The Big Picture: PC Gaming Is Dead - Long Live PC Gaming!

[Keava]

To not add to the whole outrage, i'll just focus on that "outlook on the future" part, which i must disagree with. That "future" you speak about is so far off neither you, nor me, nor most likely my children will live long enough to see.

Why? Because we are really slow on discovering new energy source lately and unless you will have portable computers able to hold 600-800W of power they will never come close to be the functionality of dedicated desktop PC packed with mid grade hardware not even mentioning the top shelf. Without new energy source the cooling alone would make those pocket devices too large to fit even in clowns pockets.

Im sorry, but all those iPhones/portable PCs (i refuse to use word tablet, tablet is a graphic design tool -> see: Wacom) as well as consoles are already too weak to process most of current technology the day they come out. Show me a developer that creates their game content on console. Show me any piece of useful/professional software on any of those gadgets and i'll admit desktop PCs are in decline. Too advanced? Okay. Show me any modding possibilities on those gadgets that doesn't involve jailbreaking/breaching EULA or warranty.
You can't. Those are just toys that you buy as they are and throw them away once a new generation comes out. They are, and most likely will keep being, limited by their manufacturer to only work with pre-defined set of features.

 

[K1LLTH3N00B]

If you weren't a credible movie reviewer I would have lost all of my respect for you. PC Gaming is stronger than ever, and it will stay that way. iPads won't have the power of PCs for decades. Plus, how do you play an FPS on an iPad? You don't...No tablet can match up to a computer. Consoles can't match computers either. The mouse and keyboard is infinitely superior to a 10 button controller. Sorry Bob, but no, PC Gaming is not dead, nor will it ever die. Good troll though!

 

[thecoreyhlltt]

am i the only person who considers a laptop a PC?

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

Eh, I suspect you're thinking in terms of processing capabilities, and not the way humans actually interact with the medium itself. As someone who owns both a Wii and a PC, I can tell you that the experience of a mouse and keyboard interface is much, much different than wii-motes and nunchucks. You can't stop your motion controller by picking it up, like a mouse. You have to use edge panning instead of 1-1 camera control. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to turn around in a FPS.

Now, there's nothing stopping an XBox from using a mouse and keyboard control scheme in its games.. except Microsoft's insistence on using controllers exclusively. So you're never going to see mouse and keyboard games on the 360 or PS3. Until consoles give the option to replace joypads and motion controllers with mouse and keyboard like controls, hardcore PC gaming still has its place.

 

[VreOresKais]

I doubt I'll ever feel comfortable playing an RTS with out a Mouse, well unless I have a touch screen but even that might be an odd way to interact (with a mouth I have various ways of clicking on a spot but with my finger I'm limited to one or some sort of gesture recognition).

The systems will merge more than likely, console and PC sales will become a thing of the past replaced by some sort of integrated system you keep in a cupboard that's hooked up to the screens you have in your home. Be they portable tablet sized screens, projectors or wall mounted screens all using the same machine to run games, view TV and such.

I've only owned a Play Station myself and I think I played on that less that my 233Mhz 32MB RAM 4.5GB HDD Laptop (which just about ran Simcity 3000). And my Wii ended up becoming a BBC iPlayer box after a while.

 

[maswell]

I can't think of anything a gaming console can do that a gaming PC can't. There are a many things that a gaming PC can do that a console can't.

Why have a gaming console and a cheap slow computer when you could put your money into a gaming PC and have a good gaming experience AND a fast computer to do all your other stuff on?

 

[Ritter315]

As long as we still cant condense Grand Stragety games into consoles, I'll take what you say with a grain of salt bob.

 

[override367]

I haven't owned a PC in years, I get by perfectly fine on a laptop, an xbox and a good phone. Pc gamine these days drives me crazy with all the antipiracy stuff they've introduced, i bought hard copys of 2 games and couldn't play either because the giant fail that is Steam wanted me to download both games, which i can't do because I'm on a limited data usage plan.

Uh, a laptop is a pc (unless its a mac).

If by Bob's reasoning PC gaming is dead, doesn't this mean that console gaming will go first?

By Bob's reasoning, yes, consoles are also dead.

How many exclusives are really being released anymore for the bigguns? That's what I thought, the console is dead.

No, what's really happening is a slow combination of utility, an overlap. Games are so expensive to make there's not point in limiting the platform if you're a third party. The iPad is a nonentity in this discussion, you cannot do any serious content creation or work on it, or your cell phone for that matter. As long as people do work on PCs, and PCs are in the home (and lets face it, just about everyone has a desktop or laptop, and even the laptop has its own space in the home), people will also game on PCs. This video is especially weird because I was thinking the PC was entering a new golden age for games, virtually every single console game is now released on the PC.

The ports are no longer as shoddy as they once were, and a four year old video card can play a game that is released today (yes, it can, turn off antialiasing and watch your geforce 8800 do its thing). Steam's ever increasing sales and now cross platform support would seem to agree with me.

 

[expell3d]

Who uses a tablet? "Tablets" are just iPads and iPads are just laptops without a keyboard except less powerfull.

Then the ipad is just a big i phone, and an iphone is just a ipod touch with a phone, and an ipod touch is just a ipod nano with a touchy clicky thingy and the ipod nano is just an original ipod with a shitty size difference

 

[Miniges]

I'm a hardcore pc gamer, but i endeavored to listen and see bob's reasoning. I get his point and he's got the best argument i've heard so far, but a few things:
FPS controls are rubbish on controllers when compared to a mouse and keyboard.
Steam. Period.
He mentioned notebooks, which made me giggle as there isn't much difference between them and desktops. portability. that's the big advantage. what about battery life and storage capacity?
strategy games and mmo's. he glazed over them as if it wasn't a thing, but these are serious advantages.

I love bob and I still love him. I'm just surprised he's in 'that' crowd. ho well.

 

[Reosoul]

I'm happy to see Bob getting steamrolled so hard on this topic. Hopefully he'll leave the Videogame commentary to Extra Credits from now on.

 

[Sticky Slick]

I disagree. You can have a console, a tablet, a smart phone and what not that will do same things as the PC, but the PC does all of them. You dont need 10 devices which combined usefulness can be replaced by just 1.

And a very nice touch discrediting opposing opinions before they even come.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

PC gaming isn't dead. It's just teh fact that PC is no longer the primary platform for which games are being developed. And that is only a good thing. While consoles have less power than the most high-end PCs, developers have to put extra effort into making their games look good, or just come up with all new graphical styles altogether. I'd almost say that PC games are to blame for the endless struggle towards realism to which games have been bound for the last 16 years. Now that we're on the verge of it, there's room for innovation at last. If everyone was still craving to make every game run on Cryengine 3 with everything they can, games would cost like 130 dollars apiece.

When games are being primarily developed for consoles, gaming PCs no longer require hardware updates yearly. A 2,5-year old gaming PC can run all the latest releases, if not on full settings, at least on settings that look good.

 

[2theAJ]

My problem with PC Gaming is that there are so god damned few exclusives!
I mean, honestly, look at this list of exclusives!
http://www.pcgamingfan.com/?page_id=719
And it's not exactly like it'll get better when new studios that are being set up, are set up.
PC Gaming is just plain dead.

Ok, here's the story. Games get pirated on PCs. At least until DRM became accepted (and I facepalm every day how customers could let that happen, but that's a different story). Console games on the other hand get a lot less pirated which is like a big GO HERE sign for the industry. Once the console market gained momentum (Hi, Asia!) game companies switched their production process to consoles as their development platform.

But I do not only think PC gaming is much more alive than Bob thinks, I think it is much more alive than the game industry thinks. Casual games like Beat-em-Ups, Racing or Mini-Games with a motion controller are perfect for consoles, hardcore gaming is not. Just look at the games where competitions are held for: Counter-Strike and Starcraft.

We always hated DRM. It never works. I do not buy games with DRM. I buy games that offer me service like Steam or battle.net. They're just like xbox live (for free!)

Also bob mentioned he wouldn't need PC if he could browse internet and render videos on his xbox, well I think people wouldn't need console if they had something like xbox live and could play games with controler on their couch.

MEANWHILE AT VALVE... http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/thebigpicture.php

 

[gorfias]

am i the only person who considers a laptop a PC?

Lots of posts to that effect. I agree. If you are daring, even laptops are upgradeable, like a desktop these days, though, still trickier and easier to blow up (tech support actually asked me not to try upgrading even though it specifically stated I could go from 2 to 4 Gig of RAM, which I did, no smoke or flames).

Fair to call these new tablet thingies (Ipad, and I think Motorola has something out too) computers too?

 

[adamtm]

hahaha

The most uninformed opinion i've heard from Bob yet.

Completely ignores these points in his analysis:

- technology does not go in the direction of specialization. ie. what consoles tried to do, create a platform for games only to find that people wanted to play games, watch a movie, and chat to their friends on these devices.
See the development of the early consoles like SNES to nowadays PS3 with all their "functionality" added in.
Technology strives towards unification, yes your cellphone is supposed to play Gears of War and send tweets.
The PC did this from the get-go.

If anything, the specialized devices Bob counts down become MORE LIKE A PC every day. Where do you draw a line of your PS3 running Linux, to say its not a PC?

What Bob thinks "PC" means is "grey box in the living room for spreadsheets" which is roflcopter wrong.

- PCs will never disappear, so PC gaming will never disappear.
PCs (as in big hunky gray boxes) will be prevalent even in the future, because some of -us- need the computational power for something else than PC gaming. There are thousands of people around the world that need the power and versatility of a PC to do their daily work.

What do you make your games on? Did God Of War get programmed/designed on a console? No, you need a platform and engine for R&D at least and PCs are here to stay.

- Laptops don't fit in Bobs argument at all


What Bobs over-analysis missed is this:

PC gaming isn dead, PC gaming is coming to console!

 

[Shroomhell]

I rather do believe that this is idiotic. I believe that the fewer devices the better, and no console has anything on PC. PC can do anything console can, and since PC's are pretty damned useful, and can be pretty small themselves it's best not to even have a console taking up more space. However, once there is something that can do everything and has a big screen/projector while not weighing more than a few pounds, then. anything with a small screen that you are supposed to look at for anything other than that you input thing right is worthless. there should be a phone, a small music player, then a, that is A as in One, device for everything else.

Awesome Adam!

 

[The Human Torch]

1) MovieBob is like the Norman Osborn of the Escapist. Mostly he will write sound and informational pieces, but sometimes he forgets to take his medicines and reverts back to the Green Goblin. Trolling everyone with pumpkin bombs in the shape of videos.

2) PC's are not becoming consoles, consoles are becoming PC's. Phones are becoming PC's. Laptops were always PC's, but maybe more of a PC-light version.

PC's are not dead.
PC gaming is not dead.
3) And I will never watch a Moviebob video again.

1) This was arguably his worst since he vented his spleen on "The Expendables" a flick many if not most of us thought a hoot and can't wait for a sequel (this time w/ Chuck Norris please!)

2) Very true... posted earlier that PS3 actually had some trouble in Europe: do they classify it as a toy or a computer.

3) Don't do that to yourself. The vast majority of the time, he is a very entertaining guy. I think he was just wrong in his thinking on this.

I wrote earlier that all that made any sense in his post was the concept that increasingly, we won't be setting aside a special place in the home for a traditional computer. Maybe, but again, that doesn't mean PC is dead. I built an AMD Athlon 2 X4 for less than the launch price of a PS3, with bluray player, all the functionality of a PC and can play most games 30 FPS, but set it up in an entertainment center. Wireless Keyboard, mouse go into coffee table. Microsoft even makes a wireless controller for the PC looks like the 360 one.

Nice video, cool home setup. I have something similar, although not so slick.
And I don't think that I will watch Moviebob's videos anymore, this latest video and his The Expendables rampage makes me believe that he is a few bricks shy of a complete Lego Star Wars figurine. Either that or he has a serious god-complex.

 

[MrGalactus]

I think it's safe to say that the community is certainly not dying, judging by the amount of posts.

 

[Hatchet90]

This is hilarious, nothing like pc nerds trying to bring down an indifferent online personality. The desktop computer is going to die, not pc games. Of course a laptop is a pc, hell an iphone can be considered a pc.