It might take a year or two, but I'm of the belief we would see similar large-scale titles start to be produced again, provided that there is a sufficient market for them. Basically as long as there's a profitable market (for, say, AAA games sans DRM) someone will be looking to make money off of that market. Well, only time will prove me right or wrong on this; if a large-scale change occurs in the PC games market and we're both around here then one of us can smugly proclaim "Told you so."

Just because you are paranoid it doesn't mean that they aren't out to get you!

Seriously I think it is not paranoia at all, I think it is a rational act and I think some people (not necessarily you, since your files may not be very important to you) do not understand the importance of backups.
But what it comes down to is how important it all is to you.
It is of course not about life at all, I could do just fine even without music in my life. If I survived a civilization ending event and wound up without any chance to listen to all my precious recorded music ever again I would probably start to play music myself, partly reconstructing the music of old, partly making new music along with other people, even though I don't play any instrument at the present. We are quite adaptable creatures, there are not that many things we truly do need, but that doesn't mean that there aren't many things that are worth preserving.

Most of the computer games around here will probably be available through the internet for the lifetime of those taking part in this discussion so you can either buy them anew if you lose them or download them for free with a clear conscience if you have already bought them. But if you have a backup already it will save you quite a bit of time. (And you know that they are free of trojans and viruses.) Personal photos is something that is pretty important for most people and those cannot be reconstructed without any backups. Music is very important for me and many other people and since the mp3 only part of my collection is growing even faster than the cd\mp3 part backup is essential for me. Books and films - these are not important to sustain life but like music they do mean quite a lot for people, even though they may not mean much to you don't think that everyone feels the same way as you.

The great thing about piracy is that for those that lose their games, books, albums and other media they have bought there is usually a way for them to get them back. But restoring them from backups is usually a better way.

Ooo-er. I've never bothered with starforce. what with Anti DRM websites posting many horror stories about it in the past. That and gamers in the past telling their experiences with it.

Better to avoid the fire rather then jump over it, I'd say. ;)

Who would have guessed that you would find peoples worring about being able to play their games in ten years on a site selling ten years old games...

It boils down to the fact you're basically using bad statistics to draw erroneous conclusions.

Console sales are dominated by Nintendo entertainment systems, not products that compete with Computers for the same games. 2009 is the latest year we have the full NPD write up on currently, so I'll focus on that year. In 2009 the Nintendo DS by itself sold more units then the XBox 360, PS3, and PS2 combined at over 11 million units. The Wii dominated in second place with 9.6 million versus 4.8 for Xbox 360, 4.3 for PS3, 1.8 for PS2, and 2.5 for the PSP.

The top ten titles for software sold was dominated by Nintendo, especially the fitness programs. The only non-Ninentedo titles in the top 10 were CoD MW2 and Halo 3:ODST which didn't really perform meaningfully better then Nintendo properties despite the significant advertising dollars invested hyping them up, and likely higher development costs.

The NPD's numbers are well known to ignore significant blocks of sales for the PC, so it's much better to use the PCGA numbers. This is the top 5 console games broken down in terms of total sales, directly from the NPD. You'll note Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 managed all of 11.86 Million USDe total across the PS3 and XBox 360 versus Wii Sports Resorts 7.57 Million USDe and New Super Mario Bros. Wii in at 7.41 Million USDe. Total software sale revenue reported by the NPD was 9.91 Billion USDe and hardware 7.3 Billion USDe.

The PCGA report can be found here. It reports PC software sales at 13.1 Billion USDe meaning PC software revenues more then all console software revenues as far as such things are tracked. Hardware sales in client space are dominated by laptops and needless to say eclipse the entire revenue of Consoles in Intel chip sales alone. If you remove Nintendo entertainment systems from the equation to thus focus on the machines meant to "compete" with PCs the entire notion they're more then a glorified niche market versus the overall market is farcical.

Note that in early 2009 the Dolphin Wii emulator gained more or less full functionality in not only running Wii games but enhancing them to full computer resolutions and several emulators for the NDS had reached maturity, not to mention firmware mods, and thus the pirates had all the keys to that kingdom. Meanwhile there are PSP and PS2 emulators, but no emulators for either XBox 360 or the PS3 are currently available and are otherwise much more closed.

Hence you may note there's more then a little wrong the "Pirates!" and "PC Gaming is Dying" positions when you actually look at the research.

I guess it's possible that some publishers would walk away but . . . I truly doubt it. They have managed to move DRM far beyond anything they could have hoped for over the past ten years. They add more intrusions, back peddle, add still more, back peddle all the while gaining more acceptance for the unacceptable. They even have us believing they will walk away if we don't accept their control of the gaming market. Their tactics would have drawn outrage not too many years ago.

DRM, some really lousy games, outrages prices, region restrictions, DLC etc, etc are costing publishers their best customers. . . ok, maybe I'm the only customer lost but . . . I believe people are taking a hard look at the value of games these days and sales figures seem to show that we are not pleased with what we're finding.

Walk away from PC's and single player?? Maybe. Might be the best thing that ever happened to PC gaming. Doesn't really matter what I think because most will buy new releases regardless of cost, quality or DRM it seems. . . =)

Everything we know about early homo sapiens shows they played games in their leisure hours. In areas such as South Africa the !Kung (not misspelled) only worked 5 hours a day as hunter-gathers. Furthermore once they got horses they nearly hunted giraffes to extinction in their area they became so efficient. The rest of their non-sleep time was play and other social activities.

Yes you will live with just food, shelter, and water. No, there is not even rudimentary community nor civilization without games.
Hey man, I know, let's play some Halo 2 together, oh wait...

I just don't buy it. Not saying you're not arguing from a logical point, you are, but I just don't see anyone investing in high-budget singleplayer PC exclusives after the big publishers leave the platform for dead. I am sure indies would be prominent, and if this ever occurs I will probably keep playing on the PC and loving a lot of indie content, but I think the consoles would rule the singleplayer gaming field even more than they already do.

I'll even go beyond that though and say I would miss EA and 2K Games and the others... they make awesome games I enjoy playing and have some great IPs. I don't have an antagonistic relationship with them just because the suits want DRM to appeal to their shareholders. Since the DRM is not effective at all I find it hard to be so mad about it as to wipe out my affection for the developers and the games they make.

So the whole "let 'em leave the PC who cares!" mantra that some die-hards like to say just doesn't appeal to me.

And in this imagined future where all the big publishers are gone those indie devs who get funding to make a big budget game would immediately make the decision to make that game for consoles.

Highly unlikely, as they'd have built up to a AAA title-making company by slowly building their PC single player gaming franchise(s) over time. Therefore, while they might look at going to consoles as well, they'd know they'd be leaving a big revenue hole if they abandoned the PC (and presumably, the console market would be saturated with games from the publishers that abandoned the PC years earlier).

Why would anyone have a high-end GPU or processor at that point? If all the big name publishers leave and take their big budget games with them then what would be the reason to keep upgrading hardware?

Anyway, this hypothetical is silly. Here is the rub: the indie market is going to keep exploding either way, it's not like we are in some either/or situation here. I am a PC only gamer and have been a PC gamer for 20+ years. What I want is more PC games... more genres, more budget choices, more IPs, more developers, more publishers, more GAMES. The best way to ensure that is to support the games we get now, not boycott them over something that is completely irrelevant for anyone who knows how to use google.

Who said anything about boycotting? My point this entire time has been to simply act selfishly and only spend your money on things that you consider a good value. If DRM makes a game less valuable to you then don't buy the game until it drops to a price that you consider worth it. Basically just act in your own self-interest and let the rest of the market respond to that. You win regardless of what the market does, and if the devs and publishers decide they want to be more profitable then they need to align their interests with your interests, and thus you win even more.

I'm not sure why you say that. Some devs are self funding, after all. And there is a big PC market, as well.

The problem is that when it will stop being pointless it will most probably be way to late to do anything about it, if there is anything that can be done against DRM it's now not when everything from music to watching your own personal photo will requires you to be always online.

Not to mention that it sends the publisher the message that peoples don't care about DRM-free and will accept all sort of DRM they might pull up. Which IMHO is much worse that risking not having Gears of Wars 3 released on PC.