Penned by our beloved ex PC mod Atif , read the date before fighting
Reviewed by : [URL="http://www.pakgamers.com/forums/members/atif.html"]Atif[/URL]
Edited by: radd
Original Date: July 6, 2008
Personal computers, machines that revolutionized personal lives of millions across the globe. A machine made for multi tasking and do things which are quite impossible to do by a human mind .
As the time pass these machines became an entertainment portal and above all personal computer became a gaming platform. Millions fell pray to that spell. Starting from Doom to Crysis and from Starcraft to world of Warcraft, every child and adult got addicted to it. This “gaming fever” started to bring billions of dollars to gaming industries. After nearly a decade or so PC gaming suddenly starts to decline.
A threat starts to howl over it and that threat becomes imminent day by day. In past couple of years there is a strong war of words is going on whether pc gaming is dying or not? This is what we are going to know in this article.
PIRACY
Lets start from piracy that is one of the main factors of the decline of the pc gaming. Piracy has hit the software market with its full power. Many countries can do nothing against this menace and the some who try to stop the flow of that thing get success in a very short sphere. When a pc developer makes a game, which supposed to be an exclusive, he has profit making in his mind. But when the game becomes available on the Internet before the actual release the developer gets nothing.
Lets take the example of the best game of 2007, Crysis, made by Crytek studios, which got leaked before the actual release date and developers has to loss their profit. Same case happened with Mass Effect, a PC port from 360, and developers were standing empty handed. This thing results in the decline of PC game development especially PC is losing its exclusive titles.
Developers wanted profit and because of high rate of piracy of PC gaming they are shifting towards console gaming especially PS3 that is so far immune to piracy.
Competition from 'Nextgen Consoles'
Another factor that contributed in the so-called decline of PC gaming is the appearance of “next-gen” consoles that actually generated boatloads of cash for the developers. Why this stage arrives? In an interview to MSNBC on the decline of PC gaming Douglas Peterson, a PC gamer and software engineer from Marcos Island, Fla. said “I don’t see it dying, but I do see it taking a back seat to consoles, especially with games delivering first to the consoles, presumably to sell hardware,” Yes he is right as many games now are being developed for consoles first and then ported to PC.
For example Devil May Cry 4, which is due in July 2008 for PC, first came to Xbox 360 nearly 5 months ago, even though the engine it's made on is most efficient on PC (hence lower development time). Same case happened with Burnout Paradise that hit the shelves for 360 nearly 3 months ago is due for PC later this year or might be Q1 next year.
EXCLUSIVES?
Multi platforming is the other side of the debate. As the next-gen consoles hit the market 3 years ago many, in fact all developers, started to drive towards multi platform gaming.
PC gamers remained stunned in shock when they saw their old time exclusives shifting to consoles. Many game developing companies that were supposed to make PC exclusives deserted the PC gamers. In an interview to MSNBC the famous developer of one of the classic PC exclusives “Civilizations”, Sid Meier said “We’re big PC fans, but we definitely see, when you go to the computer store, that little rack of PC games. It’s definitely a big change from five years ago, when there was a whole wall of PC games.” He was right as the next “Civilization” title going to hit PS3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo DS.
Many other long time pc exclusive companies that made so many great titles for PC are now shifting to consoles. LucasArts, Rock Stars, 2K's Firaxis Games etc are some example of these companies.
HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS
Now to me the most important reason behind the decline of PC gaming is hardware dumping by the hardware giants like Intel, AMD and Nvidia. I remember when I started to play PC games back in 2000 I had a Geforce card which used to run all the games smoothly. You were not able to find so many GPU’s and Processors in that time and companies were not dumping their products as they are doing now.
Last couples of years have seen the fastest dumping of PC hardware in the market by Intel and Nvidia. I am putting AMD out of this race because they are fighting a war of their survival so they are not guilty at least if they are not innocent. Lets take the example of Nvidia as the company dumped 3 series of GPU’s in the market in the time span of just 2 years. O my God…. And this all happened in the name of low price and high performance. According to the officials of Nvidia they are trying to help the consumer to make a better choice. To me this is bullshit and how can consumers make such a “smart” choice when they are confused to whether buy the 9 series GPU or wait for the GT200 series to come out. Same case study can be applied to Intel in early 2007 and since then they have dumped so many models of the processors in the name of the better multi tasking performance. As I said above I am not putting AMD in the list because they are forced to release the new GPU and processors for their survival against Intel and Nvidia.
CONCLUSION
The final words are simple. PC gaming to me is not dead yet but it will die sooner or later if the above things happened to continue at the same rapid phase.
The piracy has to be cured though tough task to achieve but can be done.
The game developing companies has to show some loyalty to PC gaming by making exclusive titles and trust me they have to as they made millions of dollars from PC gaming alone in past few years.
Most important and last but not least, hardware companies have to stop hardware dumping in the market to promote PC gaming. They should have think that their GPU alone costs 500$ while a PS3 which is a complete package costs nearly the same. So gamers can buy a console to play games for atleast 3 years without doing any upgrades which are essential for PC gamers in that span of time.
I hope good old days of pc gaming will return and we will see the top 20 charts of games dominated by PC games.
Atif Rana, Pakgamers.com
First off, i must say, hats off to Atif!
All of the points are valid today as they were in July of 2008 (oh, those good ol days
) nothing has changed, some would argue got worse. I would love to hear if someone can debunk this.
Reviewed by : [URL="http://www.pakgamers.com/forums/members/atif.html"]Atif[/URL]
Edited by: radd
Original Date: July 6, 2008
Personal computers, machines that revolutionized personal lives of millions across the globe. A machine made for multi tasking and do things which are quite impossible to do by a human mind .
As the time pass these machines became an entertainment portal and above all personal computer became a gaming platform. Millions fell pray to that spell. Starting from Doom to Crysis and from Starcraft to world of Warcraft, every child and adult got addicted to it. This “gaming fever” started to bring billions of dollars to gaming industries. After nearly a decade or so PC gaming suddenly starts to decline.
A threat starts to howl over it and that threat becomes imminent day by day. In past couple of years there is a strong war of words is going on whether pc gaming is dying or not? This is what we are going to know in this article.
PIRACY
Lets start from piracy that is one of the main factors of the decline of the pc gaming. Piracy has hit the software market with its full power. Many countries can do nothing against this menace and the some who try to stop the flow of that thing get success in a very short sphere. When a pc developer makes a game, which supposed to be an exclusive, he has profit making in his mind. But when the game becomes available on the Internet before the actual release the developer gets nothing.
Lets take the example of the best game of 2007, Crysis, made by Crytek studios, which got leaked before the actual release date and developers has to loss their profit. Same case happened with Mass Effect, a PC port from 360, and developers were standing empty handed. This thing results in the decline of PC game development especially PC is losing its exclusive titles.
Developers wanted profit and because of high rate of piracy of PC gaming they are shifting towards console gaming especially PS3 that is so far immune to piracy.
Competition from 'Nextgen Consoles'
Another factor that contributed in the so-called decline of PC gaming is the appearance of “next-gen” consoles that actually generated boatloads of cash for the developers. Why this stage arrives? In an interview to MSNBC on the decline of PC gaming Douglas Peterson, a PC gamer and software engineer from Marcos Island, Fla. said “I don’t see it dying, but I do see it taking a back seat to consoles, especially with games delivering first to the consoles, presumably to sell hardware,” Yes he is right as many games now are being developed for consoles first and then ported to PC.
For example Devil May Cry 4, which is due in July 2008 for PC, first came to Xbox 360 nearly 5 months ago, even though the engine it's made on is most efficient on PC (hence lower development time). Same case happened with Burnout Paradise that hit the shelves for 360 nearly 3 months ago is due for PC later this year or might be Q1 next year.
EXCLUSIVES?
Multi platforming is the other side of the debate. As the next-gen consoles hit the market 3 years ago many, in fact all developers, started to drive towards multi platform gaming.
PC gamers remained stunned in shock when they saw their old time exclusives shifting to consoles. Many game developing companies that were supposed to make PC exclusives deserted the PC gamers. In an interview to MSNBC the famous developer of one of the classic PC exclusives “Civilizations”, Sid Meier said “We’re big PC fans, but we definitely see, when you go to the computer store, that little rack of PC games. It’s definitely a big change from five years ago, when there was a whole wall of PC games.” He was right as the next “Civilization” title going to hit PS3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo DS.
Many other long time pc exclusive companies that made so many great titles for PC are now shifting to consoles. LucasArts, Rock Stars, 2K's Firaxis Games etc are some example of these companies.
HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS
Now to me the most important reason behind the decline of PC gaming is hardware dumping by the hardware giants like Intel, AMD and Nvidia. I remember when I started to play PC games back in 2000 I had a Geforce card which used to run all the games smoothly. You were not able to find so many GPU’s and Processors in that time and companies were not dumping their products as they are doing now.
Last couples of years have seen the fastest dumping of PC hardware in the market by Intel and Nvidia. I am putting AMD out of this race because they are fighting a war of their survival so they are not guilty at least if they are not innocent. Lets take the example of Nvidia as the company dumped 3 series of GPU’s in the market in the time span of just 2 years. O my God…. And this all happened in the name of low price and high performance. According to the officials of Nvidia they are trying to help the consumer to make a better choice. To me this is bullshit and how can consumers make such a “smart” choice when they are confused to whether buy the 9 series GPU or wait for the GT200 series to come out. Same case study can be applied to Intel in early 2007 and since then they have dumped so many models of the processors in the name of the better multi tasking performance. As I said above I am not putting AMD in the list because they are forced to release the new GPU and processors for their survival against Intel and Nvidia.
CONCLUSION
The final words are simple. PC gaming to me is not dead yet but it will die sooner or later if the above things happened to continue at the same rapid phase.
The piracy has to be cured though tough task to achieve but can be done.
The game developing companies has to show some loyalty to PC gaming by making exclusive titles and trust me they have to as they made millions of dollars from PC gaming alone in past few years.
Most important and last but not least, hardware companies have to stop hardware dumping in the market to promote PC gaming. They should have think that their GPU alone costs 500$ while a PS3 which is a complete package costs nearly the same. So gamers can buy a console to play games for atleast 3 years without doing any upgrades which are essential for PC gamers in that span of time.
I hope good old days of pc gaming will return and we will see the top 20 charts of games dominated by PC games.
Atif Rana, Pakgamers.com
First off, i must say, hats off to Atif!
All of the points are valid today as they were in July of 2008 (oh, those good ol days
) nothing has changed, some would argue got worse. I would love to hear if someone can debunk this.
