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I guess I'm a statistic... I played PC games until getting my Dreamcast.
On the piracy thing... this is a nice historical overview on the negative effects of piracy - it DOES affect gamers because developer simply stop making games if they can't make a profit. We not only saw this with the PC, but also with the original PSP. :(
Nice overview!... and yeah, now that I think about it, I can't even remember the last time I saw a big PC game for sale in a store.. they're either in a small corner or simply gone. Still, it seems that digital distribution through venues like Steam offer more viable options anyway.
On the piracy thing... this is a nice historical overview on the negative effects of piracy - it DOES affect gamers because developer simply stop making games if they can't make a profit. We not only saw this with the PC, but also with the original PSP. :(
Nice overview!... and yeah, now that I think about it, I can't even remember the last time I saw a big PC game for sale in a store.. they're either in a small corner or simply gone. Still, it seems that digital distribution through venues like Steam offer more viable options anyway.
My problem with PC is that is more expansive to keep an up to date gaming machine than with a console.
I really don't think anyone is that qualified to talk about whether the PC platform is decaying without knowing the digital distribution sales. I think attributing a decline due to the prevalence of piracy on PC is only half-true: it's true because the biggest problem is the attitude of developers (one taken as a given in the discussion here) that a pirated copy entails a lost sale, which in most cases a flat-out wrong assumption to make.
While developers refusing to make games on the platform is slightly problematic, I would attribute it a lot more to the rise of console gaming rather than PC piracy. There's just more money to be made there with its larger, easier to understand/cater for audience. Of course, blaming poor PC sales on piracy is a lot easier than saying that it was a poor port from consoles or didn't meet up to the generally higher standards held by many pc gamers (more robust customisation options, support for dedicated servers etc).
Also, if you're counting "casual games" like Farmville then how could you conclude that PC gaming is still in decline? It's been healthy for ages thanks to Steam and casual gaming has exploded in popularity alongside that market. Your claim that there's a "large focus shift from hardcore games to these hugely popular casual free-to-play games" is stated without any evidence. If anything, we're seeing developers learning from the explosion of social media and applying those lessons to connectivity in hardcore games. Can you name a single established developer that has abandoned their typical work in favour of capitalising on the emerging causal/social-gaming market?
While developers refusing to make games on the platform is slightly problematic, I would attribute it a lot more to the rise of console gaming rather than PC piracy. There's just more money to be made there with its larger, easier to understand/cater for audience. Of course, blaming poor PC sales on piracy is a lot easier than saying that it was a poor port from consoles or didn't meet up to the generally higher standards held by many pc gamers (more robust customisation options, support for dedicated servers etc).
Also, if you're counting "casual games" like Farmville then how could you conclude that PC gaming is still in decline? It's been healthy for ages thanks to Steam and casual gaming has exploded in popularity alongside that market. Your claim that there's a "large focus shift from hardcore games to these hugely popular casual free-to-play games" is stated without any evidence. If anything, we're seeing developers learning from the explosion of social media and applying those lessons to connectivity in hardcore games. Can you name a single established developer that has abandoned their typical work in favour of capitalising on the emerging causal/social-gaming market?
Cheers for the comments.
@Vali
You make a lot of good points! let me elaborate on a few things.
Firstly about the digital distribution sales. I actually tried to contact steam/valve for the purposes of this but I could not get anything from them, they are very uptight about not letting anyone see their sales figures, the only thing I could find was that they owned an estimated 70% of the digital distribution market.
While the title my assume that I think it is in decline I actually say in the conclusion that is really just changing instead of declining(Shift to digital, more casual games). I also stated at the end that the analysts predict that it will grow much more instead of decline, though re-reading my conclusion the first sentence could be seen as misleading, apologies for the confusion.
My comment on the large focus shift, my evidence is the previous points i made out, the large increase in new social/casual PC games and the lack of priority in core games for PC users, lack of developer interest, what was the last triple A PC ONLY game to be released? first that comes to my mind is Starcraft 2, possibly Civ 5, not sure when that was released. but my point is that PC used to be the dominant platform for core games, but not anymore.
@Vali
You make a lot of good points! let me elaborate on a few things.
Firstly about the digital distribution sales. I actually tried to contact steam/valve for the purposes of this but I could not get anything from them, they are very uptight about not letting anyone see their sales figures, the only thing I could find was that they owned an estimated 70% of the digital distribution market.
While the title my assume that I think it is in decline I actually say in the conclusion that is really just changing instead of declining(Shift to digital, more casual games). I also stated at the end that the analysts predict that it will grow much more instead of decline, though re-reading my conclusion the first sentence could be seen as misleading, apologies for the confusion.
My comment on the large focus shift, my evidence is the previous points i made out, the large increase in new social/casual PC games and the lack of priority in core games for PC users, lack of developer interest, what was the last triple A PC ONLY game to be released? first that comes to my mind is Starcraft 2, possibly Civ 5, not sure when that was released. but my point is that PC used to be the dominant platform for core games, but not anymore.
In addition to what Vali said, using Modern Warfare 2 as an example is kind of skewed. Call of Duty has been console focused since CoD4, and Infinity Ward took out a lot of the features that most pc gamers consider absolute musts like dedicated servers. To be honest I can't think of any games that would be a good comparison. They are all very much focused on one platform or the other, usually alienating the other audience.
@ScottyG
Good point, I used modern warfare as my example because it was the easiest game I could get piracy statistics. But even still, if you look at the chart it was downloaded 4.1 million times, added with actual sales is roughly 5 mil, the console sales were 6 mil, thats 50/60 split so PC players still wanted COD4, but the reasons for the high download figure are pretty obscure, was it because the gamers were annoyed at the developers so they decided to pirate it? or did they just DL it because it was free and they knew they could get away with it? Or was it even people that had no intention of buying it anyway but still wanted to DL it just to try it out? Theres no way to know really but regardless of the game being console centric people still downloaded it to play on PC.
The only game i can think of that is focussed on both platforms is possibly the new battlefield, its obviously been advertised for consoles and most people will buy it on that platform, but the game is being developed on PC and even the gameplay trailers are from the PC version.
Good point, I used modern warfare as my example because it was the easiest game I could get piracy statistics. But even still, if you look at the chart it was downloaded 4.1 million times, added with actual sales is roughly 5 mil, the console sales were 6 mil, thats 50/60 split so PC players still wanted COD4, but the reasons for the high download figure are pretty obscure, was it because the gamers were annoyed at the developers so they decided to pirate it? or did they just DL it because it was free and they knew they could get away with it? Or was it even people that had no intention of buying it anyway but still wanted to DL it just to try it out? Theres no way to know really but regardless of the game being console centric people still downloaded it to play on PC.
The only game i can think of that is focussed on both platforms is possibly the new battlefield, its obviously been advertised for consoles and most people will buy it on that platform, but the game is being developed on PC and even the gameplay trailers are from the PC version.
@goinglopsided
Well there's not really any point in focusing on PC only vs AAA exclusives for the consoles. With the rising development costs, there's no sense in making a game platform exclusive unless there's some very good reason for doing so. With no first party publisher for the PC, you only tend to get games that downright wouldn't work on consoles becoming PC exclusives (almost every RTS and MMO ever made). In other words, more or less what Cryotek said.
@Cryotek
Any sources for Steam (and other DD platform providers) only taking "a very small cut"? It's impossible for publishers to make 2-3 times as much money, because from a $60 they'll take $36 per unit sold on consoles. Now the $12 going to the retail outlet is cash in the bank; the $12 going to the Sony/Microsoft or $10 on the lower priced Nintendo games might translate into more money for the publisher if Steam takes a smaller cut for instance. I don't know the cuts in £ and I don't know the Steam prices in $, so I'm not entirely sure how many new games retail at $60 on Steam. However, The Witcher 2 retails on British Steam for £34.99 which Google informs me is roughly $57. I could easily see that being a $45-50 cut for each sale, which would be a nice $9-14 profit over console sales. That isn't even taking into account the extra costs of making a physical copy (which will vary depending on to what extent the game embraces the digital format or caters to retail).
If you were talking pure profit on the "money made" side of things, I could see how that extra money might approach something like 2 times more for your average AAA title taking all of the little profits into account. Part of me grudingly wants the price to be lower for consumers rather than extra profit for the developers, but on a case by case basis I don't really mind :p
Well there's not really any point in focusing on PC only vs AAA exclusives for the consoles. With the rising development costs, there's no sense in making a game platform exclusive unless there's some very good reason for doing so. With no first party publisher for the PC, you only tend to get games that downright wouldn't work on consoles becoming PC exclusives (almost every RTS and MMO ever made). In other words, more or less what Cryotek said.
@Cryotek
Any sources for Steam (and other DD platform providers) only taking "a very small cut"? It's impossible for publishers to make 2-3 times as much money, because from a $60 they'll take $36 per unit sold on consoles. Now the $12 going to the retail outlet is cash in the bank; the $12 going to the Sony/Microsoft or $10 on the lower priced Nintendo games might translate into more money for the publisher if Steam takes a smaller cut for instance. I don't know the cuts in £ and I don't know the Steam prices in $, so I'm not entirely sure how many new games retail at $60 on Steam. However, The Witcher 2 retails on British Steam for £34.99 which Google informs me is roughly $57. I could easily see that being a $45-50 cut for each sale, which would be a nice $9-14 profit over console sales. That isn't even taking into account the extra costs of making a physical copy (which will vary depending on to what extent the game embraces the digital format or caters to retail).
If you were talking pure profit on the "money made" side of things, I could see how that extra money might approach something like 2 times more for your average AAA title taking all of the little profits into account. Part of me grudingly wants the price to be lower for consumers rather than extra profit for the developers, but on a case by case basis I don't really mind :p
When we talk about such big names like Blizzard, we must know that they took all caution measures in terms of content security, to avoid the risks of landing on the black market. When there`s a high stake on the middle, hackers will always try to interfere. For the loyal gamers, software support and maintenance for the genuine version will always be reassuring.
