It's probably pc gamers own fault games are becoming console oriented.

[Atmos Duality]

I still see many people using the "All PC gamers are elitists" argument again like it means something.
I have news for you: IT ISN'T A VALID ARGUMENT BECAUSE IT'S A FALLACY.
It's nothing more than trolling at this point, so stop using it.

One reason we're (supposedly) seeing more developers turning to console's is because it's a little bit harder to pirate a Console CD than a PC. You have to actually physically steal it, which is a bit harder to do than just illegally downloading it.

Actually, even a cursory search on the topic proves that to be incorrect; you don't need the CD/DVD, you just need the data on the disc, and that can be turned into a file which can be illegally distributed online.

The main deterrent in console piracy is that you usually have to physically modify your unit, which actually involves some risk of loss (besides the usual legal issues).

*On Topic*
There is a whole slew of reasons PC gaming has been waning, but the main one involves market control. Consoles are uniform in design, and proprietary products.
To use the obvious comparison: Microsoft has a vested interest in the Xbox 360. They get a royalty on every piece of software sold, and they make extra on component sales. They charge for Xbox Live Gold even though the PUBLISHERS host the servers for their own games.

But they don't get any of that in PC gaming. Games for Windows/Live does absolutely nothing for me that I couldn't get somewhere else, and in better quality.

Consoles have one strength here, but it's a compelling one for a mass-market: Convenience.

I should note that all of these arguments are purely pragmatic. If you want to call these "arrogant" then please just take your ignorance and insecurity elsewhere.

 

[GonzoGamer]

So man up.

So, I read your rant but I still don?t understand how pc gamers are to blame for this.
I think console gamers are more to blame because they are much more susceptible to cheap marketing gimmicks. It doesn?t seem too hard to talk a console gamer into paying a lot of money for a whole lot of nothing. But this means that it really comes down to the publishers and MS. They?re the ones to blame (if you want to call it that) for wanting to make more money. I can definitely see why MS wants to break PC gaming and shuffle it all onto the 360. PC gamers don?t pay monthly fees for online and they don?t go out and buy the same product if it spontaneously combusts on the shelf. Can?t really blame them for that either.

What I really don?t understand however, is the insistence of some that if you don?t feel like you?re getting a good value for your money or you?re being mistreated as a consumer that you are over-entitled or are not manly. Gamers have some really weird definitions for manliness and entitlement. Or do they just expect to win people over to their pov by calling them sissies?

Is everyone who wants value for their dollar Over-entitled? Is it true that all you need to be a man is a longing to play a simplified sequel to a game you like?

As the Dude said: ?that and a pair of testicles.?

 

[Nikolaz72]

you forgot the whole pc gamers being elitist assholes. refusing to help out others because they dont know whats the best of what part. and since each one has their own opinion on what is the best, they refuse to help you if you guess wrong. its as if being a pc gamer is like being a stonecutter

in my eyes, pc gamers have noone to blame but themselves when people say pc gaming is dead

Yeah but it's better then consoles where every player is a dumb 12 year old playing Call of Duty and Halo screaming over the mic. Stereotyping is fun! Most PC gamers I've talked to on forums are fairly polite and reasonable human beings just like most console players I've talked to. There are elitist jerks for all platforms. Honestly, I've seen more console players saying 360 is better then PS3 or PS3 is better then 360 then I've seen elitist PC gamers. And why would we blame ourselves just because some people think PC gaming is dead? It's fine, I just played it a few hours ago.

ive NEVER met a pc gamer who didnt threated to smash my head in because i didnt know what their favorite specs are. if i met some nice ones beforehand it most likely wont have me saying pc gaming is dead just saying pc gaming needs to be more open minded

I can count the idiot PC gamers I've met on my hand. . I can however, not count the ammount of nice people on the PC i've had the honor of meeting. as well as I cannot explain how disappointed I was when I decided that FPS was to be played on a Console.. I stated understanding why some Console Players dont pay for a gold subscription.. Online on the console just aint worth it. With all the arseholes bragging about gamerscores and claiming luck everytime they get killed. Bragging about their mad skills to the point you want to cringe every time they get a kill. At least on MW2 and BFBC2 on the PC. . . Its so hard to use voice that most people just use the comments. And you can more easily ignore those.

 

[JediMB]

What gives you the impression that pc gamers demand games with the best graphics available? I mean look at minecraft, it sold quicker the crack cupcakes and has awful graphics. At the end of the day most of us are happy if our games are just ported well.

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Minecraft doesn't have bad graphics, it has low-resolution textures. And it still manages to look good.

Low-resolution (static-resolution, even) textures and simplistic geometry and rendering.

And, yeah, the views in that game can be fantastic, and the particle system ridiculously amusing.

 

[Azaraxzealot]

Follow the link i provided (it was added after an edit, i'm sure you haven't seen it yet) because it provides helpful insight as to why piracy is much more a problem on the PC than on xbox. I mean seriously, if you tried to go out and pirate a copy of Prototype, Saints Row: The Third, or Elder Scrolls 5 for Xbox 360, i doubt you'll have as much luck as for the PC.

Ya I can find torrents of Prototype and Saint's row, infamous, halo, and scores of other console games very easily. You act like Console Piracy doesn't happen but it's very common, more common in Asia, and Europe than the USA but it's still extremely common. There are areas in Asia where you can't buy a nonpirated game, and hacked consoles are sold standard. If you think Console piracy is more difficult than PC piracy you're vastly uninformed as to the pirating scene. Buy a hacked console and bam you can now play just about anything, you can buy pirated games or download them from a torrent site and burn them to a dvd/blue ray and you're done.

i never said it didn't happen. i was trying to point out that it's much more difficult and technical than pirating on the PC. I've only known one person who could get pirated games on a modded console, and even then he hated it because the lack of online abilities (microsoft is good at detecting it).

so sure, you can find it, but do you have all the technical know-how to put it all together on your console? because that's a whole different story. especially since i know at least half the people i know can pirate games on the PC easily, but they don't even know where to begin when it comes to consoles.

It's so hard it's not even worth it when you compare it to pirating games on the PC (which is still technical enough that enough of the people don't know what to do or even begin). In any case, nothing you say can negate my original (and factual) point that consoles are less pirated (and more complicated TO perform piracy on) than PCs.

 

[JET1971]

There is a whole slew of reasons PC gaming has been waning, but the main one involves market control.

Actualy PC sales and gaming is not waning. stats for game sales do not take into account digital downloads, and especialy from the elephant in the room for digital downloads Steam sales that are not reported and counted.

Reality is brick and mortar sales have declined while digital sales have risen as well as many free to play games that make sales via micro transactions are on the rise alongside subscription based games.

I do not buy games at a store anymore and I buy many every year, i do not know anyone that plays games on PC that buys games from a store and I know what games they buy because we play them together online. and thats a group of 50 people.

 

[Atmos Duality]

There is a whole slew of reasons PC gaming has been waning, but the main one involves market control.

Actualy PC sales and gaming is not waning. stats for game sales do not take into account digital downloads, and especialy from the elephant in the room for digital downloads Steam sales that are not reported and counted.

See, that's part of the problem. I use Steam quite a bit today, and yet I have little to no definitive evidence as to how much of the market it controls apart from comparing Valve to the retail giants (think Gamestop).

I would like to know those numbers.

What I do know, is that there are very very few games coming out on PC (that aren't console ports) that I actually care about today. I think I've bought and played...2 PC exclusive games on Steam in the last year (Terraria and X-COM: Apocalypse)?

A couple of my favorite niche titles have rolled over and died to boot.

I do not buy games at a store anymore and I buy many every year, i do not know anyone that plays games on PC that buys games from a store and I know what games they buy because we play them together online. and thats a group of 50 people.

I'd believe it. PC games coming in a box is little more than a novelty today. Hell, the last one I bought was Left 4 Dead...and it just redirected me to Steam anyway.

 

[Luthir Fontaine]

PC gaming has been "dying" for years....Not a chance in hell its goin to die

But what really hurts it is
A: Buying or upgrading your computer is not for the faint of heart or people lacking understanding of computers.
B: Some can be overly complex which some people like (love me some victoria 2) but most dont
C. Controller is easier to learn then setting your keyboard.
D. Pirates are more visible in the pc world
E. No split screen
F. Drivers and what not can stop a game cold.. People dont understand them.

The list goes on

I love my pc for some games but the most goes with my xbox

 

[JET1971]

snip

Yes those numbers are very important to gauge the health of the market, but you could also look at it from the standpoint of the health of companies that do digital downloads, none of them are failing and infact they are making a steady profit. every publisher now has a market you can buy a game through them if you do not want to use steam.

As for title that are coming out that are console port, that is only going to grow especialy with the next gen of consoles. the WIIU has already gotten several titles that will be on the PC, PS3, and 360. that has nothing to do with a weak PC market and everything to do with the ease of having multiplatform games to have a share of each market rather than just exclusives. and console exclusives were a product of the console makers to gain customers. Marketing ploy Ahoy!!! look we have all these exclusive titles you cant get on that other system!!! buy ours instead of theirs! And that was the reason they didnt want PC games being ported to console. It was the publishers and developers that decided what the single platform offers in kickbacks from X console maker is not enough to make the game exclusive and thus began mass games becoming multiplatform and PC devs jumped right into the now more open market to get a share of sales. PC exclusive? why when its so easy to just make it multi platform and have 3 markets to sell to than 1! that is ofcourse if the console can handle the game.

As for niche titles... they will always come and go. all niche areas of any industry has products come and go. and there are many console games that never had a sequal and were a niche type game.

 

[Wolfram23]

1: Why are games like skyrim becoming more console oriented?!
Because Pc gamers ask for the best graphics increasing production costs.And Thus forcing them to make them console oriented So developers can earn the money they need to make the production worthwile.
that Isnt Activision's dumbing down for money.
That is being forced to dumb it down so they dont lose alot of money.
Maybe if you'd pay triple they'd make it pc oriented.

Actually, I'd say it's easier to make games beautiful on PC than to make them look and, most importantly, RUN smoothly on a console. Console hardware is quite limited. I don't know if you watched the interview with John Carmack, of id, talking about RAGE. He basically said that it was a really big challenge to make the game run smoothly at 60fps and look as good as it does. And then he said how much he likes the PC because of how hugely powerful they are, it's really easy to just throw down huge amounts of stuff and not worry about it so much.

2:Why are they being dumbed down for consoles players.
Well sorry mister i need to use all my keyboard buttons or its dumbed down for consoles.
Making two versions of an entire game for 2 different platforms has to be done for you or they are lazy and its for console tards.
Again too expensive to be justified.
So man up.

Controls don't have much, generally, to do with "dumbing down". Some games favore M+K, some a gamepad. I found Witcher 2 played great with a gamepad, for example, and I don't mind that much (although a little more tweaking options would have been appreciated). I think the dumbing down problem is with games like DA2 that are almost missing the numbers game entirely. I mean probably the most popular RPG of all time, WoW, is all about the numbers. There's a LOT of people who like to get numbers, to max out a stat, to choose between 2 pieces of gear based on their numbers. It's not for everyone, sure, but it's also FOR a lot of people too. DA 2 is a great example of the "dumbing down" of games. But I don't think it's necessarily thanks to consoles but just the general trend of games these days.

3:Why do they make the graphics so bad?!
First of all You need more then graphics to make a game good. i.e Okami TF2
But No you want first grade realistic graphics.
Again Many pc gamers might not be able to run Skyrim causing fewer copies to sell and less money.That bethesda needs to make it justified you could accept lower quality graphics that just have good aesthetics like the The witcher 2 a 2008 computer can run it.
But NO! you need the latest which costs money and you dont understand why they find ways to sell more.

This one is kind of funny. Obviously low quality graphic games are extremely popular (WoW, Minecraft, basically all Valve games, Fallout 3/NV...) but yeah, sometimes we PC gamers want a game that can utilize the $600 worth of graphics power in our PCs. Just like a car enthusiast wants to occasionally find that remote, windy road to travel down all on their own. Big deal. Like I said before, the better graphics are pretty much easier to do that make console games look good and also run well.

So basically NO, it is not PC gamer's "fault." In fact PC gamers have absolutely nothing to do with it. It's a LACK of PC gamers that are causing games to become console centric. A lot of people were faced with either buying a new PC or getting a console, and consoles caught on big time. That's fine. But you know what? PCs are getting cheaper and cheaper for more and more power. I can see them making a comeback. $500 for a PC that does everything is, to me, a significantly better deal than a $200 gaming system.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

I love when people start things out by saying "now I'm no [insert x]", because the very next words out of their mouths invariably put the lie to that assertion. The OP was quite certainly trolling.

It's bad enough that the hardware limitations of the slowest "hardcore" console on the market are restricting what's possible in big AAA multi-platform releases across the board thanks to developers who don't typically bother to differentiate between platforms in most cases (the "one size fits all" problem), but honestly we would probably be fine with that most of the time if it wasn't so often insultingly obvious that the PC release was little more than a cursory afterthought.

Or in the case of Bethsada, that it wasn't patently obvious they're counting on the modding community to do their job for them when it comes to designing a decent bloody interface for their game, in addition to fixing the doubtlessly astounding amount of bugs and other flaws they'll never bother to address - why run real usability and bug tests when you can get your community to do that for you for free?

Fact: Open up the interface in Morrowind (aka "the last time Bethsada got a UI right"). Now do the same in Oblivion. If it isn't immediately obvious to you why the interface in Oblivion is an abomination that should never have been released as it was, you are playing the game on a console.

There is frankly no excuse for releasing a title across multiple platforms without addressing what makes those platforms different via your bloody user interface, and the fact that the mod community can fix Bethsada's horrible PC UIs doesn't net them any slack whatsoever; mod communities exist to make awesome games better, to design cool new things inside of the framework of an existing title that you might never have imagined could ever exist before somebody went ahead and made it - they don't exist to be your unpaid employees, doing your damn job for you, you lazy bastards.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Yes those numbers are very important to gauge the health of the market, but you could also look at it from the standpoint of the health of companies that do digital downloads, none of them are failing and infact they are making a steady profit. every publisher now has a market you can buy a game through them if you do not want to use steam.

I'm aware of those.

As for title that are coming out that are console port, that is only going to grow especialy with the next gen of consoles. the WIIU has already gotten several titles that will be on the PC, PS3, and 360. that has nothing to do with a weak PC market and everything to do with the ease of having multiplatform games to have a share of each market rather than just exclusives. and console exclusives were a product of the console makers to gain customers. Marketing ploy Ahoy!!! look we have all these exclusive titles you cant get on that other system!!! buy ours instead of theirs! And that was the reason they didnt want PC games being ported to console. It was the publishers and developers that decided what the single platform offers in kickbacks from X console maker is not enough to make the game exclusive and thus began mass games becoming multiplatform and PC devs jumped right into the now more open market to get a share of sales. PC exclusive? why when its so easy to just make it multi platform and have 3 markets to sell to than 1! that is ofcourse if the console can handle the game.

Cold comfort for PC gamers who are tired of being stuck with poor interfaces, buggy coding for multiplatform titles and horrid gameplay balancing for consoles (Mass Effect 2 wasn't even remotely challenging on the hardest difficulties with a Mouse). If the developers put even an ounce of effort into fixing those issues, I would be more inclined to believe it. But that seldom happens because it simply isn't worth the comparatively tiny cost.

Currently, the only multi-platform title that has side-by-side support for PC and Console in development now is Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

As for niche titles... they will always come and go. all niche areas of any industry has products come and go. and there are many console games that never had a sequal and were a niche type game.

Perhaps I should have said "Niche genres". If the market is expanding (which it has, according to those numbers) then the number of niche genres should have also increased as a result just due to statistical law.
But they haven't. They've decreased or have been relegated to purely amateur operations.

Otherwise, I hope I'm just missing something here.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

In which crazy universe do Okami and tf2 have bad graphics? Just becuase they are artistic or cartoony doesn't make them bad. Perhaps Sir would prefer everything in gun metal grey? *rolls eyes*

I worry about them trying to make games 'more accessible' becuase to me that means 'shallow and oversimplified' gaming is my hobby I don't want to see it be ruined by people who might want 5 minutes in between x factor and britains got talent. That's what games like bejeweled are for not rpgs.

I'm worried about them dumbing gameplay down. Not so much consoles.

 

[Saulkar]

you forgot the whole pc gamers being elitist assholes. refusing to help out others because they dont know whats the best of what part. and since each one has their own opinion on what is the best, they refuse to help you if you guess wrong. its as if being a pc gamer is like being a stonecutter

in my eyes, pc gamers have noone to blame but themselves when people say pc gaming is dead

Yeah but it's better then consoles where every player is a dumb 12 year old playing Call of Duty and Halo screaming over the mic. Stereotyping is fun! Most PC gamers I've talked to on forums are fairly polite and reasonable human beings just like most console players I've talked to. There are elitist jerks for all platforms. Honestly, I've seen more console players saying 360 is better then PS3 or PS3 is better then 360 then I've seen elitist PC gamers. And why would we blame ourselves just because some people think PC gaming is dead? It's fine, I just played it a few hours ago.

ive NEVER met a pc gamer who didnt threated to smash my head in because i didnt know what their favorite specs are. if i met some nice ones beforehand it most likely wont have me saying pc gaming is dead just saying pc gaming needs to be more open minded

Top of the morning, ol chap. I am a PC.

 

[Saulkar]

*Yawn* sometimes i wish PC gamers would get over it, they are lucky games get made at all.

Be thankful your getting these games, some countries don't get these types of luxury's and would die to have what you have.

All of you PC gamers who are complaining...i say this...

Grow up.

Ummmm... I do not really know how to reply to this but I will do my best.

First off, being thankful we get games at all. I just do not get that statement at all as it is entirely irrelevant to the topic, games will always be made for the PC because if someone doesn't do it, another person will. An ever lasting cycle, like how rule 34 and 35 intertwine.

Secondly the part about growing up, many a time one has tried to defend their stance and no matter how valid their argument, they were shot down. Upon being approached with the topic again from different people they tend to react compulsively in frustration more than anger and the people who are on the receiving end when they say Grow Up are ignorant of what that person went through. Not denying there are assholes, there are, but not everyone is thus generalization is not the end all in this scenario.

 

[Saulkar]

I will try to explain to you why PC "ORIENTED" enthusiasts get the way they do. Mind you if it is TL;DR. Then please do not reply. An honest thankyou.

Essentially the first is that many games developed for the consoles were optimized specifically for those machines and when when ported to the PC they tend to not integrate well into the architecture, the menus do not fit the control scheme hampering game play, and adding onto that, often the game play being built around the control scheme of the consoles maybe awkward with the mouse and keyboard.

Secondly the term "Making it more accessible" is not a bad statement, it is the subcannotation, the stigma of dumbing down that experience associated with it. A positive would be to simplify the menus and to make combat more streamlined while preserving core gameplay elements. An example would be instead of having to pause the game to access your inventory and select a health potion, you had a radial menu to work with in game to allow you to quickly access that health potion and continue on. A couple bad examples is the stigma of COD'ing it. While the game itself is not bad, all games try to emulate it, or better yet emulate the success. Regenerative health? It could work, but developers are putting it in far too many games, many of which this mechanic is incompatible with. Low amounts of health and ammo. Sure it could work in a horror survival setting but in a shooter or RPG it it means you are not expected to live more than a minute and in turn take away any explorative or strategic elements. It devolves to simple run and gun with twitch reflexes. While once again this is not a bad thing, everyone is doing it.

Adding onto this, more often than not "Making it more accessible" means removing core gameplay mechanics. An example would be in a military shooter where if you were killed you had to be dragged by your teammates back to a healing station before you respawned. Dumbing it down would mean removing this gameplay mechanic in favour of a simple countdown delay. Now while this could potentially open the game to more casual gamers it would alienate the original fanbase who were attracted to that very complexity in the first place. People like me love convoluted complexity in games, nothing is going to change that, our preferences are in fact different from yours. Now while I am not afraid to play a casual game, I like anybody PC or Console does not like to see our favourite games haphazardly screwed with.

The third but potentially not final element is that when something is developed for the console, they are technologically locked and thus innovation can only go so far. On the PC where it is always moving forward with technological advancements and the potential for an unlimited number of game enhancing third party peripherals and executables. Now this tends to only apply to the AAA games as the PC has the largest number of Indie developers on it, and innovation can occur on the consoles, just not as drastically.

Now my statement as usually probably has flaws, typos, and glaring holes, but since this is such a wide open argument I doubt anybody can formulate a definitive argument of absolute accuracy and objective truth.

P.S. Why is it when somebody defends the PC they are called PC ELITISTS but the same does not apply to one defending the consoles regardless of their level of maturity in person and argument?

P.P.S. Yes a PC gamer who was polite.

 

[Saulkar]

Ugh, the way PC eletists act when they find out somethings bieng dsigned for consoles it disgusting, I almost wish PC gaming would die when the act like that, and I am a pc gamer :/
Just look at the rections to Skyrim and minecraft for the 360.

to be fair minecraft for the 360 looks really dumb,minecraft is unfinnished in its current state and the 360 version of minecraft will not actually be finished by mojang so its possable that the pc version and the 360 version will be wildly different games, also i dont get the kenect compatabilty i mean imagin mining for dimonds with the connect, your arm would drop off ! =P ,also im primarily a console gamer so this shouldnt be taken as pc gamer QQ, just general QQ =D

No, Notch is finishing mc, then another team is porting it

A very serious question. Why is a person defending the pc labeled the misnomer PC Elitist REGARDLESS of the complexity, truth, and character in their argument. But at the same time a person arguing in favour of the consoles REGARDLESS of their complexity, truth, and character in their argument not given the same pejorative? Serious non hostile question. I have encountered both gentlemen and asshats in both respects in equal, mind you equal numbers (none above the others, I will not say that again) yet PC gamers are getting the Nazi uniform.