Weekend Open Forum: Is PC gaming really dying?

Aside from pirating, the problem is it's so dang expensive. My $300 video card blew out in an electrical outage last year (lost the hard disk too), and I don't especially feel like replacing it, when a console costs as much.
 
PC gaming isnt dying, ppls focus has changed. Ppls time constraints have gotten stiifer. I know on my end that when I get home from putting in a 10-11 hr day that I still have atleast 3 more hours of work (cooking,cleaning,laundry,ect) before I can even think about hopping on a game. With the added ease of a console sometimes I can grab a hour or two if Im lucky. Most of my PC gaming freinds tend to put multiple hours sitting at their desk to game. Even they have said that there is too much to do right now for them to invest that level of time. They may get to grab a hour or so, but not the level of time they would like to invest. Most of the time they use their phone or tablet and play a App game to hold them over.
 
I have a single PC both for entertaining and work, it is good hardware enabling me to do my work fast and in the same time I can play any of recent games at max setting. The problem is that there is no real exciting game :) out this later years. I loved some from the older titles when they appeared. Maybe it's just me going old or maybe there are no great games really on the market. Tired to see big titles with #2 or #3, whatever at the end of their title. I'm sure there is still live in the PCs, but there is still one in the game makers? Maybe too much optimization for the consoles and not real thing for the horsepower of a updated PC. From where the desire to buy a new, faster PC. Not happy to see firing up a bullet into a piece of wood and still see a dark texture (if there will be one) and after a time... nothing! Seems not to much improvement beyond 2004 level, for example.
 
No, I believe it's growing with the ps4 banning used games and the 720 probably requiring you to be online all the time. Those that stay with the consoles will be sorry :)
 
Console makers want to stay proprietary, why else do you think they have remained proprietary all these years? A game engine that would play across all platforms, would be a slap in the face to console maker. They would no longer have the advantage of saying, some games only play on our console.

I can agree with that...but maybe they need their faces slapped. I expect just this may happen as the expanding Android monster populates tablets and other computing devices. Consider a gaming environment which becomes increasingly richer in sensors, and input & output devices - keyboard/mouse, controller, wand, touch screen, foot pedals, eye movement, etc. ...and is thoroughly involved with alternatives including a 'free' OS created/supported by some of the brightest folks on the planet. At some point, some of the console makers will welcome inclusion. One or even three proprietary games will not hold back the flood. However, I do agree that some won't ...and they will go the way of the Apple Newton, Polaroid's Instant Movies, the PCJr, New Coke, CP/M, and the Holy BetaMax.
 
Treeski said:

More likely it will start converging with other gaming platforms.
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Skidmarksdeluxe said:

With the next gen consoles being x64 based I can only see pc gaming going from strength to strength. PC gaming isn't dying, it's not even critical.
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+1
I have been thinking along these same lines. With the new platforms for Xbox and PS, PC gaming may even get a boost as the games made for these big 3 will be simpler/easy to port. In the past it took way too many hours, and way too much cost to port a game to PC and vice versa, and it wasn't always pretty. How many bad console ports have we seen over the years. Now game developers will have much less work/cost to create for all three similar systems and theoretically it could give a boost to PC gaming. Fingers crossed that it will.
 
Not, PC gaming isn't going to die in the near future, I don't think I'll live long enough to see pc games die. Actually building your own pc is a hobby to many people, and those users are the hardcore gamers that invest a lot of money and time playing pc games.
 
No, I do not want to play on a 7" or 9" screens....neither angry bird all day log, that game is for people who are brain dead :p
 
This stuff makes me laugh, I built my first pc in 2002 AMD 3200xp Abit NF7 board 1GB ram 9800 pro...Far Cry was the game at the time. I heard back then pc gaming was dieing give me a break.
 
Computers are needed for there raw power. Even building them to function as a server for small businesses or building them for users on a domain in a company or for building Voip servers for a company or small business, etc. Even replacing parts in certain situations(not available) requires parts that are meant for building a gaming system. There are still lots of things that can be done and are done better by a pc or it's components that it's made of
;-)
 
PC Gaming isn't dying. The fact that most publishers are selling shitty games with predictable storylines, focusing more and more on anti-pirating measures, doesn't mean that the PC Gaming industry is dying. One problem of the gaming industry is the cost of the equipment necessary to run a game at high/max quality in order to have a console-like (or even better) experience while playing.
Picture this:
PS3/Xbox360 - one is around 400$ + say a HDTV (if you don't own one already) about 800 - 1200$
PC (high end one) - is around 2500$ ( 27" HD display including)

But at the end what really counts is which one of these gaming gears you(user) think it suits you best. IMO
 
I think that PC gaming will just get stronger over the next couple of years. The PC's strength has always been that it's the content creation platform. With the new consoles having PC hardware, it's likely to be even easier to optimise for cross platform. Couple that with the Kickstarter boom and an active indie scene, and you've a pretty bright future.

In the longer run, I think that PC gaming could be in the form of a home game server, streaming the games to Android consoles hooked to the TV, which will also allow natively playing less advanced games.
 
Anyone who has both a console and a computer can see the massive difference in graphic quality and playability.

Games on the PC look absolutely stunning. Proper HD resolutions, anti-aliasing, massive draw distances. Consoles just look terrible. So many jaggies.

Have you guys every been on /g/? There are multiple threads every day from people building computers. Plus, with services like PC Specialist. it's easier than ever to get into PC gaming.

So no, PC gaming isn't going to die anytime soon.
 
Every time a new console is released, the reviews say that they are "super computers", and there are articles proclaiming 'the death of PC gaming'. The reality, is that they are low end PC equivalents with a mid-range graphics card from last year. It's this way every single time.

There's nothing wrong with that: a GTX560 or HD6870 are still very capable cards, and blow the doors off last gen consoles. An Intel i3 3220 or AMD FX4300 have more than enough muscle to push 30fps through those cards, which is about all console gamers need from their hardware. I doubt those consoles need more than 4GB of RAM either. The resulting gaming experience is plenty good enough.

However-

As long as people continue to need a PC for professional use, there will be games for those PC's. When I built my PC, I had CAD and CAM renders in mind, so I went with something decidedly stronger than an i3 and paired it up with 32GB of RAM (and yes, a CAM tool path render can eat that much RAM up). Adding a graphics card for about $300 to that was much, much cheaper for me than a console purchase this gen will be, particularly when you factor in the price of software.

PC gaming may change, it may evolve, and it may not have room for as many component manufacturers in the future, but for as long as there are industrial applications that demand more power than a tablet can deliver, there will be PC's. Where there are PC's, there will be people that want to play games on them, and that means economic opportunity.

The only thing that abhors a vacuum more than nature, is a capitalist economy. PC gaming is here to stay folks.
 
If it is dying, then why is nVidia posting record profits, why are all the motherboard giants designing more boards geared towards gamers, and companies like Corsair continue to release most of their products with gamers in mind? I say that all these companies making gamer gear for PCs are a driving force behind a revolution in the industry - the shift towards fast, powerful, reliable hardware, as opposed to OEM garbage where every part is the cheapest generic unit available. All those Dells, Gateways, and HPs usually end up in a landfill as soon as the first part fails, since tech support is a joke and repair shops cost more than the thing is worth. But you won't find any custom gaming PCs at the curb on trash day, because the parts can be endlessly re-used and handed down to friends and relatives or sold to other gamers/builders. This promotes the whole concept of machines that people actually enjoy using, as opposed to the frustration of constantly calling some "tech" center that's really just a hole-in-the-wall In India where poverty-level workers read from a script in bad english telling you to make sure it's plugged in. And so the greedy giants are toppling, and that's a good thing for the industry and people in general.
 
My god I remember reading an article like this one about 15 years ago in an issue of PC Gamer.

People have been asking for more than 20 years if pc gaming is dying, and no it isn't and won't for the foreseeable future.
 
I haven't owned a beige box since my ibm Aptiva from 1998.I still have it. madly upgraded of course,,pc gaming will die at my home when I die at my home..
 
KUdoos to Hood6558 ,I really can't wait for the OEM builders to die off,stop filling our landfills with junk,they should be forced to recycle their garbage,or send all oems to Africa..
 
Im a pc gamer , I dont have a console .
pc gaming I can build my pc to play any game , consoles are stuck with what they got which isnt much.
 
Typical garbage from crappy tech writers to get people to notice them..try designing a factory on your tablet with Autocad, oh wait, Autocad isn't on tablet. Try doing any serious work on those things, IMHO they're just for media consumption.I'll stick with my pc for gaming all the time and any time.
 
I will never stop PC gaming. Console may be moving on to the next bigger and better thing. But you have to realize they will be stuck with those specs (hardware) while technology changes and we as PC gamers can upgrade our hardware anytime we please. You cannot compare a gamepad to full control of PC gaming. Some of the best gaming experiences I have had been on my PC. I think that you have shown in your previous articles that PC sales are declining but I believe that is directly related to Microsoft being dumbasses and releasing windows 8 which is complete garbage. I will always be a PC gamer!
 
Is Consoles really dying? Yep! Dreamcast was the last console that I owned.
 
Damn right pc gaming is dying. People are finally realizing how superior game consoles are to computers
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