The prognosis is dire, I’m afraid. It’s time for PC gaming to start a heavy drinking and smoking habit and to make a list of “Things I Want to Do Before The End.” It’s terminal cancer, and not the good kind either. It’s the kind that will most certainly kill it, but slowly and only after putting it through a protracted and agonizing battle with false cures, hopes, and pain. The cancer might even go into remission once or twice, but it will triumph in the end.
We’ve heard this prediction before, of course, and as a passionate PC gamer, I was always quick to dismiss it. PCs offered prettier and deeper games than their console brethren. After a month with my new PS3, however, I’ve decided that the end of the PC age finally approacheth, and right soon.
To be sure, I feel guilty about writing off my beloved machine. Steerpike helped me piece it together over three years ago and it still runs nearly every game with only relatively minor hardware upgrades. I do not celebrate the console’s impending victory, but I can see the forest for the trees and the little bunnies and bees, too. I’ve decided to accept it, and I present the following argument merely to help my fellow PC gamers begin their journey through the grieving process.
The first point: there are few PC-exclusive games worth buying. The most recent flagship titles like Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age: Origins, Bioshock 2, and Aliens vs. Predator are all available on consoles, leaving only S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat alone on the PC-exclusive island. I own or will soon own all of these games, and when given a choice, I will buy the PS3 version every time even as a single tear dribbles down my cheek upon purchase.
If PCs can claim one small victory, it’s that they are still the best platform for deep strategy titles like Civilization, Heroes of Might and Magic, and Medieval 2: Total War. I didn’t play Civilization: Revolution or Sakey’s favorite, Viva Pinata, but the reviews indicated these were merely the childish, watered-down, light beer versions of the strategy classics. OK, maybe Pinata received better reviews, but I’m convinced these are the same fools that thought Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and Indigo Prophecy were anything other insect excrement.
Sadly, I don’t play strategy games all that much now. True, I have more responsibilities now than I did back in 1991 when I played the original Civilization for 12 hours at a time or when I spent the entire winter of 2007 conquering Europe in M2TW. I played so much Medieval that whenever it snows, I nostalgically reminisce about snowball fights with my elementary-school friends and opening Autobots and Decepticons for Christmas even as I quietly smile about slaughtering infidels and flanking infantry with heavy cavalry. Sigh. Excuse me…I have something…in my eye…both of them…
Strategy games require regular and prolonged play for them to be rewarding, otherwise I lose the thread of my plan and my interest wanes. Why was I at war with the Aztecs? What is this army doing in Bulgaria? What technologies do I need? But as easy as it is to blame a lack of time for changing tastes, I know now that’s just the lie I used tell myself when I was still in denial of my loved one’s impending death. We inevitably make time for our cherished pursuits, and if I have forsaken PC gaming, it’s for other reasons.
As I’ve already stated, one of these is the volume of quality gaming titles for consoles. I bought Dragon Age for the PC upon its release. I played for all of three hours before the game began locking up on me. When I tried to reload a save game, my reward was another hard lock. I spent another four hours digging into BioWare’s forums for a solution. Please understand: four hours in my life is about two nights of gaming time, and instead of spending it gaming, I was studying and attempting a dozen ways to fix BioWare’s broken game. I downloaded new drivers for my video card, my motherboard, my sound, tweaked the visual settings, and other…less savory things. Terrible things. Some users even recommended quite flippantly that I should just nuke and pave my hard drive as if this wasn’t equivalent to shooting a patient to save them from appendicitis.
The experience soured me, of course, and it was by no means the first hardware or software issue I’ve had with a new release. If I have to spend four fruitless hours troubleshooting and possibly wipe my hard drive to make a game work, then screw it. I eventually found the problem and had to disable the in-game sound to play DA. Yay. To BioWare’s credit, they released a patch two weeks later than more or less solved the issue, though it’s still prone from crashes in certain areas.
I’m sick of crashes, freezes, and troubleshooting. I’m tired of buying a new game and worrying about whether or not some permutation in my computer will make it unplayable. Consoles rarely encounter such problems, as much as I can tell. Sure, the games might have some buggy features, but they work and don’t require me to screw with drivers and BIOS and an infinite number of other crap nuggets that I barely understand.
I can hear the BioWare boards masses’ response: “Buy a new computer.” To which I respond, “F*** off. F*** directly off.” I need to spend $1,500 every two to three years plus RAM and video card upgrades so I can “ensure” a bug-free gaming experience? How many upgrades will I need to buy for my PS3 in the next few years? Zero, that’s how many, you trolling monkey-lovers.
Still…one could counter these arguments with the observation they are somewhat subjective. Some people are willing to spend thousands on new gaming machines every 12 to 18 months. Some are savvy enough to troubleshoot efficiently. This brings my argument to its most compelling part, but to get to it, I must indulge in my past.
Back in 1987 when the monitor alone weighed more than our CPUs and we had the choice of radioactive green or um…orangy orange, I began to dabble in PC gaming. These were Infocom’s classics like Zork and Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy, Starflight from Electronic Arts, and soon Sierra’s Space Quest and King’s Quest. We had an Intellivision and a Colecovision, but I scarcely touched them once we had our PC dinosaur. Nintendo and Sega Genesis came and went, but I forsook Zelda and Phantasy Star for Wasteland and Sentinel Worlds: Future Magic. Games looked and played better on PCs than on consoles through the 90s and into the 21st century, provided one was always willing to upgrade your dinosaur when necessary.
And I was willing and so I did, but no longer. Perhaps the Tap-Repeatedly audience differs with this opinion, perhaps not. Even so, I’m willing to wager that a substantial majority of hardcore PC gamers are 25 or older. We all lived through System Shock 2 and Civilization II while 8-bit systems were fuddling about with Sonic the Hedgehog and Golden Axe II. Even while PlayStation gave me the classic Resident Evil 2 and Silent Hill, I still preferred Fallout and Descent.
Here’s the rub: the teens and preteens on today’s systems have little to no incentive to make the transition to PC gaming or even shifting to real money games, through online gambling/gaming platforms. Flagship titles are not only readily (or only) available on the consoles, but they are frequently available on mammoth high definition televisions. They can play on the couch while chattering Ritalin-fueled taunts into their wireless headsets as they castrate my ego in Modern Warfare 2. As they age, parents will certainly buy them the next generation console rather than spend three times the cash to buy a gaming rig. By the time the new generation can buy their own toys, they will choose the comfort of their living room and 52-inch 3d televisions over a mouse and 22-inch monitor.
The PC’s only trump lay in its continued dominance in the real-time strategy and turn-based strategy genres, though the latter becomes more of a niche genre by the year. Starcraft 2 won’t see a console and I’m certain we’ll see countless PC-exclusive clones in the following months. Eventually, however, someone will evolve the console interface to accommodate traditional mouse-only territory, and the PC will finally meet its merciful end. If it seems impossible, recall that PCs claimed hegemony over shooters until 2001, when Microsoft released Halo upon frat houses everywhere.
I love my machine, and it loves me; that’s why it told me to remarry and be happy once it leaves this earth. After it goes, I know it will see me with my PS3 and my 52-inch HD TV and my surround sound, and I know it will finally be at peace.
Write an email to the author of this post at jasondobry@tap-repeatedly.com.
I went through roughly the same thought process when I first acquired a 360. A couple years later, I found myself building a new gaming rig. Yes, consoles are great. The lack of upgrades is indeed a bonus (though accessory prices can be laughably unreasonable). When it comes to big blockbuster titles, yes, consoles are where its at. But PC as a gaming platform will never die. Why? Because games are created on PCs, and it’s the best platform for amateurs and up-and-comers to strut their stuff. Let consoles have the big blockbuster titles. PCs can be satisfied with the bulk of indie/experimental/artsy games. Not to mention user-created mods and conversions, which can make the difference between a game you play for a month or for years. Oh, and MMOs (either old-school Wow-style or Web 3.0 Facebook-esque), compared to which console gamers are a tiny drop in the bucket. You can keep watching the obituaries hoping to spot PC Gaming, but I suspect it’ll be alive and kicking -in one form or another- longer than you or I.
As long as Microsoft remains a dominating force in the console gaming industry you can rest assure that the PC will get it’s due share of games
Great article Jason. I can’t say I agree with your thoughts at least on a number of levels.
Commercially, you may be right about the PC market but, as David says above, it’s home to all the tinkerers. People who like to tinker with their hardware, their OS, their applications, their game settings, game engines, customising their experience every step of the way. More importantly these tinkerers create mods, new maps, emulators (for systems long gone!!), fix and patch things developers don’t, they create indie games and prop the market up in a way that doesn’t revolve around sales.
As somebody who rarely plays through games more than once, I like to ensure the game is working tip top vanilla or not. I’ve just spent the last week busting my ass trying to get the Steam version of XCOM: UFO Defense fixed up (no difficulty bug) and ready for a proper play through. I wouldn’t be able to get this pedigree of game on a console to begin with never mind having the ability to tweak it. It’s the same with S.T.A.L.K.E.R., all three games have garnered such a fervent modding scene which directly made the first game a much more pleasurable experience.
Another thing which I think is interesting, is that there was once a time when my console friends laughed at the PC market’s need for patching games. Well along came connectivity for consoles and with it patching! HA! Ahem. My computer is a far better machine to browse the net with as well because aside from the lack of a keyboard and mouse it’s a damn sight quicker.
While we’re talking about the humble keyboard and mouse: first person shooters on a pad. No, no, no, non ononongnrgnag. I can’t handle it. Have your Halo if it means playing on a pad. I feel severely impeded with one!
Anyway, the fact that a PC is open to such customisation is why it will remain such a steadfast creative force. Consoles are so restrictive (or straightforward), so they suit people who just want to pick up and play.
Oh and one more thing, my PC is hooked up to my HDTV, amp and 5.1 system as is my PS3. I sit back in my Danish arm chair with my wireless mouse and keyboard on my lap and it’s very comfortable.
(Sorry if this comment seems a bit scatterbrain, I’m at work typing in between boss glares)
One thing that continues to bug me about the insistence that the PC will “never die”. The PC as a platform is slowly disappearing. Many of the more powerful and more impressive games require equally powerful machines. I run Crysis on a dual-core machine with 3gb or RAM and the damn thing still chugs at certain points and I don’t dare turn the resolution up to max. That’s an extreme example, but the point is there is nary a laptop I have ever owned or used for work that I would even contemplate running it on.
Our computer lives are getting smaller. Laptops are becoming more common, and their replacements are already here. More consumers are getting savvy to using their mobile devices for Facebook, e-mail, and many other traditional applications we’ve come to associate with computer use. Just as laptops can be docked to a full-size monitor and regular keyboard, there is nothing that says my little 3G phone can’t be similarly docked (once someone engineers the device) and many handheld devices are perfectly capable of running Microsoft Office already.
The PC is an appliance but it has a replacement. While my son’s iPod touch can play some pretty impressive games, it can’t do Mass Effect 2 or Fallout 3. Yet. As long as we have devices capable, we’ll play games on them. PC’s will have games as long as PC’s are around. The question is, will they even be around in the next 20 years?
Gamers insist they’re buying the latest and greatest desktop systems, but gamers keep confusing themselves with the mass market. The mass market has already begun shifting away from desktops, and they’re already looking at moving away from laptops. The most common question I used to hear from customers was “What’s your offshore strategy?”. Now the most common question is “What’s your mobile device strategy?”. The problem is that what defines a “computer” doesn’t have to be built in the same way we traditionally think of as a “computer”.
You beat me to the punch, Jason.
As you alluded to yourself, I think the biggest threat to PC gaming isn’t from consoles but from PC’s themselves and how the technology world is evolving. Laptops have offered an alternative to the desktop PC for a while now, and can be made powerful enough to equal if not outperform desktops (at a premium) but the world of computing is being scaled down even more. Netbooks, phones and, in the future, pad like slates. Just look at the hype generated by the iPad. As a device itself it’s unveiling has been abit of a dampner, especially to Apple fanboys like me, but every computer firm worth their salt is already looking for their own “tablet” solutions to beat it. That’s where the future is.. and it’s a future that doesn’t lend itself particularly well to the staple hallmarks of PC gaming (RTS aside, perhaps!)
In the short term, PC gaming doesn’t hold the same commercial value as consoles. Consoles are easier and – despite the introduction of installations and post launch patches – are still a much more accessible and hassle free way to play games.
However, I think that is the main reason why PC gaming won’t “die”. People who create mod’s, patches, fixes.. people who take enough interest in the community around those games to get involved in them.. they’re a dedicated bunch. Alot more dedicated to and involved with their platform of choice than someone like me, a console gamer. If the hardcore PC community have resisted the lure of consoles and the mass markets for this long, then why do people think everybody is on the verge of jumping ship now? Consoles aren’t a new thing and their popularity hasn’t just shot up overnight.
There are also games on PC that just can’t as of yet be replicated on consoles. The one PC game i actually play, Football Manager, has had several dire console ports and SI Games have since scrapped producing them. They just don’t work. For all the attempts to make a good console RTS game, I don’t think that’s yet been achieved either. Console players in the mainstream have largely adjusted to FPS’ on a control pad, but there are still genre’s out there that just don’t work on consoles.
Long term, computer hardware and how “computers” are defined will be a danger to traditional PC gaming, but I think the PC communities are still strong and active enough in what they do to keep it “alive” despite the continued popularity of consoles.
Good article though, particularly interesting as this is a discussion I have regularly with a certain Lewis B!
Great column, Dobry! Good stuff as always.
I am not sure if PC gaming, as we know it, is going to die, but I think it is and will become more-so a niche genre as consoles continue to get better and better and as PCs themselves become re-defined.
As many have noted, mobile devices, netbooks and other advancements are changing the face of PCs. Desktops aren’t going the way of the do-do just yet, but I could see the market begin to dwindle as smaller, mobile devices begin to be able to handle the functions that many people rely on a PC for: email, web-browsing, and word processing.
You have that trend on top of the ever-increasing quality of consoles and you have a recipe for a dwindling market.
I’ve never really looked at all of this, but how do PC sales figures for cross-platform games matchup with consoles? I imagine they are a fraction of the sales, but I’ve never bothered to look into it.
Personally, I’m still an avid PC gamer. I am the partial-owner of an Xbox-360 (it’s Matt’s back-up 360 that I’ve kept at my house for like the last 3 years) and I have probably played it, by myself, for all of 4 hours combined. Last year I sold my PS2 because I never played. I think consoles are great to play with friends, but as far as solitary gaming experiences go, I am pretty much a 100% pc gamer. In fact, I have been in the midst of a PC gaming renaissance of late and have done more PC gaming in the last 3-4 months than the last couple of years. (As my lovely wife could attest to.)
I can’t really imagine playing a lot of the types of games I enjoy, strategy sims, sports management sims, some real-time strategy games, on a console. They just don’t port well. I can do shooters, 3rd person or 1st person on either. It took some getting used to at first, but I am equally bad at both regardless if it’s the old mouse and keyboard or a joy paddle.
The biggest annoyance with PC gaming are the technical glitches. The crashes and the various problems. And then the constant need to upgrade. It’s a signficant cash output. I am already concerned that the super sweet gaming laptop I bought in Dec 2008 wont be able to handle “Civ V”. What will I do then?
Interesting points, all.
David–I confess I overlooked the MMO market when writing the article and it is indeed a formidable population. I’m certainly not privy to MMO developers plans for the console, but it seems logical to assume they will eventually make the jump. It’s a massively untapped gaming market, and these veins rarely seem to stay virgin for long.
Greg–There will always be tinkerers, of course, and as an original Counterstrike and Team Fortress fan, I will always cherish them. Still, these sound like more of a niche market than something that can keep the PC around as a dominant gaming force. Like I said, I’m not predicting the PC to die next year or even in the next few. Lung cancer kills you slowly, very slowly, but certainly. We may be looking at a total integration of consoles and PCs and mobility into one system. In that case, it may be the “death” of both while marking the beginning of a new platform.
The PC’s fate as an entertainment platform is like the fall of the Roman Empire. People want to assume there were one or two reasons for it, but the truth is it’s a lot more complex.
The Cloud and Eastern Europe are key factors in the PC’s destiny. As cloud apps become more ubiquitous, there will be less reason to have a powerful PC on your desk. This will be Microsoft’s doom. But Eastern Europe is a very PC-centric place, and as long as we see the kind of creativity we’ve been seeing from places like GSC, Nival, Croteam, People Can Fly, and others, there will be a place for PC gaming.
MMOs will go to consoles. It’s inevitable. Early attempts have shown only limited success but more and more we’ll see the MMOs go to the largest installed user base. Cloud-based services like OnLive will sink or swim based on performance, while control issues will dictate the future of strategy and shooter games.
All in all I think the PC will remain around, possibly as a niche, for as long as there’s a PC the way we currently think of one. Of course, given the changes we’ve been seeing, that may not be long at all.
I would hope that we eventually get a platform with the strengths of both console and pc and the weaknesses of neither.
I’m a tinkerer and lucky too as I never have much problem with games on a pc. But I know the heartbreak of having your hardware crap out or be incompatible or simply not beefy enough to run a game. All you want to do is play and the rig just sits there and taunts you.
Personally and in regards to nothing in particular, I utterly detest console controllers and thus won’t touch anything with a joystick, trigger, button or pad. I know there are ways around it but until the industry offers up an elegant solution, I’ll be staying with my pc and beloved keyboard/mouse. Give me 3 or 4 good pc games a year and I’m happy. Gaming is no longer the all consuming thing it once was anyway.
Great article.
I just need to say that no matter what happens no one will ever be able to convince me that first-person shooters are better, or even equal on consoles. I think Halo: Combat Evolved is the most overrated piece of shit of our recently departed decade. That and portable music players. Turntable + home stereo system = win.
I honestly believe that first-person shooters have barely evolved since Half-Life blew the doors wide open in 1998. Call of Duty 1 and 4 stepped it up dramatically in the theatrics department; FarCry and Crysis stepped up graphical achievement (though both fail to be enjoyable games, IMHO); Halo 1…well it’s not innovative at all, it’s just terrible frankly. I guess it was new to console gamers in 2001; BioShock, probably the most legitimate title you could call an advancement of the genre, still doesn’t touch the Half-Life universe, to me anyway. Maybe some people think it had a better story and/or storytelling device, I agree with the former, not the latter. What else…let’s see, that “tactical shooter” genre never went anywhere. There was Rainbow Six, Rogue Spear, Ghost Recon, SWAT 3 & 4, Op: Flashpoint, and Raven Shield. But I would call none of those great games, except perhaps the first R6 in terms of sheer innovation.
I don’t think it’s really gone beyond any of that. Maybe I’m forgetting a game, but I don’t think so. The last three truly excellent first-person shooters I can recall are Deus Ex, Thief II: The Metal Age (I mean, it’s just the first game but improved), and Half-Life 2. Okay, and Portal, which is one of the most delightful video games ever made, but it’s not really a FPS in that traditional sense.
The last great games in terms of online multi-player? I guess one might point to Battlefield 1942, but I see that as more of a half-baked experiment which has been coped a zillion times but never substantially improved. And a straight up shooter? I still consider Unreal Tournament the pinnacle of online deathmatch. That and its successor “2004” are the best. The Modern Warfares, the Medal of Honors, the Battlefields? Etcetera, etcetera. Meh. Halo 3 can kiss my ass.
I just needed to get that out of my system.
M.o.d.s.
Mandatory tinkering to get a game running *as it should* is the hellacious end of the Modification Continuum.
I tolerate the unjust mandatory so that I might enjoy the beneficial voluntary. 🙂
I am not a tinkerer. I happily stopped tinkering when Win 3.1 no longer required me to create batch files for my son to run his games on our 386. I hate troubleshooting. It was part of my job way back in the stone-age but I haven’t had to do it, as a job, in 15 years yet I have friends who still call or email with questions as to why things aren’t working the way they should. When MicroSquishy touted its “plug n’ play” features I was joyous even though I knew full well they were lying. I hate upgrading to play the latest games. I still haven’t upgraded my video card from the 128MB that was originally installed and every time I go into my spare room, the 512MB card sitting on the shelf thumbs its nose at me.
I love, love, love buying a console game, shoving it into the drive and having it work right out of the box. I do a happy dance when I see the crisp, clear images appear on my HDTV. No tweaking, no cussing, no tears.
That’s not to say I don’t play games on my PC – after all, that’s the sole reason I bought the hulking beast – it’s just that sometimes it requires far more effort to play than I’m willing to expend.
I am lazy, hear me snore. 😀
I am not too sure about the whole first person shooter console vs. PC issue.
I am not the biggest FPS fan. I hate “Halo” and all of its various sequels. I consider them to be very bland, boring games. I also didn’t like the first “Half Life”. It annoyed me. I didn’t play “Half Life 2” until about 2 years ago after Steerpike gifted me a copy over Steam. It was a super awesome game, though with a horrible and boring ending. I have “Portal”, but haven’t played it. I never played any of the “Thief” games or “Deux Ex” and I don’t think I ever really played through any of the “Quake” games. I did beat both “Doom” and “Doom 2”! (Branching out to 3rd person shooters, I did play both “Max Paynes” and enjoyed them. Also, if you’re talking 3rd person shooters, you can’t ignore the “Gears of War” games. They aren’t super complex or subtle, but they are great, great fun.)
While I don’t think there’s been a FPS for the console (or PC for that matter) that equals “Half Life 2”, I don’t think the difference is quite that stark.
How difference an experience was BioShock on the PC vs. a console?
The only FPS I’ve ever played on both was “Left 4 Dead.” I played primarily on the PC, but played the demo on the 360. If I had a choice, I would take the PC version simply because I played it more, but the experience really wasn’t at all that different. Because I have played enough FPS on consoles, the whole controller issue isn’t there for me.
While I have never played the solo missions for any of the “Call of Duties” or “Ghost Recons” and “Rainbow Sixes”, I have played a ton of co-op campaigns for both “Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter” titles, played the entire co-op campaign for “Rainbow Six: Vegas 2”, and played a number of the co-op missions for the new “Modern Warfare 2” and think they are fantastic. Playing those co-op games with buddies in the same room is as good a time playing a FSP as I have ever had.
I guess that, while FPS on consoles have lagged behind PC, I don’t think the gap is quite that wide and I can see it narrowing in the very near future (see, e.g., BioShock 1 & 2). There’s just nothing all that inherent about FPS’s that make them difficult or awkward to port to console, as there is for RTS, sport sims, or larger strategy games. Then again, as someone who is not a super fan of the genre, my opinion isn’t all that strong.
@Jason D & @Steerpike- The future of MMOs is not on the console, at least not exclusively. Apart from WoW, the most popular and lucrative MMOs are all web-based. That means the future of MMOs is on pretty much any device that can handle browsing the web and run Java/Flash/Silverlight/etc. Then of course there’s Facebook games. I don’t really consider them games, but many do, including the 60+ million people playing Farmville and its ilk.
Honestly, I wish consoles were the future of gaming, because that way I’d be more likely to recognize and enjoy what will pass for “games” in a decade or two. More likely I’ll be left shaking my fists in incomprehension at what the young’uns are “playing” on the latest web portal or portable phone-like device.
@xtal, ajax & Mike: I’ve tried first person games on a console and never really gelled with them in the same way as on a PC (apart from Wii games, Timesplitters and Goldeneye). In the back of my mind I’m constantly muttering “Don’t think about the keyboard and mouse, don’t think about the keyboard and mouse…”, it’s like when I’m at an eastern restaurant that requires chop sticks: I can use them but they’re just clumsier than a knife and fork (you can’t cut or effectively stab). Anyway, this mentality that I’ll surely some day have to overcome just puts me off many first person console games. It’s for this reason I wouldn’t want to argue about the differences about the actual games themselves. Having said this, I’d quite happily, -perhaps even more so- play first person games through the Wii remote and nunchuk or similar. That was a revelation in Metroid Prime: Corruption. Another thing is that if I do sit down to play a console game I HAVE to adjust to their control scheme whether I like it or not, because seldom are there any options otherwise.
@ajax: I actually thought the ending to HL2 was long overdue because I just found it really repetitive as a whole game. Now the episodes, they’re different…
@Steerpike: Those out-there eastern European titles keep the exclusive interest ticking over but as many have said I can’t see the PC being much of a force for mainstream gaming in the future. What guise the PC takes on is an interesting point especially considering the prominence of portability. I for one will be getting a laptop when Mr Money smiles once again upon me.
@Mike: That is my dream! One platform to rule them all! I don’t really have much trouble with PC gaming either, or at least it doesn’t bother what little I do have. It comes with the territory.
@Jason Dobry: Agreed. Tinkering itself will never keep commercial mainstream gaming on the PC afloat but I think there will always be a vibrant creative scene generating stuff that, while not necessarily super profitable on its native platform, will no doubt influence or even bleed over. By the way, this seems like a hot topic! 😉
I personally don’t care whether the MMO breaches consoles as they are addictive and grinding time sinks. As for shooters–I loved Halo when it arrived, but the analog controller still cripples me on PS3. Modern Warfare 2 regularly punishes my inability, and to make things worse, it seems that the only people with microphones are the 11-year olds.
Team Fortress 2, Counterstrike, and the PC shooters see the mic’d players use the microphones to coordinate and work together–this doesn’t happen so much in MW2 and probably not much on consoles. Perhaps its the demographic. Even if I favor the console, I’ll miss the relative maturity of the PC multiplayer demographic. The PS3 multiplayer experience must be sad indeed for me to use the word “maturity” and “multiplayer” within 20 words of each other.
Hmm, that’s a very valid point. I’m yet to play a game of Battlefield 1943 on the PS3 where players actually co-operate. What is it with people putting their mics on while their baby is screaming or they have some shitty music blaring out in the background? I’ve heard more of that than actual speech!!
Toger, I think you are my long-lost twin. I hate tinkering, too, and I love being able to pop in a game on a console and just start playing with no installing and no drivers and what have you. Plus the controllers are so much easier for me than keyboard + mouse. Maybe because I came into gaming via the consoles rather than the other way around like most people. And I also think it’s possible to have games on console that are just as engrossing as PC games, e.g., Knights of the Old Republic, Ico, even on the last generation ones (which are still all I have; I game so little nowadays that I am not willing to spend on anything new).
I am sure the proof is out there already that PC’s are dying. What do total console sales vs PC sales look like? What does the trend look like over the last ten years? I will bet dollars to doughnuts the PC slope is negative and the console slop is positive. Math people learn it, live it, love it.
god dammed console jockeys
mcshane
What does it actually mean PCs are dying? Surely, people will keep using them.
I agree Igor. The PC will always be used for development but whether it will continue as a viable platform for commercial success isn’t clear. As mentioned above, I think it’s safe to assume that the PC gaming scene will become a niche interest as consoles gain more traction with people unfamiliar with ‘tinkering’. As computers have become more widespread with all sorts of different users they’ve become more accessible and as Apple have rolled out popular super simple, minimal products over the years, consumers generally don’t have to understand the technicalities of devices and their applications to use and enjoy them. I think this is an important point when you consider the many problems that a PC can present to your average person, not least when they want to kick back and enjoy some games in the leisure hours.
If consoles, in time, do drive the industry, I’d be curious to see whether the sorts of esoteric gaming experiences that the PC has delivered over the years would be welcomed there.
As the author, I should mention that I’m currently playing the PC-exclusive S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat and I’m enjoying it immensely. The cancer’s in remission…but it will be back. So sad…
Many games may be available on a console, and so there are little exclusives left for the PC. However, consoles themselves have very little exclusives as well. You only have to look at the sales charts to see that the PS3 and 360 share almost all titles with some notably starting life on the PC (Bioshock, Mass Effect, Half Life, Fallout, Battlefield, Left 4 Dead).
On a side note, although the PC may not have many exclusive titles, it is the way that games are played on the PC which makes them much more enjoyable, specifically through its interface. The Mouse and Keyboard still offers unrivalled control for those who enjoy strategy games, first person shooters and MMOs. Although these genres play well on a console- they just aren’t as good if you were to compare them side by side.
What also sends me into a rage when people bring up the console vs. PC argument is that they always say consoles are “trouble free”. Well yes they are, but so is my PC. I run the dreaded Windows Vista 64, and have never ever had a single crash, blue screen, freeze, graphical problem, driver problem- nothing. Put a game CD in, hit install- load it. Done.
Console titles now have installations and update times, so are very much similar to a PC- However the PC’s online infrastructure far surpasses the consoles. Mods, online communities, STEAM groups, indie titles, it’s all a quick search away. Of course, many of the benefits the PC offers are at a cost- however when you have the fundamentals in place within your PC, upgrading every now and again isn’t difficult.
My total base unit for my PC cost £700 which still after a year and a half is incredibly powerful and runs anything on the market at ridiculously high frame rates. I then have the opportunity to overclock the processor and graphics card if I wish.
What’s the cost of a PS3 setup? Probably around £900 if you consider the console, the TV and a second pad/game, so they aren’t as cheap as people make out.
On a final note, the PC still remains king of the online world and I think it will forever be. People have been moaning the death of PC gaming for years and years but it continues to survive.
@ Steerpike: I really don’t think until console players realise not every game can be played on a control pad, that MMO’s will ever get a foot hold. The genre by its very nature is so in-depth that you need the interface and speed that a mouse and keyboard offer. In addition, I’m not sure that console owners would be willing to purchase a game, plus mouse and keyboard, plus monthly subscription charge to the game, on top of their Xbox live cost and broadband cost. Of course there will always be those who would- but for the most part I don’t think the majority will.
Blizzard has demonstrated that the PC is very much alive online- and with in excess of 20million subscribers (quite low numbers compared to Lineage and some other Korean mmos) the PC is far from dying.
Some current PC exclusive titles in production for 2010 release:
Anno 1404
ST: Online
STALKER: Call of Pripyat
Warhammer 40k Chaos Rising
Command and Conquer 4
Deus Ex 3
WoW Cataclysm
Star Wars the Old Republic
Star Craft 2
Diablo 3
Crysis 2
Max Payne 3
Splinter Cell Conviction (this may be coming to consoles, can’t remember)
Splinter Cell: Conviction and Max Payne 3 are both coming to consoles, Lewis.
I thought as much Mat- still credit due that Max Payne was born on PC 🙂
Really, I have no problem with “exclusives”. I don’t really understand the desire to have them, most people own at least two consoles now days anyway- and games being available on all machines just allows everyone to benefit 🙂
Exclusives… bah! I don’t want to buy a system for two or three games. I hope one day there is just one or maybe even two consoles to choose from. Systems gathering dust are more painful than any number of technical problems on a PC. Maybe.
Apart from all the much more reasonable comments here, I must admit I’m so glad to read yet another flawlessly anecdotal and utterly rubbish post. Sorry, I just feel that needed to be said. 🙁
Right, I’m sorry, I just tried to get my head around “Is he actually providing short personal stories as justification for the demise of a platform?”, “Is he comparing the marketing-heavy Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft camp with Windows games for sales figures?”, “Is he complaining about one specific games issues and generalising it to the entire industry?”, “Does he ignore MMO’s, browser games (in fact anything “casual”) the need for keyboards, and the fact there are genres of games he won’t be playing yet others will?”, “Is there a terrible cost comparison?”, “Is there a ‘Oh I am sure someone/some group will claim/tell me to’ which doesn’t help his case?”, “Does he generalise his knowledge on who owns, operates and plays games on PC’s?”, “Does it just sound like a rant that there are no exclusives, everything seems like a dumb console port, I’ve had technical issues and I love my new console/console setup/console game?”, “Does it finish on a final note to try and keep some people they’ve insulted, especially any people developing games for PC’s exclusively, on good terms?”.
Of course, I don’t mind people ranting about consoles being dominate. They’ve been dominate ever since the Atari era, gaming PC’s have always had the smaller market share in 3d game sales, give or take subscription based ones (how do they count?), and I am sure you’re a wise soothsayer for saying “I think things might change in the reasonably far future, so far as to have no one call me on this if I am wrong but I am able to dig it out if I am right”. Yeah, I can say there’ll be a new console cycle sometime soon, and that you won’t be using whatever is your preferred console(s) in X years time…go me.
I am quite justified in saying anecdotally I’ve seen too many stories like this (hey, ain’t anecdotes fun?). I really hate posting this which seems so hate fuelled, I just am just boiling over here! I think I just got annoyed since I enjoy reading almost all the other posts on this site! I also tend to agree with a lot of the opinions put forth, if they are informative, unlike this one.
Urg, why am I so angry about this? Sorry! Please don’t ban me for disliking your opinion piece. I’ll be a good boy in future who rails against those stupid PC gamers (or console gamers, or casual gamers…), or fights in the good console wars…since after all, what we need is people to utterly hate something they enjoy doing, or tell other people they are stupid for enjoying it right? Or maybe we just should scaremonger and predict random stuff, then when the predictions cause the “problem” in the first place, we can say we predicted it! (of course this doesn’t apply here; no this place isn’t as big as Kotaku 😉 ).
Ahggg, okay, ending post now…I realise this is all your opinion, I stand by that I see too many of these pieces (usually more put in as fact…urg) so this just is a letout for me, and a stupid one, but I’m posting it anyway! so there! 😀
@ Lewis
Exclusive games now provide little more than chicken feed for the internet fanboy. “Ugh we have Uncharted”.. “Yeah, well we’ve got teh Haloz”. Really, who cares? Even as relatively recently as the Playstation 2 days, exclusivity actually meant something. I had a PS2 because none of the game franchises I grew up loving and playing were available anywhere else. Now the lines are blurred so vaguely that exclusives are barely relevant. There are a handful of games that I enjoy that are available only on PS3 or 360 but.. meh, that’s why I have both. If to be pressed on a favorite, I’d swing PS3 based on little other than I prefer the controller. The design of the Dual-Shock has become an extension of my arms since 1998!
@ Gregg
Wouldn’t surprise me if that day wasn’t too far away at all. Unless your game is called Call of Duty, Mario “something” or is based around a lie about making you fitter/smarter, exclusive games haven’t exactly shifted huge numbers for any of the major 3 consoles so far this generation!
@Mat: That can only be a good thing. Hehe, I think the best console exclusive I’ve played in a good while is Motor Storm: Pacific Rift. I’m a petrol head, nay, a speed freak underneath my Sunday driver exterior… in fact I’m in the top 20 (globally) on a few of the Speed Weekend time trials. Sorry, that was a totally shameless brag.
@Andrew: Even if it is anecdotal, we can all understand where Jason is coming from. Many of the points above bolster his argument but it’s definitely proven a hot topic!
Andrew–I will tackle your points one at a time so I can properly address them.
“Is he actually providing short personal stories as justification for the demise of a platform?”
Yes. Yes, I am. I could have provided more empirical evidence, but I don’t have access to it. It’s definitely more of an opinion piece–I never present it has anything other than that, and I’m sorry if you expected something other than what I very clearly presented as opinion and anecdotal. My title may be to blame with it’s faux journalistic tone. My bad. I think you were looking for a hard-line argumentation, and this article certainly isn’t it.
“Is he comparing the marketing-heavy Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft camp with Windows games for sales figures?”
This did not appear in the article. If your point was that it should have, then you would be right, IF this was a 20,000 word article about the triumph of console gaming, which it’s not.
“Is he complaining about one specific games issues and generalising it to the entire industry?”
Yes, but with the intent as using one game as an example of a common occurrence. Could I have listed a few more? Sure. I didn’t for the sake of brevity, and again, this is more for entertainment and a discussion-starter than as a strict prognostication.
“Does he ignore MMO’s, browser games (in fact anything “casual”) the need for keyboards, and the fact there are genres of games he won’t be playing yet others will?”
I did overlook MMOs, as pointed out by another post, and it seems fair to reason that they will eventually move to consoles, thus negating the PC’s exclusivity. I apologize for the MMO oversight. Keyboards are implied in the strategy discussion, but not mentioned. I could probably have elaborated more there.
“Is there a terrible cost comparison?”
Perhaps I am at fault for assuming that everyone would agree a good PC costs more. A PS3 with one extra controller and a HD cable cost me $375.00. That does not include the cost of my $1,300 TV, to be sure, but I had the TV for a year before owning the console and its use is not limited to gaming. The family considers it a family item that I occasionally use for gaming. As I mention in the article, PCs require regular and costly upgrades; consoles do not.
“Is there a ‘Oh I am sure someone/some group will claim/tell me to’ which doesn’t help his case?”
I’m not sure what you mean here. Perhaps you refer to the “buy a new computer” counter-argument, and if you are, then I disagree with you when you say it “doesn’t help my case.” My fatigue with buying a new expensive machine every two years has directly contributed to my disillusionment of the PC as my primary gaming platform. Is it a properly logical argument to take my anecdotal experience and apply it to all PC gamers? No, of course not, but did not intend the article to be as such.
“Does he generalise his knowledge on who owns, operates and plays games on PC’s?”
Yes. Did you want a specific demographic breakdown by age and sex and for different regions of the country and different countries? Again, look elsewhere. Such information is beyond the scope of this article.
“Does it just sound like a rant that there are no exclusives, everything seems like a dumb console port, I’ve had technical issues and I love my new console/console setup/console game?
Yes. Pretty much intentional and thank you for noticing.
“Does it finish on a final note to try and keep some people they’ve insulted, especially any people developing games for PC’s exclusively, on good terms?”
Actually, I wrote the closing paragraph to maintain the tone of the article, which was, in case you missed it: “PC gaming is near-death to me and I mourn its passing. I will always love it like my first love, though I must move on.”
I don’t believe I insulted anyone, though you certainly chose to be insulted by the article, such is your right.
In closing, I can see your point: the title presents the article as a factual argument, not the anecdotal editorial I intended. My bad. I wanted an amusing title, one that communicated the slow lingering death of PC gaming. I have added “rants” to the article’s sub-category to better communicates the article’s intent.
As for your comment, “…what we need is people to utterly hate something they enjoy doing, or tell other people they are stupid for enjoying it right?” The article does no such thing–you are privately interpreting my editorial as “You are all stupid for buying PCs.” Not what I meant, not by a long shot, and I don’t appreciate the accusation. Writing reviews and editorials, whether the topic is platforms, a gaming title, or a movie, requires the author to dictate an opinion. If I judge a game as being terrible, it does not necessarily follow that I’m calling people that like the game “stupid.” They may choose to read it that way, but once I write in such a manner as to never alienate or offend anyone, then I’m just pandering and I should stop wasting my and everyone else’s time.
Thank you for reading,
JD
@Andrew – we don’t ban people for disliking opinion pieces, but please consider: most of us here are grown ups. A grown up should know that there are more polite ways to make the same point… particularly a grown up who’s been around the site for a while and knows how we tend to treat each other here, regardless of how the rest of the internet communicates.
Grow up.
Your post entirely comes across, even re-reading it again now after your comment (less annoyed about this but still…) still like a rant against PC’s or that they inevitably will become useless, and/or useless now, and therefore, by definition, those people still tied to them are hopeless/stupid/wasting their time (your writing was very aggressive especially on the cost, patch issues, lack of exclusive games…etc.).
If you apparently think it isn’t, then it is very poorly written 🙁 – if I got this analysis wrong, so did most of the people commenting as well!
Of course I must admit as an “admirer” of the horrible stupid “console war” scenarios this partially comes from a background of reading posts like this where you could almost see the spit and red angry face (someone must be wrong, it must be the stupid people for making this popular…!).
I must admit if you really want me to post more things, I can go through your rebuttals to point out where I am coming from, but I doubt that’d be any joy for either of us! I could write an entire opposite (or at least, more neutral?) viewpoint on the medium to long term state of gaming platforms and why they might be like they are, but those are boring (leave them to Gamasutra anyway) and if there’s one thing that must read well, it’s being angry obviously! 🙂
Andrew, it IS pretty much a rant against the expense and frustrations of PC gaming. I present a few examples that make it more than a pure rant, but it’s not meant as a logical and reasoned argument against PC gaming. In my opinion, PC gaming will become gradually less relevant, primarily because the younger generation of gamers (i.e., teens and preteens) have no incentive to invest massive capital into PCs when they could just use their couch and large TVs instead, the latter of which can also be used for movies and such.
But make no mistake, I rant against PC gaming and perhaps overstate things a bit to make a point. The article is meant more for entertainment than for people to use to make their future investments.
And as you said, I could have written a more neutral, reasoned argument with footnotes and cited examples, but that, in your own words, would be “boring.” I’m not the guy for that article.
Finally, read the title. It says “PC Gaming,” not “PCs.” PCs will never be useless, even if their gaming market share dwindles away to irrelevance. I don’t understand why you read this article as a personal attack on you and your gaming habits–if you read a game review that trashes a game you love, do you feel as though the author is calling you stupid? It’s an opinion, that’s all, leave it at that.
As long as Blizzard and Valve exist, PC gaming will never die! 😉 Everyone loves a good console vs. PC argument! 😉
@Andrew: As Jason’s said- it’s clear that the PC itself won’t die. Whether it’s going to lose a few of it’s gaming limbs is debatable and why this here comments section exists. “PC gaming” is an important distinction to make and whether the article is empirical or anecdotal it doesn’t change the fact that, as proponents of the medium, we can see that the pop PC gaming scene has been rattling since the console race to arms heated up. Look at the recent Alan Wake or Dead Space 2 news.
I think the critical issue with the PC/console debate from Jason’s perspective is that it’s a pain to game on the PC. Drivers. Upgrades. Patches. Crashes. Forum searches. Sure, console games have bugs, but developing to a closed platform – and push-based patching – make life a little easier.
Why is it important for life to be easier? Because of the grown-up thing. Jason has a job, a lovely wife, two lovely kids, a mortgage, two adorable dogs the size of ponies, and a cat. He says he has two cats but I’ve never seen the other one. In a word, the dude’s got responsibilities. So when he has a minute to unwind, he wants the game to work… and he’d prefer no to have to upgrade every year or so to ensure top performance.
As for Andrew’s remark that this was an opinion piece and he “sees too many of those,” well… um…
er.
Opinions are kind of what we do, Andrew. It’s sort of the whole point of the site. If you dislike them, I recommend CNN.com.
One person’s bug is another’s feature. I just started playing Gothic 2: NOTR, an older game and because I was able to go into the .ini files and change a bunch of settings I’m having a much better gaming experience than if I just had to take the game as it was first released. Because I was able to mod the game, changing several difficulty features (Yapette would be proud….) I’m playing the gaming I want to play. This is why I like PC games. Until the game crashes from my tinkering and then I will curse this damn technology.
Yes, Steerpike is right. Opinion are kind of what we do around here. We have lots of them and we even change them once in a while.
I think it genuinly depends on the quality of your system to avoid the usual PC pitfalls. On a side note Steam is amazing for pushing patches and updates onto the user and it can be done automatically. Really every PC developer should use Steam, it just keeps everything so straight forward in a cookey PC sort of way 🙂
Just wanted to pop in and say great article, Dobry! Well reasoned and beautifully articulated. I think you’re correct about the future of PC gaming. This makes me a little sad–I have those same fond memories–but I too am getting a little tired of patches and driver issues and system upgrades. Might be time.
No more in-depth angry responses from me after this – and I’ll concede you’re writing for entertainment purposes so at this point saying anything else critical (or going over your original post in a more constructive way, ie; not just saying it is wrong but suggesting alternatives. I agree that was missing, although my main response would be it does pretty much mirror other posts elsewhere which isn’t great).
Sorry. This has evidently caused so much grief.
I’m taking it “seriously” and responding more mainly because I dislike the area of predicting things on opinions, since it is entirely too cheap like I said and painful to read. I dislike the article type (and usually what is written in them), the author doesn’t matter here to be honest. This hopefully justifies my rather angry response partially.
I hoped I was grown up responding like that only because as a reader you somewhat expect, even on a free blog/review site such as this, that you don’t see posts that pretty much you don’t expect (ie; bigger sites do these *constantly* and I generally ignore them for that). I fully enjoy lots of your other posts, and I hope that by point out I dislike this (and WHY, although I do again admit nothing feedback wise to improve it) I was acting grown up. I am not defending the PC, I think this post is mirrored in discussions on any type of technology, but mainly consoles, PCs and handhelds of course. Simple substitution of some parts and it’d read the same way but with a different direction.
Usually the internet discourse if you don’t like something is just anger and swearwords. Mainly swearwords. I thought this was being immature myself, not making out a generally well worded response.
I obviously thought this was more serious then it was intended to be. In the future I won’t assume as much, although perhaps I’ll send some feedback by email, where it won’t be below the post in question.
I of course could not be critical (again, I should have provided some proper feedback right, but that still would be being critical) of your writing this piece. While looking back, I guess that’d have been easier. It’s not like I enjoyed this, I’m not trolling for fun here, although I still stand having said it that, I don’t know, it could have been just so much better (written entirely differently…), and perhaps more entertaining to boot. If I hadn’t said something, well, I’d feel a bit wrong inside for sure.
I’m glad my comment didn’t just get deleted even if the authors of the blog think it is entirely unjustified and over the top, and much too immature. At least it’s progress in the normal world of over-moderation and ignorance of any kind of feedback almost every other site endorses. Hope that this post clears up why I did it, why I think it was more justified then not (even if regrettable and seemingly immature) and that I’ll still be reading the site in any case. I mainly fear this might turn into an outlet for Kotaku-like pieces, and the the future days of “My top 10 favourite game cakes” *shudder*.
MrLipid even described this exchange as a “kerfuffle!” How often do you get to use that word in a sentence?
Your calmer response is much appreciated, Andrew. I don’t delete comments unless they’re obvious spam or obvious trolls. And while your rant was downright civilized compared to the discussions you see on, say, the Internet Movie Database forums, we hold each other to a higher standard here. You could have made the exact same points without repeatedly insulting the quality of writing, particularly since the whole point of this piece was Jason’s revelation that PC gaming was dying FOR HIM, based on HIS OWN personal experiences, the use of which you found so objectionable. We do not have the authority here at Tap to declare PC gaming dead period.
As for us posting top ten gaming cake articles, I think that’s unlikely. It would cause a kerfuffle.
OOOOH Steerpike, that was my next article 🙁
Well, just do top ten favorite gaming pies.
Mmm… Gaming cakes… Gaming pies… Mmm…
More please.
“As I mention in the article, PCs require regular and costly upgrades; consoles do not.”
That’s blatantly untrue.
I had a amd XP2400+ / Radeon 9600 for 4 or maybe even 5 years that ran all available games in 1280×1024. Bought, 2 years ago, a core2duo 8400 / radeaon 4850 that runs everything in 1680×1050. 1G DDR, no need for more with XP.
What would i upgrade, for what strange reason? spending money for the sake of it maybe. Yeah, spending money with no reason.
Beside, a well build PC (ie, good power supply, good air flow, good motherboard) will not freeze, will not crash, ever. Even the dreaded STALKER, post 1.03, never had any game breaking bugs as some like to pretend.
Will PC gaming become more of a niche market than it was the 16bit era? for all i remember, the console always were the main game market, even in the times of TIE fighter, Wolfenstein 3D, Half life and Fallout 1.
And for people who cared about the gaming experience, the immersion factor, the exploration of gaming boundaries, and of gaming as an art; there’s the PC.
“Plus ca change…”
( http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plus%20ca%20change,%20plus%20c%27est%20la%20meme%20chose )
And… last point…. a close friend had his PS3 give up the ghost a few weeks after the warranty deadline. It almost costs more to repair that than to buy a new PC.
For what i observe with the PS3 and 360, their rate of failure and cost of ownership is vastly superior to custom built PCs.
I think that’s reaching, Cluster. A PS3 Slim costs $300. That’s not cheap, by any means, but you can’t get a solid gaming PC for that price, and you’d be hard pressed to get one for $600, or the cost of two PS3s.
Believe me, I hear what you’re saying – this is the guy who’s been through five 360s – but cost of ownership for PC is demonstrably higher. Your earlier point about not needing to upgrade on a regular basis is true, kind of… but it’s just silly to argue that “well-built” PCs “never” crash. Of course PCs crash, and most crashes are related to software, not hardware. Being well built doesn’t protect a user from bugs, or from failing to update their drivers, or from the need to tweak registry and services settings to get optimal performance or eliminate incompatibilities.
Once again, I think the point Jason’s trying to make here (chime in if I’m wrong, Jason) is that PC gaming is dead for him, for the reasons he cites. Not necessarily dead in general.
My point was primarily that PC was indeed dying in my household. I made an easy from-the-hip observation that young console kids might stay on their consoles and avoid the transition to PCs, but I can’t really back that up. Not really.
I’ll break down a PC’s cost price in Euros, which would make 30% more in $, but the price of parts is at least inferior of 30% in the US so it evens out)
– PC tower: got a high quality one for 60€ more than 6 years ago. Still the same. Lasts two PC generations at the very least. I didn’t have to pay for one in my last machine.
-my sound card is a music making audio card that i have since at least 2004/2005. I guess lots of people don’t even need one nowadays as they are integrated in chipsets.
So the real cost of my gaming machine from November 2008 (just checked)
– High performance motherboard without bells and whistles: 80€ (in my case a Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3)
– E8400: got it for 150€
– Radeon4850: got it for 125€
– 1G DDR2: 35€
– High quality cpu fan: 20€
– 500Gb W.D. HDD: 60€
So i wasn’t hard pressed to have a high performance PC for less than 600$. I just bough parts on the internet, using price comparison tools to get the best price for each part (factoring delivery costs.) My Samsung PC screen is also my TV so i don’t need to factor it more than a console owner does. But i have 800Gb of data storage (counting my older 300G HDD)
Of course, it wasn’t as easy as ordering a console, but it’s more solid, has a wide range of applications:
-gaming
-music making
-TV since it’s been 3 years that we have HD IPTV here
-working from home
etc…
So i can confirm that it is not more expensive than console gaming, especially if factoring the price of console games vs Steam prices.
PC gaming is pretty dead already in North America, and I don’t mean PC GAMES, I mean PC GAMING, as in games that are suitable for PC gamers. Step back from Dragon Age, the game that has been reviewed a million times as the new Baldur’s Gate… But is is? No sandbox non linear open-ended world really. Fast travel only to quest points, and while you could take each quest on in any order, once on one they were fairly linear, the game, in retrospect, where more Mass Effect than Baldur’s Gate. The trend of Bioware from Baldur’s Gate and Planescape Torment to Jade Empire and Mass Effect surely shows a console only publisher being born….
On the other hand, many great PC style games come out on PC and because of a biased U.S. gaming media, barely get a mention. Games like King Arthur The Roleplaying Wargame, a mix between Heroes of Might and Magic and Total War, and games that were really easy to find out about and get in Europe but hard to know about and get in the U.S., like Drakensang, Space Rangers 2, Risen, Spellforce 1 and 2, Outcast, Boiling Point, Escape from Paradise City, Two Worlds and yes, even the STALKER games.
American’s especially, associate hype with sales. But the fact is the first STALKER game has outsold, for example, Bioshock on PC, by around 30%, worldwide. 80% of STALKER sales,of course, are in Europe.
I also don’t think American’s realise the size of the PC games market in Europe, with Drakensang and Risen both selling more on PC in Germany than either Bioshock, Mass Effect, Left for Dead, or Mirror’s Edge did on PC in the whole of Europe.
So today, in the U.S. gaming media, you are more likely to know about an American indie title than a AAA European title. Coverage of PC gaming is already way down, with many U.S. PC gaming sites converting to multiformat or disappearing altogether and where a game comes out on console and PC, it’s the console version that gets the video reviews, and in many cases a link on the PC page that takes you to the 360 review of the game, with a couple lines about how it plays on PC.
I will never forget the fact that when IGN reviewed Mass Effect how they said how the revitalization chambers ‘helped the story move forward’. Within a week or so they reviewed a European title, Two Worlds, which also had revitalization chambers. This time though the game was marked down, as the chambers in Two Worlds ‘broke the game’. Well, IGN, what was it? It can’t be both. But this is how U.S. products get reviewed and how European titles get reviewed. Star Trek Legacy, from Bethesda, was a terrible bugged game. Was this brought up in Fallout 3 reviews? Of course not. On the other hand, have you seen a STALKER Call of Pripyat review that doesn’t still talk about the (small) bugs in the first STALKER game? This is how European titles are ‘kept down’. With U.S. product getting 9.0 if ‘ok’, 9.1-9.4 if ‘good and 95+ if ‘great’, European titles like STALKER get 8.0 if ‘ok’, 8.1-8.4 if ‘good’ and 85+ if great, so STALKER with scores generally 85+ is seen as a ‘great game’, but will never be allowed into the ‘big boys’ 9.0+ club. Hence when STALKER Call of Pripyat is released bug free, it STILL gets score in the 85-90 range like the first two!
So American PC gamers, good luck, but for us Europeans, I think we have a couple of good years left yet. With Witcher 2, Two World: Temptation, White Gold, Precursors, Metro 2003, Gothic 4 and Drakensang 2 all currently due over here in 2010/11!
Re: Revitalization chambers – I mean Bioshock, not Mass Effect!
Hi UK_John, and welcome.
I was not a great fan of Two Worlds, but you’ll find few larger fans of STALKER than me and this site. So we Americans aren’t all bad. 🙂
Great to have you on board UK_John, I enjoyed reading your comments and completely agree. IGN does very much at times seem to be ‘us’ and ‘them’. Everyone knows it Bioshock Vitachambers were added to appease console players 😉
Well actually brother they were just renamed Quantum Bio-Reconstruction machines from System Shock 2 and we all know that was as PC as you get.
That’s an interesting point you raise there UK_John regarding ‘games that are suitable for PC gamers’. Me and Lewis know a few friends who were reared almost purely on consoles and their taste couldn’t be more different to our own, despite me and my brother owning a fair few consoles along the way. I can never put my finger on it but there’s always been a certain something that many, at least older, PC games had that console titles simply never have. The one reason I prefer my Monolithic Black Tower of Dust and Noise is because the experiences that I’ve accustomed to PC gaming I just can’t get anywhere else. XCOM, System Shock, Thief, Deus Ex, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Baldur’s Gate, Planescape, Civ and other ‘PC’ experiences seem to be thinning out as console conventions sneak in through the back door. It’s a shame but I’m glad the European market is still somewhat lively. Don’t forget Amnesia: The Dark Descent as well 😉
Thank heavens for the Tap random article feature. I had forgotten about this article, which I have to say makes some very good points.
As a console gamer currently swooning over Steam and the mouse and keyboard, courtesy of Valve bringing their market to Mac, it also makes very interesting reading. Personally, I feel like my relationship with this particular cancer suffering medium is only just beginning..
Thanks, Mat. This article was controversial, to say the least. Doomsayers have been predicting PC’s death for years now, and it seems relatively healthy. Perhaps it’s just my lifestyle (married two kids, one a toddler), but the expense and potential hassle of maintaining a quality PC gaming rig makes it woefully inconvenient. I recently bought Silent Hill: Homecoming and Condemned 2 for low, low prices, and my next purchase will probably be Red Dead Redemption, all for PS3
I will live in trouble-free 52″ HD glory.
Shhhh, be quiet Dobry… I sense pitchforks being plied and torches being tarred…
First off, I’m new to this site, and absolutely love it. The level of intelligence mixed with a civil tone in both posts and replies is such a breath of fresh air!
I had almost given up on the internet as a viable forum for civil communication, so again thank you!!!
That said, I wanted to give my 2 cents on this article.
The big complaint about PCs is the cost (at least it seems so to me). Why pay over $1000 for a system that needs to be upgraded or replaced every 3 years?
For me, it’s because my PC serves many functions. In my home, we watch all our TV and movies on my PC. I work as a designer from my home as well, and use my PC (no, not Apple) to generate my income. I listen to both the radio (npr in case you’re wondering) and music on my PC. I sold my CDs a long time ago, and have all my music on two external HDs (one as a back-up). I’ve re-enrolled in school so I can stop doing design and do something else. I do all my homework on my PC, including many classes that require you to use the internet. Intent browsing? Obviously the PC.
And of course I play my games on my PC. I know I’ll buy a 360 sooner or later. But so far, I just haven’t felt motivated enough…
I’ve been using my current rig for all this (and more!) for over 3 years now. When I built it, I spent $1700 for the entire thing. From the tower to the monitor. I’m not computer buff, but I was able to build this machine just by reading posts on the net.
For all that my PC has provided me, the price seems almost cheap. Buying a moderate quality HD TV, a stereo system, and a cheap web browsing system would likely cost about the same. Throw in a game system, and all the extras you need to buy that aren’t in the box and suddenly my PC seems like a better deal. To me anyway..
A few smaller points. I too believed that the younger generation didn’t care about the PC and only wanted to play on the console, but was surprised recently when visiting my GF’s family in Philadelphia. They have a teenage son (15) and a younger daughter (9ish). The boy had a 360 (in his room!!) and the girl a Wii on the big screen. But the only system I saw them use the whole week I was there was the big clunky laptop which they played things like WoW and web games on.
Seeing that 9 year old little girl figure out how to make the games she wanted to play on the laptop work (download, install, register, convince mom it was ok) was a joyful sight to behold! The Wii collected dust while they fought over who got to spend time on the computer.
I wouldn’t have believed that the average American child still had any interest in such things.
Finally, for me personally, the best argument for PCs is mods! I have spent so many hours playing Fallout 3 over the last couple years, and it’s all because of mods. I have to give Bethesda the credit they deserve for crafting such a great game, but truth be told, without mods, on a 360, I doubt I would have played through it more then twice. With mods (I must have over a 100 for FO3 alone) it has become a high water mark for me in gaming. The same with other Beth games like Morrowind and Oblivion. Both games lifespan was wildly expanded thanks to the swarms of talented and dedicated moders out there. I love those people!
I’ve had my fair share of games causing me hours (sometimes days) of grief because they wouldn’t work out of the box. Crysis, Sims 3 (which has a huge PC following), GTA IV (how I hate thee), and Left for Dead 2 all stick out as agonizing and painful experiences. But I don’t blame my PC for these problems. I blame the game developers who released shitty software. I know it’s not the PCs fault because everyone of those games ran better after a few patches. The lesson I learned from this is to wait a month or so to buy a game after it’s released. Seems to solve most of the problems.
I know consoles are still the better choice for many people, and I would never recommend a PC to those who would (for whatever reason) enjoy a console more. Same with Apple Vs. PC. I think some folks are PC people, and others aren’t. And if my GF’s siblings are any indicator, then we will continue to have PC people around for some time yet.
I’ve been hearing about the demise of PC gaming for years now, but since Microsoft got into the gaming biz, it seems to have inject new life into the system (for better or for worse).
I’m still waiting for a new X-Com that has the greatness of the originals, or a new Master of Magic. I don’t know if that will happen, but if it does, I bet it will be on the PC!
Sorry for such a long post.. and again, thanks to all of you for this great site!
Hi Armand, thanks for the compliment to the site, and welcome. We hope you stick around. 🙂
Speaking personally, I don’t really begrudge the cost of PCs. Like you, I use mine for more than gaming – graphic design, video editing, etc – and I see it as an appliance that is important to my life and therefore the cost doesn’t bug me. Moreover, you’re also right when you say that these days you can get a pretty darn good PC for under $2,000. You can do even better if you’re able to stagger upgrades – new vid card here, new hard drive there, etc, rather than replacing the whole thing at once.
At the risk of speaking for Dobry, I think his issue is less strictly with the cost of the platform, and more with the occasional frustrations and limitations thereof. If you put a game in your PS3 it works. With the PC, you might need to mess with drivers, find patches, wrestle with the game a little bit. It’s a pain, particularly when your gaming time is limited.
The PC is undergoing an immense resurgence right now. No one can claim it’s dying; it’s simply changing. Steam, casual games, MMOs… these things have made the PC a very important platform, and one that I think will continue to succeed, particularly because it can multitask the way you describe.
Of course, one nice thing is that no one needs to be limited to one platform. I mean, aside from the cost, people can have a PC, a PS3, a 360, or any combination thereof. To me the costs are worth it, partly because it’s what I do for a living and partly because it’s what I do for fun. I certainly do understand the reticence to invest in a big PC, but (to me) what you get for that investment is worth it.
*fixed your inelgitelligent typo. 🙂
Thanks for the friendly greeting Steerpike! I’ve already added the site to my Firefox top bar.
I can definitely sympathize with the frustrations of PC gaming. Oh the hours of my life blown on troubleshooting. : )
And I can see Jason has a love for it as well, despite the hardships.
I really don’t think it’s for everybody. With the variety in gaming options available these days people can choose what works for them. There are PC people, Xbox people, Wii people and casual browser game people. We can all cross over from one end of the spectrum to the other, or we can find what we love and stick with it.
Either way, I hope and believe enough people will keep gaming on PCs to keep the market alive. All hail online downloads like Steam and Impulse!
nice article 🙂
but in my opinion PC games will remain , yes you have plenty of games on the console but there is always something missing , in console there is no graphic revolution ! , no new innovation ! , ,no new technology , maybe crysis run smooth in a ps3 but you missing so much , ps3 and 360 have only 256 of ram and outdated graphic cart “7600 gt or something like that” , it simply that, with a console you can’t get any full graphic experience , if we say good bye for PC gaming with say also good bye for graphic revolution , good bye for ati and nvidia , good bye for quality gaming ,
[…] brings us full circle to a hot article Jason Dobry wrote about a year ago where he decried all the tinkering and technical nonsense […]
You forgot to mention that in terms of providing precision and ease of use, a PC’s controls will always provide better ease-of-access unless consoles begin using mouse-keyboard interfaces.
Given a contest between a mouse-and-keyboard user and a controller-user in an FPS, the mouse-and-keyboard user will almost always win.
Also, take into account games like Borderlands. People who played the console version HATED the UI, and repeatedly got frustrated over the hoops they had to jump through just to accomplish one simple task in the menu. PC users almost never had any of these issues, and the game was exactly the same for both, as far as I know.
The ease of navigation on a mouse-and-keyboard setup will almost always trump the clunky limited-button controls of a console. Besides, it’s not like consoles don’t have their share of crashes and errors.
Are you ready to recant this entire editorial now?
Console games look like crap and you can’t do jack with ’em.. I just finished building a new rig that turns games into alternate universes. Plus I can video edit, produce an album, write a thesis, crunch prime numbers in the background just for giggles, publish and maintain websites, store and play hundreds and thousands of songs, videos and comics, watch commercial free television for *spoiler* free, and (best of all) I can do it faster, more fluidly, more cohesively, and more beautifully than any console will ever be able to do.
Why have an entertainment center with a bunch of boxes? You only need one “box” but it should be an intelligent box, eh?
With 64 gigs of ram and a very fast chip, my computer acts as a server, fueling my remote devices and providing them with content that doesn’t suck complete ass. Who needs the cloud if you are your own cloud? Who needs to swipe maniacally at a tablet when they can project that shit on a wall and use subtle gestures? Your console will be obsolete while I’m selling off old computer parts to fund my next computer.
Console games get the first up on new releases, but only because they know people like me will have the code pulled to pieces within hours if they release to PC. (that’s cool because it helps weed out the weak.) That is the only advantage of a console. You get to play the crappy version a couple months before it comes out for PC’s.
You should buy another tablet and swipe at it for a while. Then turn on your console. Watch tv……
Hello 2Tone, welcome to the site.
It occurs to me that we should probably ping Dobry to see if his opinion has changed since he wrote this piece… after all, this console generation is now at the end of its life, versus the healthy, robust middle age it enjoyed at the time of this rant. And said rant was also before things like the PSN hack.
Like you, I’m always most comfortable with a mighty rig in my office. I like to edit video, I like to do my Photoshoppery, I like keyboards, I like mice. Of course, there are times when I enjoy the simplicity and functionality of a console, and I thank my lucky stars that I’m fortunate enough to be in a position where both a PC and consoles can be mine.
This is now an old, old conversation – the one associated with this article – but 2013 may be a year of big change for the living room. If Steam does what Steam is suggesting it might do, the very concept of “console” could be in for a big shift.
I like my new PC. I don’t like what it cost, but with expense comes versatility, as other commenters have already noted. Cancer is in remission. For now.
PS I am not a doctor and my diagnosis has no actual bearing on the health of PC gaming.