Who is most to blame for the decline in PC gaming?

[4537256]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

A $100 video card will destroy an Xbox 360 in every test,
.

in tests its true, however a $100 video card sometimes doesnt make the miniumum requirements that the same game for 360 works fine on.

thats the whole problem with PC gaming these days that sucks so bad is that no one anymore is trying to make games efficient to match the hardware. No one is pushing physics,audio streams, better models..etc any farther than what a console is capable of. instead they port the games and you require faster cpu's, more ram...etc than a 360 just to run it

seeing how GTA4 struggles on my e8400/280gtx graphics card and still cant have any Anti aliasing?...well thats just b.s. not even going to talk about its DRM and game saving crap.
H.A.W.X?,Grid..etc, they dont even look signigicantly better than the PS3, i know cause i own them for PC and played them on my PS3 using the exact same monitor and its just not all that, but the pc versions sure do seem to like the ram....etc. better.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: 4537256

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

A $100 video card will destroy an Xbox 360 in every test,
.

in tests its true, however a $100 video card sometimes doesnt make the miniumum requirements that the same game for 360 works fine on.

thats the whole problem with PC gaming these days that sucks so bad is that no one anymore is trying to make games efficient to match the hardware. No one is pushing physics,audio streams, better models..etc any farther than what a console is capable of. instead they port the games and you require faster cpu's, more ram...etc than a 360 just to run it

seeing how GTA4 struggles on my e8400/280gtx graphics card and still cant have any Anti aliasing?...well thats just b.s. not even going to talk about its DRM and game saving crap.
H.A.W.X?,Grid..etc, they dont even look signigicantly better than the PS3, i know cause i own them for PC and played them on my PS3 using the exact same monitor and its just not all that, but the pc versions sure do seem to like the ram....etc. better.

GTA4 is cpu hungry. But if you want it to run better, try turning down draw distance...
It seems to be poorly programmed though, as if they're using the cpu for stuff vertex and geometry shaders should be doing.

Also, the games may not look much better on PC than PS3...
But you could also turn down the graphics to medium (or maybe even low) and get identical graphics to the PS3 at much better performance. My friend played Dead Space on a 780GX at 1024x768. It looked nearly as good as the 360 version and ran nearly as well. A cursory glance would make it impossible to tell the difference.
On low settings, a 780GX should also run GTA4 at close to 30 fps, which is more than just about any dual core cpu can handle in that game, showing you how cpu limited GTA4 is.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: Fox5
Also, the games may not look much better on PC than PS3...
But you could also turn down the graphics to medium (or maybe even low) and get identical graphics to the PS3 at much better performance. My friend played Dead Space on a 780GX at 1024x768. It looked nearly as good as the 360 version and ran nearly as well. A cursory glance would make it impossible to tell the difference.
On low settings, a 780GX should also run GTA4 at close to 30 fps, which is more than just about any dual core cpu can handle in that game, showing you how cpu limited GTA4 is.

A lot of modern PC games run great on old hardware. I think the biggest problem is that using a keyboard and mouse means you're sitting close to the monitor and that makes it easier to see how bad the graphics are. I tried running Dead Space (PC version) at 1280x800 resolution and it looked really good when I sat back in my chair and played it with an Xbox controller. If I sit a few feet closer and use a the keyboard/mouse, it looks terrible.

GTA4 is the exception and it should be a case study for how not to make a game. If they were using the CPU to do shading, that still wouldn't explain why the PS3 version sucks so bad. The Cell processor is quite good at doing GPU-like calculations, but the PS3 version is even slower than the Xbox version. It just doesn't make any sense. Maybe they were all drunk or stoned when programming it.

 

[Red Irish]

Originally posted by: 4537256

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

A $100 video card will destroy an Xbox 360 in every test,
.

in tests its true, however a $100 video card sometimes doesnt make the miniumum requirements that the same game for 360 works fine on.

thats the whole problem with PC gaming these days that sucks so bad is that no one anymore is trying to make games efficient to match the hardware. No one is pushing physics,audio streams, better models..etc any farther than what a console is capable of. instead they port the games and you require faster cpu's, more ram...etc than a 360 just to run it

seeing how GTA4 struggles on my e8400/280gtx graphics card and still cant have any Anti aliasing?...well thats just b.s. not even going to talk about its DRM and game saving crap.
H.A.W.X?,Grid..etc, they dont even look signigicantly better than the PS3, i know cause i own them for PC and played them on my PS3 using the exact same monitor and its just not all that, but the pc versions sure do seem to like the ram....etc. better.

:thumbsup:

 

[4537256]

Originally posted by: Fox5

Originally posted by: 4537256

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

A $100 video card will destroy an Xbox 360 in every test,
.

in tests its true, however a $100 video card sometimes doesnt make the miniumum requirements that the same game for 360 works fine on.

thats the whole problem with PC gaming these days that sucks so bad is that no one anymore is trying to make games efficient to match the hardware. No one is pushing physics,audio streams, better models..etc any farther than what a console is capable of. instead they port the games and you require faster cpu's, more ram...etc than a 360 just to run it

seeing how GTA4 struggles on my e8400/280gtx graphics card and still cant have any Anti aliasing?...well thats just b.s. not even going to talk about its DRM and game saving crap.
H.A.W.X?,Grid..etc, they dont even look signigicantly better than the PS3, i know cause i own them for PC and played them on my PS3 using the exact same monitor and its just not all that, but the pc versions sure do seem to like the ram....etc. better.

GTA4 is cpu hungry. But if you want it to run better, try turning down draw distance...
It seems to be poorly programmed though, as if they're using the cpu for stuff vertex and geometry shaders should be doing.

Also, the games may not look much better on PC than PS3...
But you could also turn down the graphics to medium (or maybe even low) and get identical graphics to the PS3 at much better performance. My friend played Dead Space on a 780GX at 1024x768. It looked nearly as good as the 360 version and ran nearly as well. A cursory glance would make it impossible to tell the difference.
On low settings, a 780GX should also run GTA4 at close to 30 fps, which is more than just about any dual core cpu can handle in that game, showing you how cpu limited GTA4 is.

i know i can lower settings and it runs better, but you made one of my points which is basically....why do i have a video card that costed me $550 and a $300 CPU and still need 2gb of ram?
i know my hardware is cheaper now, but still. GTA 4 is not the only game btw, most all of the mainstream PC games nowadays are just ports, no more exclusives that will make use of all the features my hardware is capable of.

so like i've been saying before, if i want a game like gta 4 to run at max settings...which makes it look only a bit better than the ps3 version....i have to spend a fair amount of money for yet another hardware upgrade....again.

i just upgraded it last year, to specifically have better graphics than consoles and now i'm right back to where i was before struggling to have it look better, at least make it significant enough to be worth it.
they keep getting better at pushing the consoles which on PC uses 50% of its features yet still have ability to stress them 100%. crappy code or not, the end result is there and consumers are forced to make different decisions.
that along with drm...etc is why PC games have taken the decline. Crytek was the last great company to push hardware and now cause of pirates, they had to stay alive by going mutliplatform and consoles are top priority now for them like all the others.

 

[ShawnD1]

You shouldn't need to upgrade every year like that. I've been using the same computer for almost 3 years now and it still runs all modern games

 

[4537256]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1
You shouldn't need to upgrade every year like that. I've been using the same computer for almost 3 years now and it still runs all modern games

i can too at console level graphics. i can play any game at 1280x1024, medium graphic settings. however that defeats the purpose of having a CPU thats twice as powerful as a console. A graphics card thats like 3 generations ahead of the console gpu, 4'xs the amount of ram as a console. So many potential features are just wasted.

just look at any new Nvidia/Ati demo, they show what its capable of and no game looks like that nor runs like that. The medusa demo ran great on my machine and looked phenomenal...far better than an ported game looks yet ran at solid smooth frame rates.

i could also play modern games on my old Athlon64 4000/7800gtx too but no way i could get gta 4 to run and look like it does on my ps3. same with farcry 2.
New console games like Uncharted 2...well if it was ported, and i wanted it to look better than PS3, i'd be in for a hardware upgrade for sure.

 

[BFG10K]

Considering PC gaming has risen yet again this year, this thread is nothing more than the continued perpetuation of misinformation.

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/13936/39/

According to the PCGA's 2008 Horizon's Report, PC gaming software saw revenues reach $12.7 billion in 2008 which is a rise of $1.9 billion, or nearly 18 percent.

But it sure is entertaining to watch people argue who is to blame for something that isn?t even happening.

 

[Udgnim]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
Considering PC gaming has risen yet again this year, this thread is nothing more than the continued perpetuation of misinformation.

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/13936/39/

According to the PCGA's 2008 Horizon's Report, PC gaming software saw revenues reach $12.7 billion in 2008 which is a rise of $1.9 billion, or nearly 18 percent.

But it sure is entertaining to watch people argue who is to blame for something that isn?t even happening.

we're really seeing it in all the new games coming out for PCs that aren't console ports

 

[Xylitol]

pirating

 

[linkgoron]

Originally posted by: Xylitol
pirating

I'd say pirating was much easier on a PS2/1 than on a pc.
Also with all handhelds (DS/PSP).

I'm not so sure about XBOX/360 and PS3...

 

[gtd2000]

That's it - I'm getting my old MB Vectrex out of the box and bringing the gaming industry to it's knees! :evil:

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
Considering PC gaming has risen yet again this year, this thread is nothing more than the continued perpetuation of misinformation.

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/13936/39/

According to the PCGA's 2008 Horizon's Report, PC gaming software saw revenues reach $12.7 billion in 2008 which is a rise of $1.9 billion, or nearly 18 percent.

But it sure is entertaining to watch people argue who is to blame for something that isn?t even happening.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6203825.html

NPD reports store-bought computer-game sales decreased 23 percent to $701 million; ESA plays up overall game-industry total of $22 billion (in 2008)

Another interesting thing worth mentioning is that the prices of games outside the US go up dramatically when the US dollar is worth more because games at the wholesale level are priced in US dollars. What we see in Canada is the price of games going up $10 while people are losing their jobs.
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/05...first-time-since-2002/

Other markets have strange fluctuations such as Australia's gaming market up almost 50% from last year. This is most likely because their release dates are arbitrarily set several months later than the rest of the world, so their 2009 is like our 2008. They see a sudden influx of good games and sales go up. If you're a fan of the Zero Punctuation series, you'll probably know that Yahtzee regularly bitches about Australia's release dates.

So what do Canada and Australia have to do with overall sales? Different things are happening in different parts of the world. This brings up the question of how PCGA gets its numbers. Which countries are seeing increased PC game sales and which are seeing decreased PC game sales? That group was only started in 2008, so it's not like they have a huge record of data to look at. Also, Steam is probably the largest online game store and they're very tight lipped about their numbers, so how is PCGA able to know those numbers? Are they estimating?

Regional sales numbers might sound like one of those things that doesn't make a difference, but it does. Remember the Turbo Grafx 16? That thing was a huge failure in the US, but it was fairly successful in Japan. Someone looking at that from the US would say "sales are down, the Turbo Grafx 16 is dying!" but someone in Japan would say the exact opposite. I suspect that's happening with PC games. Emerging markets like China and India will see tremendous growth of PC games while established markets like North America and Europe see very little growth. When we look a little closer, we see that this is exactly what's happening.

http://games.venturebeat.com/2...china-taking-the-lead/

Software growth was driven by online sales worldwide, particularly in Asia, where PC games dominate in some countries. In China, for instance, game consoles are not legally sanctioned for sale. And in Korea, consoles are virtually nonexistent. David Cole, an analyst at DFC Intelligence, said that China became the No. 1 market in the world for PC games in 2008.

Maybe we'll see a repeat of Final Fantasy. Valve released Half-Life 7 and we're left asking what the heck happened to 4,5, and 6.
(If you're not familiar with this story, watch this video)

 

[El Guaraguao]

10 20 years ago you could go to any store that sold video games for all platforms and see how the PC section would only have a bracket load of pc games compared to the number of aisles for console games. its still like that today.

 

[Silicon Spear]

Originally posted by: mofoe2001
10 20 years ago you could go to any store that sold video games for all platforms and see how the PC section would only have a bracket load of pc games compared to the number of aisles for console games. its still like that today.

A lot of people buy PC games online now, or order them over the internet. I guess going to a store is more of a console tradition.

 

[BFG10K]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

NPD reports store-bought computer-game sales decreased 23 percent to $701 million; ESA plays up overall game-industry total of $22 billion (in 2008)

The figures that show a decline generally don't include digital, subscription or online sales, and generally don't include sales outside of North America. PC gaming is huge in Germany, for example.

EA?s CEO confirmed a while back that PC gaming (in terms of $ value) has actually been rising for quite for some time.

 

[Dumac]

Originally posted by: linkgoron

Originally posted by: Xylitol
pirating

I'd say pirating was much easier on a PS2/1 than on a pc.
Also with all handhelds (DS/PSP).

I'm not so sure about XBOX/360 and PS3...

Lies. What can be easier than downloading an a game image on your PC and then installing/playing it? For consoles, you have to burn a dvd and do some extra shit. Handhelds are easier, but you shit have to buy an extra card, transfer the file, or homebrew.

 

[emilyek]

Who? The mega-publishers and investment groups who used their great big money-sniffing noses to smell out the billions that could be made.

They have transformed (read: wrecked) everything.

Gaming might have become an interesting, bona fide new genre.

Instead games are on a fast track to becoming just more cultural garbage-- just like the whole slew of throwaway movies and TV shows that are made for brain-dead morons and for nothing but a profit motive.

And yeah, piracy is a problem.

The problem is that we can't pirate enough to send them into bankruptcy where they belong.

As consumers we are powerless; and since they know this, they will continue to dumb games down, make them more homogenized, make them shorter, chop them up to be sold in pieces, insist that we pay for things that once upon a time would have just come in the box-- and on and on.

Wherever there is an angle by means of which they can squeeze out another dime, you can bet they will do it.

Our only hope is that they totally overreach and that the backlash is large enough to do serious damage.

 

[Gothgar]

either Intel since no one can play a new PC game even though they have a leet intel xtreme graphix bullshit

that or, it just seems smaller cause consoles have exploded in popularity

 

[Childs]

Microsoft killed PC gaming with Vista and DX10 to move PC gamers and devs to 360.

 

[mmntech]

The glory day of the PC was back in the 80s and 90s when for relatively little money you could have a top of the line gaming system that made your console friends envious. There were also a lot of classic titles that came out during that period, back when devs like LucasArts were in their prime. There has most certainly been a decline. Where as most EB stores used to dedicate an entire wall to PC games, they only have a small rack if any at all. I don't think you can really blame it on just one thing.

Price: You can build a decent enough gaming rig for $500, but by the same token you can get a 360 for $199. Consoles guarantee hardware stability for at least five years, where as gaming systems have to be upgraded periodically to be able to even run the latest and greatest. Think Crysis. Also, because of the higher cost, there's a lower install base capable of running more advanced games so there's less incentive for developers to make titles for the platform.

Bugs: Let's face facts, a lot of PC games have serious coding issues, even the so called "blockbuster" titles.

Piracy: Whether a real threat or imaginary, it discourages developers and publishers from investing in the platform. Strict DRM is imposed to combat it but it just sours off legit gamers, as what happened with Spore.

Lack of Variety: Most PC games today tend to be FPS, RTS, or MMORPGs, and not everyone likes those. Wii is so popular because of it's mass appeal.

Quality: Games putting graphics before gameplay, there's a lot of them on PC. There is money to be made from the "wow factor" that comes with excellent graphics, which is why there's a belief that even mediocre games that look good sell more. I call it Michael Bay Syndrome. Unfortunately for publishers, this isn't reality. Gamers loose interest quickly once that "wow factor" wears off. The games don't sell as well as hoped and execs are left scratching their heads, then blame piracy.

Consoles: For the most part, console tiles you just pop them in and play them where as a lot of PC titles can require tweaking to get running properly. That can overwhelm a computer novice. PC games and Windows have a bad reputation for problems.

 

[VashHT]

I'd have to say it's because of publishers, but not for the reason posted in the poll. They simply saw consoles as more potential for profit so that's where their games are made. Back in the big days of PC gaming most of the games were self published it seemed like, nowadays the huge publishing companies try to maximize their profit and they see multi-platform development (with emphasis on consoles) as being the most profitable solution.

 

[ccblazer44]

EA