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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Do you believe PC Gaming is dying?

 

Do you believe PC Gaming is dying?

Yes 136 41.21%
 
No 169 51.21%
 
Unsure / Can't decide 25 7.58%
 
Total:330
shio on 16 February 2010
twesterm said:
shio said:
thekitchensink said:
shio said:
thekitchensink said:
shio said:
thekitchensink said:
I'd say it's dying--check out the sales of Modern Warfare 2 PC vs the PS3 and 360 versions.

not that I want MW2 to be successful on PC (I hope MW2 PC failed completely), but where can we find the figures of the PC version? Unless Activision releases some figures, anyone that says the PC version was outsold by the PS360's is trolling.

Sorry to disappoint you, but... http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=5826 

"VGChartz preliminary day one figures puts the sales to date (including the midnight launches) at over 7 million copies worldwide across Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. Around 55% of sales are on Xbox 360, 33% on PS3 and the remaining 12% on PC."

 

Unless the sales patterns have changed dramatically, the PS3 version has roughly tripled the PC version, and that's to say nothing of the 360 version.  And this is a franchise that got its start (and became famous) on the PC.

Not to rain on your parade, but PC being 12% despite not even counting Digital sales means that it would outsell atleast the PS3 version, if it weren't for the fact that MW2 PC is such a crappy version.

PC games aren't front loaded, and they keep selling for years. If the PC version of Modern Warfare 2 was great, and if Activision didn't release another COD, there's no doubt that MW2 would reach 10 millions on PC alone.

Rain on my parade?  You say that as if I actually care about any of this

 

That said, that's a pretty big statement that it would have the potential to sell ten million on PC alone.  Care to back that up?

It's a Call of Duty game, made by infinity Ward. That's enough of a reason.

I always love how you ask for facts and then later make a response like that.

And if PC gaming isn't dying, then it's at least struggling to cling to life and has been for a while.  I have to admit, it's at least a survivor but it will never be what it once was.

Consoles may not have as good as graphics and people may pee themselves over the joy of mouse controls, but consoles are just so much easier that they will always stay on top of PC's.

When I say "Call of Duty" and "Infinity Ward", is pretty much the same way I would answer "Starcraft" and "Blizzard" to someone asking if Starcraft 2 has the potential to go over 15 millions.

Call of Duty is the biggest FPS franchise on PC currently.



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r505Matt on 16 February 2010
Scoobes said:
r505Matt said:
Scoobes said:
r505Matt said:
Scoobes said:
r505Matt said:
 

Well, there's no way to know. You can't just mention a few popular games and say that's enough. Since there is no tracked sales data, it makes it difficult to determine.

But with digital platforms like steam, and their awesome deals, it's surely not dying.

Besides, WoW's supposed 11 million players (is that a grand total, or a current total? I've always wondered) doesn't even compare to Wii games' sales. Or just Nintendo games in general really. Essentially, the heavy-hitters on PC (in terms of sales) are still lightweights compared to games on consoles.

@ bolded: You contradict yourself. First you say there's no way to know and then say the heavy hitters are lightweights compared to console sales?

Not really, If WoW is considered a HUGE success on the PC with somewhere around 11 million sales, and yet there are plenty of console games that sell at least 10 million.

If you really wanted to go against my point, you'd talk about the subscription thing, but those are even harder to track. Who knows how many of that 11 million just played for 1 month, or 1 year. So in truth, that 11 million could equal something like 15, or 20, or 30 million in "sales".

I was really comparing to just WoW, which I keep hearing is the most successful game on the PC ever. It's not only because of the subscriptions (though that helps immensly), it's the extreme popularity for a game with a subscription.

I was going to raise this point but you seemed to be talking solely sales so I didn't want to skew the discussion by talking about the subscription. But as you have raised it, 11 million accounts and growing, not to mention the sales of expansion packs.

And as you've already mentioned, all those people are also willing to pay for about 1-1.5 game's worth of cash every year in subscription, so revenue-wise it's a pretty decent earner and probably much more profitable than even the most popular console games.

Got rid of some clutter above.

I don't know, I see WoW as more of an outlier anyways.

But yeah, I guess I did contradict myself -.- If I say there's no way to know since PC game sales aren't tracked, and then start making conclusions off of assumptions, it seems pretty ignorant of me (just had a discussion about the dangers of assuming too -.-). I do believe that console games sales far exceed PC games sales, but that could be wrong as well. It just seems to be the case that console games sell better, but we really don't know.

I'm totally just making assumptions, haha I'll stop now.

Lol, it happens. That's the biggest problem when debating PC sales, it's very difficult (currently) to track PC sales. We can estimate sales of one area (e.g. Steam) but it's only an estimation and only part of the overall equation. We really have no clue as to how well or badly a PC game might sell. It would be nice to have more sales data for PC and I do think it'll come in the future, but until then we have to keep making educated guesses.

One educated guess (a view common among PC gamers), and an explaination as to why console games seem to sell better, is that PC games are far less front-loaded than there console counter parts. Take a game like Starcraft for instance which has wracked up 10 million sales and continues to sell. However, it took nearly 10 yrs of sustained sales to get to that figure. That's the thing with PC games, they're pretty much always backwards compatible and now all available for digital download, so will always have a very long shelf-life.

They aren't backwards compatible!!! Dammit, I have this old game "Are we there yet" best little puzzle game I've ever played, I can't play it even with emulators =(

I think the processor doesn't know what to do with it. =(



jefforange89 on 16 February 2010

PC gaming is dead, Nintendo is doomed, and Sony is poised to take first place.

^^^^^^^^ all 100% trufax



Wii/PC/DS Lite/PSP-2000 owner, shameless Nintendo and AMD fanboy.

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Gamerace on 16 February 2010

PC gaming will never die and in many ways it's growing. But that depends on what you consider to be PC gaming.

Flash games and social media games are on the rise.

'Core' games like Crysis are a dying breed. I doubt they'll ever die completely but there's no question the industry has made the move from PC to console with PC increasingly become the poor cousin.

There's many contributing factors but I'll sum it up in two:
Piracy
Cost - Gaming PC's are simply too expensive and people are moving away from powerful desktops to less powerful but still more than adequate laptops and now netbooks.



 

Adobo on 16 February 2010

hell no!

there are just too many great upcoming games to mention.



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mrstickball on 16 February 2010

No.

But it is changing significantly. We're seeing it become far less blockbuster-oriented, and having a lot of AAA-exclusives. The PC is not a very popular format for those types of games, whereas consoles offer a much better value proposition for developers.

Despite that, though, its becoming more browser based through flash games, MMO and other indie experiences. Those aspects of PC gaming are certainly growing.

So its a mixed bag. Don't expect many blockbuster exclusives aside from a few MMOs, while the market grows by leaps and bounds on services like Facebook.



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

Senlis on 17 February 2010

Comparing the MW2 sales on consoles vs PC is a bad idea considering how infinity ward butchered the game. It isn't that the PC version is inferior, but rather that PC gamers expect more from their games. Hopefully that is not the trend and that PC developers don't start gimping their PC games to make them more similar to their console counterparts.

PCs are more expensive than a single console, but the prices people quote are just outrageous. People who think PC gaming costs significantly more than, say, a PS3 is ill informed.

As for the cost of PC games, I don't see how it can be more expensive for developers than consoles. Developers don't have to pay licensing fees on their games, which is why most of them are 50$. People don't really buy used PC games. PC games sell new for much longer than they do on consoles. A few months ago, I bought Psychonauts from gog.com. That game is old, and the developers just got money from me on their PC version. Piracy is a bigger problem on PCs, but people also pirate on consoles. Using a digital distribution platform like steam can help reduce piracy for developers.




 

Crystalchild on 17 February 2010

if, it'll die because of piracy. but i dont think so, its just more like... 'lets release this game on Consoles, and 6 Months later on PC!'



I'm a Foreigner, and as such, i am grateful for everyone pointing out any mistakes in my english posted above - only this way i'll be able to improve. thank you!

Scoobes on 17 February 2010
r505Matt said:
Scoobes said:

Lol, it happens. That's the biggest problem when debating PC sales, it's very difficult (currently) to track PC sales. We can estimate sales of one area (e.g. Steam) but it's only an estimation and only part of the overall equation. We really have no clue as to how well or badly a PC game might sell. It would be nice to have more sales data for PC and I do think it'll come in the future, but until then we have to keep making educated guesses.

One educated guess (a view common among PC gamers), and an explaination as to why console games seem to sell better, is that PC games are far less front-loaded than there console counter parts. Take a game like Starcraft for instance which has wracked up 10 million sales and continues to sell. However, it took nearly 10 yrs of sustained sales to get to that figure. That's the thing with PC games, they're pretty much always backwards compatible and now all available for digital download, so will always have a very long shelf-life.

They aren't backwards compatible!!! Dammit, I have this old game "Are we there yet" best little puzzle game I've ever played, I can't play it even with emulators =(

I think the processor doesn't know what to do with it. =(

There is always a way! It just might take some work to figure out how, lol.

This may seem like a stupid question but have you tried DosBox? The majority of MSDos era games tend to work if you use DosBox. I managed to get the old elder scrolls games working that way.




Get your Portable ID!

r505Matt on 17 February 2010
Scoobes said:
r505Matt said:
Scoobes said:

Lol, it happens. That's the biggest problem when debating PC sales, it's very difficult (currently) to track PC sales. We can estimate sales of one area (e.g. Steam) but it's only an estimation and only part of the overall equation. We really have no clue as to how well or badly a PC game might sell. It would be nice to have more sales data for PC and I do think it'll come in the future, but until then we have to keep making educated guesses.

One educated guess (a view common among PC gamers), and an explaination as to why console games seem to sell better, is that PC games are far less front-loaded than there console counter parts. Take a game like Starcraft for instance which has wracked up 10 million sales and continues to sell. However, it took nearly 10 yrs of sustained sales to get to that figure. That's the thing with PC games, they're pretty much always backwards compatible and now all available for digital download, so will always have a very long shelf-life.

They aren't backwards compatible!!! Dammit, I have this old game "Are we there yet" best little puzzle game I've ever played, I can't play it even with emulators =(

I think the processor doesn't know what to do with it. =(

There is always a way! It just might take some work to figure out how, lol.

This may seem like a stupid question but have you tried DosBox? The majority of MSDos era games tend to work if you use DosBox. I managed to get the old elder scrolls games working that way.

Yeah I did. I gave up on it a while ago, maybe I'll try again.

How did you get Daggerfall working? It glitches out on me constantly. I really wanted to steal more carts and horses from shops and sell them back to them in the morning =P

I have such "fond" memories of that game. Not understanding leveling system for a while, so I didn't know why I wouldn't level after killing 100s of enemies. Or how I didn't notice the dungeon maps in the menu, so I would memorize those bland dungeons in my head to get around. If I got lost, such a hassle to find my way back out. It wouldn't have been so bad if they all DIDN'T LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME haha.