Second Take: The PC Gaming Slump

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Well being able to play PC requires a bit of savvy on the gamers part. Too many people don't know enough about their machines. The myth that you constantly have to upgrade is BS. The myth that it cost too much is also BS. People fork over $400 for an Xbox360 or even more than that for a PS3 (before price cut). I got my video card for half that price... FOUR years ago. My machine can run almost any game except for crysis. Well I CAN run crysis on lowest setting, but then it looks horrible.

Then their are people who swear they can tell the difference between 60 fps and 100 fps and then the people who run at 100 fps and swear they can tell the difference even though their monitor is only drawing 60 frames. So this leads to some people to constantly upgrade because they think they have to play at 3000x1900 resolution with 200 fps with all effects on. So when they play the latest game and its down to 180 fps they freak out and buy 3 of the latest video card and duck tape em together. So this produces a myth that PC gaming is expensive and require constant upgrades which is false. This is why consoles thrive because their is a standard in both hardware and software. You can't change your resolution, their aren't 100 options to turn off/on various effects. Everyone will experience the game the same way. For those that find maintaining their PC too overbearing then consoles standardized experience is very appealing, now that console gaming has seemingly caught up with PC in the graphics department. That same standard is also very appealing to developers because they don't have to worry about 10000000 different machine configurations.

There really isn't any game out there that can be considered a step forward in the graphics department versus consoles. Before the new consoles came out, most PC games could be considered a step forward over the consoles. Crysis looks good, but not that much more than COD4 and most of the load from crysis comes from the long draw distances and rendering all that foliage plus the physics. If crysis was made with mostly indoor enironments in mind like in HalfLife2 then it'd be a more forgiving game hardwarewise. So maybe PC games just need to take that step forward over consoles just as console took a step forward to catch up, but it seems developers like being able to put a game on console and PC at the same time for maximum money makeage. Or they could take a page from the Book of Blizzard and develop a game that most PCs can run? I mean I ran WoW on a GeForce2 MX for gods sake. Not only an ancient geforce 2 but of the MX variety. And the game still looks pretty good.

About piracy, it appears that PC games suffer more from piracy, because its just a simple download away from a virus/ad ridden website. I'm not sure how console piracy works, but I've seen people stick in a burned DVD and play games. It certainly isn't as easy.

Also I disagree about the death of AGP being a cause. That happened awhile ago and would be relevent if PCIE was just introduced recently. And the point about MMO subscription based games is also contradictory. WOW is the most successful MMO ever and the best selling PC game by far. Saying that subscription based games is killing PC gaming and then use WOW, a very successful game, as an example kinda disaproves your point.
 
Many people have made many different points regarding the slump in PC gaming. Here's my .02, having played video games since NES back in 1985 (23 years of gaming), and I believe it all boils down to one issue..

Nobody can keep up with these hardware requirements. 5 years ago, you could pay $180 for a Radeon 9700 pro and that was enough. Then, it was decided that PC gamers should have the option for 2 graphics cards running in tandem. NOW, we're looking at spending upwards of $1000 to have 3 graphics cards running a game (Crysis) at under 60 fps. The same thing goes for processors. From single core, to dual core, and now Quad-core $1200 cpus that can't run games at the full 60fps that all games are meant to be played at.

We've gone from DDR to DDR3 in, what, 6 years? My PS2 lasted that long, and as developers got better and better at programing for the system so did the graphics. Meanwhile, my ram became essentially worthless.

Don't get me wrong, the evolution of computer technology SHOULD continue at its current pace. It's a great thing. But at the same time, it is destroying PC gaming. Programmers don't give a damn. They aren't limited by any constraints, so they never learn to utilize the technology to its maximum ability. So the cycle continues. Technology is constantly left in favor of the next big thing, while consumers get the shaft paying hundreds of dollars for minimal increases in framerates.

Not to harp on Crysis again, but think about it. You could pay $300 for another 8800GTS, and gain 5-15 fps... OR, OR, you could take that money and buy a PS3 or 360, and rest confident in having a stable platform that will last you for years.

Is it really that hard to understand? This isn't rocket science. It isn't poor marketing, a shift in demographics, or any of the like. It's the PC gaming industry shooting itself in the foot. Ask yourself why WoW is so popular, and at some point you'll have to admit that it's because PEOPLE CAN PLAY THE GAME on their average systems.

Keep in mind some of my favorite games have been PC games. That doesn't change my frustration with what's happening however.
 


I really have to disagree with you. I dont think hardware is an issue. People like to use extreme examples like saying you "need" triple SLI just to be able to play crysis. This is utterly incorrect. Yeah, if you want to play crysis at 1900x1080 resolution with 8xaa and 16x anisotropic at 60fps, ya, you need triple SLI. On the other hand if you're like the vast majority of pc gamers and you dont have e-peen issues, you just play it at something reasonable like 1280x1024 or 1440x900, possibly with 2xaa or no aa at all and 4 or 8x anisotropic filtering, and get perfectly reasonable framerates on a game like crysis. Hell, i have an 8800gts 640mb card that i paid ~330 for christmas of 2006 and a C2D e6600 at 2.8ghz and i was able to acheive an average of 22fps outside, with all the dx10 features turned on through a hacked ini file, if i took it to *just* DX9 i average 26-27fps, which is perfectly playable. On a side note, i have a friend who has a lowly x1800xt who is able to play the game at medium settings, which stills looks remarkably good (main detriment is lighting, textures and what not still look great). So no i dont think developers are killing PC gaming by making games have higher hardware requirements.


Moving along, i'm not entirely sure why there is such a hatred for subscription based games. Honestly i've had so many issues in the past with crappy/slow/unstable servers for other online games that i would gladly have paid a company a fee each month to have something that was fast/stable/etc 98% of the time. Not only that, you get more bang for your buck. For the same $50USD that you pay for a game that may have 15-25 hours of gameplay, you can easily get several hundred hours of gameplay out of a game like WOW or Tabula Rasa, etc.

Edit: Sorry had to come back to finish the post, had to leave in a flash.
 



Let me frame my argument in a slightly different way to illustrate my point.

What are the most popular, most-played computer games in the status quo? WoW, The Sims, CounterStrike 1.6, Starcraft.
What are the most popular, most-played console games in the status quo? Halo3, (soon to be) GTA4, GoW...

Players are choosing to play new games on console rather than on the computer. Why is that? It certainly isn't customizability, which is superior on computer formats. It certainly isn't multiplayer connectivity, because PC has that on lockdown too. Graphics? The newest wave of PC games have superior graphics, and that's not just Crysis.

It's affordability. $350 for a 360 guarantees you many years of uninterrupted gaming at a guaranteed increasing level of visual quality. Contrastingly, $350 for a nice graphics card guarantees you several years of gaming at a guaranteed decreasing level of visual quality.

To maintain quality on pc as games evolve, you are forced to upgrade frequently. Meanwhile, a console purchase guarantees you the latest level of quality no matter what over a 4-6 year period of time.

Also, I'd like to revert back to my point that developers are SQUANDERING the computing power that is available to them. Smart developers like Valve and Blizzard are the exception, rather than the rule, and their financial success in the gaming industry is evidence of that. Wrath of the Lich King will still see a high level of playability across an extremely broad range of hardware configurations. Likewise, HL2: Episode 3 will also be playable across an extremely large range of systems.

It's not just about "ePeen." It's about being able to rely on your investment. Having played video games for so long, I can firmly say that graphics do NOT equal quality of gameplay. Having said that, watching your game descend into a choppy slideshow whenever the action gets intense (which frankly are the moments we play for) is a major discouragement and detractor from the quality of the experience.

Love it or hate it, until more companies start following the lead of companies like Blizzard and Valve, you will see more and more gamers switch to console. Of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
 
I agree with you Wip3out..

Valve makes excellent products that are worth our money and scale very well from system to system.. I have a fairly old PC and I still can run CSS, and HL2 with very good fps... (not the biggest fan of the movement feel though)

We are constantly told how the next great chip is a revolution.. and while it is to a degree, I feel as though the games are not utilized correctly..

PC games require way more investment for the user then do console games.. (which is why console gamers can afford to purchase more crappy titles and ports.. and another reason why PC gamers will download a game and make sure they like it before flopping down another 50 bucks on a loser!)

For example.. even though I feel CPU power is insanity.. and alot closer in stock then alot of people would have you believe, I do not feel there is very much headroom in todays hardware... although I hope this changes this year and I plan to drop many thousands of dollars on a brand new rig...

I want to get one that is at least going to last me 4 years of new software titles...

Now think about that.. having to spend many thousands of dollars every few years.. or at the minimum waiting until you simply cannot wait any longer and dropping a thousand or slightly less..at around the 6 year mark.

That is a vastly more expensive market then your even most dedicated console gamer...
 
I think the second take guys missed a vital factor that might be affecting PC game sales:

PCs are more expensive than most of the consoles (often by 3 times or more), and I mean bang-for-the-buck PCs, not the high end models (which can be 10 times as much). So more often than not people with larger amounts of disposable income will be able to afford them, which usually means people with decent jobs or multiple jobs (the children of these people aside) who have less free time. I'm not trying to make any kind of rich vs poor social statement. I'm just saying that if you own a decent, modern gaming rig, you probably had some disposable income, which in most cases means you had to spend time working for it.

In my case, I work long hours to make more money and certainly don't spend all my free time at my computer, and thus do not have much time to play games, even though I'm a hardware enthusiast. I pick my games very carefully, because I can only play one or two at a time, and even then it can take me the better part of a year to get through just one.

Now if in 2007 you have 4-5 shooter games come out (ie Crysis, UT3, COD4, etc), and your market base is realistically only going to buy one of them, of course you aren't going to have high sales for all of them. And this is especially true if those games all need a computer that is no more than a year old to run them at decent frame rates - forcing people to upgrade constantly - again, you need more money. In addition, I have found that I like to play a mix of games. If COD*4* and UT*3* come out, and I've played COD2 and UT1 already, I'm less likely to buy these new games, even if they are revamped. I feel like I've already been there, done that. Certainly you have title-fans, but I wonder whether the average player can be described by the fan-stereotype (WOW aside).

I upgraded my graphics card this year after only owning my previous card for 1 year, and I had the money to do so, so why not buy that "new set of hub caps" and show it off to my friends? But then I realized that there are about 10 titles from the previous 3 years that I'd always wanted to play but never had the time to play. And my old card could have run them just fine (and if they are old, they will be half the price or less!).

And then there is the WOW phenomena; all the people I know who originally bought WOW are still playing it. If you've found a game you really like (and I think the WOW people will agree that it is better than sliced bread), why buy games that are going to be less enjoyable? As far as I can tell, WOW sucks up most of your free time in any case. [Note: I don't play WOW, so I may be talking out of my under-side]

In summary, I think the people who own the more powerful PCs have less time to play the games, and the market is just saturated with too many games that require too much new hardware.

I certainly agree that pirating is a top issue, as more than 50% of the gamers I know have at least a few pirated games. But I think the consoles are also cheaper and thus more easily accessible to people with more free time to play the games.
 
hi every one, im from mexico and im not an expert on this fields, and by the way, excuse my english it is not 100% good.

i have been reading every one post, and i consider it very interisting, every one has a sort of right of its comets, but i think that most of the people whos are playing on an xbox, ps3 or even a wii , do it beacause traing anyting in a pc is too messy , every one of you should now that most of the time when you sit your self in a chair infront of a pc and try to install a new game, most of the time you end up in goole looking for a patch or an update, without playing a single minute, so what am i talking about ? i am talking about support, of curse it would be pointtles for a 12 years old kid to try to solve all this, when all the want is simple insert the disc and play, most of you should remember that feeling of despered in the loading times , the first time you play a new game , when was a kiddies, even in the supernintendo.
and well even if you have a friend that is lets say 30 years old, and like video games, most of the time su mention this words " grapic card " and he will answer what the hell is that ?
most of people doesnt even now you need one of those to play in a pc, not to mention how the react whe you mention that they get (nvidia , ati ) new ones almost every 2 months.
and if you want to play a brand new title you new in for a new one.

so I agree tho the fact that the coming new pcs should have a better hardware and better support i pc games are to perdure. if not the will desapere in a few years.

thalking about piracy, every single paragraph writting in here is right, but let me tell you
that those who realy like playing , (real gamers ) prifer to buy original games, not because supporting developers or some sort of that, but becasue we love and are more in touch with , the case, the box, the instruction booklet, etc,
i think that the ones who really are bulling pirated games are ocasionally gamers.

what i does not agree, and belive me is a pain in the ass, is saying that they ( depelovers ) will find the way to control pyracy making absourde thing like cheking cd license evrery time we star the game , or even worse installing shi***ing software like
steam from valvle, the first time i tryed to install and play half life, i doesnt even have and internet conection, so belive me ewhen i said, that in that time i really tought in go for a pyrated half- life, even better, this one doesnt need steam to play , and not to mention the long time that it needs to update first ( again , with keads, you thimk they will wait?.
so what i am saying is that those " protection methods " are no for every one, and they really stinks, because , as far as we need to wait to see links to downoad the games, is like a mont.
another example is this fu**ing protection from gears of wars, i recenttly tried to played, and as usual ( for most of the games ) a windows message apear, and something about , well hell i dont remember, but the fact is that i couldnt play, googling the thing i found that the copy protection metod only was prepared to let the player play until , i think dic 31 of 2007, and to solve this i had to change my pc date to some time beetween
january to dic 31 , and need to do so every time i want to play, then you can play.

so once again, most of the kid-gamers, or even grown up cassuall gamers, wont spend their time looking for how to solve a trouble like this.

but, well despite all this , i have to remark that when you finally *** your ass to really play a pc game in very high specs ( like crisys ) it is like heaven. not to mention games like fallout 3, or mass effect, their pc grapichs make you think consoles are ***,
an example , is this i recently play deatmatch on halo 3 in an 32" hdtv monitor, and have to say the grapichs just stinks. belivme whe i said , i remember my old N64.

to resume.

pc game industry most really look for a new ways to protect their investmets
and the hardware developers or disaigners need to alredy put a capable running games hardware to the computers, i mean to the moment we pick up our new computer from the store.
 
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