| Jereel Hunter said: I threw out an estimate regarding sales, and granted the timing of the sales was more based on console sales as I don't generally track PC sales. However I don't believe you've actually read most of my posts, as most of my comments have been posts on piracy - not the games themselves. All I said was "chances are" the sales were primarily in the first 3 years. Yes, SC was an epic phenomenon with incredible legs - and while PC games generally have longer legs than console games, you can't say that legs anywhere near those of SC are standard. Yes, thank you, you've showed two examples, both with incredibly devoted fan bases and raved about by critics. The same could be said for some console games (i.e.) Halo:CE. Aside from which, I'm not sure how this contradicts my point at all? I believe the point I made was that PC games with long legs don't necessarily get pirated at the same rates that they sell, because pirates have no advantage of late adoption. |
You really know nothing of PC gaming, your post is so oblivious to the characteristics of PC games that I don't know where to begin.
First, the legs shown by Starcraft ARE common to PC games! If the game is great, then there's 99% probability that it will have the hundred-mile long legs of Starcraft. I showed you a recent example in Sins of a Solar Empire that is showing such legs, but there are countless examples.
If the game isn't great and just good/decent, it will still have legs of a PC game, which are LONGER than any console in existence!!
If the game is terrible, it might still have some legs, but probably not.
The thing is, you don't know crap about PC games and how their sales behave. Console games usually sell almost all copies in the first month and that's it, with few exceptions. On PC it's the other way around, since PC games keep selling for 5, 10, 15 years and more, and this is more true than ever because of Digital Distribution. Imagine now, with DD, where every PC game will never run out of shelf space.
The first month of sales of a PC game is probably less than 15% of the total lifetime sales, in most cases. This is what you need to get into your mind.
I still don't know why you even bring up piracy. Sure, PC devs would've been better without piracy, but PC games are selling better than ever, and there are more PC games being developed than ever.
| Xelloss said:
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Although you've risen some reasonable points with the rest of your post, I'm only focusing on the part above. First, PC gaming was never bigger than consoles gaming. Why? Console gaming existed before PC gaming. PC games only stared coming around when the second generation of consoles were starting to be released. Better yet, In the second generation, consoles were already selling dozens of millions of consoles, while PC were only selling by the thousands.
Only 48 thousand PCs were sold in 1977. How many millions did consoles sell in 1977!?
| Jereel Hunter said: 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. |
It's like you've been frozen for 20 years. PC GAMING NEVER DECLINED!!!! Infact, this is the best time ever for PC gamers and PC games.
And Console games existed BEFORE PC games.
And PCs are cheaper than ever, and PC games are cheaper than ever. Infact, I believe that PC gaming is cheaper than Console gaming. Just this week you could've bought:
On Steam:
$5 Stalker
$15 The Witcher
$2.50 Team Fortress 2
$24 Call of Duty 4
And a bunch of other sales
On Direct2Drive:
$5 Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines
$20 Dead Space
$10 Ghostbusters
And a bunch of other sales
On Gamersgate:
$19 Street Fighter IV
$3.50 Gothic 2
And a bunch of other sales
On Impulse:
$24 COD4 (16,70 €)
$15 The Witcher (13,91 €)
And a bunch of other sales
This only took me a few minutes of my time.
And you can't dismiss the fact that PC has the ability to be connected on HDTVs just because not many people do it. Hell, most consoles aren't even connected to HDTVs!
