What happened to the pc game industry?

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Started by Gorbstein May 08, 2011 01:30 PM

57 comments, last by Hodgman 12 years, 11 months ago

109

May 08, 2011 07:15 PM

I'm pleased to know it's still ticking over, for the majority at least. What about the indie PC market?

Regarding steam (or other digital providers), I confess I know nothing about it's past failures or present successes. I have no crusade. It simply isn't compatible with my lifestyle or my current setup. If I find the rare time to play games, I don't have the time to wait on download progress bars . In addition, I move around frequently and so I run on mobile broadband. While this meets my needs in almost every way, I simply don't have the bandwidth to download gigabytes of updates. If that means I can't buy games.. then I can't buy games.

It seems that if I want to walk down the street, pay for a game in cash, pop it into my machine and shoot away for an hour.. I'll be looking at a console, which is fair enough.

(or.. do consoles now require a connection to play single player games too?)

D

Indie PC market is now also mainly being sold on platforms such as Steam. Also a few console single player games require a connection or require a connect to unlock extra content but the large majority do not. Seems like the money you would spend on a console could go to paying for a high speed internet connection but if you really don't want a real internet connection then by all means buy a console.

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Gorbstein

120

Author

May 08, 2011 07:34 PM

Also a few console single player games require a connection or require a connect to unlock extra content but the large majority do not.

That's cool.

Seems like the money you would spend on a console could go to paying for a high speed internet connection but if you really don't want a real internet connection then by all means buy a console.
[/quote]

It's not a question of money really.. most high speed wired connections require long fixed length contracts and I never know whether I will be living in the same place long enough. In the last place I stayed the phone line had been disconnected by the last tenant and the company wanted a huge fee to reconnect it, and then only offered a fixed 18 month contract. It wasn't worth the effort. In these places the mobile broadband actually gives a better connection anyway, not to mention I can work on the move.

D

freeworld

341

May 08, 2011 07:36 PM

When it comes to stores not selling pc games, it's probably do to the fact that online portals can easily provide the game, and back it up for you. Plus they tend to sell the games cheaper than if you were to buy the actual disc.

You can't download (except pirate) 90% of console games, so stores are still a must. Even so online companies like newegg, or amazon tend to have the game cheaper than the stores to, aslong as you can get around the shipping costs... alot of times standard is free.

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I'm not mean, I just like to get to the point.

JackOfAllTrades

109

May 08, 2011 07:41 PM

[quote name='SteveDeFacto' timestamp='1304882108' post='4808205']
Also a few console single player games require a connection or require a connect to unlock extra content but the large majority do not.

That's cool.

Seems like the money you would spend on a console could go to paying for a high speed internet connection but if you really don't want a real internet connection then by all means buy a console.
[/quote]

It's not a question of money really.. most high speed wired connections require long fixed length contracts and I never know whether I will be living in the same place long enough. In the last place I stayed the phone line had been disconnected by the last tenant and the company wanted a huge fee to reconnect it, and then only offered a fixed 18 month contract. It wasn't worth the effort. In these places the mobile broadband actually gives a better connection anyway, not to mention I can work on the move.

D
[/quote]

I have Time Warner cable and I've been able to drop my contract 3 times without a problem. I think you have to pay a $50 cancellation fee though but you are paying in advance so basically you just end service and stop paying.

Want an easy to use open source 3D video game SDK that handles Physics, Graphics, Audio, and AI right out of the box?

Sirisian

2,263

May 08, 2011 08:15 PM

Regarding steam (or other digital providers), I confess I know nothing about it's past failures or present successes. I have no crusade. It simply isn't compatible with my lifestyle or my current setup. If I find the rare time to play games, I don't have the time to wait on download progress bars.

Heh this reminds me of when Crysis 2 came out. I didn't feel like using my parent's slow home connection to download it so I just waiting the 24 something hours for it to download via 3G. CDs always seem so archaic to me. I mean the game is going to be patched after release since the complexity of current games can't really afford a flawless release apparently. (Or if it fits into my schedule I take my laptop to work with me and just download the 10 GB in 5 minutes using a gbps LAN cable :unsure:

). I think people will stop complaining once we get real competition in the US and more people offering cheap gbps lines.

However I'm in the group of people who play a game once then uninstall. I have no real connection to a game after I play it for a few hours. If you feel the same way and have a 5 mbps line you should try OnLive if it has the game you want. I played a few games on it at work. Amazing system they have there since there's no downloading required.

zedz

291

May 08, 2011 08:19 PM

What happened to the pc game industry?
In a word, piracy. Its a very unpopular fact on many forums but its the single largest reason why PC gaming aint as big as it was.
i.e. why console revenue growth has been outstripping PC console revenue for a few years

eg the biggest game title currently is call of duty X,
now if you look at activisions own numbers, sales ratio is around
consoles ~95% PC ~5% (even though the PC has better graphics, controls etc & usually cheaper to boot!) ppl are not buying it
10 years ago the number ratio would of been much closer, if not higher on the PC
hell even most/all of the once mainly PC focused developers have jumped over to being primarily console focused

way2lazy2care

793

May 09, 2011 12:36 AM

I mean the game is going to be patched after release since the complexity of current games can't really afford a flawless release apparently.

It has more to do with companies being able to afford fixing broken games. Go back and play some old games. There are tons of bugs that would be easily patched today that aren't because there was no dlc. Games were always shipped less than flawless.

[color=#1C2837]
eg the biggest game title currently is call of duty X, [color=#1C2837][size=2][/quote]
[color=#1C2837][size=2]call of duty is a horrible example. It is designed to be a console shooter, and is outclassed by a lot of PC games. A much better example would be battlefield, but even then there are tons of PC fps's that sell amazingly on PCs, but suck on consoles.

zedz

291

May 09, 2011 07:10 AM

A much better example would be battlefield[/quote]
OK thats another excellant example, granted not so bad for the PC, the title use to be only on the PC now its the consoles that dominate it in sales (sorry bout the bold,underline)

Battlefield: Bad Company 2
According to Chart-Track, BC2 is the "best ever launch for any game released this early in the year." Interestingly, 53 percent of BC2 sales went to the Xbox 360 version, followed by 31 percent and 16 percent of sales for the PS3 and PC

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/08/battlefield-bad-company-2-is-new-king-of-uk-sales/

MatsK

395

May 09, 2011 11:09 AM

What happened to the pc game industry?

It's right here.
And here, here, here and here.
Also here. And here(here), and here.
Plus here and here.

I noticed you linked to OnLive. I hope I'm not the only one consistantly choosing not to support it. Quite frankly, I think the notion of cloud computing is ruining the PC industry altogether. The day that Microsoft releases a cloud-based OS is the day they won't get my money. I want the right and the priviledge it is to be able to store games and applications on my harddrive, so I can make modifications for them. OnLive, if truly successful, will ruin indie mod development.

way2lazy2care

793

May 09, 2011 12:47 PM

Battlefield: Bad Company 2
According to Chart-Track, BC2 is the "best ever launch for any game released this early in the year." Interestingly, 53 percent of BC2 sales went to the Xbox 360 version, followed by 31 percent and 16 percent of sales for the PS3 and PC

http://www.joystiq.c...ng-of-uk-sales/

but again you come back to which is better, having 100% of sales when sales are 10% of what they could be, or 16% of sales when sales are 100% of what they could be?

What happened to the pc game industry?

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