The Current State of PC Gaming

The PC gaming world has been with us ever since the dawn of the gaming era, even before video game consoles even existed. The PC gaming platform has launched many cornerstone franchises including and not limited to Quake, Doom, Command & Conquer, Warcraft, Starcraft, Unreal Tournament, Flight Simulator, Call of Duty and the list keeps going on and on. However, it seems that all of that now is all just nostalgia. So what happened?

The Decline

The decline of PC gaming has been thrown back and forth many times in the past dating as far back as 2004 (at least as far I noticed it). Some even have gone as far as announced that PC gaming is dead. Well, let me assure you that PC gaming is still alive and kicking. That being said, we must also have to take note that it is a lot weaker than it once was during its golden era. So what triggered this sudden downfall of the almighty computer video gaming industry?

Well, there are no definitive single answer that's for sure. No one can every pinpoint the very exact reason why PC gaming has been on the decline ever since the early 2000s. Some contributing factors that's definitely been a contributing factor to this are: the ever so rampant PC game piracy, the exploding gaming market on the console and the difficulty of changing the business model when their customers are refusing to change with them.

The Piracy

Well, since you knew that I was so going to talk about it, I'll talk about it first. Piracy exists in every market, and not just in video gaming or even in the digital space. It happens everywhere. When it comes to video games, piracy hits both PC and console. Many people complain that developers are using it as an excuse. However, if you look at it, you might understand it differently.

Fact is, the console market will earn much more money than the PC market in this day and age because we don't have the masses that spend the money on the games as much as people are buying consoles. Even if there's more piracy, the number of legit purchases outweigh the number lost due to piracy. Unfortunately, this may not be true with the PC. The percentage earned in the PC market may not cover the percentage lost to piracy. It's either that or the percentage earned in the PC market doesn't greatly outweigh the percentage lost due to piracy to the point where game developers see that the PC is as appealing as the console market.

If you really want to have developers on the PC, urge yourself not to pirate those PC games and actually buy them and help the market tip the scale so that there's enough legit purchases to make it a better market than the console market. Sure, you'd think I'm paid by developers, but you have to realize. Money talks in a business perspective. They don't care that the PC market was what made them successful. Gamers think that they are very important but the truth is, you're just a cash target to them. They just want to focus on what to do to grab the most cash without costing the most.

This is most likely the reason why Activision told Infinity Ward (Infinity Ward had no say in this since Activision owns them and the rights to Call of Duty) to make it on the XBOX 360 and just port them over to the other platforms because it's cheaper and they know that it'll sell like hotcakes on the XBOX 360 anyways, so that platform will make them the most money (and it shows). Since the XBOX 360 and PS3 are conceptually identical (fact that they are consoles), no one complained that there's no dedicated servers. Then the PC community bitched about not having dedicated servers. Truth is, if Activision didn't see a reasonable market, they can ditch the PC version completely as they have to actually work even harder to get a PC release since they have to port the matchmaking service and get anti-cheat (but this might be still cheaper than to write a fresh PC version). What's great for Activision is that they can use Infinity Ward as the sponge for all the criticism made about this decision. So the Activision brand hasn't really been tarnished. Instead, it's subsidiaries take the blow instead.

I don't agree with this, but thing is, until publishers (who usually own the title rights even though a development studio created them) see that the PC gaming market is viable again (to the point where they see that they can reap large profits), they will continually churn crappy console ports to the PC.

It's a sad reality, but it's something in which we have to soon realize. It's a necessary evil in order to save the PC market from crappy console ports. In order to do that, the PC market must be profitable as I've said countless time in this thread.

Bottom line is that there's only one true objective for companies worldwide and we consumers hate them for it: earn as much money as possible without costing a lot of money to get it. Unfortunately, the PC gaming market isn't it. It's the console market even with it's higher number (may actually be lower in percentage due to the fact that the console market is much larger due to the Average Joes).

The Current State of Console Gaming

The current state of console gaming is a major factor in the success of the PC gaming industry. Why? It's because they are intertwine. Ever since the 6th generation of consoles (Playstation 2, XBOX, GameCube) there has been a surge of mainstream gamers. One thing I've noticed about PC-only gamers is that they can't believe why they are getting so much console ports and why they are getting the shorter end of the stick. I've explained this many times before on various online discussion boards and I came to this conclusion.

When it comes to consoles, you must remove yourself from the PC mindset. You have to think about average-Joe. Average Joe doesn't care about upgrading his machine just to play his game; Average Joe doesn't want to search a list of servers; Average Joe just wants to pop in a disc et voila he gets to play his game; Average Joe doesn't care about getting the best picture available on the market if it means sacrificing simplicity; Average Joe only wants to easily connect to his friends with a click of a button and have a universal friends list that works with every single game he buys and want to play with them as well; Average Joe doesn't care about tweaking his game; Average Joe doesn't want to have way too much buttons to figure out, just wants simple. At the end of the day, Average Joe doesn't want something more if it means giving up when it comes to simplicity. Lastly, Average Joe wants to spend about $300 tops on a system while a gaming PC would cost at least $500-600. High costs won't fly, that's why the PS3 when it launched, no matter the "extra added value" not many Average Joes wanted to touch it.

Unfortunately, most PC gamers don't realize these and all they think is that PC is better because this, this and this, and frankly Average Joe doesn't care about what the PC is better at. All he wants is to pop in disc, connect, press 2 or 3 buttons and join a game with his buddies.

Also, another thing PC gamers forget during their rage is: there are way more Average Joes out there than hardcore gamers like ourselves who spent countless hours beating a game, raking high scores and unlock every achievements, every quests and etc. Money talks and publishers rather target those markets and frankly the console is what Average Joe likes rather thanthe PC. This is the unfortunate reason why more and more games are written for consoles and then ported back to the PC. This is also accelerated by the fact that Microsoft has made this easier with their XNA libraries. As gaming is becoming more and more mainstream, even the hardcore games like RPGs, FPS and RTS, they are being flooded by Average Joes and they are actually spending more money than we are which is just because of the sheer mass of them, it's not because they spend as much money as we do per capita.

It's also interesting to note that Microsoft only entered the console market in 2001 solely on one reason. That reason is the fact that they realize that in the future as more and more people game, the masses would prefer to use consoles on their expensive high definition TV with their 7.1 surround sound systems. This in contrast to the hardcore gamer who spent basically 2 - 3x the cost of a console to get the best gaming experience. Microsoft noticed that Sony was making a killing with the Playstation and it was hurting PC gaming sales as well as some PC gamers (those who were mainstream) were buying more console games than PC games. This also meant that less developers would potentially migrate off DirectX and go use OpenGL only. This would also cascade to losing foothold in the operating system market because this made it easier for game developers to also write games for MacOS X and Linux with ease. Knowing Microsoft, they can't let this happen. Thus, Microsoft entered the console market in 2001.

Market Adaptability

Another factor that's making game developers go after the console market is that whenever a gamer want more content they'll sell them in map packs and DLCs. On the PC however, this idea will either: die horribly fast or very slowly accepted over time. Reason: PC gamers are too used to the idea of getting it free. I'm guilty of this as I have vowed to never buy DLCs (like map packs) because of this mentality.

We take it for granted and not even realize it. It took paid man/woman hours to create those maps and content. Companies will lose money on this. On top of that, those game SDKs to create maps and content, those actually destroy profitability. Even if the companies want you to buy them, you'll say "what's the point, I can get it for free from a 3rd party and it might even be better!" PC gamers expect this, and unless the company can still generate the same amount of money that they will lose to the PC market for not releasing this, they won't fight and still include a game SDK to please the PC gamers. However, if they know they have a juggernaut of a game (*hint* Modern Warfare 2 *hint*), then the publisher will be confident to not care and do things their way. Hence the current situation where there are tons of complaint groups that are not even denting the Modern Warfare 2 sales. Actually, a lot of members in these groups eventually cave in and bought the game anyways! Talk about being hypocritical.

Observation & Conclusion

From my experience from speaking to PC gamers, as much as they don't admit it are the ones with the thickest skulls because they reject these market changing business models. They want everything the way it was when the PC was a dominant factor in video gaming. In order to suffer less of this console porting business, we need to embrace some factors. One is if you support the game, buy it! Your money tells the developer that you love the game the way it is. If you just pirate it, then they would think that people hated it on the PC and they would focus more on the console version because people, at least when it came to the sales loved it. Money speaks, and if it isn't there, your voice will be unheard.

So in order for all of us to help save the PC industry is that we should pirate less, and only purchase games that are genuinely good. Think about it this way, you're slaving for hours on end and not get a paycheque just because some idiot down the road stole your work. This goes the same with DLCs. There are necessary evils that us PC gamers must face if we are to fight for no more crappy console ports. The good news is that some genres work horribly on consoles like MMORPGs and RTS. So we still got hope out there.