http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-09-07-total-annihilation-creator-backs-the-pc

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The creator of PC hits Total Annihilation, Supreme Commander and Dungeon Siege has hit out at those who say PC gaming is dying and pointed to Valve's digital download service Steam as evidence of its booming popularity.

Gas Powered Games CEO Chris Taylor reckons the phenomenal success of Steam means the PC version of upcoming multiplatform action role-playing game Dungeon Siege III will "compete" against the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions when it comes to sales.

"You've got almost every major player in the world buying a PC gaming company, whether it's Google investing in Zynga, Disney buying Playdom, EA buying Playfish, GameStop, the console videogame store, buying Kongregate, the free-to-play PC gaming company, Bobby Kotick announcing that 70 per cent of Activision Blizzard's revenue comes from the PC – 70 per cent!," Taylor told Eurogamer.

"When the next Star Wars launch is from BioWare, John Riccitiello [EA CEO] is probably going to have similar stories to tell. It won't be as big, but he's trying to do that. In other words, he's buying PC businesses and he's trying to do things in the PC space because the PC is where all the opportunity is.

"It's apparently exciting enough for all those major players to all want to get into the business. I'm not saying consoles are shrinking. It's all growing. Everything is growing.

"It's amazing. It's like we love the drama of it."

The outspoken Taylor echoed recent comments from InstantAction CEO Louis Castle, who predicted that in only a "few years" high quality console games will be playable through web browsers.

"It's a matter of time before you're playing a game of the quality of a triple-A game that we know and love, like a Supreme Commander 2 or a StarCraft II, in a browser experience," Taylor said. "There's no reason that won't happen within five to eight years.

"That's one of the reasons PC gaming breaks out in that space. No installation. No grief. No reading the box and wondering if you have a 7000 or 8000 series video card and DirectX what? It just plays. It works.

"Wait till that happens full on."

Dungeon Siege III, developed by Fallout: New Vegas creator Obsidian Entertainment, is due out on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 next year.

The Steam effect means the PC version of the game will sell as well as the console versions, Taylor reckons.

"Two, three years ago I would say the 360, PS3 version, because PC was in disarray," he said.

"Now with Steam – a year-and-a-half ago they announced 25 million paying customers as opposed to people who just created accounts. There will probably be 40 million the next time they provide an announcement – or 50 million.

"That creates an incredible intensity in the PC business that had been lost. So I would say put down even money that we'll see the PC version competing against the console version when it comes out next year."

"There's so much change going on. If you make an observation about all that change, most of it's happening on the PC. Probably 60 per cent of it's happening on the PC."

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interesting stuff...

It's so telling no one is reacting on these threads you make on PC gaming thriving, but when shio makes a thread suddenly it's one of the more popular threads, people love to flame PC gaming (ok they also love to flame shio) but when the news is actually good no one seems to want to react. 

Anyway I'm very happy It's going this well, PC will always be my favourite gaming platform.

though I must say. It didn't seem like Supcom 2 was treated that way. Their sequal to one of my favorite strategy games ever... Not Chris Taylors Finest hour... but then again... that project was probably started around the time he said this chaos ensued.

But I see no problem with PC gaming. If it's on computer I buy it first :P

So true !

Looks like the midway point of the usual cycle has been reached. At the start of each console generation, consumers flock to the shiny new stuff, closely followed by developers and publishers keen to cash in. In the stampede the PC gets relatively neglected and a lot of people start pronouncing it dead- funnily enough the most vociferous group seems to be former PC gamers desperate to validate their new console purchase.

The PC just keeps trundling on though, making plenty for companies savvy enough to exploit the vacuum left by the developers who are now concentrating on consoles. PC tech keeps on evolving however whilst the consoles obviously remain static and start to look increasingly out-dated. Eventually a tipping point is reached where the tech available either reaches a low enough price or is powerful enough to completely outclass the consoles, and consumers start coming back the other way, again closely followed by developers and publishers. That time now seems to be here. The difference now of course is that it's so much easier to get into PC games than it ever was before and DD is a goldmine for publishers and developers of all sizes. It's never been a particularly bad time to be a PC gamer, but the next few years could certainly be one of the best.

I think it helps I don't add outrageous claims and inflammatory statements with the articles. But yes shio's reputation gets all his threads flamed.

But I just like spreading interesting news and as a PC gamer primarily ATM I tend to see the PC gaming articles and thanks to the slant of the site most of the PC related articles aren't posted very often.

It's good you do, keep it up.

Exactly. The trends are only proving that PC is the platform of the future. PCs are almost a necessity nowadays, and they keep getting cheaper and more user-friendly. But with consoles it's the complete opposite: They're getting more expensive and more complex.

Digital Distribution is saving us from hunting patches, installation problems, etc... PC is stronger than ever, and the fact that PC was the only platform to grow last year proves it.

will do, I like spreading the word lol. I think knowledge is power and the stuff these people say can give incites into the future of gaming, I found his comments about browser gaming especially interesting it seems more and more devs seem to be heading in that direction whether through streaming or advancements with HTML5 etc. Even devs like Kojima have said streaming could be the future of gaming. And with the Milo project possibly being a cloud based AI project the internet seems to be the future of gaming.

of coarse most of the world needs better internet connections before web based gaming can really take off in a big way. but it is still very interesting stuff to think about.

I like the idea and it would open up PC-gaming for a lot of people. Still I like upgrading my system to get the best graphics, I like the ability to customize settings and I like the game to be installed on my HDD. Surely it will work fine and it definitely is the future, but I will have to get used to it. I just hope they can implement a way to let custom mods work, because I'm not ready to give those up.