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.
Online.
Seriously. Shelf space is in a warehouse is probably cheaper than shelf space in a retail environment. Plus, you can choose a location for the warehouse where rent is cheapest, and still cover all the markets.
Also less shipping fees (pass the shipping charges for delivery to the person buying the game directly), not necessarily needing as much stock on-hand (expect 2-3 weeks for shipping kind of thing).
It may not be out of the question for someplace like EB to reduce their in-store stock to a minimum and have a "Find more games at www.ebgames.com!" sign above the shelves.
Dark Nexus
"Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting."
I suspect that most people simply don't buy PC Games from EB or GameStop, but instead from CompUSA, BestBuy, or similar.
Why? Because they're cheaper. Almost every game will come out at one of the mall stores for $50 and be available at CompUSA, etc. the same day or a few days later for $40. And they rapidly fall to $30-35 (except for the hottest titles), while the mall stores keep them at $50.
I don't question that console gaming is more popular than PC gaming, but I don't think that's the whole picture here.
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.
Ok well I love PC games just as much as the next guy (LAN Parties, RPG, BF1942, etc) but the end of PC Games could be a positive for Linux and a negative for Microsoft. Lets look at a big driver of PC sales... games. Driver of PC hardware... games. Why home users often use Windows vs Linux... games.
Before I get flamed about "yada yada games exist for Linux", there is only a small number of commercial Linux games and those are not available in your local Best Buy/CompUSA/GameStop/etc. Joe Blow wants to have his games run on his PC with a minimal amount of fuss. So that's why Windows is often seen on home user's PCs. Governments are moving away from Linux since they don't have a large investment in gaming where as you average home user does. That and they're sick of dealing with the security holes on Windows
The one issue that I see with the movement away from PC games to Console games is the modding community, which, as we all know, is becomming an industry unto itself. This could be mitigated with modding tools on the PC (developer mode) and network based distribution to the console.
EB, Gamestop, and Babbages have filled their stores with console games, joysticks, movies, action figures, magazines, and loads of other crap.
Whereas PC games used to take up 95% of the shelf space, they now take up maybe 10% of the space in the store if you're lucky.
So is it any wonder that PC games make up only 7% of total sales? People re still buying PC games, they're just not going to EB or Gamestop to GET them, because the selection is so poor.
PCs have an advantage that works against their retail sales, in that you can always go and make your own game if you feel like it. It's a LOT harder to get your hands on an SDK for a console than it is, say, for Flash or Half-Life. The software development community for PC, and the sheer NUMBER of games available for free download, is what people are always going to be attracted to on computers.
That being said, I think that's the main "problem" with retail sales. I think that people are becoming more and more content with downloading their games (legally or not) rather than buying them in the store. It's easier, cheaper, and doesn't require you to get up off of your ass. Steam is headed in the right direction. You need to charge for DOWNLOADING the game. You'll get a helluva lot of people who are willing to let the game download overnight rather than go out and buy the game. Laziness RULES!
One of the main reasons why PC games are less popular is that they are very easy to pirate. While consoles use their own media format (gamecube) or DVD (ps2,xbox), games that are shipped on regualr cd's are easier to pirate.
In order to run a pirated game on a console you'll have to limit your self to a chopped version of the game either because DVD downloads are very big or because of the lack of a DVD burner. Gamecube piracy is even less common than the other two consloes because it uses a special format speciefically designed for that console. It is currently rumored that sony and ms will also use a unique media format for their next gen consoles as well.
Besides, in order to run a pirated console game you need to buy a third party Mod Chip that will cancel your warranty the second it is installed on your console.
Even though i see piracy as the main reason for weakness of PC gaming at retail their are of course other easier to point reason:
- Consoles are cheaper than a mainstream PC
- PC's have to be upgraded regularly in order to
achieve optimal performance.
- Console games are run right out of the box - no
configuration needed.
- Console games are less buggy. Many PC games
require numerous patched until they are finally
working the way they are meant to be.
Personally i am sorry to see this decline in PC game sales. As much as like console gaming, some genres will never work on a console , not to mention the user created content that is only available on a PC.
your missed points are:
4. Stability. You don't buy a console game on its release day, and then go home and download a 1.1 patch.
5. Ease of Use. Consoles require you to merely pop in the game and go. there are never patches, drivers, installs, video/sound configs, or any of that stuff PC gamers put up with.
6. Glitz. Console games are optimized to their fixed hardware. Halo on my xbox looks just like Halo on your xbox. I never have a friend tell me how awesome a ps2 game is, but find out my ps2 isn't fast enough to play it well.
7. Integrity. in online console gaming, it is possible to guarantee that no-one is cheating. Add to that the consistant matchmaking interface and features across a console, and it's no wonder that MS can successfully charge for their online service. It's miles above the average quality level of PC internet gaming.
8. Return Policy. Should a console game be found to be buggy, or even just not what it was advertised to be -- you can return it. This can not be downplayed. PC games cannot be returned in almost any case, yet console games can. Regardless of why (and we all know why) the point is that consumers will always gravitate toward the solution that is the most friendly. being able to rent, borrow, and return games is a gigantic benefit.
At the core though, consoles and their games are intentionally refined for the mass market. Very smart people spend alot of time making sure they are as refined as possible. they are more like appliances than tools. It just shouldn't be surprising to anyone that consoles are the preferred mechanism for gaming for the mass market.
PC games seem to have a market despite themselves. the hoops that fans jump through, the costs they deal with, the hassles of the menus and setup options, the limitations on the product the paying customer faces (in the name of 'copy protection') -- it shocks me daily to see how PC game fans put up with it.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
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.
Actually, cheating on consoles is a bit of a mixed bag. If someone DOES find a cheat, the unchangeable hardware and software make the cheat unstoppable. SOCOM for the PS2 is a prime example of this-- the game has been ruined for online play by rampant cheating. And there's no way to issue a patch to fix it.
That "fixed platform" is both a blessing and a curse-- if the software/hardware isn't perfect, you've got cheats set in stone.
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.
9. Lack of options. There's one thing that everyone loves/hates its options. I like how the option of playing a game at 1600x1200 at a very high refresh rate with eye candy set to max. Standard TV's, while big are still outdated. My monitor is bright, large and less eye damaging then your average 24 in TV. (To be fair the xbox does theroticly support 1080i but you could not seriously play a game like halo on that setting. the reality is its can handle 720p)
10. Controllers. They aren't the best input devices for every game. Have you tried playing a FPS on console?
11. half-decade self life's. Face it. Consoles are going to die out ever 3-5 years. That's a 300-400 dollar investment in one shot. Some systems are slowly letting you play older games, but that may or may not catch on. Current unsubstantiated rumors of the xbox2 all indicate that Microsoft's going towards a largely proprietary system then glorified pc.
12. Different systems. Hell you don't know what's going to be around in a year or so. Sega, 3DO Atari all died out leaving everyone high and dry... Plus now that games are shipped to all 3 systems which one do you get? The game cube get systematically jew'd with options that the Xbox and ps2 get (example: XIII. Of the 3 systems Xbox got xbox live support and downloadable content, ps2 got a lot of multiplayer features, and gamecube got nothing).
13. Content lockout. I don't know about you. But I know I can buy a game from Europe and know it will play on my PC here in America. Not so with consoles. Either physical or software lockouts inhibits us from buying from other regions (say Europe or Asia) in attempt to preserve profits. The only modern system i know that doesn't lock people out is the gameboy...
The secret to getting modded up is to allways say i've got karma to burn in your sig..
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.
Further more certain games come with enhancement patches on the tv. They fix game inbalances that only come to light after thousands of people have played it. Or add new features like maps, skins or levels. Or in the case of my favorite racer, grand prix legends, new drivers to support hardware that came out after the launch of the game.
But sure consoles are better and cheaper. Cheaper eh? Well lets discuss that one. Wich console did you type this post one? So you own both a console, a tv and a pc with monitor? Perhaps the same price in total as my pc geared to playing the latest games? (No I don't have tv now you mention it)
Also check in the shops for the prices of console and pc games. Over here in the netherlands pc games retail between 40 and 50 euro. Console between 60 and 70 euro. Mmm, be a bit hardcore in you playing and it adds up. Also pc games drop far sooner in price then console games.
Sure the gamecube is now dirt cheap and yes vidcards are very expensive. But if you truly calculate the cost I think pc can be a far greater deal. At least if you play the kind of games that get user modifications.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.