PC gaming....could things be better?

[RhombusHatesYou]

Could the state of PC gaming be better? Yeah, it could.
Could the state of PC gaming be much, much worse? Fuck yes.

What would I do to change shit? Not a lot... maybe more English language versions of Eastern European games... Apart from that, I'm just sitting back and waiting for the AAA racket to tear itself apart.

 

[Continuity]

Plus it will be very interesting in the future, with processors getting more advanced and more powerful they may well eliminate the need for a graphics card in the future which will cut quite a large expense out of a gaming PC , and making the platform more accessible is never a bad thing.

Graphics on the CPU isnt free you know, that extra silicon still costs money.... ok so you move the GPU function onto the CPU Die, you still have to make the GPU, only now its on the same silicon as the CPU so you have far lower yields. In summary, it wont be cheaper... High end graphics will always need the shaders, stream processors, memory bandwidth etc that requires quite a large chuck of lithography. What we will have is gaming grade CPUs and normal CPUs, where the normal CPUs have hardly any gaming capability and the gaming CPUS cost an arm and a leg.

 

[weker]

WOW and famville dont= pc gaming being alive and well

I don't understand why WoW and farmville wouldn't mean that pc gaming is healthy after all loads of people play them. Apart from that PC gaming is great it generates more income then each of the consoles and is getting better due to games like The Witcher, Hard Reset, Minecraft, Terriria, EYE Divine Cybermancy and so far you can't get any of these on consoles.
Also Battlefield 3 needs to be played on pc now for the correct experience.

 

[Zipa]

Plus it will be very interesting in the future, with processors getting more advanced and more powerful they may well eliminate the need for a graphics card in the future which will cut quite a large expense out of a gaming PC , and making the platform more accessible is never a bad thing.

Graphics on the CPU isnt free you know, that extra silicon still costs money.... ok so you move the GPU function onto the CPU Die, you still have to make the GPU, only now its on the same silicon as the CPU so you have far lower yields. In summary, it wont be cheaper... High end graphics will always need the shaders, stream processors, memory bandwidth etc that requires quite a large chuck of lithography. What we will have is gaming grade CPUs and normal CPUs, where the normal CPUs have hardly any gaming capability and the gaming CPUS cost an arm and a leg.

For now yes the future however is another matter. Go back 10 years ago or 20 years ago and look at how many advances we have made in just that small time. It may not happen for a good few generations yet on any kind of large scale but it will happen. According to its devs rage will run at 30fps on the new sandy bridge architecture intel processors. And yeah I know that it will cost more than a normal processor but it could well end up cheaper than having to buy a CPU and GPU.

 

[Nouw]

Any part of gaming could be better. That doesn't mean that it's not bad.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Plus it will be very interesting in the future, with processors getting more advanced and more powerful they may well eliminate the need for a graphics card in the future which will cut quite a large expense out of a gaming PC , and making the platform more accessible is never a bad thing.

Graphics on the CPU isnt free you know, that extra silicon still costs money.... ok so you move the GPU function onto the CPU Die, you still have to make the GPU, only now its on the same silicon as the CPU so you have far lower yields. In summary, it wont be cheaper... High end graphics will always need the shaders, stream processors, memory bandwidth etc that requires quite a large chuck of lithography. What we will have is gaming grade CPUs and normal CPUs, where the normal CPUs have hardly any gaming capability and the gaming CPUS cost an arm and a leg.

Putting high end CPUs and GPUs on the same die causes one massive problem in the form of all that waste heat being concentrated in a very small area.

 

[Continuity]

Plus it will be very interesting in the future, with processors getting more advanced and more powerful they may well eliminate the need for a graphics card in the future which will cut quite a large expense out of a gaming PC , and making the platform more accessible is never a bad thing.

Graphics on the CPU isnt free you know, that extra silicon still costs money.... ok so you move the GPU function onto the CPU Die, you still have to make the GPU, only now its on the same silicon as the CPU so you have far lower yields. In summary, it wont be cheaper... High end graphics will always need the shaders, stream processors, memory bandwidth etc that requires quite a large chuck of lithography. What we will have is gaming grade CPUs and normal CPUs, where the normal CPUs have hardly any gaming capability and the gaming CPUS cost an arm and a leg.

Putting high end CPUs and GPUs on the same die causes one massive problem in the form of all that waste heat being concentrated in a very small area.

Yeah, you'd need some impressive cooling to handle it. But I guess as process sizes get smaller and voltages get lower there will be less heat anyway... I'm not sure if that's enough of a mitigating factor though to overcome the problem entirely.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

The thing is, it fully dying would actually be beneficial to PC gamers, for the same reason Arcade gaming dying was beneficial to arcade gamers; consoles learned from them, and gained all their benefits with only a few of their drawbacks.
Just let it happen already.

That really doesn't make any sense. Consoles are already stripped down and specialised PCs and are now trying to be more like PCs by making themselves into multimedia platforms albeit a bit awkwardly. They also cost more especially if you buy a new one at launch, play online and buy games new. It was different with the Arcade machines which are still going as that was something consoles had never done before and also given that they are both specialised computers. The only way for consoles to assimilate PCs is to become PCs and this would never work given how and why most console gamers are console gamers.

I am sorry but consoles not being able to pirate effectively is bull fucking shit. Do you not remember when coming up to the release of one of the Halos 1 million 360s were banned off XBL due to them being used for pirating. This is a ferocious amount given that it is thought that the majority of console pirates stay offline. If that is a minority I wonder how many there are? This is still not taking into account that console releases get leaked on the internet sometimes months before release date while PC games are released much closer to the time.

The only reason pirating seems worse on PC is because PC pirates actually do it themselves. They go over to their comp go onto the internet and find their own damn crack and pirate copy while console pirates(the majority of them) all go to a dodgy electronics shop in some back alley and get that guy to chip their console(s). They then proceed to buy games from said person. So what could have been 1 torrent download turns into an extra possibly 100-1000+(I understand these numbers are speculation to a degree but this stuff does happen) pirate copies sold. It is not much but at least most PC don't try make money off people's work. This is a small respite but something.

 

[Snotnarok]

This comes up all the time but it's honestly overly worried or stated. PC gaming is fine, yes ubisoft is a group of idiots hurting customers with their shitty DRM while pirates enjoy life without their drm however look at steam and how things work.

People say they want PC games to be buyable used however I see steam sales of 50% off and sometimes higher and I say screw used, 30 dollars for a fairly new game while the used console variant is $55 USD+Tax?

Honestly console gaming, pc gaming, they're both shitty, but they have their perks.

 

[Continuity]

WOW and famville dont= pc gaming being alive and well

I don't understand why WoW and farmville wouldn't mean that pc gaming is healthy after all loads of people play them.

Because "PC gaming" is about more than how many people play games on PC's, it about the support for the PC as a gaming platform, that means quantity and quality of games, innovation, and utilisation of PC hardware and controls.
Every person on the planet could be playing WoW and PC gaming could still be in a dire state (i'm not saying it is mind).

 

[number2301]

I'd love to see reduced piracy. But aside from that I'd love to see the end of PC gaming is dying threads, cause AAA doesn't represent the whole gaming industry, and PC still provides the best home for small developers.

Plus it will be very interesting in the future, with processors getting more advanced and more powerful they may well eliminate the need for a graphics card in the future which will cut quite a large expense out of a gaming PC , and making the platform more accessible is never a bad thing.

Graphics on the CPU isnt free you know, that extra silicon still costs money.... ok so you move the GPU function onto the CPU Die, you still have to make the GPU, only now its on the same silicon as the CPU so you have far lower yields. In summary, it wont be cheaper... High end graphics will always need the shaders, stream processors, memory bandwidth etc that requires quite a large chuck of lithography. What we will have is gaming grade CPUs and normal CPUs, where the normal CPUs have hardly any gaming capability and the gaming CPUS cost an arm and a leg.

Have you seen how good Sandy Bridge and more importantly the new A8s are? The A8s are budget processors, competing with i3s. Sure this generation they're not awesome, but in a couple of years every PC bought will have the ability to run current console games. Every PC will be a gaming PC.

That can only help PC gaming!

 

[Sonic Doctor]

I'll think better of the PC games and PC market when I don't have to spend as much as I do for a new console every 4 to 6 years on upgrading my PC so it can play new games every year and a half to two years. From experience on the money standpoint, PC gaming is extremely impractical.

For starters, the PC market should link itself to PC gaming. If I buy a new computer at the base price(minimal level, standard graphics chipset(s)), it should at least play games that came before the new PC came out/was made.

I got my new PC at that level(not buy choice) in 2009. It can't play games that were new in 2007, and it can barely play WoW.

Comparative to PC gaming technology years to console years of use, that is like if after I bought my Wii and bought Star Fox 64 through the virtual console market, it wasn't able to run it because Star Fox 64 is some how too much for the Wii to handle graphically.

 

[Continuity]

Have you seen how good Sandy Bridge and more importantly the new A8s are? The A8s are budget processors, competing with i3s. Sure this generation they're not awesome, but in a couple of years every PC bought will have the ability to run current console games. Every PC will be a gaming PC.

That can only help PC gaming!

Yeah I have a sandy bridge I7 in my laptop, but i still have to switch to the dedicated graphics if I want to play something 3D that demands a good FPS (like L4D2 for e.g.) and even then this pales in comparison to the graphics in my main PC which are 2+ years old at this point.

 

[Vault101]

WOW and famville dont= pc gaming being alive and well

I don't understand why WoW and farmville wouldn't mean that pc gaming is healthy after all loads of people play them. Apart from that PC gaming is great it generates more income then each of the consoles and is getting better due to games like The Witcher, Hard Reset, Minecraft, Terriria, EYE Divine Cybermancy and so far you can't get any of these on consoles.
Also Battlefield 3 needs to be played on pc now for the correct experience.

WOW and farmville are imensly popular and exclusive to PC but not everyone likes thease casual games or MMO's (myself included)

so when somone uses them as an argument in favor of PC gaming going well it doesnt give me much hope...it means Id have to turn to consoles for my big story driven blockbuster games

 

[scott91575]

The key for PC gaming is the advancement in mobile capability and the open platform. Since this generation of consoles was launched, laptops went from a very expensive internet browser with some word processing/spreadsheets/presentation programs with very little gaming (unless you spent a ton) to capability close to that of a desktop for relatively cheap. That right there increases PC gaming when the next round of consoles come out.

You have to look at why consoles are king right now. In 2005, in order to have a gaming PC you needed to spend at least $1000 on a desktop along with peripherals and the whole 9 yards. Big money. A console gave you a smaller package with simple controls for 1/2 the cost. So tons of people have consoles because the alternative was poor. Since people already have the consoles today, that market share is really high even though the they lack the capability of today's PC.

Now it's a whole different world. Current laptops with on board graphics are coming close to the capability of the current consoles, and for relatively cheap. Heck, there are even cheap laptops with GPU's that surpass consoles, and with tech like Optimus they even get good battery life so getting a discrete GPU is not as big of a hassle. These things are stuff people already own in huge numbers, and was not true 5+ years ago. When people are faced with buying another console, they now have the option of saying "hey, I already have a machine that plays games really well. Why do I need a console?" That is one thing that will change PC gaming. It effectively flipped the script. Sure, laptops might not have the capability of a new console, but just like the consoles of today there is a built in user base. People will put up with less if the buy in is zero. This is something consoles companies never mention when people ask why they drag their feet on the next console. They have a huge built in userbase, and if they upgrade they lose it in an environment with 10 times more alternatives than the last time they launched a console.

Just look at handheld gaming as the predictor. Phone gaming is killing the handheld market even though they are not dedicated gaming machines. With more people having gaming capable laptops and tablets, the next gen consoles face a huge battle.

The next is the open platform. With mobile games becoming more and more popular, people will look for the ability to share them across platforms. Consoles don't do that, PC's can and do. As the lines blur and more people own PC's, the consoles become the niche market, not the PC.

Consoles are just too pigeon holed into one thing to thrive in the coming decade. The only way they will be able to do it is essentially becoming a PC, and then the line is gone.

 

[Wintermoot]

a crapton of AAA games say otherwise.
amount of exclusives =/= health of medium, by that definition the 360 and PS3 would be considered dead by now.

 

[Hagi]

I don't think PC gaming is dying in any way. I just think it's finding a new balance.

PC gaming just isn't, and hasn't been for a while now, king of the hill any more. And both gamers and developers are still having trouble adjusting to that. Some are overestimating that and see PC gaming as near death, while others refuse to admit it's happened and think we're still in PC gaming's 'golden days'.

Truth is that for several genres I think you can safely say they've found new, and better, homes on the console. But there's still a lot left on the PC, just not as much as previously.

RTS, although a smaller genre, is still PC gaming territory.
Games like DOTA, HoN and LoL are extremely popular and basically PC-only.
The modding community, though not extremely big, is very active and on the PC.
Competitive gaming is, as far as I know, still firmly done on the PC, with the possible exception of fighting games.
High graphics games, like say Crysis was, are also still PC territory.
MMOs are basically PC-only when you get down to it.

PC gaming is alive and well, it's just taken a different role in gaming.

 

[KarlMonster]

but this isnt about that really, just looking at the state of things, and given the choice what things would you do/add or remove to improve the state of PC gaming? how would you prevent it from "dying" if thats where you think its headed

You, sir, raise good questions. Sort of.

PC gaming is not dying. It does, however seem to be stagnating.

I would submit that we are in a period where little innovation is going to happen until developers get three-dimentional backdrops and ultra-fine rendering out of their systems. [Here I'm thinking about Brink, the upcoming Red Faction, Darkspore, etc] Its mostly about dazzle, not new gameplay mechanics. I'm hoping that iD/Bethesda's "Rage" is more than a finely rendered Fallout3 - but that wouldn't be a terrible thing either.

There are problems with Steam, so there is plenty of room for competition in digital content delivery. And that is a good thing.

One thing that I am watching for is a crisis of price point. Steam and its competition offer a wide selection of games to choose from. Games for immediate delivery! Indie games! Steam sales! There is everything in place to support a gamer like me: I don't care about the hype, I'm not going to pay $50 for a title just because its brand new. Triple-A publisher and his marketing department can all go hang while I play through Stalker:ShoC again. Or Wolfenstein 3-D. Or TIE Fighter. Heck, if I can get more of my old titles to run, I'll never get any work done.

Well, I got away from my thesis there. What I mean is this. Someday soon, either a Triple-A publisher is going to realize that the marketing PR (and paying off game critics) cost them more that total profits from their title. Or indie firms (because it will take more than one instance) with adequate capital is going to put out a brilliant game (with astounding playtime and replay value) that out-sells Triple-A titles. Either or both scenarios are needed for a large-scale re-evaluation of the price point. The key to this happening will be gamers that resist buying a game on its release day. I'm hopeful because there are many good indie games right now. Painkiller would be a good example, but it went almost entirely unnoticed.

Now I could complain that PC gaming is stagnating because people are buying hot new titles that are really crappy games, but I think that's the wrong argument to make. It does make me really curious as to who is doing the evaluations on the game ideas though. Perhaps there really is Todd Hockney's "team of monkeys working around the clock."

So I'll just argue that somebody should hire me to be a playtester. That would solve everything.

.

... what?

 

[Vault101]

I don't think PC gaming is dying in any way. I just think it's finding a new balance.

PC gaming just isn't, and hasn't been for a while now, king of the hill any more. And both gamers and developers are still having trouble adjusting to that. Some are overestimating that and see PC gaming as near death, while others refuse to admit it's happened and think we're still in PC gaming's 'golden days'.

Truth is that for several genres I think you can safely say they've found new, and better, homes on the console. But there's still a lot left on the PC, just not as much as previously.

RTS, although a smaller genre, is still PC gaming territory.
Games like DOTA, HoN and LoL are extremely popular and basically PC-only.
The modding community, though not extremely big, is very active and on the PC.
Competitive gaming is, as far as I know, still firmly done on the PC, with the possible exception of fighting games.
High graphics games, like say Crysis was, are also still PC territory.
MMOs are basically PC-only when you get down to it.

PC gaming is alive and well, it's just taken a different role in gaming.

thats the thing though...I have no problems playing an action game like darksiders or batman AA with a mouse/keyboard..and even if it is such an issue you can just get a gamepad

the reason those genres are still PC-centric is because they are best played on a PC

as for the other genres..theres no reason they cant be on PC...I think it just comes down to crappy ports and all the other problems assosiated with PC gaming..not the games themselfs

I like to have variety in gaming

 

[Vault101]

a crapton of AAA games say otherwise.
amount of exclusives =/= health of medium, by that definition the 360 and PS3 would be considered dead by now.

even though it isnt really a good thing in the grand scheme of things, I dont mind games being ports as long as I get them....of coarse aside form the issue of bugs

anyway...I dont like or have very little interest indie games

yes thats right Im a AAA whore and a terrible person

but at best I like games that have it all....the big shineyness and the good sotrys and charachters...and if not then I like the shineyness

so yeah, with my taste in games Id be the one most worried about the state of PC gaming...even though my tastes arnt PC-centric

basically Ill get my AAA fix elsewhere if I have too (and I did get a console...for a number of reasons...I reckon next generation Ill upgrade my PC and wait before I get the next console)