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PC Game Sales Trending Downwards
Thanks to GameDaily for it article discussing a perceived struggling in the PC videogame business. According to the article: "The overall PC game category, from January through May of 2003, was $471.0 million in the U.S. according to NPD estimates. 2004 is well off of that figure already, according to The NPD Group's industry analyst Richard Ow, who put a dollar figure of $360.0 million for the January to May 2004 period." However, Ow also notes: "There's still lots of sales ahead and major releases are pending, so there's still a wait and see factor", and comments on the recently-gold Doom 3: "It is the most well-known among the core gaming group, which is a smaller market, but a group that can still drive sales."
Does lower sales mean a bad market or lower quality?
Have you read my journal today?
This is an interesting point the focus on sales might be missing--a lot of the gaming going on in the PC world might be happening with no money changing hands. This could be free games, pirated games, or emulated classics. Even if commercial PC gaming dies, console games will still face competition the complete library of games already written, and from developers with nothing better to do.
On the other hand, perhaps at some point in the future, if commercial PC gaming truly dies, Nvidia and ATI will stop selling consumer-level PC graphics cards. Which would mean the end of all those mods. Which would mean less competition for the consoles. Which could very well happen, since one of the biggest factors in PC gaming, Microsoft, seems determined at all cost to make sure that the living room is the only place that video games will be played.
I don't know about you, but it seems a bit much to ask me to pay twice the price of a good DVD. Call me a nut, but I'm guessing the average production cost for a PC game is a bit less than that of a motion picture (even allowing for a smaller audience).
Even so, I'm happy to pay cash for a truly enjoyable and well-made game like FarCry or HL2. I'm even happier if I'm paying from a game from a little-known (and not-well-funded) developer like CryTech to fund their future endeavors.
I used to buy almost every new game I could get my hands on. Anymore, though, I see a game price on a store shelf and I spend a lot more time thinking over whether I really want it or not--the pricing has driven the product out of the impulse-buying range.
Karma
We need to compare system requirements with the average home system. If games are relying more and more on higher end video hardware then there is naturally a smaller audience. It would be interesting to track the sales of less demanding titles and see if they follow the same trend as the high end eye-candy laden titles.
The PC game market gets a death notice about once a year for the last 20 years. Yet it lives on. All it takes is one or two 5 star titles to kick start the beast again. I think we know what those titles are this year.
-newman
It's all cyclical though. What will probably happen is computer game sales will either "dip" or "crash" (depending on how far they fall), which will mean that there will be less money available for new game development. That will mean that the games that *are* developed will have to be stronger, and will probably be made more slowly with fewer people, which *ought* to improve quality. PC games will then be ready for a resurgence about a year after the next generation of consoles come out--after the early adopters have gotten them, but before the price drops enough for them to become too widespread.
Or, I could be completely wrong. But that's my guess.
He decided to just watch the government, and kind of scale it down to size, and run his life that way. --Laurie Anderson
Well, obviously it does to those who have posted here, to the article author, to GameDaily, to the gaming industry and even to you.
Functionally its still less incentive to make PC games. Pointing blame doesn't help.
What kind of corporate sympathy laden, bed wetting rationale is that?
Game Developing Asshat: Well, yes... we have reduced the quality of our products... but since nobody is buying them now, can we please be the victim?
Man, that's really twisted.
Pointing blame most certainly does help. Consumers have two very powerful means of showing displeasure with substandard products:
A: Withholding purchases for those products
B: Voicing their displeasure about those products to those who produce them.
You can hang that notion of consumer guilt by the door, because it's that kind of skewed thinking that created the problem.
It goes like this: Corporate entities have a responsibility to their consumer base if they wish to see a profitable return on their endeavor. That responsibility is to provide a product of desirable value. If they choose not to provide a product of value then the (intelligent) consumer has the responsibility to find another product to spend their hard earned money on. It's just that simple. There is no rule of commerce that says people must buy shite. I promise you, in the real world, if someone offers you a steaming plate of horseshit, you have the right to refuse it... and if they have the actually have the gall to expect payment for said horseshit; well, you have the right to inform them to shove their incredulity of your lack of consumer loyalty right up their ass -- as soon as they remove their head.
The other side of the issue is that that the big three (MS, Sony and Nintendo) have created console devices that effectively handle most consumer's expectations of "high end" games. It's very difficult to convince a family on a budget that the one (or more) console(s) in their home are not enough to handle their gaming needs. And when you add in the cost incurred by short-term PC obsolescence, well... let's just say the answer for the average (read: non-hardcore) gamer becomes obvious. I mean, my Xbox didn't need an upgrade between Halo and Doom 3... so why should I need to upgrade my CPU, RAM and graphics card on my PC that's actually newer than my console to play the same game?
That's the fault of the industry, plain and simple: Banking on people's willingness to purchase yearly upgrades for one product while providing a (relatively) equal product to another consumer base upgrade free.
In short, as long as game publishers rush bug ridden products (of less than original content) out the door, blatantly disregard the value of the average consumer's income and continue to divide the market between PC's and consoles... well, yeah, I think it's actually rather fair to point blame where blame is due.
rage
#SickNotWeak
I think that if PC gaming is to succeed in the future, it's imperative that game and card developers address the issues of game setup and configuration for less knowledgable users (from a sound, control, and graphics perspective). An average gamer may not know what 'AGP', 'DirectX' or 'Hardware Transform and Lighting (T&L) Capability' mean. He isn't able to judge how well his system can handle various texturing options. He may not even understand the concept of resolution or which ones his system supports. Yet some less knowlegable users that may feel compelled to try out to a new PC game are still put in a position that forces them to configure options blindly in hopes of getting some sort of visual performance they had envisioned when they bought the game.
Some may say that if a gamer cannot understand these sometimes simple options, then he shouldn't be playing PC games anyway. But in reality that statement summarizes the PC gaming industries inablility to bring on new users and proves my point. If the game and card manufacturers are unwilling to devote time to more simplified setup (even at the expense of graphics), then they probably deserve to see thier market share dwindle.
I think that it's unreasonable to to believe that the PC industry has to reduce its interfaces to the level which console game enjoys, but certainly a lot more could be done.
Excuse me? PC gaming suffers from lack of innovation where consoles mitigate this problem?
Ever seen a moddable console game before? How's that for innovation? Where is the console "Perimeter"? Are there open source games for consoles?
Poor quality control? At least if I buy a PC game I can be reasonably sure that bugs can be fixed by a patch. I read quite a lot about bugs in console games. I understand a certain James Bond game has bugs so wide you can install Linux with it. Is that quality control?
Ever increasing hardware requirements? I want to play the latest Mario Bros on my Nintendo Master System. What do you mean it won't run? I'll just put a new video card in it. What do you mean I can't do that? I have to buy an *entire* new system at over 100% of the cost of the original rig? Now tell me about "hardware requirements".
Competition from consoles is only prevalent for a few key reasons:
1) Lower cost of entry (mitigated by a poorer gaming experience, you get what you pay for)
2) Supply forces (Console games are being shoved down our guts because they're cheaper to make and they have a much higher turnaround - quality of console games is lower)
3) Proprietary lock-in (I own this DRM console and I have to play DRM games that MS/Sony/Nintendo tell me to, I have no other choices).
The big reason that sales are down for PC games is because PC games represent greater value for money for the consumer - one license of Half-Life will have you playing that, CounterStrike, Natural Selection, Team Fortress.. the list goes on. One license of BF1942 opens a huge array of different mods.
So the only reason people are buying more console games is because they wear out so fast, they're narrow minded, finished with easily, and have no lastability. If that's what you consider quality, you're a publishers wet dream.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
I think the problem is that... there's too much quantity and not enough quality. Too many "me too's" and very little original ideas or IP at all. But the downward trend was caused by companies abandoning the PC for consoles. Case in point - Bioware, Microsofts 'Mechwarrior developers' (forget their name), Blizzard focusing on console's and MMO's when they should be doing Diablo 3 and/or Starcraft 2. (Both games with HUGE audiences that would most likely love a sequel). But lets face it...
1) PC games are too obsessed with hardware requirements (especially your video card) no one wants to upgrade their card every 1 to 2 years at 300 and 400+ a pop for the latest and greatest and possibly on top of that a CPU/Motherbaord + ram and/or powersupply.
2) There have been no good PC games in diverse amount of genre's in a long time. The last 'half decent' singleplayer RPG released for the PC was KoTor but you can get Kotor multiplatform anyway. Also there has been a dearth of good RPG's for the PC. NWN was a let down, there has been no word on baldurs gate 3 or whatever either and bioware success started out on the PC.
3) Too many FPS games. I'm sorry but everyone's flooding the market with FPS and/or MMORPG's. I'm thankful EA still ports the Need for speed series games to the PC because no one has a good game that can really compete in the racing/driving arena. Most of the companies stick to the tried and true formula. For instance how many mechwarriors, dooms, unreal tournaments, and whatnot do we really need? Every update fragments the multiplayer online game community.
4) No one's made a serious attempt at publishing console games and designing with PC hardware in mind, this means NO CRAPPY PORTS of OLD GAMES. They must release at the same time on all platforms or for the PC first and then the consoles. Part of a games sales is exclusivity. Doom 3 and Half-life 2 are first and foremost PC games and are exclusively better on PC. If console companies would try to design a game with the PC in mind as well as for their 'sacred' consoles from the start then we would see better sales and whatnot period.
I think that from now until the end of this year is probably the most important period for PC gaming in the last decade. Simply put, it's do or die. The reputation and success of PC gaming is now inextricably linked to that of two games; Doom 3 and Half-Life 2. If they do well, PC gaming has a chance, if they don't make so much of an impact, I'd predict PC gaming will be effectively dead by the end of the first year of the next console generation.
Why? The PC gaming market has succumbed, in the last few years, to one of the most dangerous and destructive tendancies possible; paying too much attention to the hardcore fanbase. In doing so, it's undermined completely its own biggest selling point. PCs dominated the gaming scene so heavily during the 90s largely due to their technical prowess. When the console kiddies has Mario, PC gamers had Wing Commander. When the console gamers were playing the latest 16-bit Sonic the Hedgehog game, the PC had Doom. A gaming PC has always been the expensive option, but the technical lead over the consoles has been dramatic enough to justify the expense in the eyes of many. Other than that, the PC's advantages over consoles are fairly trivial; you can get mice and keyboards for two out of three of the current console generation, should you desire. Monitors allow for higher resolutions than TVs, but TVs are usually situated in more comfortable locations for gaming and console game developers are adept at compensating for this.
But this just hasn't happened during this console cycle. With a very few exceptions, modern PC games don't actually look any better than games for the current crop of consoles. Most PC developers have taken the whingings of the neo-luddites (a group particularly well represented here on slashdot) about "gameplay over graphics" to heart and have released games which are either spectacularly ugly (eg. UFO: Aftermath) or bland and generic, built on a dated engine licensed from an old game (eg. pretty much everything that uses the Quake 3 engine).
There are a few notable (and noble) exceptions. Far Cry was the first real indication I've seen in the last 3 or 4 years that any PC developers are taking the capabilities of the platform seriously. If Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 can spark a technical rennaisance in PC gaming, then there's hope for it yet. The PC has traditionally been made to look poor by a new console generation in the first few months, but the faster pace of technological change on the PC has allowed it to catch up and outstrip the competition very quickly. If the momentum hasn't been regained by the time the next generation of consoles appears, then it really is all over.