Pc Games market dead?

[iTeamKill]

You know what pisses me off the most about people who think PC gaming has too high of a price tag? they are usually the same people who think alienware is the only gaming PC and buy a ps3 and a 50" 1080p television thinking they saved a fortune.

(just an FYI, my 24" pc monitor has a higher resolution then your 50" 1080p television)

 

[Kikosemmek]

I can site multiplayer options on the PC for a rallying banner against console gaming. While the 360 has impressive online capabilities, I have noticed that player caps and moddability are quite restricted compared to what you can get for a PC port.

For example, TF2 on the 360 has a player max of 16 per server, which can suck my bollocks. I have never seen any game mod (unless it's an official, adopted one) on a console, and I mean great mods that are worth your while, like Natural Selection, Day of Defeat, Europa Barbarorum, and the many community-created patches and campaigns for BG1/2 and NWN1/2 which, frankly, are sometimes better than the games themselves.

I have never seen a Halo 3 game with more than 24 people in it. I don't own a 360, but whenever I'm at my friends' playing Halo 3 online it's usually a 4v4 or 5v5.

Strategy games on the console will never play well unless you can use a mouse and keyboard. Joysticking a cursor around the screen is as fun as punching a brick wall.

FPS' are always better with a mouse and keyboard, period. I won't say they're not a good thing for consoles, as they are some of the most successful games on the 360 and PS3, but a mouse and keyboard combination will beat a controller any day. I doubt this opinion is my own alone, too.

For me, what consoles always have over PC's are party value. If you have a bunch of friends over, you'll all hook up to your 360 or Wii for Warioware, Smash Bros., a CoD4 or Halo 3 split-screen match. That's cool, because a PC won't allow much of that. But if I'm sitting at home alone playing a game for my enjoyment, it will most probably be a PC title.

PC gaming won't disappear because PC's won't disappear. You will always be able to do things on a computer that you can't do on a gaming console. There's a much wider range of creative and productive options on the PC, and so it is acknowledged that people will be buying them anyways. Deciding not to make PC game ports means you'll be passing up on an already large and still growing market, which is unthinkable to any sound businessman. If you give me solid facts that companies are abandoning the PC platform or that the PC market is actually shrinking (and all evidence of ever-increasing processing and rendering power point against this), then I'll concede this point.

Again, I don't think I'm alone with this opinion. PC gaming isn't dying.

 

[Terramax]

Can you play... say, WoW on a console?

The problem is perhaps not the frequency of releases for PC, but the replayability of games. Ever tried not buying new games? RRR and PsychoNauts were two huge surprises for me, and online gaming never gets old.

Well, you can play other MMORPGs on home consoles, not that I'd want to play WoW on any console.

Replayability is a good and bad thing. On the one hand, it's great for us gamers to get the most out of our money, on the bad the less we spend, the more developers go bankrupt (usually the smaller ones where all the creativity is at).

Tried replaying Psychonauts, but it's not one of those games I'd play again and again too frequently as much as I love it, as the humour would get old.

PC gaming won't disappear because PC's won't disappear. You will always be able to do things on a computer that you can't do on a gaming console.

PC gaming won't disappear but it is seriously shrinking. The PC was 'the' system for the most powerful and most ambitious games, the showcases, but not anymore.

Sony don't seem to care about PC gaming, and Microsoft expect every PC gamer to splash out on Windows Vista and a shitty Xbox360 pad to play their games.

Indy games can be great, but a lot of the time they're just small, casual games. Fun for 5 minutes and that's it. That being said, I would more than happily pay £30+ for a 10 hour Nick Bounty game (look it up guys).

Anyway, I'll always be playing PC games as it's the prime computer for adventure games.

 

[edinflames]

PC market is certainly not dead. Just because certain publishers have lost interest in the PC does not mean that the market is going to die, it merely opens new gaps for smaller (and perhaps more innovative) developers to fill. The massive production costs for some games is more prohibitive for a small developer on consoles such as the PS3 and Xbox, while a PC game (or mod - try that on a console, hah!) can be developed from a bedroom.


Firstly: the PC is leading the way in terms of digital distribution, a (generally) piracy-free route from developer to gamer.
For example: S.T.A.L.K.E.R:Clear Skies. If it is an improvement upon the format of the original then this is sure fire deep-atmospheric gold. This will be available on Steam (besides the valve stuff)

Secondly: Two 'free to own' multiplayer games (Battlefield: Heroes and Quake:Zero) are being released this summer, making use of in-game advertising to support the developer. This may bring about a revolution in gaming all by its self.

Thirdly: Alan Wake. The use of Hyperthreading to support a seamless game-world experience.


From the point of view of this gamer, the PC market has never looked better.

 

[Kikosemmek]

Sony don't seem to care about PC gaming, and Microsoft expect every PC gamer to splash out on Windows Vista and a shitty Xbox360 pad to play their games.

I am aware of that and am actually pretty stoked that this is the case. To me, the fact that many publishers who in my opinion don't make the games I like most are shifting away from PC means that the platform as a whole is becoming more 'elitist' to my tastes.

Bioware, Relic, Creative Assembly, Valve, Blizzard, and many other developers and publishers are still going strong and seem willing to hold their positions at the helm of PC gaming.

Sony and Microsoft largely make mediocre games, with the exception of the Age of Empires series. EA, also, is going more toward consoles, and I couldn't give a shit about that, either.

There are few games that come out for consoles only that I wish came out for the PC, such as Burnout: Paradise or the great Nintendo games.

Some games and some publishers, who are luckily some of the best, will continue producing for the PC.

 

[Tombaugh]

That just depends where your priorities are at. For me I'm interested in the MMORPG genre so this year is looking pretty fantastic.

 

[Damn Dirty Ape]

The problem for me isn't that there are so few pc games, it's the fact that I'm skeptical at best to expect that the more recent games will play at a decent framerate on my older system ( gf 6800 n.u., 3200 amd +, 1 gig RAM ). Gothic 3 for instance choked to death even on all low. Although alot of the better scaled/coded games I can still run fine, cod 4 did fine for instance to my surprise, C&C3 felt sluggish. Poorly coded BF2 I had to run on medium/low to prevent lag ( which is lethal online whilst flying ), these are just some examples. The high profile hyped games are what you see in the adds and sadly those are usually the games with pretty graphics that I can't run and contain mediocre gameplay to boot.
I only play fh2 and diablo2 lately, with some other oldies like bfv mixed in. It's not that there are so few fun games for the pc lately, it's the fact most are remakes or sequels of older (better) games with higher system requirements. There is nothing new anymore, most innovation is at the console market lately with some excellent titles ( gears comes to mind ). I'm curious as hell to see what games like Spore bring though.

I'm a regular gamer btw, owning a SNES, N64, Xbox 360 and a ton of games for the pc. I just don't play that many pc games anymore since alot of times if you played 1 rts, you've played them all. This is also the case for most fps games, except for some xbox games I've bought recently because they actually play different with the cover system and such.
There are no "pc gamers" as far as I'm conserned anymore, those that do call themselves that need to remove the blindfold already. Most normal people that play games ( not counting the people with too much money on their hands that get a hardon for showing off their 1337 system in their signature )own a pc ( who doesn't these days? ) and play games on it, but own at least 1 console as well. You can play games just fine on whatever system you like. Seriously why bother to scream OMG IT'S NOT EXCLUSIVE FOR THE PC when it's pretty damn obvious developers can spread the risk more that way? I do admit that console>pc ports are usually an afterthought, are pretty poorly implimented and that the PC is the system to use if you're going for a deep interface because of the mouse. The terrible oblivion UI is proof of that. Does that make all console games bad? Hell no? Does this console>pc porting reflect on the pc as a platform in a negative way, sometimes yes. But shiny graphics with a high framerate are guaranteed on an xbox 360 or ps3 ( not counting the wii here which is a story all in it's own because it doesn't try to compete in that way ), whilst on the pc you have the problem with most people complaining about performance problems, glitches, hacks, driver issues, etc. Which is exactly where the problem lies.
Pushing the limit is nice, but the market for that type of gaming system is just very very small. Crysis sold poorly, although the lack of innovative mp might be to blaim as well. Sins of a solar empire sold like a hooker on saturdaynight, why? Because it's deep, doesn't go for mindblowing fps graphics and can run on a ton of different computers. Developers, please take a step back from "high pc gaming triple sli systems is where it's at" and go for quality and scalibity instead. And take an example with console games in the way of trying to prevent halfbaked unfinished games ( yes, I'm looking at you EA ) that need 6 patches to make it playeble. It's easy to notice this since succesfull modteams are starting to produce the better games these days, instead of the actual bigger companies.

Long story short, please stop with the zomg pc not exclusive crap anymore. You just can't combine great gameplay with awesome nextgen graphics anymore for a succesfull exclusive pc game. Most people that play games on the pc have an older system and aren't willing to spend that "small" amount of 600 euro's or more for a new computer, whilst their old one works fine. Not to mention that their new system will be outdated again quickly since technology is so damn fast these days, it's just not worth the investment if you have the 360 and ps3 that play games: at max without problems, cost less for the time it can play games, act as dvd/blue ray,home entertainment systems at the same time. I'm not pro-console, I'm just saying for nextgen games it's a hell of alot more cheaper and secure.

Now excuse while I go back to playing the classic pc games, since that is still where my heart lies

 

[Natural Hazard]

Theres a really.. good way you know to get around the problem... have a pc.. and a console! problem solved.