from the original to Ghosts, but a PC built to play Call of Duty 1 or 2 cannot run most of the games released within the same generation. This is something that we are willing to embrace as PC gamers, because it means we are on the cutting edge. That is not something that matters to the mainstream.
Battlefield existed as a PC exclusive franchise long before it ever came to consoles. League of Legends pulls some incredible numbers, but it is by far the exception, and not the rule for PC games.
Just to give insight into my thinking:
1: Account numbers don't always == $$ spent (though of course Xbox Live and PSN can charge for access, but that's another matter)
2: Played doesn't mean money spent.
3: All the data (aside from GfK, which someone just linked to me and so I'll need to read more closely) argues the opposite when you take them in aggregate. Perhaps EA in particular is seeing the trend go the other direction, but broadly companies like PwC say otherwise.
Totally fine. Whenever you have the time, hit me up. I'm happy to hear from you.
Technosteve
Banned
I think the conversation is less about PC game coverage but more about the death of Mid tier games, and games coverage of mid tier games.
i think you're wrong. steam by itself might not be larger than the console market (though it has more active accounts) but steam + lol + wargaming.net + blizzard sure as hell are, and there's lots more platforms than just those big ones.
Someone else showed me this slide earlier. I need to dig into the data before I'll accept it as true (I'm constantly checking to see how these people get their data because it's easy to skew).
Dota, WoW, WoT, CS:GO, Lineage 2, etc etc all would like to have a worth with you, all of their numbers demolish console numbers.
i think you're wrong. steam by itself might not be larger than the console market (though it has more active accounts) but steam + lol + wargaming.net + blizzard sure as hell are, and there's lots more platforms than just those big ones.
How accurate is this chart? Interesting to see PS3 on top, but not all that surprising considering the superior software to the other two consoles.
Either way though, the three combined are at 37% to PC's 38% so they're pretty neck and neck.
Thanks!
Look, if I could start a general gaming website, I'd do it. I'm actually minoring in journalism right now, focusing on magazines/website stuff. Too bad I don't have the millions of dollars that went into a site like Polygon to get started or anything. I'd love to have a site that's... way less superficial when it comes to games criticism. Most of the "games criticism" I come across is just nicely written, albeit shallow stuff too. Good games writing understands design, balancing that with an enthusiasm for games. I feel like very few games writers can balance both.
I believe you're wrong. As someone else pointed out, Klepek mostly covers PC games now. Before, he wouldn't really pay attention to them. What changed? His personal interest, not hits.
Eurogamer's one of the biggest game sites on the planet, and they cover PC games a lot. According to the hitcounter, my freelanced article on "how to build a PC" for a certain website has waaaay more hits than most of their random Pokemon articles.
People will read what's interesting.
What we have are just journalists who aren't that interested in computer games. That's where the real problem lies.
Thanks, yeah, I'm in the US.
I really think all it is... is just personal interest, not sales. Eurogamer is great. It covers things with the kind of balance I'd like to see all sites follow. PC, console, tech stuff... they've got it all. USGamer is nowhere near as good, in part because they're way more console/Japan focused.
See, when people say "it's the market; PC games are niche," I don't think that's true. Klepek covers what interests him. I've never met a journalist that hasn't. Before he was interested in PC games, he didn't. Now that he's given it a shot, he actually likes it quite a bit.
It's not about sales.
It's about personal interest.
We're seeing developers who did multiplatform stuff move to be PC exclusive. Orcs Must Die 2, for instance, is absolutely incredible. It's also single platform, where the previous game had come out on the Xbox as well. Why? 'cause the PC version did so much better, it was pretty much a waste of time to put OMD2 on a console.
I personally think games like OMD2 and Shadow Warrior destroy most console exclusives in terms of quality. Halo-quality's kinda hard to do. Even the creators of Halo had a hard time following it up. But we have had stuff like Starcraft 2, which sells Halo number of units...
Yup, it's a great article, and I think it demonstrates how gaming journalists just aren't that interested in playing PC games in the first place. It's them, and their personal tastes, going "nah, this isn't my jam."
Journalists do it too... they seem to think of things in terms of "consoles" and "PC." The end.
I missed your post, sorry! Dragon Commander was this game full of great ideas, cool visuals, and a ton of content. It's smart and funny. Is it the best-designed, most polished game in existence? Nah... but it's way more interesting than most games on the market.
For all their whining about more original games, a lot of writers I read seem hellbent on ignoring the most inventive, interesting segment of games.
I mean, if I were regularly employed as a journalist, I'd think that part of my job would be to pay attention to emerging trends. What's upcoming, what's interesting, where is the audience going... and y'know what? The best place to do this has always been the PC. Online multiplayer? PC. MMOs? PC. Systemic design? PC. Streaming? PC. It always happens first on the PC. Gradually, PC mechanics simply supplant console mechanics. So me, I'd be constantly watching the PC, so I could get an idea of where the future is going. Most people just... "meh, I enjoy playing games on consoles and I want to talk about how I like them also here's a picture of some Disney Princesses as popular video game characters."
Ooooh, I got you. You're absolutely right. All these studio deaths this past generation? Almost entirely due to consoles. THQ's collapse, for instance, happened because of choices they made regarding console games. Bethesda, on the flip side, has done amazingly well for themselves by targeting the kind of games that appeal strongly to PC users. We just get way more diversity in PCs, supporting games that can never do well on consoles.
An example I had was Orcs Must Die. First game, Xbox and PC. Next game? PC only. No real reason for them to post on consoles.
Earlier, iirc, you said that PC gaming was due to diminish.
What I'm seeing says this isn't the case, and PC gaming has been on a continual incline. This is expected to continue for the forseeable future. There's more stuff on this, but like I said earlier, I have a ton of projects due this week, which limits my ability to go digging for it.
A lot of people, declaring that the personal computer is dying, do so based on faulty intel. For one thing, most people have good computers, so their money is spent on software, not hardware. The explosive growth of tablets is because most people don't have tablets--drawing a conclusion that tablets are replacing PCs is a bit silly. We've got a bunch of data misinterpretation.
Stuff off the top of my head: intel and nvidia have talked about this, various publishers mention PC revenue growth, that neat ars article about the games people own/buy, etc.
I want you to stop for a minute and think.
Is this article about trends?
Yes.
Would an article about trends speak in generalizations? Of course. That is how people talk about trends. It's implicit within any discussion of a trend that we're going to talk within generalizations. There are plenty of great people out there! But on the WHOLE... well, that's what this thread is about.
What?
1) This data is from when the PS3's price drop was driving sales, and they were crapping out a TON of low-quality games.
2) Sony regularly loses the average metascore comparisons to Nintendo and Microsoft, especially Microsoft
3) This was when Microsoft wasn't releasing that many exclusives.
4) As someone with a pretty good background in game design, I think Sony's products overall are pretty terrible, so I find your assertion laughable at best.
I'm confused.
What you're responding to me with is nothing to do with the point I'm actually making.
I'm saying that while the PC is the most popular with the mainstream consumer by far (due to free-to-play games such as League of Legends) these mainstream consumers have no interest in reading the specialist press.
The amount of PC gamers who play on high-end rigs and would read this journalism are pretty small in comparison.
Well I agree with ya OP. Sadly though I don't see it changing anytime soon and it is one of the reason us PC gamers have to shout from the rooftops every time time there is a great game out. I know i do my share plugging Crusader Kings 2 all the time. Anyway your OP has made me add Shadow Warrior to my list now. Dragon Commander was already on it and will be among the first games I buy when I get my new PC hopefully in a few months.
Sentenza
Gold Member
But I don't think PC gamers, even in those specific categories you are pointing, are intrinsically disinterested in press coverage.
It is most likely a case of them being pushed away over time: "Why I should read these gaming sites that talk just about things I hardly give a damn about?"
As someone who's always been a PC gamer first and foremost and purchased several consoles over the years just as an afterthought, I could tell you that I never completely severed myself away from press coverage of games, but I surely stopped caring about a lot of these sites a long time ago.
I'm used to browse them knowing far too well what's being pointed in the OP: that they will always be talking mostly about the massive console heavy hitters games and that most of their PC gaming coverage will be lacking, if not downright incompetent.
"Oh, here's an extensive retrospective about the history of RPGs and the most influential ones over the years. Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest are SO COOL. P.S. We don't have the faintest clue about what the hell Ultima VII is supposed to be".
Start a Tumblr or WP blog. If you're good enough, people will start linking, and the virtuous cycle begins.
I'm basing my info on PwC estimates, which I've been using for quite a while. This DFC stuff is new to me, so I'll need to look into it. But I'm glad I joined this thread because I wasn't aware of it earlier. So thank you!
Some anecdotal evidence does exist but I feel a lot of people take that information and extrapolate saying, "if publisher A says this is happening, then it must be true for everyone." That's not always true.
You said:
You were incorrect. I explained that the PC audience is large--if anything, it's larger than the console markets (in fact, as a single platform, it is larger than the PS3, Wii, and 360 combined, according to one of the slides posted in this thread) combined.
Now, granted, you keep talking about "high-end rigs," as if that even matters, and it doesn't. Most people can play most PC games right now. High-end rigs simply aren't needed. I can play The Witcher 2 on a medium rig. I can run anything from Valve or Blizzard on something that might as well be powered by a rutabaga.
Simply put: the PC gaming market is HUGE, and includes people from ALL OVER. Most of the games people talk about, even stuff I mentioned in the thread, like Tropico, can run on most computers. But people don't talk about them. Your claim that the market is small is, simply put, not grounded in reality.
As the discussion evolved, what we're seeing isn't that it has to do with "number of people playing games," it has to do, simply, with what these guys want to write about. Right now, the focus is on console games. The people who want to write about PC games go on to actually go MAKE GAMES, by and large. So we have a lot higher turnover there.
What we need to see are either proactive efforts to actually try to play PC games ("hey, what's this Shadow Warrior thing?") or to hire people who will write about PC games.
Most of my friends on Steam are people who found me through my blogging on Kotaku. With some regularity, I have people tell me that sites ranging from Kotaku to RPS to Polygon should hire me. Sometimes, it's completely out of the blue, just some dude tweeting me and saying "hey, haven't seen your work in a while; have you been hired to work at [various sites] yet?" I have a Tumblr now. I had a writer reach out to me--someone who's been published in The New Yorker--and mentor me for a while. I've had people who run two very large gaming sites reach out to me and say "hey, we'd like you to do some work for us at some point," though getting in touch has been hard. I'm currently working on a paid piece right now. But it's not regular, and a lot of these guys limit what I can talk about, because they're not personally interested in computer games.
Problem is, I'm very, very sick. Like... "you should be dead, said the doctor" sick. I've been dealing as best I can, but it SEVERELY limits me, as does the fact that I live in the middle of the nation. Most journalists do not want to work with someone who lives in the Midwest and can only really communicate via web, unless they've already HAD a job/are already a known factor. The health thing limits the living things limits the job opportunity thing limits the ability to become more of a known quantity than I am. I'm in absolutely awful pain. I can DO writing, but because it doesn't pay with any regularity, I have to do another job... and it limits my frequency of writing. I'm sicker today than I've been in a while, which is why I'm occasionally incoherent.
So... I keep doing what I'm doing, but it's not as much as I'd like to. It's why I'd be happy to find someone willing to pay even a terrible wage, like, say, $8-10k a year. That's below the poverty line, but I currently make worse.
It's my goal to do useful threads. I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Well, I was talking more about stuff like this and quarterly reports. iirc, EA (might have been Take2 or Ubi? I do not remember well right now) had quarterly reports with the PC as their biggest individual platform. Not exactly anecdotes. I think ATVI was definitely ahead in the console department, though... not sure if that counted Blizzard.
JesseEwiak
Member
i think you're wrong. steam by itself might not be larger than the console market (though it has more active accounts) but steam + lol + wargaming.net + blizzard sure as hell are, and there's lots more platforms than just those big ones.
Part of that $20 billion (probably a larger part than you want to believe) is microtransanctions in Farmville or other FTP games, sales of supercasual games like The Sims, and PC versions of AAA games.
Marauder Shields
Member
I don't have a problem with it tbh. Games media coverage on consoles is more important due to the large casual nature of console gaming. People need informing. If you're playing games on PC you're probably a bit more knowlegable to begin with, given the nature of the endeavour.
Your beef now isn't with me, it's with the market research firms. We journalists only get a fraction of the data they make available to publishers, sadly. I can only work with what I have, which is aggregated console vs. PC.
And to your point, I wrote about LoL taking subscribers away from WoW back in March.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303546204579440010869082646?mod=ST1
A substantial part of the consoles are yearly sports game and dancing games, so if you start detemrining which part of each pie 'counts' then everything is fair game.
I've poured more time and money into both League and WoW than I care to the count, the latter of which I just quit recently and was with since the beta. I have a retail copy of Lineage 2 somewhere in my closet from when it released in the US. My Steam account is from May 8th, 2004. I'm pretty sure I registered it for Counter-Strike and Condition Zero. I used a friend's for a long time before I purchased my own copy.
I'm aware with how successful certain games are on PC, and I have played some of them for years.
I'm fairly certain League is still leagues ahead of most of the games you listed in terms of user base, but these are also games that thrive in markets where consoles don't. Namely Asia.
Alright then, I'll put it in simpler terms.
The PC audience, of course it's huge. Who doesn't own a PC?
But the proportion of people who play games on PC (loads) compared to the amount of people who may be actually interested in reading the specialist press is tiny.
And the 90% of the audience who do play games on PC, again, don't play Battlefield 4 or Titanfall or 'big AAA release here', regardless of whether or not their computers can actually run it,
They play The Sims, Minecraft and League.
JesseEwiak
Member
Absolutely. But, I'm not claiming that there's a conspiracy by gaming journalists to not cover PC games that are making all this money because the journalists are filthy casuals who know nothing about real gaming.
Exactly.
And I said that's irrelevant because it's really about what journalists want to write, not about whether or not people are casual. The Sims 4 articles still get plenty of hits, and it's not like a repost of a dorkly article gets that much. I've had random fanposts of mine get promoted to the front page and receive more hits than some paid journalists average.
It's literally as banal as "the people who write about games prefer console games, so they write about those games."
The Sims 4 is a game that is played by the hardcore as well as casual gamers though.
Let's be honest pal, we're never going to end up in jolly co-operation on this one.
We'll just cut it as an agree to disagree and leave it at that.
Well, yeah, when you literally mention "The Sims" and then move the goalposts, we won't.
Goal posts haven't moved man, it's just a game that has the interest of the mainstream and hardcore. Seriously.
Dude, you may be in a bad mood, but you ain't ten years old. Come on now.
I just feel like I should say that I think it is weird the argument went from "PC gaming isn't covered by the press because it is too niche." to "PC gaming isn't covered by the press because it is too mainstream"
Anyway I have to agree with DocSuess here that the main reason PC gaming doesn't get covered has nothing to do with hits and more to do with the people who work at these places not being interested in it.
Also all this sales talk makes me wish that PC game sales were easier to find. Mostly because I don't care which is bigger(PC or Console) anymore or which system sells more AAA games. I am more interested in seeing if PC gaming is able to support a vast array of niche genres/titles then I am in which big publisher is beating the others high score.
Anyway I have to agree with DocSuess here that the main reason PC gaming doesn't get covered has nothing to do with hits and more to do with the people who work at these places not being interested in it.
Also all this sales talk makes me wish that PC game sales were easier to find. Mostly because I don't care which is bigger(PC or Console) anymore or which system sells more AAA games. I am more interested in seeing if PC gaming is able to support a vast array of niche genres/titles then I am in which big publisher is beating the others high score.
You could use that logic against the smallest console-only Indies that get more coverage then even some AA PC titles.
OldAsUrSock
Banned
This post has too many wrongs.
With PC gaming in constant growth since the advent of Steam, and the rise of games like Minecraft, Day Z, Hearthstone, League of Legends, etc - it does seem like it deserves a bigger piece of the mindshare than it gets.
Mind you, I still don't see a reason to believe PC gaming is console gamings equal when it comes to mainstream appeal or revenue to publishers in core multiplatform games.
If I was a PC gamer only, I would not have been able to play most of my favorite games from last year.
Mind you, I still don't see a reason to believe PC gaming is console gamings equal when it comes to mainstream appeal or revenue to publishers in core multiplatform games.
If I was a PC gamer only, I would not have been able to play most of my favorite games from last year.
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
Hmmmm? Im curious what those were.
The best titles I played last year that weren't on PC were all WiiU exclusive.
Lactose_Intolerant
Member
Niche pc game will get a lot less clicks than the "next big thing" on console.
petran79
Banned
computer games, no matter the good or bad scores, usually required long and detailed reviews due to complexity and because they were harder to control and full of bugs.
you had to be a teen at least to understand what was going on, eg for the review of a flight simulator or strategy game.
due to their simplicity and arcade nature, console games on the other hand had reviews dominated by pictures and a simpler presentation since they targeted kids and early teens.
this of course didnt mean games werent complex there too, it is just that this nature was ignored for a long time. eg 2d and 3d fighters lingo and terms.
but with the demise of computer game magazines and older journalists, this has become less the case today.
the problem isnt about promotion but rather presentation.
you had to be a teen at least to understand what was going on, eg for the review of a flight simulator or strategy game.
due to their simplicity and arcade nature, console games on the other hand had reviews dominated by pictures and a simpler presentation since they targeted kids and early teens.
this of course didnt mean games werent complex there too, it is just that this nature was ignored for a long time. eg 2d and 3d fighters lingo and terms.
but with the demise of computer game magazines and older journalists, this has become less the case today.
the problem isnt about promotion but rather presentation.
Funfax: Kotaku just put up a poll asking what systems people play the most.
PC has 988 votes. Next-highest platform, the PS3, has 349. It's only after you add the PS3/PS4/X1/360 together that you outnumber the PC.
You said:
So, "90% of PC gamers play The Sims."
Okay. You did this in the context of arguing that this same 90% did not read these sites. You were mistaken; articles about The Sims 4 got a LOT of hits. Because this "90%," which, by the way, totally inaccurate figure, actually DOES read these sites. I proved ya wrong, and you just keep trying to change things so you win.
Because people were quickly disproven that gaming was "niche," they went to another explanation "they must not care." It's all about trying to shift the burden of responsibility away from the people who post, when this is demonstrably untrue.
Look at Kotaku, for instance:
Evan's personal interest in comics and African American culture leads him to write about that. Jason, lover of all things JRPG, has a weekly column on JRPGs and writes toooons of stuff about them whenever he can. Kirk loves No One Lives Forever, so he wrote several articles on it last year. Fahey's an MMO guy. Luke's big into computer games, especially Total War, so he writes about them. Tina really seems to like shooters, so she covers games like Titanfall and Evolve. Back when Kate Cox worked for Kotaku, she wrote about Mass Effect a great deal.
Journalists write about what interests them, and there is literally nothing wrong with this.
I personally would write way more about first person shooters than I would about metroidvanias, for instance, because I like the former, and don't like the latter. Nothing wrong with that bias.
However, what I think happens is A) a lot of people argue "oh, PC games are niche" without actually looking at it, and B) hire people who have interests and backgrounds similar to them. So what we have are people who don't see a need to fill the gap in their coverage regarding PC gaming, because their interests lead them to hiring a specific section of people.
I really think most of these guys won't get industry jobs, or if they do, it's minor stuff like community manager. The guys who've actually gone to work on video games are always the guys who focused on PC. So it's kinda silly that they're like "I want to get in," when they don't really have an interest in creating games themselves. For them, it's hopeless. Meanwhile, GameInformer's PC guy left last fall to go work on GalCiv3.
Make PC gaming your priority, and you're more likely to get a job in the industry. Don't, and, well, sucks to be you.
Even certain iOS games get way more coverage than a mid-range PC game.
As far as I can tell, this is because these same people play more on their iPhones than their PCs.
PC has 988 votes. Next-highest platform, the PS3, has 349. It's only after you add the PS3/PS4/X1/360 together that you outnumber the PC.
You said:
So, "90% of PC gamers play The Sims."
Okay. You did this in the context of arguing that this same 90% did not read these sites. You were mistaken; articles about The Sims 4 got a LOT of hits. Because this "90%," which, by the way, totally inaccurate figure, actually DOES read these sites. I proved ya wrong, and you just keep trying to change things so you win.
Because people were quickly disproven that gaming was "niche," they went to another explanation "they must not care." It's all about trying to shift the burden of responsibility away from the people who post, when this is demonstrably untrue.
Look at Kotaku, for instance:
Evan's personal interest in comics and African American culture leads him to write about that. Jason, lover of all things JRPG, has a weekly column on JRPGs and writes toooons of stuff about them whenever he can. Kirk loves No One Lives Forever, so he wrote several articles on it last year. Fahey's an MMO guy. Luke's big into computer games, especially Total War, so he writes about them. Tina really seems to like shooters, so she covers games like Titanfall and Evolve. Back when Kate Cox worked for Kotaku, she wrote about Mass Effect a great deal.
Journalists write about what interests them, and there is literally nothing wrong with this.
I personally would write way more about first person shooters than I would about metroidvanias, for instance, because I like the former, and don't like the latter. Nothing wrong with that bias.
However, what I think happens is A) a lot of people argue "oh, PC games are niche" without actually looking at it, and B) hire people who have interests and backgrounds similar to them. So what we have are people who don't see a need to fill the gap in their coverage regarding PC gaming, because their interests lead them to hiring a specific section of people.
I really think most of these guys won't get industry jobs, or if they do, it's minor stuff like community manager. The guys who've actually gone to work on video games are always the guys who focused on PC. So it's kinda silly that they're like "I want to get in," when they don't really have an interest in creating games themselves. For them, it's hopeless. Meanwhile, GameInformer's PC guy left last fall to go work on GalCiv3.
Make PC gaming your priority, and you're more likely to get a job in the industry. Don't, and, well, sucks to be you.
Even certain iOS games get way more coverage than a mid-range PC game.
As far as I can tell, this is because these same people play more on their iPhones than their PCs.
Well I see your point. I guess having this same argument every time in pretty much every thread about PC gaming has worn me down. Every time sales are brought up the thread becomes a huge case of deja vu. Opiate has mentioned the pattern a few times and now I see it as well. It always starts with a vague comment like "its because PC gaming is just a fraction of console gaming" then the arguments start and the goal posts get moved until we get to a very narrow definition of gaming where that assessment works.
ScepticMatt
Member
Some info - too lazy to source everything right now. Anyone that says PC audience is smaller is simply just wrong.
In addition to the comments about insular communities that do not generate page views, I think the situation applies equally to people who are even thinking about playing a certain type of game. I never read much about Tribes Ascend or Warframe before trying them because there was no risk. You don't spend any money on them until you've concluded that you will continue to play them.
As for the lack of coverage for something like the reissue of SS2 - people were playing that on Windows XP and Windows 7 at 1080p with texture mods years before it was released on Steam. Sometimes you have to strike while the iron is still hot, which tends to be sooner than thirteen years. They should have gotten the rights sorted out six years earlier in the lead up to BioShock.
As for the lack of coverage for something like the reissue of SS2 - people were playing that on Windows XP and Windows 7 at 1080p with texture mods years before it was released on Steam. Sometimes you have to strike while the iron is still hot, which tends to be sooner than thirteen years. They should have gotten the rights sorted out six years earlier in the lead up to BioShock.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
Are we not also seeing residual fallout from the dark ages PC went thru about a decade ago? Devs fleeing to consoles to make "neither fish nor foul" games, piracy getting moneymen legit shook, "only MMOs can make money on it", etc, that era.
It's rather obvious from the numbers posted above that there's been some overlooking of PC's resurgance over this time; you'd think there'd be more jumping on it like RPS or GB after sensing an underfilled niche. But then again, perhaps it's another facet of games media as we know it becoming something unnecessary for it to happen this long...
It's rather obvious from the numbers posted above that there's been some overlooking of PC's resurgance over this time; you'd think there'd be more jumping on it like RPS or GB after sensing an underfilled niche. But then again, perhaps it's another facet of games media as we know it becoming something unnecessary for it to happen this long...
Yeah and i saw a bear ride a bicycle one time, that does not mean that every bear on earth can do the same.
So because Klepek decided to focus on a few PC games, it means the entire way gaming websites, and all around every entertainment, hits focused websites has changed?
Tell me, when IGN, Gamespot, Gametrailers and every other major site puts half as much focus on PC games as console games.
What "duders" at Giant Bomb decide to write about and which games they decide to let Drew and Vinny play does not change the the way capitalism works.
Nice OP. Agree, but surprised sites don't adapt. Maybe that is partly why sites like RPS are healthy, because they are a limited resource for a hungry audience? And surely a few mainstream site could attract new hits by posting relatively simple articles which other sites ignore?
But maybe it's just too easy to pad out your site with aggregated shit that doesn't take much thought?
But maybe it's just too easy to pad out your site with aggregated shit that doesn't take much thought?
old manatee
Banned
Shadow Warrior was tits.
Freshmaker
I am Korean.
Downside to competing in an arena with a high signal to noise ratio.
Jesus fucking wept.
It's not even worth trying to have a reasonable discussion with you man. This is how a kid talks, not a fully grown adult. I feel awful for your missus / fella if this is how you treat anything you disagree with.
There's no point trying to talk on this if you're going to deliberately twist what I'm trying to say anyway.
Your entitled to the nerd rage all you want. But if their was an audience for this stuff - this stuff would exist. Simples.
I'm out of this anyway.
Journalists, such as Gamestop's Kevin Van Ord (and others) have pointed out that many of the most traffic gathering articles are about PC games/gaming.
That's the really weird thing about this attitude amongst mainstream journalists toward the PC as a gaming platform - the casual console gamer... they don't go online to Polygon or Kotaku to read about games. They buy whatever their TV's tell them is the hot new thing.
Who does go to sites like that? The most hardcore and dedicated gamers out there. Guess who, almost always, falls into that category? Your average PC gamer.
The problem is ignorance. Complete and utter ignorance about the PC gaming space from the vast majority of game journalists. Just look at this thread. Nevermind the 25+ charts of market research on display, or the fact that some of the most played games on the planet are PC exlcusives. Apparently PC gaming is "niche" and we all just play the Sims.
The ignorance is not only staggering, it is willful. All it takes is visiting twitch and youtube and seeing what the top streams are about. They aren't about any console game exclusive, that's for sure. In fact if it wasn't for twitch including filters for Xbox One and PS4 channels, you'd usually wouldn't see one until like two pages in. It's hilarious that the only filters twitch offers is PS4/Xbone and NOT PC, btw. There is a definite bias towards excluding the platform. It permeates everything. I once watched an entire IGN podcast about a remake of a PC game and not ONCE, did ANYONE mention the pedigree of the game. But of course they did spend like 20 minutes talking abotu some obscure Japanese game that sold like 25,000 copies, but hey, it was on consoles so must of been more important.
It's just so strange this attitude, many games journalists even go out of their way to say that not only do they not game on PC, but that they never would. GAME journalists who actively refuse to play one of the biggest gaming platforms around. That's like a movie critic who refuses to watch anything but thrillers. It's just such a myopic view to take for a professional in the biz, it boggles the mind. Imagine an IGN journalist that came out and said he wouldn't play any console games. People would be all like: what?? Can we fire this guy?
That's the really weird thing about this attitude amongst mainstream journalists toward the PC as a gaming platform - the casual console gamer... they don't go online to Polygon or Kotaku to read about games. They buy whatever their TV's tell them is the hot new thing.
Who does go to sites like that? The most hardcore and dedicated gamers out there. Guess who, almost always, falls into that category? Your average PC gamer.
The problem is ignorance. Complete and utter ignorance about the PC gaming space from the vast majority of game journalists. Just look at this thread. Nevermind the 25+ charts of market research on display, or the fact that some of the most played games on the planet are PC exlcusives. Apparently PC gaming is "niche" and we all just play the Sims.
The ignorance is not only staggering, it is willful. All it takes is visiting twitch and youtube and seeing what the top streams are about. They aren't about any console game exclusive, that's for sure. In fact if it wasn't for twitch including filters for Xbox One and PS4 channels, you'd usually wouldn't see one until like two pages in. It's hilarious that the only filters twitch offers is PS4/Xbone and NOT PC, btw. There is a definite bias towards excluding the platform. It permeates everything. I once watched an entire IGN podcast about a remake of a PC game and not ONCE, did ANYONE mention the pedigree of the game. But of course they did spend like 20 minutes talking abotu some obscure Japanese game that sold like 25,000 copies, but hey, it was on consoles so must of been more important.
It's just so strange this attitude, many games journalists even go out of their way to say that not only do they not game on PC, but that they never would. GAME journalists who actively refuse to play one of the biggest gaming platforms around. That's like a movie critic who refuses to watch anything but thrillers. It's just such a myopic view to take for a professional in the biz, it boggles the mind. Imagine an IGN journalist that came out and said he wouldn't play any console games. People would be all like: what?? Can we fire this guy?
Consoles are not all the fucking same!
Each one has different hardware, different versions of games and different infrastructure!
Lumping them in with each other is the very definition of cherry picking data!
The rest of your post has nothing to do with this topic (which is why do PC games not get a fair amount of media coverage for it's size and not why some consumers don't like PC gaming)
I think they are all the same to be honest dude.
Consoles have all of the same pro's that a PC doesn't have, and all of the con's from not being a PC.
And the Battlefield 4 figure as well, these are numbers from a console that has been out for around five months.
PC's are something that have been around for a very very long time.
A console can not run the same disc's or downloaded data that an other console can run (bar if it is BC), they do not connect to the same services, some require all games are installed (PS4, XB1) some do not (360, PS3, WiiU) ect.
They are not the same!
You also can not use the BF4 stats on current gen (PS4, XB1) consoles as a bragging point vs PC when you also have the last gen consoles (which have been out for ages and have very large install bases) floating around the same amount of players.
But they're all consoles. That's the one thing they have in common.
To me, making the difference is like saying it does count on a Desktop PC, but it should be considered separate if played on a Laptop. That doesn't really work. I can see you're not going to agree, so we'll just have to say it's a matter of perspective that honestly does not make a sliver of difference to my life, yours, or anybody else's.
And it's not a bragging point at all. It just shows that using that data to try and prove a point to each other (and why the fuck does it matter either way, they're just video games) is unreliable. One's been out five months, one's been out eight years, others have been out longer, it's not a reliable barometer of success at all and not worth using.
You can not treat different consoles the same way as you treat laptops and desktops.
PC Laptops are binary compatible with PC Desktops, different consoles are not (not unless someone comes up with something like the SEGA Nomad)!
Having a different form factor means nothing.