Game Informer: downgrading MW2 is a good thing, and dissenters are nerds

[Jereel Hunter]

Xelloss said:

 Jereel, seriously though. Piracy has always been a problem. You have zero proof or even fundamental data required to make your assertation that PC sales have declined because of piracy. What really happened, is consoles just became BIGGER than PC gaming. Due to the "stable" platform, it also became more focused, and due to the vested interests of the platform makers - giantts of industry all, much more heavily marketed.

 Does piracy have an effect? Sure. But so what? It is not a doom and gloom effect, and it is an effect that has been present ever since the dawn of PC gaming. There used to be BBSes by the truckload that had pirated games, people used to swap disks at school, hell most people back in "ancient times" had libraries full of illegal games. Kids with no money didnt pay for games 15 years ago any more than kids with no money pay for them today. The only difference is now the main hub is centralized via torrents that are accessed internationally, where some jackass from a company that makes tens of millions selling anti-piracy software (that doesnt work) can look at the the tracker data and cook up a scary sounding number that gets clueless suits to fork over a few million more for their new product that still wont work.

 PC gaming would certainly have some degree of new sales if piracy did not exist, but piracy has not appreciably grown as a % of PC gaming, if anything shrunk drastically in the states... it is not depriving companies that make solid products of large profits on the PC platform , it is not preventing new indy dev houses from being successful, it is not preventing large corps who put out good products from being successful.... and it is not worth the insane amount of debate, time, effort, money, etc spent on the subject.

 There are way to many tangents here for me to address them all individually but, I will cherry pick one :
 ""This statement can only be considered deeply subjective, or downright false. Early gaming consoles are why we have PC games today.This is a false statement, in the extreme and shows how little you know of the early days and evolution of gaming. Not trying to be insulting, but it is the plain truth. Early PC gaming is why we have consoles, not the other way around.

 

And to think that consoles are inferior for gaming is to assume that everyone prefers a mouse and keyboard to a controller (true) , a more expensive peice of equiment for equivalent graphics (not relevant, PC hardware is better but underutilized due to console porting... but sometimes shines through on a good engine ( see GTA4)... or a game that had to much going on a lagged console(see Last Remnant), and a relatively small monitor instead of a TV. (erm, where did you get this from? I personally have a dual monitor setup, with one being a 32" Sony Bravia XBR and I game on it in 1080p.... and have my PS3 in a seperate HDMI. This is pretty common now.)""

Well, PC sales have declined for multiple reasons - during the golden age of PC gaming, piracy stole lots of sales, but it was ok, there were plenty of sales to be had. Declining sales are for many reasons (increased piracy is one - you can get a pirated games nowadays, from home, in virtually no time at all - using cracked versions in BBS days was often a hassle, and copying a game from friends didn't always work back when games required verification from manuals and such... piracy was always a problem, but not always as easy as it is today)  but the fact that sales have declined for various reasons means that lost sales from piracy are more of an issue. Perhaps piracy is the same as always, but that just means that it's up, relative to sales.

 

My statement about consoles being the reason we have PC gaming was a general one - my reference is to is becoming a mass market business. PC games may have existed first, but they weren't a big business. Consoles brought the gaming to families and opened up a larger market.

 

As for calling PCs a more expensive peice of equipment - they are no doubt capable of much more thna consoles, however a $200-$300 PC is not going to deliver the gaming experience of a 360 or a PS3, and while some people have their PCs hooked into their HDTVs, it's only common among... PC gamers. A very very small % of people have that setup at home. Most people only have a large HDTV in their living room, whereas their PC is likely in their bedroom or office. And yes, you have the option, if you're a gamer, to have a nice TV in your bedroom/office - but it's something that's not economically viable for many.

My point was primarily that calling PC gaming "better", and to go so far as to say gaming in general would be better without console games is crazy. There's so much that consoles offer that PC gaming generally avoids. I myself am primarily a PC gamer - always have been, but I enjoy console games as both a change of pace, and for certain types of games. I hands-down prefer my PC over any console, but even someone as opinionated as myself wouldn't flat out say it's better.