If it should die in the next few years, then I'll finally have time to attack my fucking backlog, lol.

Now where's that hammer when you're looking for it?

I never looked at it this way. Man, that would be sweet!
Just a few years ago the only way one could have interpreted such a statement would be that you suffer from some serious condition and need to swallow tablets to live. Times sure have changed.

Yeah, wouldn't it? No more AAA games to look out for, no more new Indie bundles, nothing. Nada. You could just concentrate on the games on your freaking shelf :D

I would still want GOG to release some oldies missing from my shelf, though. That would still be okay, right?

and actually PLAY the games?

D:

Never give up! Never surrender!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI5hi4c4y9k

Oh noes!

Turntables/cassette recorders/disc burners are going to kill the music industry!

Betamax/VHS/DVD players are going to kill the movie industry!

Napster/pirates/consoles/casual gamers/xYZ are going to kill the PC gaming industry!


You know, last time I checked nothing of that really happened. While the advancement of technology definitely impacts business models and markets, the industry as a whole just evolves and adapts, but it doesn't disappear. Genres come and go, but PC gaming will live on as long as there's gamers and you never know what is going to happen. There's some genres that are more suited to a PC than to a console, e.g. RTS's, point 'n click adventures, flight simulators, FPS (WASD + mouse >>>> gamepad!), etc. Some of them may seem to be dying, but you never know...15 years ago I would've never imagined that point and click adventures would have a resurgence like we have today. The same goes for all indie movement that have kept the industry fresh. Roguelikes also seem to be a hot genre atm, who knows what will come tomorrow but the sure thing is that PC gaming won't die.

Back to the roots, basically, yeah :D

Now that computers hardware have dramatically improved and with the more reasonably priced SSD, and PC gaming sales are still on the increase, PC gaming will never die.

more indie games and crowd funding, free games
heroes 3, disciples 2 and other immortal games made out of passion

Crosmando, I want you to do something for me, this thread made me feel that I should post Moviebob's infamous PC gaming is dead vid in his Big Picture series, what I want you to do is call out every wrong thing he said in the vid as to why he thinks PC gaming is dead, Just so you know this vid was uploaded in 2011 so its statements are outdated, But I still want you to call it out the outdatedness of it.


http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/2911-PC-Gaming-Is-Dead-Long-Live-PC-Gaming

I would say that PC gaming looks more alive than ever.

Actually it's console gaming that's dying and MS + Sony know it full well. That's partly why last Gen was 2-3 times as long as the previous ones. This gen confirms it, also why multi-media is so important to them now.
Thing people tend to forget, helped by the vested interests propaganda. Is PC was king of games because consoles were shit until around the time the PS1 was launched which was when Consoles took off. At launch PS1 was the best you could get. They were the best kit around whatever the cost. PC took some time to pass them again and even then they were still best for the price. As soon as PC's got leve the Consoles did it again with PS2 and by then others were taking a slice, including 1st XBox.
The gap was smaller though and PC caught up quicker, so instead of new consoles they reduced price to keep viable for a while. Then HD came along and XBox 360 came and PS3 but they were only = to best PC's at launch. Trying every trick including selling consoles at a loss, kept them on top but PC was now the dominant equipment and got better in value terms as time passed, looped round and passed again.
Eventually the new Consoles came out, but took so long they are way down the scale now. They are roughly = simalar priced PC in quality now. at launch.

Just looking at there raw component specs they appear better, but any complex computer is only as good as the weakest component, You will be familiIar with how Windows rates your PC like this, it's rating is tied to lowest score.

Consoles are bottlenecked by raw Power, they can only ever have 300W maximum power, this didn't matter back at PS1 era but GPU has got more and more hungry for that power. 4K monitors and VR will only push that need higher.
We all know the PS3 is barely handling HD using 64-bit tech and XBox1 can't manage even that. Thats the power bottleneck in play.

So can they increase power, sure they can, just do what Steam did for the SteamBox and they're sorted.
But hang on, isn't the SteamBox actually a PC with a different name. Now you see it, this is why the PC is going to thrive. While consoles die a very slow and long death, it will be like that you can be sure, but when the tide turns it will become a tsunami.
Publishers and console makers will fight all the way, until the moment they get sales figures in the PC's favour, then they will flip overnight.
If it gets as far as another Gen, PC's even cheaper than those future next gen consoles will be better. Only the hype machine's holding it together, as it is, Even modded Skyrim (modded is made for PC, not consoles like vanilla) is better than this new gen and that's using a very old 32-bit engine against 64-bit consoles. That's just how bad they are, the biggest gains the new consoles have is from switching to 64-bit but even that's power limited.

This isn't really a good thing for Gamers in general, as the big publishers don't care about the quality of the games, the rise of pre-orders show that.
Now I have only ever Pre-ordered a single game. W3 from here because GOG+CDPR=No Publisher or DRM.
I will never pre-order a publishers game because they will sell me poor shit with huge marketing hype not quality, I demand quality shit.
IGN's recent W3 disgrace shows in 2 ways the fallacy of pre launch awards. Even if giving such awards actually had any validity the Gaming media is bought by the industry / is owned by the industry / can't be trusted by gamers.

They're is one way and only one way to get Developers making the game you want, whatever the level of that game, from AAA to Z (not War-Z though) that is crowdfund the game.
Publishers have no say at all in these games, developers are not forced to release on a specific day like 11·11·11 (Skyrim if you don't know) whatever the condition of the game.
Star Citizen is at $46.5 Million+ and is made for the best PC's that exists. It's extremely open dev cycle means those that backed the game are intimately involved in every step.
I really love Elder Scrolls games but more because of the modding than Bethesda, they are owned by a publisher and they control the developement up to release. An examlple of the difference it can make is though both Cloud Imperium Games (Star Citizen) and Bethesda started at the same time, I know all about exactly what CIG is doing with regular communication and I'm part of a huge QA team (All Backers) already having hands on the game long before any Alpha release. Bethesda haven't even said what the game they are making is, though it's 99.9% certain it will be Fallout 4, they say absolutely nothing and are unlikely to until E3 next year. When some fancy trailer without gameplay will fight for Best "Game" Awards, but it should be Biggest "Bullshit " Awards.

Oh and I was a console gamer until PS3 came out, when that failed to beat PC's at launch was when I switched, I thought I'd never get the hang of Keyboard and Mouse and it was hard to learn but now it's the controller that gets dusty and neglected.

Finally a word of caution, Crowdfunding is a risk and you should back games with money you can afford to lose, though you get a much better chance of a great game than with a preorder, it may fail. You must be prepared to lose that money. Choose wisely and you'lre likely to get the great game you wanted, many would never be made any other way. Go off the Devs whose games you like not a company name, here Star Citizen is typical Origin was the Wing Commander Company, The same Origin EA uses to sell they're games.
Chris Roberts was the Wing Commander Developer. Origin is now Cursed by EA. I back the Dev not the company, Devs make games.