LESS T_T
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2012
- Messages
- 13,582
I understand of course that a stable size is bad since the number of "fish in the pond" increased with time and inflation doesn't help either, so the effective share for developers got smaller, but it certainly didn't die off. The desktop segment even seems to start growing again before Steam was a big thing.
I wouldn't be surprise that stability and growth was mostly contributed by explosion of PC online game market, especially in Asia/China from early 2000s.
IMO 'PC gaming is dead' narrative was more about you can't do anything other than multiplayer games anymore. The success of Steam, the foundation of centralized digital store that gives developers access to built-in distribution service and audience, certainly made PC gaming a better place than where it was going to. (You probably can say that it was bound to happen without Valve anyway but I'm still glad it was led by the company led by nerds and programmers, not by the companies taken over by the suits like EA.)