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No, It's Really Not Dead
Published on February 17, 2008 By mittens In PC Gaming
There have been a startling number of PC-Games-Are-Dying sort of statements coming out lately, the latest of which coming from Cliff Bleszinski of Unreal Tournament fame. This statement no doubt related to the poor sales numbers of Epic's own Unreal Tournament 3 and Gears of War PC. I suppose it's worth noting that Gears of War PC was released almost a year after its 360 version and its relatively high system requirements may or may not be a contributing factor in its sales numbers.



Of course, there is certainly a point to be made here regarding the kinds of sales numbers that PC versions of games see in relation to their console counterparts. A Gears of War PC to Gears of War 360 comparison is fairly meaningless, but a Bioshock 360 to Bioshock PC (800,000 in its first month to the PC version's 80,000) or the order of magnitude difference between the 360 and PC versions of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (383,000 for PC and 3.04 million for Xbox 360). The low PC sales numbers were attributed to rampant piracy by Rob Bowling, the Community Relations Manager for developer Infinity Ward. Although the percentage of users playing pirated copies of the game was never given, it's safe to assume that Bowling's claims were well-founded. A number of companies have attributed poor PC sales to piracy in recent years but, unless there's a vast, overpopulated colony of pirates somewhere that I'm unaware of, if every PC gaming pirate had a change of heart and bought a copy of the game they were previously pirating, I would wager that the total PC sales for a game still would never touch the enormous console sale number.

This, in my mind, is due primarily to a changing PC gaming climate. Video games are becoming increasingly mainstream as is evidenced by a single game like Call of Duty 4 selling over seven million copies across all of the platforms it was released for. The PC is, however, becoming the dark horse platform when multiplatform game releases are the topic. When you switch the topic to something like Massively-Multiplayer Online games there is a different case to be made, what with World of Warcraft's ten million subscribers and the continually high sales of The Sims month after NPD-counted month. Does this trend mean that all PC games should become MMOs and life strategy games? Well, as the sea of dead MMOs would all scream up in one blood-curdling yelp: no.

PC-exclusive games still have a very well-defined place in the world of video games. As a platform, the PC has a lot going for it that consoles can't compete with. For one, it's an open platform that doesn't have to have patches and content packs monetized as a necessity (though it can be if the publisher or developer wishes). As another, it has the benefit of an incredibly wide and varied user base. While I don't have numbers to back the forthcoming claim up, I would say that more people have computers of some form than they have current-gen video game consoles. These computers probably don't all have DirectX 10- or even DirectX 9-capable video cards, but they're all capable of playing games. When I was growing up, my mother was an absolute solitaire fiend. She played the game so often and so much that even my best score (and, as gamers go, I'm no slouch) would have been scoffed at by even this most nurturing of figures. Standard Windows games like Minesweeper, snake, and so on and so forth are basic computer terminology for people. Even if the mention of World of Warcraft falls upon deaf ears, the mention of computer solitaire or minesweeper should get an ear perk.

Yes, I'm advocating the idea of the Casual Game as being a genuinely good sign for PC gaming. Despite what some people might say about the single-person development teams or the garage developers being dead and such nonsense, there is still a very strong place for small development teams within the scope of casual games. A good game mechanic is a good game mechanic; people of all ages and gaming proficiency recognize this as a truth, whether they can put it into words or not. Bejeweled, for instance, is loved by anyone with a pulse. There's something inherently addicting about it. It's nothing that hasn't been done before in some form whether it was a tabletop game like Connect 4 or a Genesis game like Columns. It didn't even have to be the first to think of the game mechanic, it just had to be the first to do it well and make it as easily-accessible as possible. And who's say that a legitimately fun game can't be made out of this simplest of mechanics? If you say something in the negative to that claim, then Puzzle Quest would love to meet you out back for some words. The ease of accessibility is something that Garage Games is taking to heart with Instant Action as well; they already have a combination of games available along with a forthcoming Tribes-like title that by no means should qualify as a "casual game" so much as it should a "fun game" with a unique distribution method.

And none of this is to say that big, complicated PC-exclusive games should be abandoned, because they shouldn't be. The point that is consistently echoed by gamers in response to "PC Gaming is Dead" variety news is concise and simple: if a PC game is good, people will buy it. This is not a cardinal truth, of course, because there are always truly excellent games that fall completely under the radar of all but the most well-informed gamers. A few recent examples of this are Ironclad's Sins of a Solar Empire, Crytek's Crysis, and CD Projekt's The Witcher. All three of these games are fairly niche titles, with Sins being a mixture of 4X and Real-Time strategy gameplay and The Witcher being a herald back to Baldur's Gate 2 with a very mature, morally ambiguous, fairly chauvinistic RPG. Crysis is less niche in its genre so much as it is its appeal in the current gaming atmosphere; it's an adrenaline-fueled first-person shooter with a very high system requirement entry fee. These three games have all received critical praise while also proving to be surprisingly strong sellers -- though, it's a bit early to give a definite commercial judgment to Sins since it was just released a couple weeks prior to the time of writing.



In the end, the "PC Games Are Dead!" type of articles seem more and more like the reactionary and ill-founded claims that they are. The concept of PC gaming ever dying is just a vacuous concept; so long as PCs remain a common fixture in the lives of so many types of people, PC gaming will live. It may evolve and shift forms as time goes on, but a good game will remain a good game.
Comments
on Feb 17, 2008
It is a pretty good piece and a cool plug for Sins. A nice read to be sure.
on Feb 17, 2008
I really dont think "PC Games Are Dead!" because as long there is a market there will be devs like IC

Also i cant seem to find the article i read a few days ago, that said that some companys like microsoft and alot of others are teaming up to bring back PC gaming.
on Feb 17, 2008
Yeah! PC for life!
on Feb 17, 2008
I care little about Epic's games.Good riddance.I played Gears for a few hours and was amazed about how overated the game was,pretty much like Halo3.
on Feb 17, 2008
Played all three of those games that you mention at the end. The Witcher was pretty good..haven't played an RPG that entertaining since well BG2.
on Feb 17, 2008
.I played Gears for a few hours and was amazed about how overated the game was,pretty much like Halo3.


You want over rated? Try Starcraft
on Feb 17, 2008
Great post!
on Feb 17, 2008
Yes, starcraft and halo are VERY overrated.

I dont think PC gaming is dying. More than likely just going through a phase. The one thing I have noticed though is more and more companies are completely focused on graphics. They spend so much time making photo realistic water than they do making a game that is genuinely fun. The downside to this graphic focus is the steep pc requirements. People dont want to have to keep spending money each year just to play a game. They need to start making games that have good graphics yet run great on a wide range of PCs and are fun to play.
on Feb 19, 2008
I think PC gaming has the huge advantage of being able to include mods and user created content a lot more easily. Take GalCiv2 for example, the custom ships and mods that you can download are all great.

One of my favorite games, Morrowind, has tons and tons of mods that you don't get to use on the console versions. What is dissapointing though is the requirements on newer games is just insane, I wish I could say the same about Oblivion but I haven't been able to try out the mods because I can't run it on my (outdated) system and I only played it on my dad's PS3 when I'm back home.

Before I think PC games had the advantage of online play, and now that the next gen consols support it the demand is switching.

Ohh yea, SC and Halo defintaly overrated
on Feb 19, 2008
The one thing I have noticed though is more and more companies are completely focused on graphics. They spend so much time making photo realistic water than they do making a game that is genuinely fun. The downside to this graphic focus is the steep pc requirements. People dont want to have to keep spending money each year just to play a game. They need to start making games that have good graphics yet run great on a wide range of PCs and are fun to play.


I really think that's the reason why consoles have been taking over. Think about it - you want to play, for example, Gears of War on a PC, and you're gonna plonk down about $1500 bucks for a nice box that'll meet the recommended requirements.

Or you could play it on the Xbox, without worrying about meeting requirements other than having the console, and it cost you $400.

That's the problem with most PC games these days, and one of the reasons I love Stardock. My old lappy just can't play most of the games coming out these days, but it can play GalCivII like a charm.