PC Gaming: Doomed to shrink?

T

The Abominable Snowman

Member
Is PC gaming doomed to continue this downslide for some time yet? It's basically being driven by MMORPGs, FPS', Strategy games, and the novel title like "Sims" every now and then. 2 or 3 MMORPGs have already been announced for the Xenon and there has been 2 to 3 MMORPGs for the PS2 this generation, making me consider the possibility for MMORPGs to transition from being a PC only thing. FPS' have already made that transition, with breakthroughs like Halo dominating the console arena.

Aside F.E.A.R. and maybe Age of Empires 3, I cannot think of one major PC title hitting this year that won't be offered on consoles, and I'm not even sure if F.E.A.R. (Or AOE3 for that matter) won't appear on Xenon or Xbox. With the role of Online play becoming more robust in consoles, and consoles' abilities improve, the PC might not be seen as the stalwart center for online gaming in the near future, although it'll most likely be free or cheaper than the next generation Xbox live.

The way the Xenon and PS3 are shaping up, PCs won't be able to really match them for some time. There was a bit of a lead when the Xbox came out over PCs. Consoles have the advantage of having games specially tailored for the system as well, perhaps giving them an edge on power over the PC, where devs have to try to hit as many platforms as possible, and may not be able to use all features of a specific card. Standardized hardware is a good thing.

What do you think?
 
It will probably stagnate for a few more years but the future is hard to predict.

The one side of PC gaming caters to the more well educated, high income and largely male demographic. That's where most of the sales of the god games like Civilization, GalCiv, Sim City go. That is probably not going to grow very much, but the community for these games are absolutely awesome and they will continue to generate gold for the publishers of these games.


That's the demo that I care about because I love the civ, sim city games. It's a bit sad that these games don't get as much respect as they used to but I think growing the industry means the core pc gaming community will shrink. That's just how the math is.
 
Agreed Snowman. Xbox made the first blow with moving ONLINE enabled FPSes to consoles, Xenon will finish with MMORPGs.

Thank you Microsoft for creating a gaming platform known as Windows and destroying it 10 years later.
 
The internet has killed PC Gaming more than consoles have.


You geniuses aren't the first to articulate this. Its been done to death since the 16-bit days. Thats over a decade of "Oh noes. PC Gaming is over!"



You know when PC Gaming will die? When the PC does. Until then ...


(AOE3 already looks as good as any of the Xenon screenshots I have seen. Even Call of Duty 2 looks comparable.. Both of those titles are slated for this year. So much for the "gap")
 
I been wondering this as well lately. As I page thru Pc gamer and CGW I dont seen one darn thing that looks interesting. Mass attention on FPS is about it.
 
PC Gaming isn't going anywhere even if it reverts back to the much older gamer market of the mid 80's. When blizzard makes Starcraft 2 all will be fixed. Strategy games, Mouse dependent RPG's and Adventure games are the reasons why PC gaming will be around 20 years from now. That is unless someone makes a console that is pretty much a cheap PC that can play both PC and console games with a mouse and mini-keyboard. And when I saw someone I mean one of the top 3 console manufacturers.
 
ToxicAdam said:
The internet has killed PC Gaming more than consoles have.


You geniuses aren't the first to articulate this. Its been done to death since the 16-bit days. Thats over a decade of "Oh noes. PC Gaming is over!"



You know when PC Gaming will die? When the PC does. Until then ...


(AOE3 already looks as good as any of the Xenon screenshots I have seen. Even Call of Duty 2 looks comparable.. Both of those titles are slated for this year. So much for the "gap")
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PC gaming will die when consoles start shipping with keyboards and mice standard... or at least the successful ones.
 
I wish mags would actually show these mouse dependent RPG's and Adventure games, because I not seeing them at all. I looking for good old adventure ala The Longest Journey for quite some time.
 
PC gaming market has been declining for quite some time now and even more so with this generation of consoles. Its a dying breed fella's..just face it. This is why i held off dishing out 600 bills for a 800XT PE when those first came out..who in their right mind would dish that much cash out for a video card when there are only 3-4 games that actually even tax a 9800 Pro?

There just isnt a market for this stuff anymore.....face the facts people, look this isnt the first time i seen someone ask this or read an article on a gaming site.
 
Moegames said:
PC gaming market has been declining for quite some time now and even more so with this generation of consoles. Its a dying breed fella's..just face it. This is why i held off dishing out 600 bills for a 800XT PE when those first came out..who in their right mind would dish that much cash out for a video card when there are only 3-4 games that actually even tax a 9800 Pro?

There just isnt a market for this stuff anymore.....face the facts people, look this isnt the first time i seen someone ask this or read an article on a gaming site.
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PC gaming has been a "dying breed" for how many years now? And how is there no market for "this stuff" when it's obvious that present video cards are selling and new ones continue to come out at a steady rate? Obviously somebody is buying them.

I suspect there will always be a market for the kind of high-end gaming PC represent. For those that insist on being on the bleeding edge of technology (and believe me, there's more than you think), it's really the only option. As consoles continue to grow out of the infant stages of multiplayer gaming, the PC market will continue to decrease, but I don't see it dying anytime soon...
 
We're forgetting the community aspects of PC gaming that can never be present on a console. When are user-made mods going to be the norm on consoles? Probably never, since any major console manufacturer has a business model that gives them a great deal control over what happens on that platform. Counterstrike wouldn't have happened if not for user support on the PC; had Half-Life been a console-only release, the game wouldn't have seen the light of day. Now it is probably the most popular online FPS.

Did the presence of Morrowind on the Xbox kill the community for that game on the PC? Not at all. The mod community is strong with that game, providing players with masses of content that Xbox users can only dream of.

This is all to say nothing of all the non-commercial PC games that one can download off the internet. If anything, these types of games have become more popular, thanks to the advent of widespread broadband access.

I guess what's really shrinking is the commercial market. Maybe if the gaming press would stop fellating every FPS as much as they do, we could get over this hump. But some of you guys are right about one thing. There is little reason, if any, to dish out the cash for any new expensive gaming hardware. It's completely understandable that more PC users are unwilling to pay up a grand for a handful of releases.
 
ToxicAdam said:
The internet has killed PC Gaming more than consoles have.


You geniuses aren't the first to articulate this. Its been done to death since the 16-bit days. Thats over a decade of "Oh noes. PC Gaming is over!"



You know when PC Gaming will die? When the PC does. Until then ...


(AOE3 already looks as good as any of the Xenon screenshots I have seen. Even Call of Duty 2 looks comparable.. Both of those titles are slated for this year. So much for the "gap")
Click to expand...
You need to get laid, bigtime.
 
every damn year, we hear the same arguments.

As long as you have popular twitch sensitive games like counter-strike and UT 2004, the PC will live.

As long as there's super sequels to giant franchises (like Starcraft, Diablo, Quake, Half-life, AOE, City of Heroes, etc.) in the works, the PC will live.

As long as the market is royalty-free and quality titles still sell respectable quantities, the PC will live.

As long as some of the best and most deep RPG's, RTS, MMORPG's, Sim, and FPS games remain on the PC, the PC will live.

As long as there's at least one PC in nearly every damn household already, THE PC GAMING WILL THRIVE!!!!
 
It's too risky to put out an original, low selling PC game these days, hence shrinkage.

The quirky, 1man stuff is either free or Flash. That's the huge market but we don't track those types of games (card games, N (Ninja) etc)
 
I admitted that pc gaming industry is shrinking but I'm surprised people are already writing its obituary.

The Sims, Civilization and the 4x type games, Sim City all sell in the millions worldwide, all are made possible because of the PC, the internet, the mouse and keyboard as well as the more general number crunching nature of a PC cpu, which allows for games like algorithm intensive but graphically passable games like the Civilization franchise to work on the PC.

You don't need 4 graphic pipes and heavy duty graphics rendering to run a game like Civ, but the game needs a fast processor. On a console, most of the dedicated graphics capabilities and relative weak and or crippled CPUs would make a Civ game on consoles much tamer by comparison. That's not even getting into the large save files generated by these games, the free and easy modding allowed on a PC and the keyboard and mouse interface which blows away any controller (unless its a keyboard and a mouse) for these types of games.

PC gaming is here to stay for a long time and the games are getting better as the market has grown more competitive with more developers carving a shrinking pie and innovation being pushed on all sorts of games.
 
All the consoles need is a controller that is as good or beats keyboard/mouse.

I wish we had controllers that used your brain waves as input.

No more cramped hands.
 
One more thing when looking at sales and marketshare - PC is fighting 3 competitors.
That's PC vs Xbox vs PS2 vs GameCube. That's a really tough fight. If you compare PC sales with only one console sales it still looks bad but not demising (as in demise).
The Three Consoles rule when it comes to sales, no denying here.

But HL2 somehow managed to move over 2M copies, that was one of the brightests moments in 2004 PC gaming!

Still I think Xenon and PS3 will finally end it. Let's see how many PC exclusive (meaning not for Xbox2/PC) titles are announced this E3. I'm betting 0 +/- 1.

And I agree with people saying there are just no games taking advantages of their 6800/ X800 cards. (Almost) everything is crappy console ports that could run well on GF3s. Nothing really shines graphically like it should and could.
 
Borys said:
And I agree with people saying there are just no games taking advantages of their 6800/ X800 cards. (Almost) everything is crappy console ports that could run well on GF3s. Nothing really shines graphically like it should and could.
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The problem with that is related to the fact that PC games are usually developed for the lowest common denominator. So you never see games that will take advanatage of a 6800 card until about a year or two later.
 
I think most big name PC games will also be console releases, games like civ4 etc.. . PC gaming will always exist but I think it will continue to shrink.

We are seeing this currently with games like Doom 3, Morrowind, KOTOR, KOTOR 2 Ghost Recon ETCÂ….

Plus Jade Empire being console only.
 
Well, it will probably go down unfortunately, or be even more dramatically reduced. I'm an avid pc fan, but I've pretty much ruled out all chances of buying a next-gen graphics card when you can purchase 2 or perhaps even all 3 next gen consoles for the same price. Seriously, if I'm bailing out.. the PC industry is in serious trouble. Now if my financial situation were to change...
 
I see this tendency among posters to say things like "As long as Game X is still coming to PC, it's not dead". Well, what happens once Game X comes out, sells 15,000 copies, and the developer loses his shirt? Nothing, that's what. That's why PC gaming's dying, bro.
 
Every dawn of generation and the start of the hype of new systems its the same story.

As far as PC keep being the more versatile system and licenses still working on consoles, PC gaming is not going anywhere. Most startup studios need PC to start working because it´s cheaper to start a PC game than a console one. Then the is the mod community and "free" online gaming without any pay por month service. Of course, the real money for almost everyone is in consoles (quit few studios that are still able to get huge benefits of PC gaming), but PC is a very extended platform and an demand of games for it will always exist (maybe MS will try to "fuse" both platforms in the future).

What will be more and more odd is to see blockbusters going exclusive to PC. But I have serious doubts about the "end" of PC gaming, I have seen predictions like that since Playstation. Of couse, like the tale of the wolf and the liar, this could become true eventually. But I don´t believe it will happen IMO.
 
fennec fox said:
I see this tendency among posters to say things like "As long as Game X is still coming to PC, it's not dead". Well, what happens once Game X comes out, sells 15,000 copies, and the developer loses his shirt? Nothing, that's what. That's why PC gaming's dying, bro.
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I know this probalby wasn't directed at my personally, but if you think Diablo 3 and Spore are two games that will sell 15,000 copies, then you are mistaken. It's actually is dead when people can not longer say "If X games comes out...". Until then some developers will still make money off the platform.

Niche titles have never done well on PCs and I agree that titles like that will definately gravitate toward consoles. PC games has been dying for years now. Wake me up when it's actually DEAD. I swear, this comes up ever single year and the PC still gets awesome games.
 
Raytow said:
Bioware upcoming Dragon Age is for PC only, afaik, so for me pc gaming is hardly dying.
Click to expand...


Last I herd a month+ ago on the Bioware forums is they donÂ’t have a publisher yet, so yes itÂ’s being developed for PC but if MS (for example) publish it like they are JE I smell XB2.
 
VictimOfGrief said:
Guess what.... Consoles games are MADE on PC's. I highly doubt PC gaming is dead.
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And that proves PC gaming isn't dying because?

PC gaming is too damn expensive. It's becoming less and less appealing as time goes on. I only need my PC for WoW now. That could change eventually as well.
 
to the people that cry "oh people say this every generation" go to your local game store.

your pc section is shrinking. new gamestop stores only carry the top 25 pc titles and new games are so few and far between. The xbox is showing pc developers that they can make a shit ton more money on consoles than they could ever on PC. Doom3 will be a perfect illustration of that, i can bet you that the xbox version will double the sales of the pc one. Even though you cant really kill the pc off, everyone owns a pc, companies will find its alot more viable to make games for consoles. Consoles have less pirating and a bigger market.

PC gaming is dying, for serious this time.
 
sp0rsk said:
PC gaming is dying, for serious this time.
Click to expand...



It's wierd to measure the success of something by the shelf space of a mall store. I remember when Saturn had three sections, what the fuck did it mean?

PC Gaming has always been cyclical since its peak in the late 80's.


If you want to know what the "bottom" looks like ... look at the selection and sales for the Mac. Once the PC reaches THAT level... then it is dead.
 
Dr_Cogent said:
And that proves PC gaming isn't dying because?

PC gaming is too damn expensive. It's becoming less and less appealing as time goes on. I only need my PC for WoW now. That could change eventually as well.
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no no, point being is, hardware on computers changes faster than consoles and allows for more "interesting" things to be incorporated into the games. Be it graphics, environments etc.

Point being is the consoles always have to "scale" to what the PC has. Not the other way around.

I mean a more compelling argument would be that Consoles killed the arcade industry, but can Consoles kill the PC gaming industry?

Doubtful.
 
VictimOfGrief said:
no no, point being is, hardware on computers changes faster than consoles and allows for more "interesting" things to be incorporated into the games. Be it graphics, environments etc.

Point being is the consoles always have to "scale" to what the PC has. Not the other way around.

I mean a more compelling argument would be that Consoles killed the arcade industry, but can Consoles kill the PC gaming industry?

Doubtful.
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Kill it? Nah. Wound it irrevocably? You bet your ass.

I think PC gaming is going to stick around, but it will never again be as large as it once was and will likely continue to shrink. PC gaming needs to see a fairly large revolution in terms of hardware versus price in order to gain in popularity again. As it is, cutting edge video cards and hardware just seems to get more and more expensive. They're talking about making expansion cards devoted just to physics, for Jebus' sake. Who can blame people for going with a $150 console instead and living with the few sacrifices.
 
VictimOfGrief said:
Point being is the consoles always have to "scale" to what the PC has. Not the other way around.

I mean a more compelling argument would be that Consoles killed the arcade industry, but can Consoles kill the PC gaming industry?

Doubtful.
Click to expand...

Well, the way I see it is there is always a jump in graphics quality. Once the next gen consoles come out, they look better - IMO - than most, if not all, PC games. This is related to my "least common denominator" argument I presented above. So then, as time goes on the PC eclipses the consoles and it stays that way for a few years and then once again the new consoles come out. Basically, it jumps back and forth IMO.

The only REAL advantage I see the PC having is it's input devices. If someone could mimic the power of KB/M, then the PC would be dead as we know it. Until that day (if it ever comes) we will still see PCs as a viable source of gaming entertainment - IMO of course. No one can prove any of this shit as fact anyway.
 
the only pc game I am looking forward to is Battlefield 2. I seriously wasted too much money on upgrading my PC and I will NEVER EVER do the same again.

Xbox 2 and PS3 for me.
 
Doom_Bringer said:
the only pc game I am looking forward to is Battlefield 2. I seriously wasted too much money on upgrading my PC and I will NEVER EVER do the same again.

Xbox 2 and PS3 for me.
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I hear a variant of this all the time from so many people. This is why PC gaming is dying.

I too am looking forward to BF2. But the ratio of games I look forward to on the PC compared to the consoles is staggering.
 
sp0rsk said:
to the people that cry "oh people say this every generation" go to your local game store.

your pc section is shrinking. new gamestop stores only carry the top 25 pc titles and new games are so few and far between .
Click to expand...

the only difference from some years ago is then there would be a section of the top 25 PC games and then another 10 feet taken up by shovelware, crappy budget titles and other garbage. the games that were always best on PC (fps, rts, simulation) still are and are still what sells.
 
Yeah, thinking about it, I have wasted too much money on upgrading my PC's hardware. PC gaming is simply too expensive and full of hassles. Dealing with games not running on your system due to a hardware conflict can be extremely frustrating the 148436th time it occurs. With recent bullshit like Steam, I'm increasingly turned off by PC gaming.
 
ElyrionX said:
Yeah, thinking about it, I have wasted too much money on upgrading my PC's hardware. PC gaming is simply too expensive and full of hassles. Dealing with games not running on your system due to a hardware conflict can be extremely frustrating the 148436th time it occurs. With recent bullshit like Steam, I'm increasingly turned off by PC gaming.
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OMG, if Steam is the future of PC gaming, count me out. Steam fucking sucks.
 
Hmm.. a dwindling PC gaming market along with a growing console presence can only mean good things for Apple.
 
I don't think pc gaming is dying, but I don't think anyone would argue that it is as good as it was 10 years ago. There is just no variety anymore on the pc. People want the same shit over and over (look how many want a starcraft 2). If pc gaming truely were dying, it is the fault of the pc gamers for not being more open minded.
 
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