John Romero: PC Is Decimating Console, Just Through Price

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During a ceremony at the National Museum of Play, John Romero talked about inexpensive PC games, Steam and F2P games decimating console games on price. He also had a bit to say about VR games being a fad.

"With PC you have free-to-play and Steam games for five bucks. The PC is decimating console, just through price. Free-to-play has killed a hundred AAA studios," he remarked. Our entire first episode was free - give us no money, play the whole thing. If you like it and want to play more, then you finally pay us. To me that felt like the ultimate fair [model].
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John Romero?
EDG191.f_romero.photo02_0.jpg

That John Romero?
George Romero is more relevant to modern gaming than Mr Fabio wannabee.
Now say it together...
"I can't believe its not butter!"
And now the other one...
"I can't believe I'm still relevant after Daikatana!"
 
I think the idea is that with PC at least you get some money. Where on console it's a hit or miss. By just throwing a price you're garentee'd to make some money, where you release a game and hope people are willing to spend $60. Games at $60 are reserved for super popular CoD or GTA type games. Anything else and it's just wait for it to be on sale, and eventually you forget the game ever existed enough to buy it.
 
"PC games" which often uses mobile and facebook games to prop up their numbers is a pathetically poor industry revolving around a few hit titles that have lasting value and recurring revenue.

In 2011 Video games as a whole globally pulled in 65 billion-ish dollars, 18billion belonging to PC/mobile/facebook about 8 billion of that just to companies that are majority facebook/mobile games. PC games is far below that of consoles games in terms of worth.
 
The problem is still the same on consoles You need to draw in the casual crowd.
If you can not expand your market then it will very hard to get developers make "games" (money) on your platform.

PC does not suffer from Xbox live and Playstation plus.
 
Semantics said:
"PC games" which often uses mobile and facebook games to prop up their numbers is a pathetically poor industry revolving around a few hit titles that have lasting value and recurring revenue.

In 2011 Video games as a whole globally pulled in 65 billion-ish dollars, 18billion belonging to PC/mobile/facebook about 8 billion of that just to companies that are majority facebook/mobile games. PC games is far below that of consoles games in terms of worth.
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Uh, consoles pulled in 11 billion in 2011:

http://business.time.com/2013/02/11/game-over-why-video-game-console-sales-are-plummeting/

Where are you getting YOUR numbers from?
 
Romero's pretty much spot-on. Steam's library of games is just phenomenally huge, and so many are inexpensive, plus they're always available for sale. I can get a game I missed a few years back for $5-10. I think I paid $20 for Id's entire collection a few years back, so I got all the Commander Keen games I had missed, plus the Quake mission packs I didn't have. I've paid $5.00 for games like Poker Night that I wasn't sure if I'd like or not, which actually turned out pretty good. I can access any of those at any time from the same machine without having to change disks, and I can go from playing a game to modding it. Do that on a console? Never going to happen.
 
Semantics said:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/06/06/us-videogames-factbox-idUKTRE75552I20110606

I used GLOBAL numbers not US numbers, they come from the same NDP group anyways.
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My mistake, I misread that. Although this article you linked to really doesn't distinguish much:

-Retail software revenue:
$29.5 billion, down slightly from $29.8 billion in 2010

What percent of that is PC v. Console? Console certainly takes the lion's share here, but these aren't numbers that are given.

-Online revenue, including digital delivery, subscriptions, Facebook games:
$18 billion, up from $15.6 billion in 2010

In addition to not listing the PC / console split here either, they also say that game revenue is at $65 billion for 2011. Well if retail sales are 29.5 billion and online revenue is at 18 billion, where's the remaining 17.5 billion coming from?

Also, this article says these are forecasts, not the actual numbers.

Finally where did you get the 10 billion statistic for non-Facebook PC gaming from?

I would argue that PC gaming is incredibly robust and can exist at any price point. I mean hell, during the videogame crash of 1983, PC gaming still thrived during that time. Consoles typically require much more overhead from the developer between licensing fees and physical distribution.
 
PC is decimating Console? I get a kick out of that. And what pornstar did Romero marry? Never heard he had. Not that I pay attention to him anyway.
 
SGA76 said:
"I can't believe I'm still relevant after Daikatana!"
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This is pretty much much what I said to a friend that linked me some article stuff today regarding John Romero. I don't really feel like the guy is an authority on anything at this point.
 
Megalith said:
Is he still married to that pornstar?
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He's married to Brenda Romero....

He was never married to a pornstar, there was that one woman who posed for playboy that he was with (which never got published in the mag just online), that's about it.
 
This porn star? :D

1378052_10153263526155214_944963955_n.jpg


He's actually a really, really nice guy in person. We bagged on Daikatana relentlessly and he was still super cool to me when we met.
 
I hope the PC destroys consoles. One machine that can play ALL THE GAMES? That is my ultimate dream!

What a minute, who is listening to Romero and why? What has he done worth a damn in the last 20 years? Might as well just ask some random person on the street for their opinion.
 
Can you picture a man who combines the powerful biceps of Steve, with the flowing locks of Romero?

What a dish he would be.
 
I can't hate the guy any more than I can hate John Lennon for his post-Beatles work. Knee Deep in the Dead and his other work on Doom are a masterpiece.
 
John Romero is as equally useless and stupid as that fat bastard Wozniak.
 
I think PC globally destroys consoles. While consoles are very popular in the US, they are still a limited market in the greater scheme of things. SC is South Korea's national sport, and dota 2 pulls in over 8 million unique players. The problem with pc in the US is the marketing behind it.
 
Nothing like a bunch of nobodies ragging on a guy who, though no longer relevant, had a massive influence on a multi-billion dollar industry.
 
Yup. It's not like John Romero created one of the most popular of video games. Or gave a man the chance to create one of the most lauded games in video game history. Nope. He is just a dumb idiot who created one bad game.

It is really a shame that Daikatana basically killed his career. It was mostly self-inflicted, but the man hasn't made anything particularly noteworthy since.
 
Also in terms of looking at sales numbers, this is worth considering for console retail v. pc digital:

game-pie.jpg
 
Everyone like Romero =) Last time I heard he was teaching in California about game design or something.
 
Steve said:
This porn star? :D

1378052_10153263526155214_944963955_n.jpg


He's actually a really, really nice guy in person. We bagged on Daikatana relentlessly and he was still super cool to me when we met.
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Did his majestic hair touch you at any point? Did you discuss the power of Satan?
 
tetris42 said:
Also in terms of looking at sales numbers, this is worth considering for console retail v. pc digital:

game-pie.jpg
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Considering how ripped off I got from bad NES games back then =) I rented dozens of game at Dave's family video which had a wall of NES games.

The price has remained the same "all this time "maybe gone up or down +10.00 -10.00


Destiny is going to be a hard sell people are looking for a good excuse for their purchase last Nov.
 
Not sure why JR even deserves a thread on H. The guy has been irrelevant for more than a decade. I wish the PC was doing this but consoles simply sell more, to state otherwise is intellectually dishonest.
 
Teenk9 said:
Nothing like a bunch of nobodies ragging on a guy who, though no longer relevant, had a massive influence on a multi-billion dollar industry.
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Romero is like Woz.
They laid a lot of ground work and modern computers and gaming owe them everything, but they're not relevant anymore in their fields.
Its kind of like Bush talking about Obama, sure, he's been there, done that, and probably has some insights that are valid but once you fall out of the limelight no one really gives a damn what you have to say.
Maybe a better example would be Clint Eastwood coming out and saying something aboit The Expendables 3. You'd get a quick flash in the pan then everyone forgets,
 
SGA76 said:
John Romero?
EDG191.f_romero.photo02_0.jpg

That John Romero?
George Romero is more relevant to modern gaming than Mr Fabio wannabee.
Now say it together...
"I can't believe its not butter!"
And now the other one...
"I can't believe I'm still relevant after Daikatana!"
Click to expand...


Aww you don't like what he say so you make fun of his looks? That says a lot about your character.
 
Kor said:
Did his majestic hair touch you at any point? Did you discuss the power of Satan?
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Well, we talked about a bunch of stuff but the funniest part was discussing our out of proportion head - body ratio. I got this big body w/ little head and he is the opposite.
 
fdiaz78 said:
I wish the PC was doing this but consoles simply sell more, to state otherwise is intellectually dishonest.
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You might want to read this:

https://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2009/03/03/just-how-many-pc-gamers-are-there

Particularly this part:

"
In 2008 well over 120 million discrete video cards sold thru last year. By comparison there were about ~45 million total consoles sold (Includes: PS2/3, 360, Wii) in that same period.
"

Also might want to see this:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonev...how-long-should-console-makers-keep-fighting/

I mean you say "intellectually dishonest", but look at how many gamers there are on Steam and F2P games v. sales of the newest consoles. I mean League of Legends alone has 27 million people playing EVERY DAY.

I sometimes think people are brainwashed because they only gauge PC gaming by what they can see at Gamestop in the USA. In Europe, PC gaming is more common than console gaming in retail.
 
wizzi01 said:
Aww you don't like what he say so you make fun of his looks? That says a lot about your character.
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No, just couldn't find one of his bleach blond pics where you couldn't tell him or Fabio apart side by side.
It was a joke, you know humor, that stellar attribute you're so desperately lacking....
 
tetris42 said:
You might want to read this:

https://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2009/03/03/just-how-many-pc-gamers-are-there

Particularly this part:

"
In 2008 well over 120 million discrete video cards sold thru last year. By comparison there were about ~45 million total consoles sold (Includes: PS2/3, 360, Wii) in that same period.
"

Also might want to see this:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonev...how-long-should-console-makers-keep-fighting/

I mean you say "intellectually dishonest", but look at how many gamers there are on Steam and F2P games v. sales of the newest consoles. I mean League of Legends alone has 27 million people playing EVERY DAY.

I sometimes think people are brainwashed because they only gauge PC gaming by what they can see at Gamestop in the USA. In Europe, PC gaming is more common than console gaming in retail.
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PC gaming doesn't bring in more money i posted NDP numbers showing that. The reason why LOL has so many users is because PC gaming is dead, it's a small market dominated by server side content.

How many active users on steam daily? 6.5 million how many of those 27 million LOL users pay for anything ever? PC market is just a few vastly popular things and nothing else as it's moved to free to play server side content. Meaning you have very few new rich content games.

Btw xbox gold subscriptions is 46 million, 46 million paying customers. Wonder why PC can only attract small developers and developers looking to tie games to servers/ developers phoning in ports of a game to PC 3 months after launch and the majority of console sales have died down.
 
Semantics said:
PC gaming doesn't bring in more money i posted NDP numbers showing that.
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Your numbers were from 2011 and you never addressed any of the problems I pointed out with it. PC gaming has grown since then and is now making more money than the console game market, that's what the link from 2014 showed. Proclamations of "PC dying" have been going on for a decade as retail sales have dwindled and there hasn't been a reliable way to measure digital ones since Steam keeps their sales private when the reality was its only been growing.

how many of those 27 million LOL users pay for anything ever?
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That's 27 million DAILY, it has 67 million monthly. As for how many pay, who cares if the company is making profit. They made 624 million last year without having to pay retail overhead, that sounds like success to me.

PC market is just a few vastly popular things and nothing else as it's moved to free to play server side content. Meaning you have very few new rich content games.
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Look at the most popular games on Steam at the moment:

https://store.steampowered.com/mobilestorefront/topsellers

How many of those look like throwaway low content games? You have long RPGs, strategy games, survival horror, FPSs, and a flight sim. A couple weeks ago racing and a couple 3rd person shooters were also towards the top. There are SO MANY games on PC on pretty much every level. Sure, there's lots of indie crap at the bottom, but just one slice of the massive amount out there.

Btw xbox gold subscriptions is 46 million, 46 million paying customers.
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And Steam has 75 million users, Origin has 50 million users, to say nothing of the many other non-steam games out there like minecraft, world of tanks, and many, many smaller but still content-rich ones.

Wonder why PC can only attract small developers and developers looking to tie games to servers/ developers phoning in ports of a game to PC 3 months after launch and the majority of console sales have died down.
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Well look at games that aren't made by Ubisoft and Rockstar and that's not really the case so much now, there's too much money on the table.
 
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