Death of the Computer Game - the signs appear

[Ytts]

Several times in the past half a decade or so I've made remarks about the computer game industry starting to go downhill, for various reasons.


Today, while looking around, I noticed that none of the local large box stores are bothering to list computer games in their christmas fliers. Odd, I thought, so I took a look in the local Future Shop, which is essentially equivalent to Best Buy.

There were two classes of games on the shelves: MMOs, and games released more than a year ago. Except for a smattering of a few titles, nothing new.


The console sections were chock full, of course, but the computer section - it looked two steps away from everything just being chucked into a bin and sold off.

Is anyone else noticing this in their own local stores? I'm curious.

[Ball-o-Cheese]

I don't think I've ever bought a computer game at a brick store, to be honest. I'm trying to think over the last games that I got, and pretty much all of them were something I just threw up an order for online. If you are a serious computer user, this seems like a much more typical way to get a hold of your entertainment than going to the store - I also get movies through GreenCine and watch shows on network websites.

Console owners, as a group, is more likely to include people who are less 'wired' - people that just paly Wii or PS3 with friends and don't spend lots of time on the computer in general. They're more likely to hit the stores for their shopping generally, and therefore to get a game.

What I'm saying is that I assume you'd need some sort of overall figures to know what was actually in decline vs. just an outlet trend. I would expect console sales to outshine PC games though, because there is a broader base of users than for high-end gaming PCs.

[Ytts]

If you are a serious computer user, this seems like a much more typical way to get a hold of your entertainment than going to the store - I also get movies through GreenCine and watch shows on network websites.

Although I am a pretty serious computer user, I buy almost nothing online. The majority of my purchases are at physical stores. It may be that computer users are moving to online vendors and I'm merely a decade out of touch. Yet if the majority were moving to purchase online, is there a really big surge in successful online stores?

Lacking any sales figures at hand, I was interested to hear if anyone else had noticed the disinterest on the part mainstream boxstores.




I wouldn't say that the computer game industry is particularly doomed just because walmart (for example) decides one day to no longer sell computer games. It's more when one starts to consider other factors that the outlook becomes gloomy.

Many development studios, even ones that traditionally do computer games, have started to shift to producing console games and have let computer games take a backseat. This is evident in the design, where games like Oblivion had interfaces clearly intended for console usage, and in the release dates. Ubisoft and EA have released most of their major titles for console first, then followed them up with computer versions of the game. The number of high budget PC games has been decreasing.

In contrast I see little to no shifting on the part of console video game companies toward the PC. Were it simply a case of companies looking to expand their markets, of course we'd see games that used be released for a single platform being released on multiple ones. Unfortunately for PC gamers, the expansion is in one direction.

The only real exception appears to be the MMO. That's doing very well.

[SixStringSamurai]

What would you put from the console onto the PC that didn't start there? The console market appeals to most people from a sheer cost perspective. Spend $___ and get a system that will run games until the 'next gen' wave comes back again. PCs require constant upkeep, a knowledge of technical workings and so on and so on.

[Inquisitor]

The local GameStop keeps their PC versions of games behind the counter, you just need to ask. Though, at big chains that sell loads of stuff other then games, I do notice PC games are less likely to be available.

[Ytts]

What would you put from the console onto the PC that didn't start there? The console market appeals to most people from a sheer cost perspective.

This was a widely cited "fact" during the launch of the Xbox 360. Many companies that were writing launch titles also touted this. I'm not sure that I agree that a PC for games is more expensive than a console. For one, most people already have a PC and many people require them for jobs or school, so the cost of it is partially deflected. Few people buy a PC that they will only ever play games on.

It also makes the assumption that the bulk of gamers want to play games like Crysis at max settings. There is a casual market out there that easily gets by with a computer made at the start of the decade, and this casual market is expanding rapidly. I know I can put together a machine that can run Oblivion and most modern FPS at mid settings for less than 300.

PCs require constant upkeep, a knowledge of technical workings and so on and so on.

That's a good point that I won't dispute. PCs are really prone to breaking down. And there's a lot of us, I suppose, who spend so long at computers for work that when they finally want to unwind and play a game, the thought of sitting back down in front of a monitor is a bit much for them. There's a lot of good reasons to go for the console.

[Aran]

I think ease and accessibility is really one of the driving points of consoles. To get a decent gaming PC it's easiest to build your own. Most of the general populace doesn't want to do that. They just want to buy something, pop a disc in and go. They don't want to have to know how to put together their gaming console, be able to install the software to make it work, and do the research needed to know which parts to use. They just want to pick a game they like and buy it.

If you also choose to look at the mainstream PC user (the ones who have PC for school or work, etc...) then you have to think differently about what kind of gamer they are. These people, as Web suggested, are the ones who are more prone to buy the MMOs and the simple "casual" games (such as Bejeweled, Puzzle Quest, and other Pop Cap games). They also will most likely have a console for their major gaming. These are the types of games that are thriving right now.

I'm not sure if this spells doom to the people who use the PC as their gaming platform or not. I hope it won't but time will tell.

[Ytts]

One thing about all of these points, though, is that they've more or less always been true. PCs have always been more difficult to maintain. Online shopping has been in vogue for the better part of a decade now, but 2003-2005 was still good for PC games.

What's changed?

I've wondered before quite often about the role piracy has played in the downfall of the PC as a platform. It's such an open system that pirating a game is as easy as a google search and installing a file someone else has put together. It's very difficult for the average user to pirate games and play them on the Xbox 360, though, for a few reasons.

I tend to encounter resistance to the idea that piracy could ever hurt anything ever.

[SixStringSamurai]

That was mostly my point though, Web. Computers have always been difficult to maintain, and along comes this new series of X-Station Wii that'll give you the same graphics plus a nifty controller.

Add in the popularity of online features (downloadable content) and multiplayer and you've got most PC games up against the rope.

Will PC games have an edge through the ability to switch out internal components to get the graphics power needed to run Crysis? Yes.

Will John Doe Player want to spend that cash on new chipsets/cards/whathaveyou when he could just spend it on a game? Maybe not.

[Dalton]

Reason number one is what is popular nowadays. The PC was big back in the day it could do things nothing else could. When the N64 and PS1 had weird blocky games with awful camera angles, the PC had first person shooters with gore (which was typically banned or discouraged on most consoles), western RPGs with huge stories such as Baldur's Gate, sprawling and detailed city/nation building games, virtual pets with noteworthy artificial intelligence (today's pet games, Nintendogs and the like, don't even come close) and so on. Those games are no longer popular--when was the last time you saw somebody go nuts over Sim City, Strongholds, or a hardcore plot-driven D&D game? The audience is there but it's niche.

Reason number two is ease on the part of the developer. If I were developing a game for, say, the PS3, I know exactly what I need to do. All PS3s (if not modded of course) have the same OS, the same graphics card, same CPU, same disk drive, same controllers, etc. Making a game for the PC you need to account for every OS and its many variations, for hundreds of different pieces of hardware from dozens of different companies, and for varying system specs. Crysis demonstrates clearly what happens when you fail to take into account the low-end user.

Reason number three is piracy. As has been stated several times, PCs have need of a lot of knowledge in electronics. PCs need constant upkeep and tweaking for optimal performance. Because of how knowledgeable we are as a whole, it is very, very easy for us to pirate games and unfortunately many people choose to do so. Sure you can pirate games for the consoles as well, but the average console gamer doesn't know how, while the average PC gamer does. Companies are going to be hesitant to make a PC-dedicated game that is sure to be pirated more than it's purchased.

Reason number four is that the market for PC gaming is almost completely online now. Many of my best game purchases lately have been performed over the internet. While there's not really many 'online stores' that act like some kind of E-Wal-Mart, most of the time you can buy a game you want from the company's own website. This is actually a really POSITIVE step for computer gaming. While big name companies are sort of slowing down producing PC games, small companies and indie developers are catching up.

Think about it. A retailer like Best Buy only has so much room in its store for computer games. The hottest companies like EA, Microsoft, Ubisoft, etc are going to dominate the shelf. The few small companies that manage to get their games in the store at all are going to end up in the discount bin and be ignored anyway.

But online it is easy for them to get their name out. They can offer free-to-download demos, advertise on websites dedicated to discussing the 'little guys', and so on. It is cheaper for a developer to get a Pay Pal acount and a low-key website, or to partner with a bigger company like Steam/Valve, than to try to bully their way into physical stores. Many of my best games lately have been either free or inexpensive downloads from indie developers and lesser-known companies who develop games for niche gamers like myself, knowing full well that they will never make it big like EA, but continuing anyway because they know there's a corner of the gamer market that the big guys are ignoring.