Is PC gaming dying?

I really wish Hardforum would just autoban when people create these stupid threads. Seems like every 3-6 months someone feels the need to do so, just to stir up trouble.

All you can do is report and move on, the mods will sort it out.

But yeah, rhetorical troll thread is troll thread.
 
Has origin/ea released pc sales data?

I thought vgchartz ONLY calculated retail sales and not digital distribution. IF that's still the case, the VAST majority of pc game sales would never be seen. Steam does not release game sales data. So unless vgchartz got download numbers directly from EA, take those numbers with a grain of salt.
 
So many people here have such high standards to call Titanfall garbage, but plays lowly mmos and mobas everyday. Stay delusional.
 
PC players despise CoD. Titanfall is known as CoD with mechs. I'll give my left nut this equals people don't buy it. (personally it looks fun but I get my mech fix already from Hawken).
 
i completely agree about how pc people despise cod, Hawken is good enough for most people that enjoy mech games. i personally do not feel that pc gaming is dying, we pc people just have different taste in games.
 
I thought it was just a buzz-word but look at this:

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=titanfall

>80% of all Titanfall sales are on consoles.

And there are some people who claim that gamepad/touchscreen is superior to keyboard and mouse..

What is going on, people?

What is going is that you are using service which is literally puling data out of their ass.

And when it comes to pc retail sales they have to reach extremly far into it :D

When one of previous CoD games released they had sales in Europe below what press releases and sales awards from Poland and Germany put together shown :p


As far as data on VGC you should only consider Japan part as reliable since it's mix of 3 official trackers which publish a lot of data.
 
the pc used to be the main platform of innovation in video games. well, it actually still is, but the pc gaming crowd certainly thinks otherwise. 3D, arguably the most important development in gaming technology in the past 15 years, apparently "sucks". meanwhile, a cut-down version of 3D, the Rift, which only works with certain types of games, and not even as well as 3D Vision does in most cases, on top of preventing local multiplayer, is all the rage. what the fuck? with that kind of completely illogical mentality from enthusiasts, pc gaming is sure to go down the shitter.
 
I actually think console gaming will die before pc.

What we have now on consoles is big budget first person games (mainly shooters) and sports. Other genres on consoles are dieing fast.

Cost of consoles has skyrocketed as well as accessories for those consoles.

PC gaming has steam (although owner of steam seems intent on destroying it by trying to release steam consoles). Games that are strong on the PC are still strong, RTS and MMO.

My prediction is portable gaming will eat into console not pc, console and portable gaming is mostly made up of casual gamers. They fighting for the same market share. In japan big consoles are on death's door. 90% of japanese games are made exclusively for portable devices now. Companies like square enix also shifting focus to portable devices.

I thought the rdf was only for Apple? I guess not.
 
So many people here have such high standards to call Titanfall garbage, but plays lowly mmos and mobas everyday. Stay delusional.

I don't care for either but ill defend mmos because they offer a variety of things to do. Titanfall is not going to last long with the gameplay they have.


the pc used to be the main platform of innovation in video games. well, it actually still is, but the pc gaming crowd certainly thinks otherwise. 3D, arguably the most important development in gaming technology in the past 15 years, apparently "sucks". meanwhile, a cut-down version of 3D, the Rift, which only works with certain types of games, and not even as well as 3D Vision does in most cases, on top of preventing local multiplayer, is all the rage. what the fuck? with that kind of completely illogical mentality from enthusiasts, pc gaming is sure to go down the shitter.

Pc Gaming isn't going down the shitter, its still alive and well. The problem is that many developers lost the passion to develop high quality games for every platform. Remember the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube days? That was the last generation where PC and console didn't share the majority of its games.
 
If anything is dying it is the consoles. The current gen compared to the previous one is not truly a new gen. The consoles slowly and surely will die if nothing changes. Something revolutionary has to happen to consoles or otherwise at some point it just wont be worth it to switch to next gen anymore.
 
Titanfall is definitely not the standard for measuring PC game sales. It's not even considered a major interest within the PC gaming community. Why is this even a question?

Fail troll thread - OP should get dinged for inciting rage & controversy... :rolleyes:
 
the pc used to be the main platform of innovation in video games. well, it actually still is, but the pc gaming crowd certainly thinks otherwise. 3D, arguably the most important development in gaming technology in the past 15 years, apparently "sucks". meanwhile, a cut-down version of 3D, the Rift, which only works with certain types of games, and not even as well as 3D Vision does in most cases, on top of preventing local multiplayer, is all the rage. what the fuck? with that kind of completely illogical mentality from enthusiasts, pc gaming is sure to go down the shitter.

You obviously have a completely distorted, and most likely young, view of what PC Gaming is.

PC Gaming has NEVER been about split-screen multiplayer.

PC Gaming gives you CHOICES, like using a standard monitor, a 3D-Vision monitor or someday an Occulus/Facebook Rift (or other version). I fail to see the problem with this?

BTW, the Rift and 3D Vision are two completely and seperate products/ideas/concepts.
 
I really wish Hardforum would just autoban when people create these stupid threads. Seems like every 3-6 months someone feels the need to do so, just to stir up trouble.
Why? You come here for some reason other than discussion?

The Xbox One currently has 148 games, 17 are exclusives. I have more games than that in my Steam library.
More relevantly, there are around 15,000 titles in the Steam catalog at the moment. And, for the most part, they will all work on a reasonably modern system.

When you have that much choice, you are much less likely to choose to spend $60 on a modernization of a low value, multi-player only Call of Duty in which half to two thirds of the opponents you play against are bots.

I thought the rdf was only for Apple? I guess not.
No, it's employed frequently in religion as well. "Frequently" meaning "constantly".

meanwhile, a cut-down version of 3D, the Rift, which only works with certain types of games, and not even as well as 3D Vision does in most cases, on top of preventing local multiplayer, is all the rage.
How on Earth does the Rift prevent local multiplayer? The two things are completely orthogonal.
 
While some things have declined - PC gaming is actually doing pretty well when you think about it.
Almost every big game release makes it to the PC these days. That wasn't the case back in the 90's. There were more PC exclusives back then, but we missed out on a LOT of great console games.

Plus, no matter how consolized the various ports are, we still get the absolute best version of the game in 90% of cases and for $10 less most of the time, too.
 
you will have to pull my mouse and kb (which are connected to my PC) from my cold dead hands. ;) even when I don't like what's out now, I go back and replay my old favorites. I am always entertained by PC gaming.
 
"3D" is a matter of taste, and many people dislike the effect, whether it's a game or movie. I'm in that camp. Let me know when we get the holodeck.

Anyway, this thread is about 5 years too late. I'd say around 2008 you could make a legitimate argument that PC gaming appeared dead. Steam hadn't become huge yet, PC exclusives were few and far between, and the quality of console ports were typically terrible if they were ported at all.

Now however, instead of porting major games, most are developed simultaneously for all platforms, and devs are putting more effort into adding PC specific features. Sure, some games are still lousy ports, but it's not like five years ago. The indie scene has also revitalized the PC platform much more than consoles.
 
I'm sorry but you are just wrong. PC gaming is stronger than ever , sales prove that. Hardware sales are amazing enough for Nvidia/AMD to introduce $3,000 GPU's and 4k monitors are set to change PC gaming in a way that current "next gen" consoles can't even touch. Neither console can even hope to push 4k resolution and yet again for years and years PC gamers will have 4k gaming locked down and the difference between the two is immediately obvious (I've personally played games in 4k , its incredible we just need the frame rate to hit a solid 60 fps with a single card solution for under $700). More and more people this generation are building gaming PC's over buying next gen consoles as well.

If anything I would say the home console industry is dying. Both next gen consoles are only slightly different in specs (enough for one to run 720p almost always and enough for one to run 1080p frequently). Console gaming is moving to the mobile space , its happening right in front of us all. 10 years from now console manufacturers will not be looking to launch new platforms , they will instead likely be consolidating to a singular platform to save on manufacturing costs. PC's will continue to become more and more proprietary if anything but not entirely in that time window. Its also possible both platforms will end up merging because technology has made it less profitable for manufacturers to develop their own proprietary solutions costing billions of dollars.

Right now if the current trend continues gaming will be moving to VR and the horsepower to drive two 2.5k low persistence OLED screens is well beyond either the PS4 or Xbox One certainly. Instead they will get dumbed down versions (with the Xbox One being very low resolution to run well) that will be quite inferior to the PC version.

I just can't see how someone could even logically think PC gaming is in a position that would indicate its incoming death..

What is with the either / or crap? Amazing that you would think that just because someone owns a PC means they will not own a gaming console or three. 4K res is a long, long way off from being prominent and it is super expensive right now. (Unless you want to buy one of those cheap crap TV's that will last about one year and cannot to 60Hz at 4K res.)

You are in the minority despite what you would like to believe. Even I am when it comes to my gaming PC. (Few people have a FX8350 and R9 290 setup.) Console gaming is not going anywhere let alone to handheld gaming systems. However, if you think that, then PC gaming will slowly be replaced by mobile as well over time. (I do not think that will happen in either case but going by your logic, it would.)

TV gaming and squinting at a small, mobile screen for hours end are two different things. The real problem here is that folks think they are superior to others because of what they game on. Well, I game on a 360, Xbox one, Gaming computer, Windows Phone and rarely, my Surface tablet. Oh, and I have those boxes hooked to a Sony Bravia 50 inch LCD LED backlit TV at 1080P and 60Hz.

Oh, and so far, I have seen no 4K TV's in big box stores well you can get a 720p 32inch TV for $199. (Perfect for a decent gaming setup at that res and size unless you are sitting on top of it.)
 
What is with the either / or crap? Amazing that you would think that just because someone owns a PC means they will not own a gaming console or three. 4K res is a long, long way off from being prominent and it is super expensive right now. (Unless you want to buy one of those cheap crap TV's that will last about one year and cannot to 60Hz at 4K res.)

You are in the minority despite what you would like to believe. Even I am when it comes to my gaming PC. (Few people have a FX8350 and R9 290 setup.) Console gaming is not going anywhere let alone to handheld gaming systems. However, if you think that, then PC gaming will slowly be replaced by mobile as well over time. (I do not think that will happen in either case but going by your logic, it would.)

TV gaming and squinting at a small, mobile screen for hours end are two different things. The real problem here is that folks think they are superior to others because of what they game on. Well, I game on a 360, Xbox one, Gaming computer, Windows Phone and rarely, my Surface tablet. Oh, and I have those boxes hooked to a Sony Bravia 50 inch LCD LED backlit TV at 1080P and 60Hz.

Oh, and so far, I have seen no 4K TV's in big box stores well you can get a 720p 32inch TV for $199. (Perfect for a decent gaming setup at that res and size unless you are sitting on top of it.)

4k is a long way from the family room but not from a gaming PC , go check the Display subforum and have a peak at what people are playing around with. There is already a 4k monitor that's been on sale for $599 from Samsung. How much do you think it'll be a year from now? Regardless if this information penetrates your denial bubble or not 4k gaming is going to take over PC gaming just as 1080p. To say that PC gaming is dead/dying is utterly and totally false and constantly proven wrong. More console games are going multi platform as well as the idea of an "exclusive" and especially first party "exclusive" is a dying animal.

By the way Vizio has already announced a 4k 50 inch 60hz TV with HDMI 2.0 coming out this winter for under $999. So that will kick start the slow burn into the family room for 4k.

Console gaming is already behind and its next gen offerings are barely out of the gate and even then neither console can do 1080p 100 percent of the time (with the One barely able to do 1080p in the first place). People buy whatever is trendy and popular during the holiday shopping season even if its something that will collect dust for years inside an entertainment center. Case in point the Wii , people bought the Wii in droves (over 100 million) and everyone virtually that I knew who bought one because it was "trendy" used it for more than a few months and forgot it thanks to the constant shovelware that was released for it.

In 10 years many will be on 4k (certainly the majority in enthusiasts forums like this) and who knows maybe 8k and meanwhile the likes of the Xbox One will still be running games at 720p , 900p and rarely 1080p. I own both consoles as well full disclosure but PC gaming has survived decades of marketplace flux and saying its dying because of a few gimped next gen consoles coming out at the same time .. its beyond reason frankly.

Why spend billions of dollars to manufacture consoles 10 years from now when cloud gaming will likely be a far cheaper option and allow publishers the dream of absolute stalinist type control over the platform? A unified platform will be evolution of the console platform and it will happen and is happening in small form right now.
 
4K res is a long, long way off from being prominent and it is super expensive right now. (Unless you want to buy one of those cheap crap TV's that will last about one year and cannot to 60Hz at 4K res.)
Adoption of 4K in the living room and adoption of 4K in PC gaming aren't actually equatable in terms of expectations. 4K uptick in the living room is governed not only by display adoption but by content adoption: the critical mass has to happen across both hardware and software. Uptick on the PC, on the other hand, is purely hardware-driven: content already exists. Some games from the mid-90's can run at 4K resolutions. Most current games can run at 4K. This gives it a much less aggressive trajectory for adoption.

(Few people have a FX8350 and R9 290 setup.)
You're right. Few people have that particular setup.
 
4k is a long way from the family room but not from a gaming PC , go check the Display subforum and have a peak at what people are playing around with. There is already a 4k monitor that's been on sale for $599 from Samsung. How much do you think it'll be a year from now? Regardless if this information penetrates your denial bubble or not 4k gaming is going to take over PC gaming just as 1080p. To say that PC gaming is dead/dying is utterly and totally false and constantly proven wrong. More console games are going multi platform as well as the idea of an "exclusive" and especially first party "exclusive" is a dying animal.

By the way Vizio has already announced a 4k 50 inch 60hz TV with HDMI 2.0 coming out this winter for under $999. So that will kick start the slow burn into the family room for 4k.

Console gaming is already behind and its next gen offerings are barely out of the gate and even then neither console can do 1080p 100 percent of the time (with the One barely able to do 1080p in the first place). People buy whatever is trendy and popular during the holiday shopping season even if its something that will collect dust for years inside an entertainment center. Case in point the Wii , people bought the Wii in droves (over 100 million) and everyone virtually that I knew who bought one because it was "trendy" used it for more than a few months and forgot it thanks to the constant shovelware that was released for it.

In 10 years many will be on 4k (certainly the majority in enthusiasts forums like this) and who knows maybe 8k and meanwhile the likes of the Xbox One will still be running games at 720p , 900p and rarely 1080p. I own both consoles as well full disclosure but PC gaming has survived decades of marketplace flux and saying its dying because of a few gimped next gen consoles coming out at the same time .. its beyond reason frankly.

Why spend billions of dollars to manufacture consoles 10 years from now when cloud gaming will likely be a far cheaper option and allow publishers the dream of absolute stalinist type control over the platform? A unified platform will be evolution of the console platform and it will happen and is happening in small form right now.

I am not sure what world you live in but people the mass market is not going to invest in the gear needed to push that resoultion for a long long time.

A few this about some of the ridiculous responses to these threads:

PC gaming is thriving, BUT NOT in what this forum thinks it is. All the top games are very low system requirements and that is why they do well. The high graphics and hardware to drive it is still a very niche and risky market to develop for.

Console gaming is not going ANYWERE. People aren't going to sit at a desk and chair to use a keyboard and mouse (and no there is not a comfortable way to play from you lap). They are not going to use a game paid while PC gamers point and click.

Kids for sure are going to be on consoles.
Also, young professionals just gravitate towards consoles. I am not sure what it is but they just do. Gaming isn't their ONLY thing they do, it is another pass time.
 
Adoption of 4K in the living room and adoption of 4K in PC gaming aren't actually equatable in terms of expectations. 4K uptick in the living room is governed not only by display adoption but by content adoption: the critical mass has to happen across both hardware and software. Uptick on the PC, on the other hand, is purely hardware-driven: content already exists. Some games from the mid-90's can run at 4K resolutions. Most current games can run at 4K. This gives it a much less aggressive trajectory for adoption.

You're right. Few people have that particular setup.

You know precisely what I meant. However, I will say it this way: Few people have a gaming computer that can match up with mine when compared to the total number out there. Our machines are niche in every conceivable way.

No, most games cannot run at 4K resolutions from those time frames. Heck, most of those games could not even run at wide screen resolutions. Just single example would be Doom 3 before they produced the most recent release and that game is from 2004.

Heck, most PC gamers are not even going to buy a 4K screen anytime soon.
 
You know precisely what I meant.
Yes, I know what you meant. I was making fun of your FX 8350.

No, most games cannot run at 4K resolutions from those time frames. Heck, most of those games could not even run at wide screen resolutions. Just single example would be Doom 3 before they produced the most recent release and that game is from 2004.
If you're referring to mid-90's games, you're right: most can't. But I didn't say "most". Said "some". Most current games can, however.

And Doom 3?

r_mode -1
r_customHeight 2160
r_customWidth 3840
r_aspectRatio 2 (or is it 3?)
vid_restart

Done.
 
Another point to be made is that people play other things other than shooters. CoD Ghosts doesn't even make the top 25 games being played at 5pm 4/10/2014. FTL an indie strategy game is kicking CoD's ass. Warframe an indie F2P Diablo / Mass Effect shooter is in the top 10 over CoD. Path of Exile is kicking CoD's ass. When you take into account that digital sales aren't even tracked in most sales charts, then you begin to understand that PC gamers are the sum of the parts lumped together. Picking one segment and trying to find chinks in the armor isn't going to give you the complete understanding of the situation..

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I really wish Hardforum would just autoban when people create these stupid threads. Seems like every 3-6 months someone feels the need to do so, just to stir up trouble.
That would be hilarious.

Or one that just auto-merges every new thread with these keywords into one giant megathread that never bumps.
 
4k will never be the dominant resolution. It's just too many fucking pixels to push. 1080P is the sweet spot and 2560x1440 is high enough. Anything over that and you have to reduce graphical settings for the sake of just running the game at 4k. If graphics are gonna keep progressing towards realism we can't do it at 4k. It's just too many fucking pixels.
 
4k will never be the dominant resolution. It's just too many fucking pixels to push. 1080P is the sweet spot and 2560x1440 is high enough. Anything over that and you have to reduce graphical settings for the sake of just running the game at 4k. If graphics are gonna keep progressing towards realism we can't do it at 4k. It's just too many fucking pixels.

One day people are going to put this quote in that stupid opinion generator.
 
i'd say a lot of pc gamers dont like ea and their attempts at money grabs, so some may have not bought titanfall. Origin still needs quite a bit of work imo, and i know tons of people who dont use it yet.
 
4k is a long way from the family room but not from a gaming PC , go check the Display subforum and have a peak at what people are playing around with...

4K will be for the minority for a very long time. The vast majority of PC gamers will not move to it until a $300 video card can get 35-60 frame rates stably. Without having to upgrade every year. If you think the majority of PC gamers are running 2-3 GPUs then you are dead wrong.

Steam isn't the greatest indicator, but it does have a large install base and you can see what the most common GPU types are.
 
Well, when you see a game like the upcoming "The Evil Within", one has to question:
Why must the game's graphics engine continue to cater to the lowest common denominator-- game consoles? Are PC gamers that neglected to not deserve a better quality and better looking game?​
It is 2014 and very few games are taking advantage of newer hardware each and every year. So, is PC gaming dying? It depends on what viewpoint you're looking at. On the hardware side, companies are seeing slowing hardware sales. Intel recently closed their factory in Costa Rica. AMD and Intel has been putting more effort in mobile and power efficient processors than higher end processors outside of server products. You have companies like Qualcomm designing more powerful SoCs that would likely go underused for the majority of mobile apps out there.

On another end, you have PC gamers playing a good number of PC games that barely look any different than their console counterparts. The majority of PC games are still using DirectX 9 engines, and it is quite noticeable in that "The Evil Within" trailer. It looks like they're using the same Gamebryo engine from Skyrim.

But, why continue to develop games on the PC and continue to use DirectX 9-based engines where the games continue to look little to no different than their console counterparts-- namely the PS3 and 360? Or, why do they still recommend a graphics card that was released by AMD and Nvidia over 5 years ago?
Too many people are still on Windows XP whose DirectX version stopped at 9.0c.

Too many people are playing on consoles than PC.

Too many people are playing on mobile games than PC.

Too many people are still using older hardware older than 4 years old.​
And, these people are in the majority and the larger market share than more dedicated PC gamers that have better hardware and make up a small niche of the PC market.

When more people move away from Windows XP and away from older hardware, then maybe, just maybe, PC game developers will start using DirectX 10 as the bare minimum API and feature set for PC games.

I'd still prefer that developers use OpenGL. At the very least, OpenGL having similar features as DirectX, isn't locked down to specific operating systems. You can still play an OpenGL 4.x game in Windows 8 as well as Windows XP, and it would still look good.

I have said it before and I will say it again: Game developers and companies are either lazy or ignorant, or unwilling to innovative and take advantage of newer hardware.

It's more affordable and more profitable to cater to the majority and the larger market share than the small niche of the PC market. And, it is this majority that is stagnating PC gaming, slowing down PC gaming, and holding back PC gaming for nearly a decade.

Blame them for why we get forum posts and news articles claiming PC gaming is dead.
 
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