PC Gaming, will it END?

So I see mostly everyone just doubts the PC arena is even loosing momentum.
I don't know , GTA4 has been a LONG TIME PC tradition and now the console launch comes first.
Lucas Arts dropped the PC for their next big title "THE Force Unleashed", which by all means should run great on a midrange PC.
I think 40 million hits of Fake CD Keys is quite an impressive number for a title that didn't sell a fourth of that. That means that MANY MANY people who didn't think UT3 worthy still bothered to download a couple of GB of content and try to get onto their servers. I think that speaks loud and clear about how many people are happy to enjoy Epics hard work (and I do believe there was plenty involved), and how many people want to actually pay them for it.
Crysis, on the other hand - did suck, from the middle of the game it became a waste of time, but I still think that whoever Liked the demo would most probably enjoy at leas 50% of the game. And I think all those whining about performance just decided to bury their head in the sand, the demo showcased the performance level to be expected. I also find Crysis VERY PLAYABLE on my rig at medium-high settings.
I'm facing an upcoming upgrade for my PC, and I don't see any titles to look forward to.
I'm praying GTA4 does get released for PC (despite mediocre user reviews), and hoping something will Jolt PC Gamers to buy at least 50% of their games. Obviously I'm living on mars....
 
Chombo said:
What if you don't have constant internet access? SOL.
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um... really now, is that such a problem with people posting on this board? I mean there are people saying they wont buy, or will crack it just because of that.... WHY? they surely have internet access.... and its not like the check will take anymore than a split second before its done its work....

and how many PC gamers with *capable* dont have internet access? How will they update their drivers/patch windows/do all the REALLY NECESSARY things that you need to do in order to be a PC gamer? seriously... what a bunch of whiny pansies....
 
brucedeluxe169 said:
um... really now, is that such a problem with people posting on this board? I mean there are people saying they wont buy, or will crack it just because of that.... WHY? they surely have internet access.... and its not like the check will take anymore than a split second before its done its work....

and how many PC gamers with *capable* dont have internet access? How will they update their drivers/patch windows/do all the REALLY NECESSARY things that you need to do in order to be a PC gamer? seriously... what a bunch of whiny pansies....
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I don't have internet access at home. I post here at work. I refuse to pay my local cable company the king's ransom it costs to get a connection.
 
If PC gaming does die, it will be precisely the fault of unbelievably selfish users with unrealistic expectations who demand lower prices, more content, and higher quality games than consoles get, while in the same breath bragging loudly about the massive collection of games that they have pirated.
 
altcon said:
I'm sorry to be starting one of these threads (as I'm sure there are plenty),
But after reading Epic and Crytek citing losses after shipping two of the biggest titles in the past few years.
Both companies DIRECTLY blaming piracy on their low income and UT3 reporting about 40 million Hacked copies trying to log on to UT3 servers.
I'm just wondering where this is all going and if we can do something to make sure the PC platform doesn't get slowly phased out as a Gaming platform.
What can we do?
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S T F U
 
For all the whining by developers and publishers about piracy, what are they actually doing about it? If piracy is so rampant it means disc-checks and registration keys are worthless, but they keep bolting that shit onto their games rather than come up with more effective solutions. Or else they throw their toys out of the pram and move to consoles, where they'll then fail to succeed largely because they don't have much experience creating games for consoles and think they can just port their PC games and make a massive profit for no effort.
It would be interesting to know how badly Steam(-exclusive) games suffer from piracy; I know the games do get pirated but I'd bet it's much less than old-fashioned copy-protected games.
 
Chombo said:
I don't have internet access at home. I post here at work. I refuse to pay my local cable company the king's ransom it costs to get a connection.
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wow... how do you update drivers/patches/windows/etc? I also assume multiplayer gaming is out for you.... (you are obviously gonna say you save them at work and bring them home... but seriously, hoe many ppl would do that....)

honestly, do you really believe that there are many other modern, up to date PC gamers like you out there?

PC gamers are seriously some of the whiniest gamers out there....
 
Litfod said:
It would be interesting to know how badly Steam(-exclusive) games suffer from piracy; I know the games do get pirated but I'd bet it's much less than old-fashioned copy-protected games.
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for the single player experience i bet it will come to something similar to steam, where to even play single player games you will have to log onto an online service, and then a program similar to punkbuster will check your game files to make sure they aren't altered, and the game engine itself needs to ping/check with a master server while it is being played....

and of course, people will bitch about how it is inconvenient for them to be logged on to play a game :rolleyes: as if right now they disconnect themselves from the net or something every time they play a game....
 
Litfod said:
For all the whining by developers and publishers about piracy, what are they actually doing about it? If piracy is so rampant it means disc-checks and registration keys are worthless, but they keep bolting that shit onto their games rather than come up with more effective solutions. Or else they throw their toys out of the pram and move to consoles, where they'll then fail to succeed largely because they don't have much experience creating games for consoles and think they can just port their PC games and make a massive profit for no effort.
It would be interesting to know how badly Steam(-exclusive) games suffer from piracy; I know the games do get pirated but I'd bet it's much less than old-fashioned copy-protected games.
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Considering the success that Stardock games have had, without any kind of copy protection at all, I agree that the old copy protection mechanism is outdated. Sure, Stardock games get pirated just the same as the rest, but they are not pirated any MORE than other vendors who use copy protection. The very fact that sites such as gamecopyworld.com exist should a clear indicator to industry professionals that their schemes aren't working.

But it's not. I agree that copy protection is lame, and that the programmers need to come up with a better plan, but I can also see why piracy is a big problem to them. I think this, at least partially, is why subscription based games are doing so well and will continue to do well. It ultimately doesn't matter if you pirate the software. If you want to have the experience, you simply have to register with the developer and pay the money.
 
brucedeluxe169 said:
wow... how do you update drivers/patches/windows/etc? I also assume multiplayer gaming is out for you.... (you are obviously gonna say you save them at work and bring them home... but seriously, hoe many ppl would do that....)

honestly, do you really believe that there are many other modern, up to date PC gamers like you out there?

PC gamers are seriously some of the whiniest gamers out there....
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You are right, I burn anything that I need either at work or at a friend's house. Honestly though with the exception of STALKER and Hellgate I really haven't needed to do so very often. A game that bases itself off of multiplayer fails in the end. With no SP content what incentive do you have to go back and play the game if there are either no servers or empty servers?

I may be in the minority of PC gamers with no connection. However I do not believe that their aren't a large amount of gamers who are in rural areas with no access to anything but dial up. The last thing that PC Gaming needs is more elitism.

brucedeluxe169 said:
for the single player experience i bet it will come to something similar to steam, where to even play single player games you will have to log onto an online service, and then a program similar to punkbuster will check your game files to make sure they aren't altered, and the game engine itself needs to ping/check with a master server while it is being played....

and of course, people will bitch about how it is inconvenient for them to be logged on to play a game :rolleyes: as if right now they disconnect themselves from the net or something every time they play a game....
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You should all be afraid of anything that checks your code. There goes custom configs. There goes the whole mod sceme.
 
Chombo said:
You should all be afraid of anything that checks your code. There goes custom configs. There goes the whole mod sceme.
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not really... mods still run off the original executable for the game, so the copy protection could/should be within that......
 
Piracy is the scape goat for the PC gaming industry. The developers want to move to a console only platform as it generates more money and is easier to develop games for since the platform is mostly static. Hardware and software support is placed at the bottom of the priority list versus on the top with PC based games.

I have been a dedicated PC gamer all of my life but I am closely watching what kind of games are coming out for consoles and see that the quality and experience has really come a long way. I think it would be safe to say that many PC gamers wouldn't have a problem playing console games if they could interface with a keyboard and mouse.

I have been an advocate of this since the Xbox came out.

You also have to throw future OS's into the mix. Vista has not been well received by the majority of the gaming community. This in effect has made developers more motivated to get away from the PC. Microsoft Windows is all PC developers have to work with and in their eyes its a sinking ship and they are not just going to sit there and drown while Microsoft figures out what the hell to do.

With companies like Valve who have implemented Steam, there is hope. You get some cry babies that bitch and moan about it but this is the most effective way to eliminate pirating. People are worried that if Valve was to shut down Steam nobody could play their games anymore.....what are the odds they would shut down and if they have a large network of support from other game companies there is nothing to worry about.
 
redman223 said:
I decided to go with a new PC at the end of 2006 (November) rather than get a PS3, and I am glad I made that move. I had been out of the PC scene for a LONG time, so I played all the old games that I never got to play since 2000ish and have been really happy with it so far.

Now to me, consoles in general are missing a few things, but when they get them, it will hurt the PC scene even more (even though like someone said before consoles are going the way of the PC anyway).

Those things are:
1080p 60fps for ALL games w/4xaa and 16xaf
.
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to play pc games at that res your looking at spending $500 on a gpu to do that! the benefits do not favour buying a pc that can play at that res as aposed to a console. just list the games you like in each hardware and make your decison on that.

thats what i did and the ps3 was what i chose because most of the games im looking forward to are on that system
 
Damn, is PC gaming dead again? Oh well, back to the new version of Mount and Blade, a game made by two people from Turkey that has more innovation, fun and replayability in it than UT3, Crysis and every Battlefield game since 1942 combined. Those ass clowns can have the console market, I don't want their trash clogging up PCs anyway.
 
LoStMaTt said:
Piracy is the scape goat for the PC gaming industry. The developers want to move to a console only platform as it generates more money and is easier to develop games for since the platform is mostly static.
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those 40 million cracked UT3 players would seem to refute your first sentence... :rolleyes:

and who knows how bad it was with crysis... bring primarily single player and all... i'm sure most that downloaded it didn't even bother to try multiplayer (i know i didnt...)
 
Damn..after all this time these kinds of threads still pop up??Ill bet if you could search these forums back when the PSone launched,there would be a thread just like this one..:rolleyes:
 
brucedeluxe169 said:
and whats so bad about the mass effect copy protection? its a simple server check every 10 days that verifies the CD key.... i dont understand whats so evil or inconvenient about that.....
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*cough* Bioshock.

*cough* It won't help

*cough* the guilty till proven innocent treatment

*cough* I live in germany, customer service here is a joke, my ISP screws up and disconnects me several times a year, sometimes for up to 30 days. Great, so my legally purchased game will be useless.

*cough* no.


Aix said:
Damn, is PC gaming dead again? Oh well, back to the new version of Mount and Blade, a game made by two people from Turkey that has more innovation, fun and replayability in it than UT3, Crysis and every Battlefield game since 1942 combined. Those ass clowns can have the console market, I don't want their trash clogging up PCs anyway.
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+1 for truth.
 
So the majority of responses to this issue is:
1) I'm too cool to care ,STFU and other wastes of bits and bytes on the [H] forum software
2) This is the developers problem, they suck, they don't copy protect well enough, they "over" copy protect, they didn't come kiss my ass when I bought a PC.
I think this thread can be put to bed.
The reason PC gaming will die is quite clear:

A) Developers will make less and less money on PC Gaming for a wide variety of reasons.
They will ultimately prefer a single level of development for uniform platforms with unified copy protection schemes ie CONSOLES.
B) Gamers ultimately DON'T CARE. It's too much of a hassle to bother thinking about it and it can't be our fault. This is a classic symptom of pointing fingers at each other and ignoring our own problems. Heck maybe I'll get an XBOX instead of a new Quad Core gaming setup and be content knowing our own worst enemy is probably almost always OURSELVES.
 
bmorton18 said:
I don't think PC gaming is going anywhere....they can blame pirating all they want but when it comes down to it, UT3 and Crysis were not that great...release a good game and you'll make a profit...make shit and you won't..
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This makes no sense.... if a game sucks why pirate it? If it's worth pirating then it's worth paying for.

202276
 
altcon said:
2) This is the developers problem, they suck, they don't copy protect well enough, they "over" copy protect, they didn't come kiss my ass when I bought a PC.
I think this thread can be put to bed.
The reason PC gaming will die is quite clear:

A) Developers will make less and less money on PC Gaming for a wide variety of reasons.
They will ultimately prefer a single level of development for uniform platforms with unified copy protection schemes ie CONSOLES.
B) Gamers ultimately DON'T CARE. It's too much of a hassle to bother thinking about it and it can't be our fault.
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So we're supposed to go buy shitty games that won't run due to draconian copy protection measures that we WON't enjoy just so that a bunch of bigname developers can snort crack off of hooker's asses while designing the latest 50 cent game?

Nah. I'll go play a well built game from a smaller company.
 
I think I recall seeing some numbers that show PC gaming in decline. I am not surprised. Making games is expensive, and getting them to work on random hardware is another hurdle that takes time and money.

One area that game makers can save money is change to digital distribution. Many of us hated it when Valve did this for HL2, but now many of us (previous) haters, prefer digital distribution.

Pros of Digital distribution:
1. Fewer middle men to take cut of profits
2. It's (our favorite marketing word of the year) Greener! No box, no plastic wrap, no printed eula, no cd's, etc..
3. New players can always get the latest build without need to patch

Cons:
1. Bandwidth required on release day is huge and expensive.
2. May need to work with electronic distributors (they will take a cut of money I am sure)
 
if this thread was the slickdeals forum i'd give it a big fat thumbs down.. lol

pc gaming rox
 
altcon said:
I'm sorry to be starting one of these threads (as I'm sure there are plenty),
But after reading Epic and Crytek citing losses after shipping two of the biggest titles in the past few years.
Both companies DIRECTLY blaming piracy on their low income and UT3 reporting about 40 million Hacked copies trying to log on to UT3 servers.
I'm just wondering where this is all going and if we can do something to make sure the PC platform doesn't get slowly phased out as a Gaming platform.
What can we do?
Click to expand...

Epic deserved losses for releasing a piece of shit game. Crysis didn't run that well and it still sold pretty well.

Now they could start making better games like Stalker and Galactic Civ, which seem to sell quite well.

PC gaming is here to stay...I don't know what makes anyone think other wise. I forgot that Crytek had made so many great games for PC, wait they have only made 2 games, and Epic has only brought Unreal which imo is mediocre in comparison to the Quake series. We got plenty of companies making plenty of games for PC now and for a long time to come.
 
40 million? Bullshit.
Mark Rein denies making that statement:
"Actually I have no idea where the 40 million number came from. I certainly don't recall saying it."
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link


PC gaming isn't going to end. That's an ignorant question. WoW and the Sims are two of the biggest money making games right now, on any platform. Did you miss the other hundred or so PC doom and gloom threads that pop up almost every week?
 
damonposey said:
Reality check Frosteh, the console gaming business doesn't need PC gaming to survive. MS and Sony can deal with Nvidia and ATI directly to develop custom solutions. ATI and Nvidia know this, so it's not like if PC gaming died, ATI and nvidia would have nothing to do. You can be sure both MS and Sony's next gen console is already being developed in partnership with ati and nvidia. These aren't children, frosteh, they are companies making money, and they are going to push technology every generation, no need to worry about that.
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The truth probably lies somewhere between Frostex's argument and yours...

Console development progressed for years without any ties to established PC GPU companies like ATI/NVidia, and I'm sure it'd continue to progress if the PC gaming market died and those companies moved away from their breakneck 18 month development cycle for PC GPUs (which is already starting to happen anyway).

I'm not saying they'd be any more or less successful w/o ATI/NVidia's tech, because obviously the ties to PC tech has made the consoles incredibly more complex and capable... I just don't think it's a necessary relationship for the survival of either.

redman223 said:
Now to me, consoles in general are missing a few things, but when they get them, it will hurt the PC scene even more (even though like someone said before consoles are going the way of the PC anyway).

Those things are:
1080p 60fps for ALL games w/4xaa and 16xaf
native keyboard/mouse support for all games (not forced on people though, you should be able to choose whether or not you want to use it)
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Most people who buy a console couldn't give a damn about that... It may be a big point for someone like you, looking to actually replace their PC as their gaming machine, but most people that didn't cut their teeth on PC gaming from the start couldn't be the wiser about any of it.

The totality of the current PC gaming market isn't composed of hardcore gamers who demand 1080p and a kb+mouse either, the moment it is PC gaming will decline even further.

If anything, it's much more practical things (web browsing, being able to download games, or even mods, etc) that would allow consoles to encroach further on PC gaming's territory... But that's really a two way street, because as consoles do those things essentially they just become dumbed down PCs and inherit all the same issues.
 
altcon said:
I'm sorry to be starting one of these threads (as I'm sure there are plenty),
But after reading Epic and Crytek citing losses after shipping two of the biggest titles in the past few years.
Both companies DIRECTLY blaming piracy on their low income and UT3 reporting about 40 million Hacked copies trying to log on to UT3 servers.
I'm just wondering where this is all going and if we can do something to make sure the PC platform doesn't get slowly phased out as a Gaming platform.
What can we do?
Click to expand...

UT3 was utter crap and brought nothing great to the UT series. I bet there are more people that legally own the original UT and still play it. Everyone i talk to says the online servers are empty. The same with Crysis. I thought sandbox was a great tool and a lot of great mods are coming out for Crysis, including Jurassic park.

I'll give you an example of a great game and well worth the $30 bucks i spent. Aquaria; another example would be sins of the solar empire
I'll give you an example of garbage.
http://pc.ign.com/objects/495/495891.html - big mother truckers.

In the end, i don't mind copywrite protection. As long as it's done like steam, where you have the option to play offline, where you get great support and many other features steam provide. Companies like EA need to stop being the borg and be how they were back in the mid 90's.
 
Impulse said:
If anything, it's much more practical things (web browsing, being able to download games, or even mods, etc) that would allow consoles to encroach further on PC gaming's territory... But that's really a two way street, because as consoles do those things essentially they just become dumbed down PCs and inherit all the same issues.
Click to expand...

Run a web/file/game server, photo editing, 3d Animation/Photoshop, my choice of OS, software, instant messaging, email, Sorting my music collection for easier listening the ability to replace specific pieces of hardware as I see fit, like I'm eyeballing an 9800GTX atm...
 
how about handheld consoles such has the psp? that is very easy to pirate games on yet its selling well or is it?

what about software's? o yea scrub that because MS,Adobe etc make there money not from us but from bsuiness corporations who spends 10000 of dollers on buying licences and software for the pc's at work.
 
Canadian in Berlin said:
No, Microsoft and Sony will have to finance their own hardware research companies, since there won't be the video card market providing financing for progressing. You're assuming that all these companies make money on is their research? Thats not enough, or suddenly your "consoles are cheaper" arguement will be out the door, because it will cost $1299 cause you paid for the R&D (without having the buffer of PC hardware sales).
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I see what you're saying, but despite the extra money they would have to pay for R&D, MS and Sony will still gladly sell at a loss like they always have. And After the end of this console cycle, they will have more money to burn anyway. $1299 is a bit of an exaggeration.
 
Will PC gaming die? No, probably not.

But go look at Gamestop's coming soon list for the PC, and there is maybe 3 games total on that list that are exclusive to the PC... the rest are all console ports.

Looking at my tiny stack of games here, I remember a day when the PC had exclusive games of their own and developers really made use of what they have... the early Bioware / Black Isle days, the Blizzard days, the id days, when companies gave a damn about what they were putting out and worked hard on it, and used the PC to do things they couldn't do on a console.

These days, the only games that come to mind that really take advantage of the PC are Stalker and Sins of a Solar Empire, along with a handful of RTS's. It's nowhere near what it used to be back in the day, imo, when developers treated the PC as something unique rather than just shoving ports on it, and then DRM'ing those ports to high hell.

Stalker shows you can still make a unique FPS on the PC that is decent, and be successful at it, but the rest of the year the only FPS's we're going to get are console ports.
 
I think PC gaming will be on the endangered species list once consoles have full keyboard and mouse support. The main thing thats keeping the PC gaming market going is MMO and FPS games. Once consoles get mouse/keyboard support then theres not much incentive to release games for PC, one reason for developers is piracy, another reason for consumers is a huge global network like XBL for gamers to communicate on. Once full mouse and keyboard support, the last thing that might hold things back for the console is custom maps and such. But that won't be very hard to fix.
 
maybe it should end. With more and more companies coming out with crap games and SecureRom software I think were beginning to see the first stages of PC gaming self destruction.
 
Gabe3 said:
I think PC gaming will be on the endangered species list once consoles have full keyboard and mouse support. The main thing thats keeping the PC gaming market going is MMO and FPS games. Once consoles get mouse/keyboard support then theres not much incentive.
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Some consoles have had that for the longest time though, even as far back as three generations ago... Most people just don't care for it regardless. I guess as the consoles get more and more complex and gain more flexibility and web connectivity then it'd be of more value but still...

I'm not sure I'd really enjoy playing an RTS on a big screen, idk... Or playing a PvP-heavy MMORPG for a few hours for that matter.
 
NO NO NO NO

dont be sorry about starting this thread, just dont start them! deumm.


and beside consoles arent consoles anymore, they are PC's and more and more becoming PC's - PC gaming is simply being reborn, just a new look, consoles stopped being consoles when theybecame media centers / dvd players and everything else that was tossed in.
 
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