118 réponses à ce sujet

[Jax Sparrow]

 Avoid the topic if I disagree?  I think that if anything PC Gaming has grown by leaps and bounds.  The gaming industry is now twice the size of Hollywood in sales so where exactly are you getting the idea that we are small?  Furthermore, XBox 360 and the PS3 are both basically mini PCs except you can't upgrade them and this is essentially why PCs are superior for gaming.  Both were already inferior to PCs the moment they were released onto the market;  Yet, they both continually try to give you as many options as the PC has.  So in effect they try to emulate the PC;  Which if I was a PC? I would find very flattering.

[Little Paw]

Don't sweat my sapcebar remark too much, it was just an example of how the game is streamlined...not the end of the world.

imported_beer I think we see very eye to eye on this.

However the point about ME2 coming out on PC at the same time as the Xbox is noted, and I agree a good sign...but, I am talking more about the kind of game and gaming experience, not the amount of releases.

Great discussion, and thanks for keeping this thread civil, and not a bunch of flames based on disagreeing viewpoints.

[Little Paw]

Jax Sparrow wrote...

 Avoid the topic if I disagree?  I think that if anything PC Gaming has grown by leaps and bounds.  The gaming industry is now twice the size of Hollywood in sales so where exactly are you getting the idea that we are small?  Furthermore, XBox 360 and the PS3 are both basically mini PCs except you can't upgrade them and this is essentially why PCs are superior for gaming.  Both were already inferior to PCs the moment they were released onto the market;  Yet, they both continually try to give you as many options as the PC has.  So in effect they try to emulate the PC;  Which if I was a PC? I would find very flattering.

Great points...I should edit that remark, and I will.
I guess if you want to add up the % of sales over prior years you are correct.
If you want to compare to console gaming PC is losing ground.
Depends how you look at it....again I am talking more about design, development and game play, not popularity.
THERE ARE PC games, just not as many taking full advantage of what a PC gamer truly enjoys.
Consoles have done wonders for FPS.
PC was more deeply rooted in RPG, and as imported_beer said, and I paraphrase, developers are melding the two together to get a wider audience.

[Layn]

Gaming has shifted mostly to consoles, and as such PC games have lost everything that made them unique and unmistakably PC games. they lost what made me love them. But it's never going to die, and it has even been getting better.



@Jax Sparrow

console gaming isn't trying to imitate anything from the PC, But they do try to get most genres to work on it.

While the machines are theoretically the same (they are all computers) what affects games the most is how they are played. Console gaming usually is with a gamepad, on the couch looking at your TV some meters away from you. PC gaming is mostly played on an office chair with mouse Keyboard and with the screen half a meter to a meter away from you.

one requires more streamlining to be easily played, the other allows for more options.

one isn't better than the other. they are just different. but i do miss the more complex and deep games there used to be for PC

[DraconisCombine]

Nah.PC gaming has distinct advantages over consoles.Many have already been listed here.Programming is one area that consoles cant keep up with.Good or bad,making a program or mods for games or otherwise will be the advantage over consoles.Consoles became cheaper first.Atari,intellivision,collecovision,were all consoles that were essentially small computers BEFORE computers became financially available to most households.Now its quite balanced as far as price goes.Its a matter of choice now.I still prefer my PC to consoles for versatility.

[Stanley Woo]

i've been hearing about the "inevitable" death of PC gaming since we started developing for console. I'll believe it when I see it.

[the_one_54321]

PC releases have been going in a negative direction for some time now. BioWare is actually of a very short list of developers that has kept up any show of positive attempts on this front.

that said, even with the overall negative direction of the last five years or so, PC releases have not stopped happening. and so long as a PC can do five bajillion or so other things that console cant hope of doing, the PCs are not going to go anywhere and so the games for them will keep on getting made.

Modifié par the_one_54321, 28 janvier 2010 - 05:16 .

[the_one_54321]

Maviarab wrote...
The problem here, why the console market is currently leaving the PC market behind is thus: The majority of games out now, especially for the console are comprised of such titles that attract two types of gamer:

Women, and kids.

i agree completely. but i dont think that is the "problem" with modern game development.

personally, my gaming "to do" list is quite full. i am satisfied with what's being released for me and it's quality. for the most part, anyway. for me, the "problem" is pricing structure and the prevalent success of such games, as MW2, which very clearly abuse their customer base but still see monumental success.

someone i know around here has a very aplicable quote in his signature. it's something like "the average gamer is a very intelligent person, but a completely idiotic consumer." i think that is very true.

Modifié par the_one_54321, 28 janvier 2010 - 05:32 .

[Little Paw]

Stanley Woo wrote...

i've been hearing about the "inevitable" death of PC gaming since we started developing for console. I'll believe it when I see it.

Stanley, don't take death as meaning gone...too literal. I am talking about style, development, playability, and the platform of PC and how it used.
If death is too strong a word I apologize...perhaps I should have said "watering down" of PC gaming.

[Little Paw]

DraconisCombine wrote...

Nah.PC gaming has distinct advantages over consoles.Many have already been listed here.Programming is one area that consoles cant keep up with.Good or bad,making a program or mods for games or otherwise will be the advantage over consoles.Consoles became cheaper first.Atari,intellivision,collecovision,were all consoles that were essentially small computers BEFORE computers became financially available to most households.Now its quite balanced as far as price goes.Its a matter of choice now.I still prefer my PC to consoles for versatility.

Exactly Draconis, but the point is these PC capabilities are less and less taken advantage of as time goes on.
I also appreciate the comment about consoles not being as intimate as PC...PC gaming is done right in your face usually, and many play a console from farther away....GREAT POINT!

[Little Paw]

@Maviarab:
Excellent points.
I have a wife and two kids, 13 and 8. Everyone games.
Wife likes the Wii but mainly the DS.
Son is moving away from Wii, will get an Xbox soon, plays Runescape (more geek than WoW), and has started playing Spore on the PC (there is hope!). He is definitely embracing his inner geek and questions development and the guts of games just as much as he wants enjoyment from them. I think he is a PC gamer at heart but the Xbox is what "all his friends have" - good job Microsoft!!!
Daughter plays A LOT of Wii, makes sense for her age, but she actually has a few creatures on Spore.
I am strictly PC, except when playing the family and party games on the Wii. I hearken back to writing programs in basic on a Commodore 64 to watch a blip go across the screen...so I think my evolution comes from that "geekness". Then again I played Atari, but once PC gaming became popular and I was out of college, I got away from consoles. Being employed and having the ability to buy a new PC when I need one might play a part too.
Wow, so impressed with everyone's feedback!

Modifié par Little Paw, 28 janvier 2010 - 06:55 .

[Godak]

SargeantRenegade wrote...

Godak wrote...

What do you mean "they don't have the hardware"?

Hard drive storage space.  Neither the XBox 360 nor the PS3 has a standard hard drive capacity (the smallest being 20GB for both platforms, which isn't going to store much with the size of games these days).  Their storage capacities have been growing since initial release, but it's still a slow process which could have easily been skipped by going direct to the larger drive capacities.  The technology was there, but it wasn't implemented as early as it could have been (and in the case of the XBox, units without hard drives are still being manufactured and sold).

I don't know about the 360, but you can upgrade the PS3's hard drive.

Modifié par Godak, 28 janvier 2010 - 07:25 .

[insochris]

Godak wrote...

SargeantRenegade wrote...

Godak wrote...

What do you mean "they don't have the hardware"?

Hard drive storage space.  Neither the XBox 360 nor the PS3 has a standard hard drive capacity (the smallest being 20GB for both platforms, which isn't going to store much with the size of games these days).  Their storage capacities have been growing since initial release, but it's still a slow process which could have easily been skipped by going direct to the larger drive capacities.  The technology was there, but it wasn't implemented as early as it could have been (and in the case of the XBox, units without hard drives are still being manufactured and sold).

I don't know about the 360, but you can upgrade the PS3's hard drive.

you can upgrade the 360's hard drive. i use both the 20GB that came with my X-Box, which i use for my music games DLC, and a 120GB for everything else (could have transfered everything to the 120GB but didn't want an empty hard drive laying around). now, i don't know if the Arcade model has a hard drive slot.

as for PC gaming... i still game a lot on my PC, even moreso now since i have to wait for my 360 to get fixed, so it will always be part of my gaming time. however, some things are very slowly being phased out (if that can even be applied here), such as Modern Warfare 2 not allowing dedicated server play (it's a big deal in FPS muliplayer), and Starcraft 2 not allowing LAN play (probably one of the most surprising moves by Blizzard i've seen). if more companies do things like that, i think PC gamaing's "death" may come closer to reality.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

I think it was around the time when BG was released that I read an article in a gaming magazine about how video games go through circles of deepness. They continue to become shallower over years and years until one big game shows that the audience is ready for a real experience again. Maybe we just need another one of those, fully realizing what the new technology allows for roleplaying...

[Varasin]

I don't believe we are seeing the death of PC gaming so much as we are seeing a merging of technologies. I think there is going to come a day when all forms of electronic entertainment including television, movies, music and games, as well as surfing the web and computing, will be centralized into one entertainment system.

[Little Paw]

Humanoid_Taifun wrote...

I think it was around the time when BG was released that I read an article in a gaming magazine about how video games go through circles of deepness. They continue to become shallower over years and years until one big game shows that the audience is ready for a real experience again. Maybe we just need another one of those, fully realizing what the new technology allows for roleplaying...

Interesting premise, I just wonder if we can pin down cycles in a culture that is pretty much only about 30 years old if you are looking at games for home use.
Someone else above stated that games are less geek now, and more made for the casual gamer...great for the industry, not so great for the harcore gaming geek that liked to stress for an hour on a puzzle so hard in a game it made your eyes bleed...I cringe every time my son buys the strategy guide for a game.
I think present culture is looking for ease of use, and flash.
If this is temporary and there will be a cycle of more challenging fare, well, great! I am all for it, but I am skeptical.

I liken it to how some people view Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code as a super smart novel when they have no idea that Umberto Eco writes in a similar genre and is so much more highly intellectual and educated. If you can read Eco's Foucalt's Pendulum without a dictionary I commend you! Eco makes Brown look like the funny papers. Dr. Seuss's made up vocabulary is stronger and more effective than Dan Brown's.

[Pugnate]

I am a hardcore PC gamer through and through, but just once I'd like to see these discussions end with someone pointing the finger at PC gamers.



PC gamers are killing PC gaming. You want Bioware to pay better attention to the PC? Well tell you friends to stop torrenting the damn thing, and actually pay some money for it.



http://en.wikipedia....odern_Warfare_2



MW2 sold 10 million copies on the 360, while it sold about 1.5 million on the PC.... yet it was 4.1 million pirated copies were downloaded for the PC, and only about 1 million for the 360.



Let's examine that ratio.



10 million legit copies sold for the 360, and 1 million pirated.



1.5 million copies sold on the PC, yet 4.1 million pirated.



You want to know what's killing PC gaming?



PC gamers.

[Little Paw]

Can't argue that Pugnate...I can argue that wanting to see fingers pointed is fruitless, but if that much gets pirated I would not want to develop for PC either.

I also think that this presents legal ramifications and is not related to game play or my original topic. It IS however important though.

The discussion is about the style of PC gaming and its watered down state of affairs, not whether or not we will have PC games.

Sorry if my original post is confusing or misleading.

I for one, have never pirated ANY games. I run a business, and I know how I would feel if I was getting cheated out of my own product.

[Ponce de Leon]

I don't think that the PC gaming is dying. I'd rather say that console gaming is getting larger and larger. From what I've seen from the people I personally know (so it might be just a thing of my zone), PC gamers stay PC gamers. Console gamers stay Console gamers. I personally, wouldn't mind trying to play on a console, and actually, I tried an Xbox 360 of a friend once. It's different. That's pretty logical. I mean, why can I kill a strider in less then 10 seconds in PC half life 2, while my console friend can kill it at all because of that strange small thing? Well, that friend, just to say, passed from the PC to the console. might be that he was used at the common PC uses. But still, this isn't that. What I meant was that it's basically a different essence, and if Consoles are getting stronger now, it's because it's rather a new feeling for new gamers. So, asking a kid "do you want a PC" or "Do you want a PLAY STATION" will more likely give you the play station as reply here. But what makes consoles this popular, is what I am asking to myself. Yea well, on TV commercials I will see many consoles ads, but if that's the main factor, then I be damned.

[Little Paw]

Dark-lauron
The market IS the main factor.
Now that consoles can be online, have co-op play etc. they are more complete. They are also cheaper than a very strong gaming PC. Where consoles used to be just a video box, they are much more multidimensional as media tools.
The main watering down effect for PC compared to console is that many console games are designed for ease of use, since they have less buttons and controls, where a PC game, especially if the keyboard and mouse are not used to its potential, can make a game feel more simple.
Many casual gamers also want games they jump right into. I for one, as a hardcore PC gamer will sit and pick apart the game manual. That was part of the fun for me playing PC games. Just look at the manual for ME2 and you can see how "streamlined" the game is.
I think that is the main gist of the discussion about PC games becoming more streamlined and simple in their feel and playability. The "dying" part of my topic is relating to the depth of playability in PC games, not that they are going away.

Modifié par Little Paw, 31 janvier 2010 - 05:09 .

[Godak]

Little Paw wrote...

Many casual gamers also want games they jump right into. I for one, as a hardcore PC gamer will sit and pick apart the game manual. That was part of the fun for me playing PC games. Just look at the manual for ME2 and you can see how "streamlined" the game is.

I never bother with manuals. For PC games, I always customize control schemes.

[Pedro Costa]

Pugnate wrote...
You want to know what's killing PC gaming?

PC gamers.

Sorry, have to disagree with you there, yes, people download games without paying for them, but the majority that does so isn't even planning on buying them - either they can't afford it, or they have lost hope in the publisher/developer and are downloading a game to see if they improved on their policies, or the game isn't even their genre but they heard so much about it they want to try it out.

I'm not saying some weren't going to buy it, simply not as many as you seem to imply. Of those 4 million copies downloaded, I'm positive not even 2 million would've been bought.
This is something game companies seem to have a problem understanding, or, apparently, some players themselves.

Take my case, for example: it was a pirated copy that made me buy Mass Effect in the first place. I played it, I loved it, I supported the company by buying it.
I'm not a person with a lot of money to spend on games (each game costs an average of 50€ where I live, and I'm a student paying my own studies), so I have to know I'll like my investment before-hand, otherwise I wouldn't even buy half as many games as I have, therefore, if anything, piracy helped the gaming industry in cases like mine.

So, don't come with that story that it is pc gamers killing pc gaming, if anything, it's most game publishers showing only the best of a game in their trailers/demos to the point we can no longer trust them to know if we'll like a product or not, stupid DRM shenanigans(which, again, wouldn't happen if distributers realised that at least 70% of illegal downloaded copies wouldn't have been bought anyway) or optimising a game to console/making it a console exclusive and leaving us pc gamers to eat the dust along with the prices they charge for each game, which don't stop getting more expensive by the release. Add to it game selling stores to forget lesser known countries with bonus content and you have a recipie that results in pc game sales plummeting.
I'm not advocating for piracy here, mind you, I'm just saying it's not the demon you make it out to be. As with everything in life, there is a good side and a bad side...

In fact, as I wait for my copy from play.com to arrive (in Portugal, GameStop apparently "forgot" to add the terminus armor as pre-ordering bonus, besides, it's 15€ cheaper) I've already downloaded and played Mass 2. It's a pirated copy, but I still payed for the real thing and I have the play.com mails to prove it.
So, did I help kill the pc gaming industry by buying a game that I got pirated but liked so much that I had it bought in appreciation of the great work the company did?
Did I kill the pc gaming industry by downloading a pirated copy of a game I had already purchased before-hand?

Of course, not everyone is like I am, but, then again, I am proof not everyone is like who you say they are...
To cite the same source as you have:
"Another pro-file sharing argument is that movie, game, and other types
of media are not seeing any drop in sales; but a rise." (http://en.wikipedia....ki/File_sharing)

In conclusion, do not put everybody in the same boat just because you can't be bothered to put yourself in our shoes.

[Little Paw]

I do not approve of pirating. I do not approve of being a ninja, or dressing up like a zombie and dancing with Michael Jackson.

That said, some good points Darklord_PT.



Overall, the casual gamer is killing the depth of PC games...that is the best argument I have heard so far.

I am sure Diablo III will come out and everyone will scream PC games are back. I know it is blasphemy, but I am not a Diablo fan. I found them quite boring.