PC Gaming Market Declining?

Communities Gaming
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After reading about the delay for Alan Wake for the PC, I was a little angry. But my thoughts about it led from one thing to another and it left me contemplating whether the PC gaming market is declining. Do you folks believe it? I try to be optimistic about it, but I can't help but think that it is. The console market appears to rap a bubble around their customers so their only source of info is about console games, which leads to my next question, do you think if consoles gamers got more exposure to PC gaming and didn't have as many false assumptions about PC gaming that the PC gaming market would be better off?

I will update this post later with more thoughts, leave your opinions and check back.

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Of course the PC market is declining, rapidly to. It's been said previously, PC will just turn into MMO's and the Sims, you can already see it, there are less and less first party exclusives:

       - Crysis.
       - Warhammer 40k Dawn of War 2.
       - The Stalker series.
I shit you not but that's really all i can think of that is actually good, in terms of exclusives.

Consoles get all the attention because the consumer always looks for the lowest common deminator to get the best experience - lowest common denominator being PS3, Wii and 360, they see these relatively cheap systems and look at the games, and say "WoW!", and when they buy it, and when they connect to PSN and XBL they're hooked(not so much PSN but you get my drift), it's a better social experience with all your friends there.

"if consoles gamers got more exposure to PC gaming and didn't have as many false assumptions about PC gaming that the PC gaming market would be better off?"

Most console gamers have had heaps of exposure to the PC market, but was more than likely turned off by all the micro-management that comes with the system, they just want something plug in and play simple, that's the case and that will always be the case.Â

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I should say that exposure goes both ways. Some consoles gamers get their fill in on PC games, but I find much the same that many console gamers don't know what is going on in PC gaming. I have many friends who have never even heard of the above PC exclusives you mentioned and they are avid gamers.

Times have definitely changed when it comes to PC management, it is much easier these days to build a PC and keep it up to par. Compared to back in the old days, they practically spoon feed you. Yet it still seems that the argument is brought up. How hard is it really? I find that when it comes to PC gaming, you give a little, and get a lot in return. Ok, let's be honest, you still have to do something.

Are you really saving money when you decide to buy a console? There is ridiculously high priced accessories that you will need to purchase, new game titles cost a whopping $60, ouch, and on top of that, when you finish the game, you are done. Sure, game companies always tried to make their game with high replay value, but lets face it, you are only going to replay the single player so many times and multiplayer for so many hours, at that point you are done with the game for a very long time. You know where I'm going with this, so I will not continue further.

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I think something else which is ruining the PC market is pirating, even though I do it an awful lot myself, it is definitely making people turn to consoles more (Yes console games can be pirated also, but most console gamers wouldn't know how to do it, unless they had been PC gamers previously).

Out of my whole family, I'm about the only one with any medium-high level of IT skills.

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lol
I have made many blog posts about this
and bishamon said it
I always say that pc gaming will become mmo's and sims (untill its ported to console) and rts

The pc market is suffering and it surely is dying.

PC gaming is more expensive then console gaming.

I only play fps on pc and mmo thats it

everything else is much better on console now anyways

pc gets no more exclusives
remember when we used to get xbox exclusives?
well no more

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Well many games have been ported to the consoles, probably due to the fact that more games get sold for them leading producers to awesome (i guess) that more people play on consoles, so yeh it probably is declining. When Crysis was first released they said "It is only for PC!!" and microsoft and sony where like "zomg wtf we wants it!" and they were like "...yeh ok".

...True Story

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well, i think another reason is the "average family" doesnt have a high end computer. i have been stuck trying to game on a dell (2.2ghz single core, 756mb ram, ati x1300, 74.4 gb hard drive) for the past 6 years. my family didnt have the money to buy a new computer, and i had so save up and buy one (and i dont have a job ) so that took a while. anyway what im trying to say is, you can buy a console and get good graphics for cheap. the xbox 360 supports HD and its under $400. not every one can afford a high end gaming computer, and if your playing on a shitty one, like the one i mentioned above, then you are constantly getting low fps down in the 5-10 range. and with new games like ArmA 2 on the lowest settings i was getting .1 fps!!!

another reason would be when buying a gaming computer there are tones of choices one would have to make. such as intel or amd, DDR2 or DDR3 (witch most ppl think is dance dance revolution) or what graphic card to choose. the average person doesn't know SHIT about computers. so if you mention crossfire or sli they will just ask what your talking about. and to people thats a hassle, with a console its not how many cores are ther, how much ram it has, or what its graphic card specs are, its just "it it blu-ray? how much shit can i save on its memory thingy? can i play with other people?" so i believe its idiots who cant figure out how to open the internet are to blame! (and sadly i did have to teach my mom how to open the internet...)

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P:epole might not beleve me but Kojima Hideo the creator of Metal  Gear would prefer to make PC Games because he wonts to work on the most powerfull systemes and not be limited buy the system architecture. http://kotaku.com/gaming/kojima/kojima-really-wants-to-make-pc-games-230283.phpÂ

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Kojima and the Metal Gear series are awsome. Metal Gear Rising being multiplatform was the best news iv came across in the past couple months. Though the replacing of "Tactical Espionage Action" with "Lightning Bold Action" has me a bit worried...

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"i think another reason is the "average family" doesnt have a high end computer"

 "my family didnt have the money to buy a new computer"

"PC gaming is more expensive then console gaming."

"Consoles get all the attention because the consumer always looks for the lowest common deminator to get the best experience"

All arguments for PC, as much as we love our PCs, will slowly turn into these 4 points listed above.

P.S - Kojima is God - And imagine what he could do on a high end PC, that man made MGS4 godlike amazing on the PS3, that man is a genious.

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Its always going to happen

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I feel those points under the surface are somewhat invalid. Are you really saving money when you go with a consoles? I wish Logan was here to back this up, ask a man like that and he'll tell you that the extra $200 - $300 comes back when you realized you could mod games. I will make an example. Lets take Half-Life 2. I am still making use of Half-Life 2 because of it's mods, that's a full 4 years with one game. Now take the XBOX 360 version, once you beat the game, you are done. You can replay it on the hardest difficulty, but you probably won't pick up that game again for a very long time. This is very evident for a plethora of games.

Let me speak for the other side before I sound obnoxiously bias (If I already don't, haha.) I think the consoles biggest pro is ease of use. I love learning about PCs, when it comes between me and games, sometimes I like solving problems like those. I can understand people not wanting to bother with problems like those, they want entertainment and that's what they paid for. I don't like to run into problems I can't fix, that's probably the only time I wish I could play the same game on a console. I would love the consoles ease of use to be on the PC, but if it meant compromising my freedom to tweak, mod, or do whatever I want with the game, I say no thank you. I would rather learn and fix the minor problems that comes with PC games before I go down the other road. I think a lot of people would feel the same way if they understood the full extent of this point. Maybe you are not one of the people who care about modding and you've been to the other side and have seen everything that PC gaming has to offer and you, you have every right to buy that consoles and enjoy your games that way you like them. But this is not always the case, there are some who haven't done the research and they take the plunge and buy a console, unknowingly wishing they bought a PC.

I recently took my PC to a friends house, he only played on the console, but we played many of the same games. I was playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. The first thing he remarked was how good it looked, that's a no brainer. Then he said that the game looked different, I had Natural Environment mod installed. I showed him a popular mod site for oblivion and then he asked me if it was all free, presumably thinking it was some kind of form of DLC. (That made me giggle madly on the inside.) I told him yes and he was taken by surprise. I asked him "Didn't you know you could mod Oblivion" He told me he did but he didn't know that the mods added/changed the game to give you more to do, he presumed that they were just cheat mods and whatnot. He especially didn't know how many mods there were. To top it off I told him that the PC cost all together only $750. I knew right there he had the impression that you had to purchase a $1000+ PC to achieve this quality. What has this revelation for him led to? I am spending weekends with him putting old computer parts together with him while he saves up money.

I know this can apply to a lot of people. And when you say that plenty of consoles gamers get exposure to PC gaming, to what extent really?

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Sorry to make a double post but I didn't want to edit my previous post because I don't think some of you will read to the bottom of that wall of text, but on to the point. I would love Logan to make a video about this topic, I think a lot of people would in fact.

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I read your full post HostelEffect, and I agree. Mods are what seperate PC Games and Console games (Along with other things of course).Â

There is of course the price difference. The PS3 is probably the only console at the moment to be closest to the price of a Gaming PC. May I also say it's close to the graphic potential of a Gaming PC, as well? I'd have to say the PS3 is the biggest competitor to the PC, graphically wise that is. The price is definately a turn off for most Console gamers, and when they see a Gaming PC they get an even bigger shock. Here's the catch though, when you buy a Gaming PC you know you are buying something of high quality. I'm not degrading consoles at all, but the PC is more then just something use for playing Games, it's used for pretty much everything.

People use Computers in the first place to develop Games, Music, Videos, Images, and whatever else you can think about. The PC is what started the internet, and what truly started the development of Video Games.Â

PC's are also widely used by many people around the world, and that is what connects us to them. You can learn a lot from the internet, you can learn pretty much everything you need to learn to pursue your profession. I know I'm sounding like I'm going offtopic, but compare that to a Console. Can you do that on a console?

I also do not think the PC Gaming Market is declining, since people will continue to develop games, no matter what. If they have the knowledge, they will use it. I think it's impossible for the PC Gaming Market to die out, it just doesn't seem to make sense. Another point that can be added is that Developers can easily fix problems on their games on the PC, while Developers on the console have a harder time fixing the problems. If you could choose developing a game for the PC or a Console, what would you choose? I would want to go on the easier path, and just develop a game for the PC. Simplicity is key.

Sorry for my big wall of text as well. If you read it all kudos to you, just explaining my thoughts on the issue at hand.

Btw, I do like Consoles and I've played them ever since I was a little boy, but I've also played on the PC as well. I started off playing the PC. I've been a hybrid gamer, and I will continue to be a hybrid gamer.

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"I know this can apply to a lot of people. And when you say that plenty of consoles gamers get exposure to PC gaming, to what extent really?"

To the same extent we do, it's not as if they are all ignorant to the matter, they know what a high end PC can do, and all the functionality and the mod ability, most of the time they don't really care about the improved visual quality, if they can play it and enjoy it what difference does it make.Â

Droenix, you went on about all the things you can do with a PC, and then you ask "Can you do that on a console?", you can actually start making games on a console, XNA with the 360, which is not just a game maker, but kind of an App maker, people have made a load of things testing out the tech behind the 360, and god only knows what more you can do with XNA. kodu for the 360 was recently released which is a game maker, go in, quick and simple make a game and share it with your friends and have a shit tonne of fun with it.

So yeah, you can actually do most of that on a console.

Edit: This topic will more than likely continue to go around in circles. Also i'm not being a console fanboy, i'm just trying to give credit were credit is due.

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And another thing to add is people who are used to console gaming and havent really gamed on a pc have the idea that a pc gamer only plays world of warcraft. An example of this is i was talking to my friends in school about CoD4 and they said you have an xbox and i said i played it on a pc, they said that thats stupid. What pure console gamers don't realise is that conputers can contiuesuly be updated but every 2 or 3 years a new console will come out to replace theirs and they'll have to get it if they want to play that new game. So basically you're buying a new system where as a computer you are only, usually, upgrading one part instead of the whole system. And my last point is that the consoles are being mass produced so they are cheap since they are not being custom fited, look at dell computers you can buy them for $300 and they somewhat match an xbox or ps3 and they are mass produced. And sorry for my biasness and bad grammer, i'm not the best speller. And I do play both consoles and the pc,

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FPS' belong on PC anyway, whoever thought of porting them to console should be shot. It's so much more accurate on a PC with a mouse, I can imagine (having never played an FPS on console) that it is awfully hard to aim with a shitty little stick. :P

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Yes I fond when playing KILLZONE 1 and 2 and UNREAL TOURNAMENT 3 on PS3 It it was very slow to aim and move with the controller I fond that when I Play UNREAL TOURNAMENT 3 on PC it is allot smoother and much faster I also hat racing games on console even when I use a wheel with the console to play them I find them more fun on PC.

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This is just one of things in the world that boils down to one thing.
The media, in my country (NZ) I have never in my life time been exposed to any advertisement for PC gaming without being on a PC gaming specific website such as this one.
Most people i know don't know that PC offers better graphics and range of games due to this.
Most people I know pretty much don't know PC gaming is an option.
PC gaming has also started, I find to come with a label, 'nerdy'. so now all the kids will only consider, Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo.

I'm saddened too about this issue. But i guess that all i can really do is spend money on games and hope more brilliant PC games like crisis get developed.