PC gaming in the trash?

Shagz

Shagz

New Member
There seems to be some discussion going on lately in the gaming community about the state of PC gaming (or at least that's what yesterday's Penny Arcade lead me to believe). But I think it's a very real issue, what with consoles on the rise, less PC exclusive games, etc.

As Cliffy B states in this interview, PC gaming these days are about web games, casual stuff, clicking buttons on an interface, MMOs, WoW, etc. and not the twitch shooting of by gone days, or at least that's what the majority of people are using their PCs for. I think you just have to look at the evolution of the ToJ to see how true that change of focus is. (Starcraft guild to FPS gaming guild to right now, two of our largest chapters being MMOs)

Is this where PC gaming is going? Is the trend reversible? Do we *want* to reverse it? (For me, personally, I'm kind of sick of having to update my computer every two years, dropping $1000+ every time, just to play a new game)

Discuss.

Supplemental: Interview with Mark Rein in response to Cliffy B and talking about the new PC Gaming Alliance.

PS - For the record, I'd still rather play FPS's on a PC, any day, but we'll have to see how much longer my wrists can hold up for. :p
 
I refuse to seriously game on any console, especially when I here someone brag that their console is awesome with its 175w PSU...hehe... I like console gaming, but I think PC gaming is SOOOOOO much better...but this is my opinion... Also, I like depth and content in a game, rarely do I like a game that I play for 10-15 mins, and be done with it...
 
sadly... because of the emmense popularity of MMO's on teh PC, people's views of PC games are becoming more of MMO and less of FPS...

BUT,

the best thing about PC gaming, in most poeple's eyes, is that you have a limitless internet attached. Thus, are not all PC games Mass Multilayer Online games (MMO)? yes... they are NOT all RPG - MMO's... but most games on the computer are MMO's.
An FPS - MMO is still a mass multipler online game.

-------------------

I understand what you are saying, though; and I fear that same problem.
Every computer gamer knows that if you started on Computer FPS you can never go and think that console FPS is better... *hopefully*
 
I think PC gaming is taking some sucker punches from a few different trends:
  1. Multiplayer console gaming. All contestants in the current generation of consoles (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii) and handhelds (DS, PSP) offer some form of multiplayer gaming over the Internet. Online multiplayer is no longer dominated by the PC.
  2. Shift from desktops to laptops. Laptop computers are becoming more and more popular as the popularity of desktop computers plummets. "Gaming laptops" are less common than and far more expensive than "everyday" laptops. Even gaming laptops, at this time, can not compete with custom built desktop systems in terms of raw gaming power. Furthermore, it's much more difficult, if not impossible, to replace hardware in a laptop. You can walk into nearly any electronics store and purchase a new hard drive or video card for a desktop; hard drives or video cards for laptops are much harder to find. There's also the problem of laptop manufacturers taking kickbacks to install spyware on new laptop builds. What we gain in mobility, we lose in control--control over upgrades, control over hardware vendors, control over pre-installed software.
  3. Rising cost of game development. The higher the cost of game development, the lower the chance developers will take a chance on a new concept. All three of the hottest FPS games online right now are sequels (Team Fortress 2, Unreal Tournament 3, and Call of Duty 4). (None of these games are PC exclusives, either.) With gamers more likely to find innovative titles on Wii Ware, Xbox Live, and PSN, why should they spend $1000 to build a new gaming rig every few years?
  4. Guitar Hero. No, seriously.
  5. The upgrade penalty. If you had a choice between paying $250 for a new console or $1000 to upgrade your computer, which would you choose? Remember that you can't have friends over to play four-player party games on your console (and gamers are not the anti-social types that other popular media still, like some bad Mary Worth comic, blindly assume them to be). If the average age of the modern gamer is twenty-something, then you also have to factor in children. Sure, you may be more interested in fragging Scouts with crit rockets in Team Fortress 2, but you're not going to play that with your five-year old. So while a 16-year old gamer might consider the choice between Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and Mario Party 8, that 16-year old doesn't have the purchasing power of a twenty-something. Spending $1000 for a new system every few years may sound like an acceptable fee for the teenage hardcore gamer, but the 28-year old married man with a wife and two children isn't going to see things the same way.
  6. The decline of the first-person shooter. This ties in with the upgrade penalty, but also relates to the popularization of the MMO. World of Warcraft's immense success marks the dominance of MMO games over FPS titles. (Real-time strategy games are even less common.) I can personally speak to this point as I watched our Counter-Strike chapter dwindle only to find many former CS 1.6 players joining our World of Warcraft guilds. There are pros and cons to each genre, of course, but MMO players, as a rule, are less interested in buying new hardware than FPS players.
  7. Mindset. It's been a year and a half since the Wii was released and developers still don't get it. The average age of gamers is in the mid-twenties. We've been mashing buttons and looking for the next shiny graphic engine for the last 20 years. We're tired of it and we want something new. The Wii offers that something new and the gaming industry is too dense to get the message. What do we get? We get shovelware titles for the Wii (seriously, 90% of the Wii library is crap), nothing but sequels and derivative titles (e.g. Enemy Territory: Quake Wars) for the PC, and a landfill packed with Brain Age knockoffs for the DS.
  8. Sexism. Let's assume roughly 50% of the United States population is female. What percentage of females are interested in Gears of War? Roughly zero. Why? Because the game is so blatantly macho that women want nothing to do with it. Turn it around for a moment: Do any of the men in the audience have any interest in My Little Ponyz DS? Nope, didn't think so. Why then are developers alienating half of their potential customers? I'm not saying that every game should be The Sims, but it wouldn't hurt Valve to throw a set of female player models into Team Fortress 2. Blizzard understands how to appeal to female gamers (even though they still insist on keeping that embarrassing Night Elf dance animation) and they have roughly 10 million subscribers to show for it. I'm not saying 50% of those subscribers are female, but I'm certain that there are more women playing WoW than are playing TF2 (which is a shame, because TF2 is a great teamplay-based FPS and I'd like to see more women playing it).
In a sense, PC game and hardware developers are dinosaurs--they're outdated, they've grown fat, they're slow to change, and they're facing the same fate: extinction.

Why are we still focusing on graphics when Valve piqued our interest in physics with Half-Life 2? Why are we still mashing joypads when the Wii showed us how to swing a virtual tennis racket--maybe with our friends, maybe with our spouse, maybe with our parents--with Wii Sports? Why are console developers focusing on graphics chips when AI is lagging behind so sorely?

I miss the days when Sierra and 3D Realms and Apogee and id Software ruled the PC world. There was such a wide range of popular games, from Kings Quest (adventure) to Terminal Velocity (flight sim/shooter) to Boppin' (side-scrolling platformer) to Doom (first-person shooter). It seems that "popular" PC gaming falls into one of three camps: MMO, FPS, or RTS.

Maybe, just maybe, people are moving away from PCs and toward consoles because they want to do more than grind levels, frag a n00b, or harvest tiberium.

EDIT: Wall of Text crits you for 9999 damage.
 
I refuse to get a console mainly because I'm too uncoordinated to use a controller...lol :p

I built my machine in 2001, upgraded the mobo/cpu in 2004 and upgraded my video card in 2005. You don't necessarily have to plunk down $1000 for a new machine every couple of years. Consoles, on the other hand, are not cheap... especially when they first come out. When they eventually drop in price it's because they've become dated and a new one is out or coming out. The only reason I'd consider getting an xbox is to play Halo3...
 
Shagz said:
There seems to be some discussion going on lately in the gaming community about the state of PC gaming (or at least that's what yesterday's Penny Arcade lead me to believe). But I think it's a very real issue, what with consoles on the rise, less PC exclusive games, etc.

As Cliffy B states in this interview, PC gaming these days are about web games, casual stuff, clicking buttons on an interface, MMOs, WoW, etc. and not the twitch shooting of by gone days, or at least that's what the majority of people are using their PCs for. I think you just have to look at the evolution of the ToJ to see how true that change of focus is. (Starcraft guild to FPS gaming guild to right now, two of our largest chapters being MMOs)

Is this where PC gaming is going? Is the trend reversible? Do we *want* to reverse it? (For me, personally, I'm kind of sick of having to update my computer every two years, dropping $1000+ every time, just to play a new game)

Discuss.

Supplemental: Interview with Mark Rein in response to Cliffy B and talking about the new PC Gaming Alliance.

PS - For the record, I'd still rather play FPS's on a PC, any day, but we'll have to see how much longer my wrists can hold up for. :p
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PC Gaming has been supposedly dying for a decade. I ahve a 6 year old machine here that is jsut now beginning to have performance problems with games. I'm not trying to runt he latest and greatest..GW, Steam, heroes fo might and magic series..etc etc all run fine. I'm saving now for a new box simply because it's finally beginning to show it's age. pC gaming is on the edge if you try to stay on the bleeding edge...if not then PC Gaming on the whole is doing just fine.
 
XionTawa said:
Just wait for Halo 3 on PC, it will be better anyways, on both 1 and 2 the PC version had more content...
Click to expand...

true... but how many people with Xbox 360's are going to say, "hey, a better halo game? COOL! now all i have to do to play it is pay 600 - 1500$ to get a decent machine to run the game. GREAT!"
 
You don't necessarily have to plunk down $1000 for a new machine every couple of years.
Click to expand...

If you want to play FPS games, you have to. To play UT3 or Crysis, I'd have to get a new video card, even then it's not guaranteed to run super smooth on my machine, and, sad to say, it probably won't look as good as an XBox/PS3 version on a HDTV.

@Tek, all excellent points, thought I'm not sure how Sexism is causing the demise of PC gaming? You said yourself, there's lots of female gamers in WoW and I know there's lots in Guild Wars and other MMOs.

Also, I'm not sure making female models for TF2 would have suddenly opened the floodgates for female gamers. It's an FPS, and when has that kind of game *ever* attracted a female following? :p Boys play certain kinds of games, girls play another kind of game.

I think maybe you meant that sexism has been a factor in the demise of FPS gaming?

Actually, we should make a clarification here. I think PC gaming on the whole is actually pretty healthy. When you look at all those MMOs, and all the casual and flash games that are out there, and the increasing vibrancy and innovation coming out of the indie game dev scene, PC gaming's in pretty good shape.

What's *not* in good shape is the traditional gaming world, where those AAA titles got made and released, mostly FPS, RTS, etc. The kind of games that sold computers, sold graphics cards, and kept everybody in the money. That world is just not doing so well.

---

At any rate, two recent experiences have really made me aware of this issue as of late, and why gaming on consoles is so good and gaming on PCs is so...bad.

One was getting a DS. I found it ridiculously easy to get connected to my wireless router and play online, and the way so many of the DS games offer single-cart play with other DS owners...it's just an awesome little machine, jam packed with value for your money. (especially if you start looking into the hacking world)

The low cost to develop for the system produces a lot of crap, yes, but one man's crap is another grandmother's first joyful introduction to gaming. The DS has such a crazy amount of variety in its library, there's something for everyone. On the PC platform there is variety, but the variety is found in casual and flash games, not in the AAA titles that we traditionally associate with PC gaming.

The other was playing Burnout Paradise on my friend's Xbox. He was telling me about the Live features, and how your friends can challenge you to a game and how seamlessly you and your friend get spawned into each others' copies of the city you're driving in. It was just so *easy*! No load times (that is, the load times were transparent), sitting there waiting for a connection to be established...and the game looked sooooo *beautiful*!

You buy the console, you buy the game and it just *works*. Not so on the PC.

I still love playing with a mouse, I'm loving TF2 and I couldn't play it anywhere else...but if I want to play anything else, have any other kind of gaming experience, I'm reaching for my DS, my browser, or thinking about buying an XBox.

I dunno, maybe that's another thing: maybe people are just tired of the gaming experiences that AAA titles on the PC provide and would rather have new experiences on the consoles, without having to update their drivers and download a patch.
 
I bought Crysis for my son and it had no problem running on his single core Athlon64, 2GB RAM, nVidia 256MB 8600 GTS machine. I built it over a year ago. I don't remember the exact cost, but it was less than $600.

I was blown away, however, by the Halo3 graphics on an xbox. Once the xbox starts coming with blu-ray.... hmmm... might be tempting.
 
Glitch said:
true... but how many people with Xbox 360's are going to say, "hey, a better halo game? COOL! now all i have to do to play it is pay 600 - 1500$ to get a decent machine to run the game. GREAT!"
Click to expand...

I have no interest in an Xbox or Xbox 360, the specs are crap, and there are no interesting games (for me) on it... Plus, why buy a PC, that isn't upgradeable and limited to a controller and only certain games...no thanks...
 
I've never been in the norm, but I'm not a big fan of the xbox systems. Plus Microsoft is still only contemplating including a blue-ray add-on feature. PS3 already has it, and by the looks of it the scale maybe tilting towards blue-ray over HD. The next thing I look at is that the amount of data on a HD or blue-ray disk still doesn't compare to the speed and space available on a PC. I think in most gamers home the two (console/PC) will co-exist just as most gamers have more then one console system.
 
Ok the obvious things are...

A. PC gaming can never completely die because unlike consoles people use their PC's for things other than gaming. It's true you don't need to update computers near as often for non-gaming software but you still do on occasion. The leap to 64 bit has yet to be a necessity but it's going to happen at some point (especially if companies like Microsoft have their way -_-).

B. In spite of people continually saying graphics are overrated game makers keep emphasizing graphics! Game makers don't seem to be listening to anyone other than the new game players who are still wowed by graphics. I cannot count how many games have I played that have been touted as the "next revolutionary thing" only to find enhanced graphics and little else. Eventually game makers are going to be forced to become inventive. At the rate graphics are going within a decade they are going to be photo realistic at which point they will have to do something different to get noticed at all. Maybe we will FINALLY get that VR then...

C. I'd think that if anything is going to die in PC gaming it's the elitist bleeding edge crowd, then PC games will shift towards a more mainstream appeal (if they aren't already with the MMORPG thing).

D. Just why do game makers have to make games that can be classified as RTS, FPS, MMORPG etc. Why don't we see more blending or creating of genres?

...And I'll say it, though I may be reviled for it, but, please can't you guys find a different word to use other than cr@@. I don't want to get into a discussion about it, it's just unpleasant and I'm asking politely use crud or something. Thank you.
 
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Well, I have been a PC gamer for 8 years, and my thing is MMORPGs, that is what I started PC gaming with, and that is what I am still doing, and probably will always do. MMOs always fascinated me...I hate FPS games, all I play are MMORPGs, RPGs, and RTSs... and on console I like RPGs and multiplayer versus...
 
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