Pc gaming isn't dead.
It's just moved on, it doesn't want to see you anymore. It's got new friends. It's blocked your facebook and won't answer your texts. From years of you ignoring it's gaming abilities and abusing it for hulu and other video whores, it just got fed up. I mean.... when was the last time you even checked it's ram memory or video card? You really brought most of this onto yourself.
PC gamings new friends are a hardcore bunch. Very devoted and usually pretty damn smart. They use computers not just for pictures of naked ladies, but for a job too. Impressed? You should be.
Most pc gamers right now are mining resources, building barracks, researching a new military squadron, scouting your bases, filing their taxes, answering emails, writing their dissertations, charming a woman, and downloading torrents. Meanwhile you have to mute the tv to finish making ramen.
....what the hell is he talking about?
PC gamers. They exist. You won't see them, since they buy most of their games from the internet. Or Steam. yeah, remember Steam? They've gotten pretty big recently.
Here's Steam. Where you been?
For gods sake they even have a Mac section! With decent titles in it!!
So what happened? Well, it's not a short answer, not something easily explained. It's a complex list of changes and problems that caused PC gaming to go to the wayside.
Hardware Support.
ok.... that wasn't that hard. See, here's the thing. The newest game comes out, and your system needs one of the following.
1. HD space
2. graphics card
3. ram
4. memory
5. processor
If any one of these things weren't pretty decent, your game would draaaaggggg.
So, in walks the console game. That sexy beast. It doesn't ask for much, just pop a disc in and the games ready to play. No system hardware requirements, and your game is guaranteed to run at its perfect setting.
Remember the days of praying your system could play the game on medium settings and just dreaming what high or ultra high would look like?
Auto Detect graphic settings........ Medium detected. *facepalm*
But.... you're saying there are people who still play PC games? Yessir.
MMOs and RTSs make up the biggest section, but the people who play shooters know they're better than console shooting. But console shooters compared to pc shooters are a different beast altogether.
Let's take a look at what games are on my mac-attack right now....
WoW and SC2. (playable on a mac is a nice thing.)
MacMAME (if i could own an original copy of The Simpsons Arcade game, I would.)
Plants Vs. Zombies (which basically changed the tower defense genre.)
Fallout 2
And about every Sierra dos game on a rom.
Does that mean every pc gamer has the same list? Oh my no. Total War and Empires are the big ones out there. There are about 5 popular MMOs out there, and a billion more free ones. People do honestly still buy shooters for PC. I sold a guy a copy of Dead Space 2 for the PC.
Mostly it makes me wonder what their systems are like.... I bet they're nice....
Console gaming just made it easier to play games, less requirements and less muck. When this transition occurred, houses had multiple tvs, but usually one computer. I remember the days of having to fight my sister to be able to play EQ on the pc. The thing dragged, looked terrible, and if you picked up the phone...... god help you if you picked up the phone......
Consoles made it easier to play, and were keeping up quite nicely with the pc games. Just think, Doom 3 was used as a benchmark for computers when it came out, it was released on the original Xbox too, and both ran at about the same top fps.
I feel like this isn't all that can be said about pc gaming, not by a long shot. But it'll do for now.
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