In an interview with Gamasutra, Kevin Martens, Blizzard Lead Content Designer, revealed his opinion on the "PC gaming is dead" mentality that has been of much discussion lately. Martens feels that Blizzard counteracts this best by keeping system requirements low while making sure its games are still marketable."The death knell of PC has risen and fallen over the years, and we keep releasing PC games, and they keep doing incredibly well," said Martens. "I think that there is a market out there for PC games. The latest consoles are great; it's easy to get the game running and all that. They're useful.
"But everyone has a PC, and we try to keep our system requirements down as low as possible. That's one of the ways that we can make sure to appeal to enough people. Some of the really cutting edge games that come out for PC require a brand new video card and probably more RAM at least, if not a new CPU as well. That's really rare with Blizzard games. I think that's one of the reasons we still keep doing well.
"The best evidence that the PC market is not actually dying is the 20,000 people that showed up this year at Blizzcon, and the fact that those tickets sold out in one minute flat.
"That doesn't seem to me, that it's really good evidence, of a platform with a problem."
I do not think PC gaming will die all together, but it sure feels like it could.
Consoles will continue to gain more and more functionality, so that someday they will indeed be PCs again. To some extend, consoles already have their upgradeable parts. Hard Drives, add on players ...etc. I would think that the next generation of consoles will provide crisp clean smooth gameplay. If a console can emulate the feel of PC games, and maybe allow the use of mouse and keybobard, PC gaming will die as we know it today.
*hugs TellTale*
It's not Blizzard's responsibility to promote PC gaming (that's something MS, Intel, AMD, Nvidia and PC OEMs need to do!) but it's certainly not helping. WoW doesn't increase PC hardware sales and it does nothing for other PC games.
It's not Blizzard's responsibility to promote PC gaming (that's something MS, Intel, AMD, Nvidia and PC OEMs need to do!) but it's certainly not helping. WoW doesn't increase PC hardware sales and it does nothing for other PC games.
Well, hard to fault Blizzard when WoW is the only decent MMO to come out in...what...the past 5-6 years?
I don't fault Blizzard, I'm just saying that MMORPGs don't really help PC gaming, they cut into PC game sales because they use up all the gamers' time. When a news story uses WoW as an example of successful PC gaming it's not being completely honest. PC gaming could die and WoW would still be around. WoW doesn't represent RTSes, RPGs, FPSes, sims, and other hardcore PC games.
It still amazes me how many fans of the PC RPG genre have Diablo 2 installed. The irritating zeal making them criticize any other game with point-and-click hack-and-slash has basically nuked any hope of a new branch of PC RPGs. As if common gameplay elements makes a game nothing more than a filthy clone. (Hint: Nobody had this attitude when a crapload of games started including inventory management decades ago)
Am I blaming the death of a genre on pompous fanboys? Er, yes.
I don't know if it's the franchises that dominate or the gameplay mechanic? If someone comes up with something truly better than Diablo for that type of genre even Diablo players will play it. But I am not so sure that you could drag a WoW player away from WoW to play it no matter how good it is, because they don't play singleplayer games, they play WoW for the multiplayer aspect.
Yes, you can play WoW on a crappy PC (aka console equivalent) but it looks much better in 1920x1200 with highest settings possible. There always would be enough people who will be ready to pay for better looking content.
I have an old PC that is by today standard relatively weak. It's an old dual core OPteron 180 with 2GB or DDR2 RAm and a geForce 8800GTX.
Nothing to write home about and you can buy a PC like this used for probably under 300$.
I can run Wow everything maxed out (including maximum setting for real time shadow) and i get between 50-60fps in 25 men raid and world map. The only place my framerate drops under 40 is in Dalaran and Wintergrasp but we talk about undred of players in those area and anyway it always stay perfectly playable save for a few WG match where the server can't keep up and crash but that has nothing to do with my machine
Hmm, this is with view distance and particle density on max? My specs are a bit better than yours (i think?) 2.66Ghz core 2 duo, 4gb ram (3gb in 32bit) geforce 260ssc and have to have both those settings on about 1/5 to keep 25 raiding just about smooth, I don't run recount either.
As it is, pc games are relegated to a tiny, single, half empty, unmarked shelf in the back of the store. And half the titles on it are 5+ years old with their original prices still on them.
Walmart has a much better selection, and even that's gotten smaller over the years. They used to have one side of an entire aisle for pc games. Now it's just one small section tucked away in the corner.
Steam and D2D are doing well, but when there's no real "brick and mortar" competition, that's to be expected.
That's because only console gamers are stupid enough to shop at those places and pay so much for such crappy games.
Took up my first MMO (FFXI) and my spending on computer upgrades and other games dropped drastically. I used to order 4-5 games every month or so from GameStop (online) but with a 'full time' MMO there is just no time for it.
MMO's leave more money in my pocket but less IRL time to do other things.
Haha, I just came here to say this too. Sure, PC *is* alive, but not really the MMO genre at least, outside of their business. Yeah, there are EVE and LOTR Online etc, but those are competing at a completely different level than WoW. PC gaming to me is about WoW, two or three popular RTS games, The Sims, and the few most popular shooters, and little else. At least if you narrow yourself down to what's doing well on the platform.
I recently installed win98, win95 and dos6.22 in virtual pc and reinstalled old games like Duke Nukem 3d, FIFA2001, Spider-Man and Venom(side-scrolling) , Red Alert 2(god i miss Westwood Studios) etc. and boy the fun i'm having. yeah the graphics are crap by today's standards, but they are just so simple and fun.
sigh, maybe i'm just growing too old for games...
Everything the studios release is barely qualified to be a release candidate anyway cause they are all so buggy. Not worth playing in that condition.
I would almost be glad to see pc gaming die off completely.
1. Not everyone's PC is configured the same way. Some applications interfere with games (anti-virus for example). Also, they must take into account problems that may arise on different OSes or configurations. This costs the company more $$$.
2. IMO, it's easier to pirate games for the PC.
3. Games for consoles are pretty much guaranteed to run perfectly on consoles. For PCs, the user must have decent hardware in order to run modern games. When they can't, they need to upgrade... well how many people really do upgrade their hardware or buy a whole new computer for a handful of games? There is just no standard for the PC. High end computer hardware is great but there just doesn't seem to be enough high-end graphic games to justify the purchase.
I hate to admit it but it does seem like PC gaming is dying off a bit. More and more games for the PC seem to be ported from the console versions.
Just my opinion.
Though many games now depend almost entirely on the video card, upgrading to a new one frequently requires a whole new motherboard. We've gone through PCI, AGP, and are slowly progressing through PCIe into whatever will come next. My board isn't that old and supports PCIe, but it can't take advantage of PCIe 2.0 x16--which has been around long enough, I can't help but notice, that a new board now would be obsolete within a year.
New boards mean new CPUs and new RAM, because sockets are constantly changing. Before you know it, you've bought a whole new system and spent a crapload of money. Sure, it's *fun*, but man, you just can't do that every other year when you're otherwise smart about priorities.
Exactly. I just upgraded my machine last year and mine is not PCIe 2.0 compatible. Intel's already out with a new socket and my MB isn't compatible with DDR3 memory.
Shammy melee dps (check eu Eonar/Apubo for gears)
1). PC hardware for gaming is "generally" just too expensive. It is much less expensive to by a console. A good video card can set you back the price of a console unit (or two).
2). PC hardware setup can be complicated for the average consumer. They just want to come home and put the game in their unit. It is by no means like the days of Dos or even Win95/98, but it still takes a bit of knowledge.
3). Online game playing on the PC is not universal. It generally is not as good. It can be pretty expensive with multiple games.
4). Entertainment is often in a family room. This is where a console connected to a PC benefits. You can connect a PC just as easily, but I don't believe most individuals think of this. Hence, this might be why the MCE units never took off.
5). Pirating has made many games difficult to play because of the copy protection schemes.
6). Support for old games is nonexistent. Most new games ship with show stopping bugs. They expect the consumers to upgrade and workout the bugs as they go along. It is almost a second game with a game.
In the end, the consumer is just doing a simple cost benefit analysis on where they can get the best bang for their buck and their time.
Console games are also faster to play, you plug in the console, pop in the disc, and you are already playing the game, whereas with a computer you need to build the computer (if you want it custom), or buy a pre-built PC, pop in the game, and you're not ready to play just yet, you need to pick the corresponding hard drive and directory and install the game, when that's finished, you can finally play the game.
It is true, most families have computers, but more families have Televisions, guaranteed. You don't need to upgrade your TV to play the latest games, just buy the console and the game.
Personally, I stick to PC myself and I don't mind coughing up the doe to upgrade my PC to handle the latest games. It's not expensive as everybody deems it to be, especially if you shop smart (Look for deals, you don't need that new Video Card the same month it's released). Fact of the matter is, it's all personal preference. Neither is superior over the other. Neither is dying.
Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!
Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.