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Slimebeast on 17 January 2009
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shio said:
Slimebeast said:
shio said:
Slimebeast said:
shio said:

It's not fair to compare figures from 2 different years. And that $10.96 billions includes handheld games sales, not just consoles.

And how do you know the genres have declining sales? if they are declining, then how on earth is PC's global revenue increasing every year? FPS and Strategy games seem to have a big part of the DD pie when you look at DD Stores Top selling games. And it's obvious that the RPG genre on PC is atleast 5 times more successful than 5 years ago. Your problem is that you don't seem admit the fact that there are other viable business for PC games.

Anyway, great PC games can be developed way cheap. Look at Sins of the Solar Empire, which is winning several GOTY awards - the game cost less than $1 million to develop!

 

 I do admit that PC market as a whole is expanding and doing well. But the viable business is outside of the traditional genres I (and most people on gamings sites) care about. For me it's a concern that the revenue growth is coming from MMORPG subs, MMORPG microtranasctions, advertising and casual games.

The revenue from traditional genres - RTS, FPS, RPG and adventure - isn't doing well because of piracy (and competition from consoles).

About Sins of solar, are u sure about the $1 million? Because I recall reading in PC Gamer that Stardock's dev team is at least 35 guys (split on two parallel projects perhaps, but still) and a game like that must have taken a couple of years to dev.

 

 EDIT: $1 million is only 10 man years in a Western dev studio (and rufly 20-30 man years in a Eastern studio) - on average 10 guys working on a game for just 1 year.

You think that the online revenue is only from MMORPGs, which is false. There are several non-MMORPG games that use subscriptions/micro-transactions/advertisement, and 2009 will be an even bigger year for them when games like Quake Live, Battlefield Heroes, Love, Jumpgate: Evolution, Infinity: The Quest for Earth, Battleforge, etc... and let's not forget that digital distribution gives a higher profit margin for each copy sold to the developers. 

 

 Yeah but those games are even more non-traditional and awkward than MMORPGs.

I don't spend $1000 on a gaming PC to play games in my web browser.

And why does it matter if their business models are non-traditional? The games are good, and they make money. I don't see what's so bad to acknowledge this. If anything it further proves that PC is the most mature platform for gaming business.

And the best part of all is you don't need a $1000 PC, or even a $200 PC, to play one of the most (if not the most) anticipated FPS of 2009: Quake Live.

And lets think about this - has the traditional retail really declined? Those $2 billions of DD didn't appear out of thin air, and how can one be sure that the traditional box has decreased? Sure, PC lost like $600 millions retail in North America in the last few years, but then we get figures like Steam growing over 140% in 2007, and PC games sales increasing over 50% in Asia.

One last thing to consider is that, unlike console games, PC games are getting cheaper and cheaper. In 2007 the average PC game sold in US was only $25. If we extrapolate that globally we get over 200 millions PC games sold in 2007, and I believe that on average PC games sold in digital distribution are cheaper. Hell, even EA is joining the fun, by releasing their Red Alert 3 expansion at a $20 price-point, and exclusively on Digital Distribution (no box for retail) - this E-fucking-A we're talking about.

 

 For them it doesn't matter weather revenue comes from traditional or new business segments, no! But for me it does, from the perspective of gamers that like to buy ATI 4870X2's and play the latest FPS, RPG, RTS-games with every setting on highest with amazing graphics it does matter.

Because if the PC version of games like Fallout 3, Far Cry 2, Tomb Raider, FEAR, Dead Space, Bioshock, Mass Effect only account for 20% of total sales, we're not going to see any effort on the PC versions when it comes to graphics, and in some cases the PC version will even be ported or not released at all.

And if the traditional market is shrinking due to piracy, there won't be any traditional graphic intensive PC exclusives (like Crysis, the last bastion).

There will be only these awkward niche market solutions (MMORPGs, advertisement-friendly games, microtransactions, Pop-Cap casual games, web browser games and re-release of Counterstrike/Diablo/Warcraft for the bargain bin). Fine, the PC developers will get their money, but in my eyes PC gaming as I know it is struggling.