Slashdot Mirror
On The Future Of PC Games At Retail
Thanks to GameSpot for their article debunking rumors that EBgames and GameStop would entirely remove PC titles from their stores in the New Year, but still painting a somewhat bleak picture regarding the PC game's strength at retail. The article cites recent GameStop SEC filings showing "...just seven percent of its total sales were PC games, compared to 64 percent of revenues coming from console games." A games analyst also commented that, while a complete denuding of PC racks was probably out of the question: "It wouldn't surprise me if there was a pretty serious cutback in shelf space though, as that demographic is really only served by a handful of games." Although EBgames' top policy-maker clearly states: "PC games are and will continue to be a very important part of our business", with such a relatively small market share, where does the PC gaming market go from here at retail?
Let's see, a quick run-down...
1. Consoles are cheaper over the long-run. A new PS2 or Xbox is cheaper than most bleeding-edge video cards.
2. You can rent and borrow console games. $5 gets you a couple of days to try/beat a game.
3. Console games are more social. You play with friends along side you. Outside LAN parties, it doesn't happen often with PC games.
That said, PC games still have some definite advantages (internet, mods) and strengths in certain games (RTS, RPGs, FPSs), but that's slipping all the time.
My $0.02.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
I had no idea the market share for PC games was so weak. I guess I understand it, but I still don't like the sounds of it. I own consoles now, and probably always will, but there are just some games that work best on a PC... and it'd suck to have those sort of games die out. I suppose with all the recent controversy about bad "console to PC conversions" (e.g. Insible War) it should have been more obvious. In the olden days it was all about crappy PC-to-console conversions, now it's starting to go the other way around.
I buy plenty of PC games, but most of them at discount prices a year or two after they are released. I went into EB the other day and picked up Civ 3 (with full manuals) and Civ 3 Conquests for AU$60 (about US$40).
I also got Deus Ex for AU$10, Thief 2 for AU$5 and Return To Castle Wolfenstein for AU$20.
The full-price PC games sit on the shelves for ages, but as soon as they hit the bargain bin, they sell like crazy.
I haven't paid more than AU$40 for a game in a long time, and I know a lot of people who do exactly the same thing. The games may be older, but the value for money is a lot higher.
Let's take a game like X2: The Threat, after two weeks of messing around trying to get it at EB - I order it from gogamer, and have it the next day. Mind you it cost me a fair chunk in shipping (being the impatient Canadian gamer that I am), but I could've gotten very cheap shipping or now shipping.
Used games seem to do well on eBay, and I've gotten better deals buying and selling then I'd ever get at an EB (especially on console games).
But I think most interestingly is that of my last year's software purchases, nearly 50% of them were on-line!
- EV: Nova (on-line only)
- Bookworm (on-line only)
- X2: The Threat (on-line order of boxed game)
- many downloaded and purchased software utilities, Dameware, Translucency Pro, Mesh Surgery, Game Maker
- plus a bunch of eBay purchases (and sales)
I've purchased a few games and software titles at retail, but a lot of them were impulse buys. I think on-line sales direct from developers will take over more and more, including a lot more of downloaded titles, that you never actually receive anything in the mail for- and heck then you don't have to worry about stupid CD security programs and the developers get a lot more money.
I've been a Macintosh owner for years, so a dearth of software titles at retail locations is a familiar situation.
If this trend continues, PC gamers will be doing the same thing that Mac owners have been doing -- they'll get their goods online or through the few retail outlets that continue to offer them.
I doubt very seriously that PC gaming is dying because less retail shelf space may be devoted to PC games. As the Mac shows, a platform's survival is not dependent upon a single sales channel.
My local game stores (EB Games, GameStop, etc) have a small PC section, in the back, with the games lined up like books so you just see the edge. They aren't sorted by name, developer, or genre. They're just shoved up there randomly. On any slightly busy day, you can't even get back to them to browse because of the crowds.
The console games take up the front, well lit areas. They are laid out facing the customer, with decent spacing between the titles. Each console has more wall space than the PC games. Until relatively recently, even the Dreamcast had more space in some of the stores.
Even in the larger stores (Best Buy and CompUSA), the PC game section has been shrinking while the console section has been growing.
So, it's been getting much more difficult to buy PC games at these stores. So what does that do to sales? Sales go down, the stores stock less PC games, leading to lower sales, etc.
On the other hand, these stores are very tiny. PC games are in large, non-uniform boxes (this has been changing in recent years, but not enough) compared to the standard size of console game packaging. They can store more product more efficiently with console games vs. PC games.
The disadvantage is primarily in marketing...you can't get people to impulse buy a computer game as easily if they have to go searching for it on a website as you can if they are browsing a store rack.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
PC games have two problems in my eyes. The first is they are overpriced, and the second is piracy. As much as the game industry would like to jump up and down and blame piracy for their prices, it's BS.
Here is a real life example, a friend of mine went to EB to buy Jedi Acadamy (A game that came out a few months ago). He wants to play Jedi Acadamy online, even though there is a small community (maybe about 30-50 players online at a time on all of the servers put together). They told him it was $50. He asked for a used version and they told him $44. He promptly told them he was going to buy it from ebay or pirate it.
I think PC games should go the way of ITunes. Cut out the middleman and sell the games for $15 - $20 a piece. Most of the documentation that comes with games nowadays is incomplete or poor. Gamefaqs usually has better documentation than most games ship with.
A) A budget PC for net surfing and a console for gaming. Average cost of Budget PC : $500 USD. Average cost of console : Between $100-$200 USD depending on which system you get. If you want you can throw in an extra $100 to get some more games and the total comes out to be about $600-$800. Damn near some of the high end video cards, but not even a scratch on the ultra-powerful gaming PCs (which have been known to hit the $5000 mark).
B) A mid-range gaming PC for both surfing the net and gaming. Average cost of mid range PC : $2000. Lets be generous and say he gets all his games for free from his "friend". Total cost : $2000.
Simply put, unless Joe Average gets the computer bought for him or for free, hes not going to make the PC his system of choice for gaming. Now if you're pulling in a serious cash flow, $2000 isn't much, but I can tell you right now, for anyone under the age of 21, dropping $2000 for a system which you KNOW will be outdated in about 1-2 years (I say 1 since Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 will kill most off) is no easy task.