FeedWhy PC gaming is dying
by Zenko on Nov.30, 2008, under Opinions, PC, Rant
Let’s face it. PC gaming is a dying culture. The days of Quake, DOOM, and Duke Nukem are over and the scene will never be the same again. MMORPGs have taken over PC gaming as the major genre and revenue puller. So what really happened? Here’s what I think:
1. DRM and Piracy - DRM has always been a huge taboo in gaming and it’s becoming more and more common in PC games these days. This is mainly due to the rising of piracy among PC games and now even consoles are suffering from it. X-Box 360 games are out sometimes even a month in advance of it’s street date. PC games have their copy protection cracked within days of its release, sometimes hours. But while DRM will help save their games the companies are taking it to an extreme, an example and probably the most recent case is EA’s blunder that is Spore. Even Steam games these days are not safe from piracy.
2. Consoles – From the moment consoles started to become a household thing was when PC gaming began it’s decline. What do kids ask for their birthday and Christmas? The newest console or the newest handheld so they can play it with their friends. Now a days people don’t build PCs, they buy a desktop or laptop pre-built and go with it not even worrying about gaming on it. Consoles these days have started to have more of a community feel to them than ever before. X-Box Live has become a huge success with the Playstation Network not far behind. The Wii’s online support is trash but since when has Nintendo ever been good at online gaming.
3. Exclusive Titles – Games don’t come out on one platform these days. It’s almost unheard of and usually considered a bad move depending on the company. Companies like Valve, who have been primarily a PC developer, has started putting it’s games on the 360 (without the same sort of support it’s PC counterpart gets) and now companies are even developing MMORPGs for consoles.
4. Competition – One thing PC games still have going for it is the tournament scene. People still play Counterstrike: Source or Unreal Tournament for cash every year, but how long is that going to last? Major League Gaming just recently closed shop and who knows how soon the rest of the scene will fold. Cons will always be a place for gaming tournaments but Cons don’t have a unlimited life-span and it all rests on the founder’s shoulders to keep it running.
5. MMORPGs – World of Warcraft, Warhammer, Guild Wars, Age of Conan, EVE Online. The list goes on and on and on but why does it? Because developing an MMORPG is like asking for free cash. Everyone is doing it, but because of that we have to wade through tons and tons of crap to get to even one shining gem of a game that probably won’t take off due to it being developed by some no-name company from Korea.
Like the arcades of the past, PC gaming is slowly becoming less and less what people what to do. Why pay a couple thousand dollars on a decent gaming PC when you could go to the store, buy a console for 200~300 dollars, a couple games, and start playing as soon as you unpackage the thing? Why pay 15 dollars a month for an MMORPG when you could pay about 10 for X-Box Live and have almost every title on the console supported somehow? Personally, PC gaming will always have that special place in my heart and seeing it die off makes a part of me just feel sad.
November 30th, 2008 on 10:00 pm
First I thought “Alex is going to shit himself…” when I read the title.
And then I remembered who approved the article.
November 30th, 2008 on 10:23 pm
1.DRM shouldn’t be a problem and honestly the only people I know who debate the subject of whether or not it should be in games are those that pirate games themselves. It actually boggles my mind that people actually care that you can only install the game so many times, if your that worried why not just burn all your game files on to a disk instead of deleting/formatting and then re-installing the game? Another one of the oh so brilliant arguments seems to be the strain the DRM software puts on your system; honestly i’ve never noticed this before when playing Bioshock or Spore (Both of which I bought knowing full well about the DRM). People need to learn something and learn it quick before jumping to this pathetic conclusion: DRM doesn’t cause piracy, piracy causes piracy. Simple as that. And as stated by a fair few key players in the gaming world (Such as our Lord Carmack) piracy is barely even leaving a dent in game sales, so the whole piracy is killing the PC thing is rather silly really.
2. Listing current-gen consoles as your points doesn’t make sense for this. Doom during the so called “golden era” sold around 1 million copies after it’s release (total), Bioshock sold over 1 million copies within a few months of it’s release and still continues to sell more. Plus without genuine statistics your just dribbling shit saying that every single kid through out the world wants the latest Sony/Nintendo/Xbox gadget for Christmas. I remember the last few holiday seasons I got new hardware for my computer and my Xbox and then later on my 360 collected dust because all they were was the thing I used when my brother wanted to play some Halo (Terrible game, by the way). At any given time I could easily bet that there are more people playing games online through the PC then there are on a console; easily.
3. Crysis
Crysis Warhead
StarCraft II
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II
World in Conflict: Soviet Assault
Americas Army 3.0
Quake Live
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky
Hell and thats just new stuff I can think of off the top of my head, obviously there are more new exclusives coming out; but realistically I care more about old stuff that wouldn’t be caught dead on a console (All of which are pretty much better then most, if not all console exclusives).
4. Errr, MLG is a console only tournament series, I believe you are thinking of CGS (Championship Gaming Series). The MLG is still alive and well. I dont think it’s really a matter of how long it will last, more so as how big it will get. With companies investing more and more money into *DECENT* eSports events (ESWC, Kode5, WGT) that use games that dont suck (1.6, Quake 3, Starcraft(As well as being committed to the long lasting use of these titles)) I think the funds and exposure are surely there for competitive gaming to stick around for a long… Long time.
5. All of which are good games. Albeit, I dont remember the last time I heard of some awesome game being made and then being over whelmed because WoW made it so… Actually I dont think it ever happened… Ever.
And this is the oddest point of all and the one I find funniest whenever it gets mentioned. Why would I pay 300-400 dollers for a console, when I could pay 100 more if at all for a PC that WILL run just about any current gen game i’d want it to, most of which are better then most console games? It really doesn’t make any sense…
December 1st, 2008 on 1:27 am
Ah you make some valid points, but my article is mainly opinion based (which I tagged it as such). And it was CGS I was thinking of, you’re right. I’ll make the change for it.
December 1st, 2008 on 3:42 am
Well yeah, all blogs are opinion based.
December 1st, 2008 on 3:46 am
Yeah, I know. I’m not saying he’s wrong. He’s right even on a lot of it. It’s my first post here anyway, it’s good to get some people to rip it up so I can make better ones in future.
December 1st, 2008 on 5:43 am
Mmm, no doubt. I didn’t mean to just stomp on everything you wrote, just giving my point of view on the subject.
December 1st, 2008 on 5:45 am
And I hate to double but if the thing I wrote about the same subject got published (;), it’s called “Wait, what?” if your looking Alex) it would give an even better view (Actually it’s a hell of alot different to yours) on what I think about the current state of PC gaming.
December 1st, 2008 on 7:09 am
I think PC Gaming is reinventing itself, not dying.
December 1st, 2008 on 10:14 am
I look forward to reading it Tree_! And Nova, that could very well be true. We just need to wait and see. I hope you’re right though.
December 1st, 2008 on 10:56 am
I like articles like this. They get people talking and encourage people to share what they actually think instead of writing what they think people want to hear. Nothing wrong with stepping on a few toes.
December 1st, 2008 on 11:55 am
Alex, is there anyway for me to do edits to the article? I saw some mistakes and I need to make a correction.
December 1st, 2008 on 8:25 pm
Zenko, go to Manage in the Control Panel, and you should be able to edit it once you click on your article.
December 1st, 2008 on 9:45 pm
I am unable to click it since it’s been published.
December 2nd, 2008 on 3:52 am
PC gaming, happily dying since 1983.
December 2nd, 2008 on 3:56 am
also the author of this article is clearly not a PC gamer with statements like: “couple thousand dollars for a decent gaming pc”
PS. Only console friends deal in sales numbers and exclusives.
December 3rd, 2008 on 12:41 pm
PC gaming is never going to die, if only because it’s the easiest platform for indie developers. Like NovaSyx said, it’s reinventing itself.
December 7th, 2008 on 5:09 pm
I would like to point out that writer of this article, even though it may be an opinion piece, is a moron. It is poorly written, and you use terrible logic to try and prove your opinion. If you want to show that you are correct, even if it may be an opinion, take your idea, package it into a series of delicious idea nuggets, that are easily digestable by the general public. also, when trying to prove a point using dollar amounts, get the correct dollar amounts, or better yet, research the other side. On the other hand, you can just continue down this path and continue to suck as both a writer and surely as a human being.
December 7th, 2008 on 5:57 pm
Mr. Makebelieve, cool comment bro. Thanks for your opinion though. I’ve already stated this was my first article, so that’s rather pointless to reiterate it. I have not taken a course in writing (just like probably a lot of people writing here)nor do I do it for a living. I do it as a hobby and I’m learning as I go. I’m not trying to make you agree and I am not forcing you to like the article. I just wanted to get my opinion posted. Maybe I’d look into things more if people didn’t act like they were trolling on /v/ though and take the time to make a comment that clearly listed things like Tree_ did. I am glad you read it though and it made you think about the issue even for just a moment anyway.
December 8th, 2008 on 3:34 pm
Things like the Crysis custom tech computer show us that the PC will ultimately have to become more like a console to succeed in the mass gaming market. I suppose that is particularly ironic when one notices the continuing trend for main stream consoles to become more like PC’s. People who have the ability to modify and customise their PC so that it is able to play games at 1920 resolutions and 60 FPS are obviously talented and enjoy what they do. However, it takes a lot more effort to learn these techniques and master the hardware then it does to simply buy a ps3 and play a game. With so much rush and responsibility in our everyday lives, most people don’t have the kind of time to dedicate to such an endeavor, i know i don’t.
December 15th, 2008 on 12:06 pm
[...] hate DRM strategies, and that’s been the popular subject as of late, often inspiring heated discourses on the reason for the listlessness of the PC [...]
January 18th, 2009 on 11:58 pm
shitty, opinionated article.
August 12th, 2009 on 6:27 am
There is a lot to know about this. I think you made some good points.