Valve - There's no PC Gaming Crisis

[CSN NewsBot]

Everyone just needs to relax about the whole issue of PC gaming supposedly dying off. Relax about it all because Valve is telling you there isn't anything to worry about!

"Only now are organizations such as NPD beginning to track alternative revenue streams (MMO subscriptions, etc.) and discovering billions of previously unacknowledged spending on PC gaming," Newell stated.[...]



Read one slide during his presentation headed as "Why isn't this story being told?": "As all of you know too well, the three of the major console holders spend millions of dollars each month on PR teams to seed stories to the contrary."



Newell also said that no one is "taking ownership" in spreading the PC story.



But the multi-company PC Gaming Alliance isn't an integral part of that story, at least as far as Valve's concerned. Asked during a Q&A session why Valve isn't part of the PC Gaming Alliance, he said, "Shipping products is more important than companies sending representatives together to all agree that PC games should be doing better."

It's alright to come out of your fallout shelters now. The PC market isn't dead, the NPD were just stupid in how they recorded and presented their figures and nobody in the PC world stepped up to the plate to ease the fears of the consumers until now.

[FLeK0]

PC gaming is not dead economically, they make a lot of money with steam, good. for gamers it is dead because it barely has any playable games besides cs and wow.

[Zips]

FLeK0 wrote..

PC gaming is not dead economically, they make a lot of money with steam, good. for gamers it is dead because it barely has any playable games besides cs and wow.

Joke post?

[mca7]

It's easy for Valve to say this, as they are probably the only PC developer not having problems.

[Renegade[CSR]]

mca7 wrote..

It's easy for Valve to say this, as they are probably the only PC developer not having problems.

Yes, they are the only ones not having problems cause they are the only ones making good PC games.

[Zips]

Be sure not to tell Blizzard, Activision, Firaxis, PopCap, id Software, Telltale Games, or Funcom about that... just to name a few...

[meowmeow]

Idiots.

[mca7]

Zips wrote..

Be sure not to tell Blizzard, Activision, Firaxis, PopCap, id Software, Telltale Games, or Funcom about that... just to name a few...

Ok, I forgot about Blizzard, but Pop Cap and Telltale make more casual PC games, which I don't think anyone is disputing are dying. I wouldn't call Activision a PC developer, they are mostly console based. They really only publish PC games by id, who are now moving on to multiplatform games because of piracy. Funcom may have success with Conan, but they have not had success for a while. Valve and Blizzard are really the only 2 developers that are having the same success on PC that other developers that are making AAA titles on consoles.

[mifdeath]

So does the fact that all titles, console or not, were and are being developed on the PC mean nothing to everyone? Or that the PC being the "womb" of gaming will always have a major role in gaming and game development simply because it is a games natural environment? Consoles are a fad and because of their intrinsic static nature are doomed to failure. In the very near future console alteration and upgrades will pretty much turn them into a Gaming oriented PC. Then how long till PC parts manufacturers get in on the action and offer upgrades and alterations to consoles. At that point the imaginary line between Console systems and PC systems geared for gaming will essentially be nonexistent. Consoles are doomed because of their unchanging nature whereas PCs will only go further and get better because of their evolutionary nature.

[Zips]

mca7 wrote..

Ok, I forgot about Blizzard, but Pop Cap and Telltale make more casual PC games, which I don't think anyone is disputing are dying. I wouldn't call Activision a PC developer, they are mostly console based. They really only publish PC games by id, who are now moving on to multiplatform games because of piracy. Funcom may have success with Conan, but they have not had success for a while. Valve and Blizzard are really the only 2 developers that are having the same success on PC that other developers that are making AAA titles on consoles.

Hm? The casual game market is dying? Uhh... if anything there's been a dramatic surge in that market recently. Hell, Ritual even jumped on the casual game market after making FPS titles for years. I'm sure you're mistaken on that.



Activision is a PC developer. Just because they develop for multiple platforms doesn't mean you can negate their PC component because you want to. If you were going to do that, toss Valve into that as well because they also develop for consoles.

[mca7]

I really do hope that PC gaming is successful, just as any PC fanboy would, but it just doesn't seem like it is going to happen like that. I think, unless something is done to stop piracy, that PC gaming will probably be where it is now, a lot of late and shitty console ports and very few PC exlusive titles.

appended @ [time="1212281218"]

Zips wrote..

Hm? The casual game market is dying? Uhh... if anything there's been a dramatic surge in that market recently. Hell, Ritual even jumped on the casual game market after making FPS titles for years. I'm sure you're mistaken on that.



Activision is a PC developer. Just because they develop for multiple platforms doesn't mean you can negate their PC component because you want to. If you were going to do that, toss Valve into that as well because they also develop for consoles.

I said that casual gaming WAS NOT dying. Sorry, I suck at writing.

[Diamond Dust]

mifdeath wrote..

So does the fact that all titles, console or not, were and are being developed on the PC mean nothing to everyone? Or that the PC being the "womb" of gaming will always have a major role in gaming and game development simply because it is a games natural environment? Consoles are a fad and because of their intrinsic static nature are doomed to failure. In the very near future console alteration and upgrades will pretty much turn them into a Gaming oriented PC. Then how long till PC parts manufacturers get in on the action and offer upgrades and alterations to consoles. At that point the imaginary line between Console systems and PC systems geared for gaming will essentially be nonexistent. Consoles are doomed because of their unchanging nature whereas PCs will only go further and get better because of their evolutionary nature.

Very true, consoles are just becoming user friendly PC's with a simple operating system, I don't think thats a bad thing. I love popping a game in my console and playing rather then installing it on my pc and then hoping I don't have to spend a half hour adjusting the video settings so it runs smoothly. It's just that a PC will always be capable of being faster, more customizable, and more interactive. I'm excited to see what the consoles do next though, I think they should try and integrate it into your PC or something like that. Like a Windows Gaming Operating system or something.

[mifdeath]

Diamond Dust wrote:

I love popping a game in my console and playing rather then installing it on my pc and then hoping I don't have to spend a half hour adjusting the video settings so it runs smoothly.

Very astute statement. My only rebuttal is;

With game dev houses taking less and less time to properly test, and being demanded upon by the producers for a time constrained product, and with console games being, (for the most part) unpatchable, how long before we will have to tweak and patch games for consoles?



mca7 wrote:

I think, unless something is done to stop piracy, that PC gaming will probably be where it is now, a lot of late and shitty console ports and very few PC exclusive titles.

This I outright disagree with. Dev houses are slowly realizing that spending shizz-loads of money on a problem which has no possible way of producing revenue or forcing "pirates" to pay for their purchases is pointless. Spending money on something that will never produce or increase your revenue is ill-advised. Piracy is only a problem in the minds of SecuROM, SafeDisc and others whose revenue depends entirely on dev houses continuing to falsely believe that they are combating piracy by using these products.



To be perfectly clear here:

Anti-Piracy products do not work, never have, and never will. Railing against the tide will not stop the tide. It just expends your resources on something that will never produce resources.



Now if someone is re-selling your product, then you have a piracy problem you can do something about. However even in that case your anti-piracy software was useless.

[Kotae]

mifdeath: They do, sometimes, patch games on the consoles already. It's always fun to turn on my 360 and have an update waiting for me for whatever game I choose to play. So I don't know where the "games are unpatchable on consoles" comes from - maybe certain consoles, especially the older generation consoles.

[mifdeath]

That is interesting Kotae, so does the game require patching after each load then? I assume the patch itself is kept on the consoles hard drive, is it possible to load the game on the hard drive, patch it and then play? From the hard drive?

Im going to split hairs here and I apologise in advance, but does this not really mean the game is not actually ever patched? I dont know though, can you re-burn a patched copy of the disc in some way?