The bad news for PC gamers just keeps on rolling in, with yet another death knell ringing loud and clear. This time, the knife wound comes courtesy of magazine publisher Imagine Publishing, who has seen a sharp decline in PC mag sales and believes that retailers have given up on the market completely.
"I'm looking at Total PC Gaming at the moment, because although it's a profitable magazine for Imagine, it's future potential is limited because retailers and magazine stockists have lost faith with the PC games sector entirely," says managing director Damian Butt.
"We have had fantastic support from our advertisers on Total PC Gaming, and outperformed our expectations, but I would much rather have a talented team working on a magazine where there is a greater future upside, such as our new launch How it Works, because it takes as much effort to make a magazine that generates a good profit as one that makes very little."
Future Publishing's PC magazine sales have also decreased as well, and in a country where magazine sales are still doing pretty well (UK magazines have stayed strong while US mags floundered) this is rather dire news indeed. Of course, the popularity of the Internet may have something to do with it, but the idea that retailers just don't care about PC gaming anymore and magazine publishers believe that appealing to the market has no future is not a pleasant thought indeed. It's yet another reminder that PC gamers may be a dying breed.
Retailers have "lost faith" in PC games sector [GI.biz]
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Contest:
8:00 AM on 02.16.2010
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And as great as some of those mags were, that era is dead. Why pay £4-5 for a magazine when it takes three seconds to get on a website for free?
Someone regurgitating the common knowledge that most retailers don't favor PC anymore? CLEARLY NEWS.
Yes, I understand that the "real PC gamers" have moved to digital downloads where they can continue to erode digital rights, but they aren't the "general public".
I stopped buying gaming magazines because, well, I rarely learnt anything new from them. Sure, the fun articles were good but I couldn't justify £6 a month on them!
PC gaming is *not* dying. It is changing form and I think it's going to become (in the next 20 years maybe) an almost-completely digital platform. It's where a lot of PC gamers get their news, it's where a lot of us buy our games (either ordering a physical copy or purchasing a digital version), we often have to connect to the internet to play our games or at least activate them and so forth.
Why?
PC Gaming isn't dead. The role of a retailer though as a intermediary between developer and consumer is.
I wouldn't say this is a trend unique to PC gaming, or gaming at all. A lot of printed news is dying nowadays. Magazines, newspapers, auto traders, are all doubtless taking huge hits due to the proliferation of the internet and all the information it has to offer. In the time it takes me to pay for and receive my copy of "Generic PC Games Magazine", I could have checked Destructoid, Kotaku, Joystiq, Gamefaqs, and several important developers' Twitter accounts hundreds of times over to get overwhelmingly more information than a single magazine could ever hope to provide.
So again, failing magazine =/= fewer PC gamers. Someone needs to adjust their strategy here to fit in with the times, something PC gamers have always been willing to do.
QFT
The "general public" gets their games from www.popcap.com or www.facebook.com and to a slight degree iTunes.
And for boxed games the "general public" usually goes to WalMart or Target rather than GameStop. Those two retailers regularly carry games such as the Sims or World of Warcraft.
I've bought more PC games in the past year than I have in the past 10 years because of Steam. I think I've only paid full price for one game, Fallout 3 at launch. But with Steam's insane weekend deals and other various sales they run throughout the year.
So yeah, I'll take cheaper games (if you look for the deals), not having to keep up with discs, manuals and cases, and being able to install my games on any computer I want, whenever I want. Add the fact that I can get my hands on some hard to find classics, and you've got the perfect storm for the death of brick and mortar, at least when it comes to PC gaming.
Conclusion: PC gaming may not be dead after all, but magazines and traditional game stores will cease to exist within fifteen years (conservative estimate).
Stalker, Mount & Blade, Freedom Force 1,2 and all the x-coms
I don't buy pc magazines anymore because they're 1/5 articles and 4/5 store catalogues stapled together.
Nobody needs to pay £5 these days to find out something a month later.
While I'm not sure you should care about the magazine side of it, not being able to even buy a PC game at Wal-Mart or even Gamestop stores is certainly a turning point for PC gaming. I just can't see it being a good turn either. Potential loss of sales, new customers and retail exposure in general is going to stagnate the growth of PC gaming (it already has, in fact). Publishers and even Developers see this and support for the platform can do nothing but decrease.
Also true what ppl above said about print media. It has its advantages, thats why i still buy my favorite magazine monthly. But that maybe because im last gen. I could read game news on the toilet with my Droid. Which uses a Linux OS. Which is a PC OS.
"And for boxed games the "general public" usually goes to WalMart or Target rather than GameStop. Those two retailers regularly carry games such as the Sims or World of Warcraft."
...And in it's B&M heyday there were rows of PC games at these same stores. My local Walmarts carry roughly 10 boxed titles and then an array of jewel case "value games". The Targets carry similar titles though with a larger children's edu-tainment section.
Sims and WoW do not a PC game section make.
"The "general public" gets their games from www.popcap.com or www.facebook.com and to a slight degree iTunes. "
I agree with the facebook comment, but you don't "own" games through facebook. iTunes is not PC gaming.
I don't mind Edge and GamesTM so much because they offer long articles and discussions that don't really have a place (yet) on the web, due to the blogging nature of game sites...but again, everything else they offer is just a step behind and doesn't justify the price. It's a far cry from when I religiously relied on magazines like Amstrad Action for my gaming needs (which cost next to nothing every month).
Retailers as a breed should be dying. Heaven forbid PC gamers use online services that aggregate reviews, give cheaper prices, offer games on release day. If you're a packrat and you like to hold onto boxes -that's fine, although packaging for all games is rather pathetic and trash-worthy unless it's something notable like a special edition with bells and whistles.
Looks like retailers are getting in their last fighting words before On-Live inevitably fails only to open up the gates for a better direct download service.
I'm buying GamesTM every month because it's a fucking good magazine, and it's only something like £3 a month on sub. Their opinions align far better with mine than any website out there, and the content is top drawer.
It's all about creating content that other outlets can't or won't replicate.
Hey, I hear a bunch of newspapers are failing, that must be because their subscribers are all dying out, right? Not because of the internet.
Retailers must hate PC games.
LOGIC!
Wait...what?
I blame the mainstream media they like to lie every year about pc gaming dying.
then you have mircosft, sony and game devs trying their best to destory pc gaming with their garbage.
yea 11 000 game devs have went bankuprtand counting because of them consoles.
oh one more thing if pc gaming ever dies gaming as whole will die!
oh yea we have free games too
WoW, first time i need to be proud of my country because almost all games sell exactly the same price as steam sells them. So yeah, i have to stay with my previous statements :)
Maybe a link to top 10 technical issue forums so you don't end up buying Saints Row 2 for PC :(