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Decline PC Gaming is Dead (this time we really mean it)

King Crispy

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It's something that we all have to face. We saw it coming years ago, the slow steady dive into oblivion of the classic, designed-for-PC-only computer game, its future and fate sealed with the advent of close-to-PC consoles (argue that as you will) and the mass popularization of apps, tablets, smart phones, and thus an avalanche of crowd-pleasing shovelware. Please pardon the use of these overused phrases.

Seriously, it's inevitable at this point. Intel is no longer pushing for desktop performance. While Broadwell is perfectly suitable for its use, its main focus is on portability and fanless tablet implementation. No more keyboard + mouse, sorry. It's all about point and tap/drag now. AMD is still woefully behind and are still just hanging on with their lame APU's. Nvidia keeps tripping all over themselves and if you think ATI will save the day, I've got a pair of cool 3D glasses to sell to you.

So what's the future, then? The only good thing I can think of to say is that gaming itself is bigger than ever. People the world wide are finding more and more time to waste fiddling around with these plants and zombies and shit, so that's got to mean there's still a market for more serious games still, doesn't it? I mean not all of us are retarded and have the attention span of an endgame Lyric Suite, so there's hope still, right? Turn-based is still alive and kicking, Kickstarter is still responsible for plenty of shit that's slightly better than ritual suicide, so there's no need to fear, right?

I'm not so sure. I'm not convinced. We either need some sort of revolutionary answer to this terrible finger swipe plague or we may just have to kiss the whole thing goodbye. Funny how the future of PC gaming comes down to the demise of one of its most simple peripheral devices, isn't it?

Am I wrong? Convince me otherwise.
 

taxalot

I'm a spicy fellow.
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Codex 2013 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015
Now, I know why there is a "Crispy" tag in some of Codex's forum.

I will be making sure it to use it appropriately from now on.
 

Gregz

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Crispy is right in a sense.

About 6 months ago I decided I needed a new PC, after shopping around I realized I would get next to no performance benefit from an upgrade. The evolution of computing hardware has stalled, and looks to be stuck (programmer inability to adapt to multi-core paradigm, days of clock doubling every few years long gone etc.)

All the kids growing up know they need one thing, a smartphone. They don't have a lot of money, and they can use that phone to do anything a PC can do, so why spend money they don't have on a PC?

What about the value of peripherals you say?





Crispy has his ear to the ground folks, this is his business. Computers will not disappear in our lifetimes, but they will get much smallar and we'll be able to carry them around. Luckily reliable wireless and cheap very large LED screens are in our future too.
 
Last edited:

Ebonsword

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Seriously, it's inevitable at this point. Intel is no longer pushing for desktop performance. While Broadwell is perfectly suitable for its use, its main focus is on portability and fanless tablet implementation. No more keyboard + mouse, sorry. It's all about point and tap/drag now. AMD is still woefully behind and are still just hanging on with their lame APU's. Nvidia keeps tripping all over themselves and if you think ATI will save the day, I've got a pair of cool 3D glasses to sell to you.

Not sure why you think better games need more powerful hardware? The industry was able to make plenty of good games 15 years (or more!) ago when PCs only had a fraction of their current power.
 

Broseph

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PC gaming is alive and well, Chris Pee. Look at all the Kickstarted RPGs and wonderful Nipponese games getting ported. Also, remember that Steam has like 10 million active users.

Yes, the tabletcrap market is huge and growing but it's largely a separate thing.
 

Siveon

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
If PC Gaming is dead then just call me a necrophiliac.

I don't buy it Crispy. We still have games on the horizon to look forward to, millions of people play online competitively every day, and there's still a fuck ton of people using steam.
 

King Crispy

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Here's what I see:

- Every time I Google any kinds of figures comparing platform sales, PC is way behind. Not just by a little, I mean significantly. LOL piracy? Steam is the only good counter-argument.

- Any time I talk to parents about kids and the subject of gaming comes up, they're always on Xbox or a tablet. Very rare is the kid that still tinkers with his PC anymore. That realm is reserved for 25+ as far as I can tell.

- I may only be a small computer shop, but no one's buying PC's anymore. It's dead. I'm telling you right now, it's dead -- I can see it. I will have to find something else to do within 5 years if I'm honest with myself. The glory days of PC sales are well over.

- Any kind of business acumen dictates that PC gaming has no future. Look at the market shares. Look at the trends. How can anyone seriously conclude that it'd be profitable to continue to port for PC anymore? The results almost always suck, the resources needed are draining, and I think the only companies still doing it are doomed to fail unless they adapt.

The last point is obviously just conjecture on my part but it's what I'm observing that makes me draw those conclusions. It's a harsh reality, I know; part of me is going to die with PC's.
 

King Crispy

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Not sure why you think better games need more powerful hardware? The industry was able to make plenty of good games 15 years (or more!) ago when PCs only had a fraction of their current power.

That's a good point, but when the demand for new PC's dies out, the supply will as well, and computers don't fix themselves. No new population = extinction. Along with the death of PC as we know it will come the death of PC gaming as we know it. That's my whole point.
 

Broseph

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Here's what I see:

- Every time I Google any kinds of figures comparing platform sales, PC is way behind. Not just by a little, I mean significantly. LOL piracy? Steam is the only good counter-argument.
And it's a big one. I can't remember the last time I bought a physical copy of a PC game.

- Any time I talk to parents about kids and the subject of gaming comes up, they're always on Xbox or a tablet. Very rare is the kid that still tinkers with his PC anymore. That realm is reserved for 25+ as far as I can tell.
I'm 18 and I was raised on PC gaming. Plenty of people in my generation play PC games (mostly the usual suspects though, WoW, Diablo 3, Starcraft, etc.)

- Any kind of business acumen dictates that PC gaming has no future. Look at the market shares. Look at the trends. How can anyone seriously conclude that it'd be profitable to continue to port for PC anymore? The results almost always suck, the resources needed are draining, and I think the only companies still doing it are doomed to fail unless they adapt.
Then why are PC ports happening with increasing regularity, to great or at least decent sales? Steam is a goldmine and Japanese publishers are starting to notice.

Face it Chris, you are old and out of touch. r00fles!
 

DragoFireheart

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If PC games are dying. And people still want AAA+ sized games. Then that means... console gaming will continue to live?

Tablet gaming is a bubble waiting to pop, mostly due to all of the free-to-play bullshit flooding the market. Using that metric to measure the future is silly.

I think it's silly to equate lack of PC sales with PC game sales. It's that argument used by PC gamers: I only need one PC to play 1,000s of games. Everything is heading towards software sales and not hardware sales for the PC world: once I have a good enough PC, I just need to ensure I update its drivers and viola, I can play all the new games (that aren't graphically demanding due to that aspect of PCs stagnating).
 

taxalot

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(inability to adapt to multi-core paradigm, days of clock doubling every few years long gone etc.)

I thought we were talking about games.

I would argue that a big part of the appeal of computer games was bigger, faster stronger next year. That's no longer a thing.

And as someone who likes to save money, you have no idea how glad I am.
When I was a kid and a PC Gamer, the ever more increasing computer requirements were a nightmare to watch in magazine. It often equated to asking mom and dad for a new top of the line computer and hoping that just this time, it might last more than three years and not endanger the plan for the family to go on holiday.
Now that I am earning my own money, not so much a problem except that hey, guess what, I'm a daddy now.

Back then, the graphics were far from acceptable. Yet, we accepted them because we didn't know any better. If, under a different paradigm, we'd still be stuck right now to 320x200 gaming, we would still be okay with that if we didn't know better and had no conception that CPU speed was to improve exponentially every year.

We are in that situation, now. Video game graphics are stagnating ? Really ? I'm not caring enough to notice.
 

DragoFireheart

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We are in that situation, now. Video game graphics are stagnating ? Really ? I'm not caring enough to notice.

Stagnation of graphical advances may force game companies to optimize their games in other ways.

Less load times / no load screens of any kind / improved gameplay /etc.
 

Unkillable Cat

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Every time I Google any kinds of figures comparing platform sales, PC is way behind. Not just by a little, I mean significantly. LOL piracy? Steam is the only good counter-argument.

Problem #1: Biased search via a party that's pushing for mobile devices.

Any time I talk to parents about kids and the subject of gaming comes up, they're always on Xbox or a tablet. Very rare is the kid that still tinkers with his PC anymore. That realm is reserved for 25+ as far as I can tell.

Your environment/habitat =/= Entire world.

I may only be a small computer shop, but no one's buying PC's anymore. It's dead. I'm telling you right now, it's dead -- I can see it. I will have to find something else to do within 5 years if I'm honest with myself. The glory days of PC sales are well over.

For the small retailer, the glory days of PC sales are well and truly over. That's how the scenario has been for the past 10 years, even in a small economy such as Iceland. This fact is nothing new, why is it only now that you seem to realize this?

Any kind of business acumen dictates that PC gaming has no future. Look at the market shares. Look at the trends. How can anyone seriously conclude that it'd be profitable to continue to port for PC anymore? The results almost always suck, the resources needed are draining, and I think the only companies still doing it are doomed to fail unless they adapt.

You post your facts and figures, I'll post mine. We'll still have gotten nowhere afterwards.

The last point is obviously just conjecture on my part but it's what I'm observing that makes me draw those conclusions. It's a harsh reality, I know; part of me is going to die with PC's.

Adapt or die then.

PCs are never going to "go away", like the 8-bit platforms of the 80s, to name an example. And yet, when you wonder what became of many of the 8-bit coders of yesteryear, where are they now - they found a new market where their skills are valued. Ironically enough, it's in the mobile market, where computer resources are scarce.

And anyone thinking that the smartphone evolution is a sane one is better off wearing the dunce cap from now on. The disposable nature of smartphones reveals the utter stupidity of Man. These things are highly advanced pieces of electronics, built using some of the most rare and valuable minerals on the planet - and we throw them away when they break, or better yet, throw them away when a NEW! IMPROVED! model is released. For the first time in human history, Mankind is consuming gold.

I downgraded from a smartphone to a "regular" cellphone a year ago, and I haven't regretted that decision for one moment. If your life is being dominated by a flat piece of electronic gadgetry, you're not really in control of your own life.
 

DragoFireheart

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I downgraded from a smartphone to a "regular" cellphone a year ago, and I haven't regretted that decision for one moment. If your life is being dominated by a flat piece of electronic gadgetry, you're not really in control of your own life.

What cellphone did you downgrade to?
 
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Consuming gold? I guess my descendants will just have to find another shiny metal to obsess over, then.

Also, in before Retardo.

edit: btw the other day at the restaurant the waiter had a tablet strapped to her forearm, like a PipBoy. She fiddled with it to write up our requests. I thought that was kind of amusing.
 

ghostdog

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I'm sorry crispy, but I won't shed a tear for the fact that PC-component tech has slowed down. 10 years ago you needed to buy a whole new PC every 2 years, fuck this shit, I don't have the fucking money to waste. Right now I'm still using a mobo/CPU bought in 2008 with an upgraded 2012 GPU and some more ram, and I can pretty much still play everything even if I may struggle at some crappy AAA ports. I love this shit, especially considering the fact I spend money on buying games.

As for games to play, my list keeps getting bigger and bigger, especially with all the crpg incline as of late. And what if I wont be able to run the next super grpahix console port, that still looks worse than crysis (and plays the same as crysis=shit), there are so many KS/indie/AA projects I'm waiting for, games that will provide me much more entertainment than that souless shit. So from my point of view, not many fucks are given.

Good luck with your business though, I'm sure shifting to a more console/tablet centric direction won't be that hard for you.
 

Farage

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Am I wrong? Convince me otherwise.

Steam21.png


3It2C.jpg


hurr gemers are dyinggzz
 

King Crispy

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Well I did state that the Steam argument is a valid one, but if you don't think that at the Steam shareholders' meetings they don't fret over the future of this industry then you're being as much of an ostrich as they are.

HOWEVER, I don't want it to come to pass. I do want to be wrong. I just simply don't see how this can continue. All those aging PC's are going to eventually die and along with them the platforms on which Steam (currently) depends.
 

Farage

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I understand your point into technology advancement, you're not wrong when you say that computers will die.
What isn't going to, exactly? Computers will die, tablets will die, you and i, we will die too. Everything created by humans will eventually be outdated, whats your point?
But when talking from a business point of view... hell, even talking from a scientific point of view, PC gaming is rising more than ever, its a profitable industry and environment, as shown in graphics and stupid statistics. Im too lazy/busy to research right now, but im pretty sure that PC/Laptops sales haven't gone down, yet.
 

Metro

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Surprise... the market has never been dictated by the small percentage of PC gamers who absolutely must game on the bleeding edge of technology: 4k resolution, multiple graphic cards, etc. This is nothing new so not sure why you think it portents the end of PC gaming. Maybe the end of games that spend 75% of their budget on visuals.
 

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