Hey, I'd like you to say "hi," to all these people. Ten million, to be exact. They play a little game - you might have heard of it - called "World of WarCraft." And every one here paid for it, too.
I'm so sick and tired of developers talking about how PC gaming is dying or dead; it's not. Stop. You're insulting your own userbase.
The perception that it is dying has mostly come from the idea that gaming sales have not gone up on the PC. That's true. They haven't. In fact, despite piracy, draconian DRM, and a buttload of shoehorned console ports not worth a DVD they were printed on, PC gaming has been getting largely the same amount of revenue it has since the early 90's. Despite publishers and developers trying to drive us away from our system of choice, PC gamers still go ahead and give good games their money.
Good games. You see that? Good games.
Assassin's Creed was not a good game. It required a computer that required continuous power from the sun (a constant stream of gas and pure energy will suffice; roughly several tons of gas per second), and not only that, but also was a lame attempt to bring what was very much a controller based game onto keyboard and mouse. Are you surprised at all that it did not sell much? No, me neither.
Publishers like to cry piracy at this point, when in fact it's something else. The PC demographic, with my sweeping generalizations, really want quality in their games. Why do you think StarCraft has made 8 million sales? What do you think made Galactic Civilizations II hit the top of the charts? Where on earth did the success of Half-Life 2 appear? None of those games had much for DRM, and all of them were easily pirated. And yet they sold, and still do.
Because they're good games, that's why. I paid $20 for StarCraft and its expansion pack, and boy was that a great deal. Awesome game. Halo 2 for Windows Vista? You know, maybe on that one I'll pass. Why? Because PC gaming is dead? No. Because of the following:
-I don't have a computer that can run it. Windows Vista, say hello, but also say hello to specifications that are beyond what a normal PC owner has. Original Xbox should not require a gigaton of computer to play.
-If I did possibly have one, there's no demo for it, so I wouldn't know for sure. My $50 purchase would be a very large gamble.
-If I did purchase it, the Windows Vista thing almost directly places me into a category where I can epxect a heck of a tech support ride. And not the good kind.
-It's a console game. A console FPS. No thanks.
My friend bought Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance a few days ago. Not only was there no CD Key, not only did this Games for Windows game not load properly on his Vista machine, not only was the support site dead in the water, but after all that it still would not run on his very capable machine. He bought that laptop two months ago, might I add, and it's a very nice purchase.
This is not a very good argument for why I should go and buy the next game the Supreme Commander developers put out. It might be an isolated case, but galldarnit, it's what I hate most about PC games. Make it work, please. That's all around the whole point that, once we did get it playable and working, Supreme Commander was actually a pretty fun game. But we also had to use an other CD Key from another friend who had bought it at launch. No online for either of them, pretty much.
PC gaming is not dying. It's actually pretty healthy, and will always be. Do I need to show you guys WoW again? No?
Here's the successful way to make a game on PC:
1) Make it work. We could care less if it looks a little bad (at least give us the options of turning stuff down); just make it work. Patches are okay, as long as they come within the first month.
2) Make a demo. I want to know if it runs on my desktop. I've actually purchased games I wouldn't have considered because of the demo.
3) Make the game easy to install. It should be easier to install your game than it would be to pirate it, anyway. Any other method and you're just asking us to hate you.
4) Make it worth our while. Delay it for a year; Blizzard gets away with it, for one reason only: They always deliver. Every time. Publishers will be surprised how forgiving PC gamers will be if they say they'll actually make a console game worth playing on the PC, or bother with exlcusive stuff that's worth paying money for.
There's so many people who don't buy many PC games, because, honestly, there's so much junk out there that it's not worth it. I choose not to buy games much any more; I stick with my free, open-source alternatives. At least I know I'm getting a fair deal there.
Some gamers like consoles. I don't. I find them insulting and annoying. I shouldn't have to pay a large sum of money to have an underpowered machine that can't do anything unless the company behind it tells me I can (DRM, mostly). PC gaming wins, for my book. There are people who agree withme, and if you fail to cater to these uers you are losing out on money. The only catch? Make the game good, or else we won't buy it.
PC gaming will never go away. Those who get this will make money; plain and simple. Stop starting the funeral when no one has died yet. Please.
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