The end of PC is announced again and again. Personally, I don't believe the PC will ever disappear - you simply can't work properly on a tablet, let alone on a smart phone. But what about PCs for gaming? Sure, there will always be PC gamers, but if that community is too small, the might not be any hardware manufacturers any more. Intel is hurt already now. Nvidia and AMD/ATI will probably get hurt, too. If you can't get any graphic board anymore, you can't use the PC for games of this millennium any more. How do you guess the chances of such a worst case scenario? Yesterday, Blizzard claimed that main stream single player games will become scarce in future, because multiplayer games and free to play games just bring more cash and bind the customer for a longer time. I solace myself by the fact, that there probably are enough singleplayer games already produced to entertain me for a life time. And thanks to GOG it's easy to get them. However, if there was no hardware any more to play them we'd be screwed. What do you think? Regards - spitfire

Didn't you know? Apparently, PC gaming has been dying for over a decade already. Yeeeeah...

Edit: Actually, these days the amount of PC gamers is greater than it ever was. It's simply not growing as exponentially as the console/mobile crowd. The latter two are much more likely to implode eventually.

As I said, again and again :) But now seemingly undestroyable giants such as Microsoft and Intel start to loose power due to rapidly declining PC sales. So, I really start to worry ...

mobile gaming waht a joke.

gives back the orignal meaning to looking at thumnails on your computer.

High Definition Cuticles!

no thanks.

PC gaming has died just like rock and roll has died. i.e. not at all, whiny people just don't like changing paradigms (not a dig at anyone in this thread).

That being said, if PC gaming does suddenly go *poof* for some reason, I'll probably still be pretty much set for life. Big backlog, games with replay value, etc.

Actually, the rise of digital distribution and account based DRM has made single player games a profitable market again. In the late '90s everybody was jumping the MP train because games with MP actually lead to players keeping their copies instead of just selling them after they were done with them. Ebay made that even worse, as selling games was made extremely easy.

Nowadays, with Steam/GG/GOG etc. dominating the market on PC games, people can no longer sell their games. Therefore, you can actually earn money with it again.

A sign is the rise of old-school Adventures again. Since you cannout sell them anymore after you finished them, every legal copy played actually puts some money into the hands of the devs. Or indies in general. Why is it suddently profitable to sell small SP games for 10$? Because everybody who wants a legit copy actually gives money to the devs.

Therefore, we are not at the end of Single Player, but at its renaissance.

-_- What does PC stand for? Personal computer. What makes the tablet form factor to not be a personal computer? What is stopping a tablet from virtualizing a Linux distro using Hyper-V, to install VirtualBox in that Linux distro, to virtualize XP through VirtualBox, and play Warcraft 2 in that virtualized XP?

Cut the whole marketing crap. You already have a personal computer that you talk through, and nothing is stopping you from connecting a DisplayPort device onto it and playing Crysis.

(okay, a small exaggeration, but I'm sure you get the point, this 'omg mobile games are crap' crap is alive because the performance of the hardware meant for mobile is not up to desktop standards nowadays, but as time goes, that performance will get better, and the games will get better and more complex (heh, WP8 features DirectX11.1 :p so you can already do crazy stuff so long the hardware can live through it))

That's the most informative and sensible i've seen you in a long time. What you said made sense, and it's true.

If only you were like that always.

256-512 mb of ram and processors that are barely over 1ghz? And terrible battery life? :D Also, you couldn't play warcraft 2 with your fingers >.<

Yeah, PC was dying in the past decade, but I agree it is currently experiencing a rennaissance thanks primarily to digital distribution (and crowdfunding). The PC platform is finally once again getting a wide variety of niche games that appeal to its strengths instead of countless console ports of increasingly generic and homogenized multiplayer action games. For the first time in a long time I am excited about PC gaming again.

I disagree that DRM is part of the reason for this rennaissance. I think crazy DRM was part of the reason for PC gaming's decline in the first place... Think of the popularity of the DRM-free Humble Indie Bundles... digital distribution is the key, not DRM. DRM doesn't reduce piracy anyways, according to GOG and CD Projekt RED.

PC's will never die though they will continue to be marginalized in favor or smaller and more user-friendly devices. That said as long as PCs exist, which is forever, someone will likely make games for them and running the classics will still be possible.

Also, as we have seen, a lot of projects can work on many devices.

When the PC is gone, I hope GOG has an implantable chip for my brain so that I can game on the go.

Indeed, that would actually be a boon. We can all clear our backlogs in our lifetimes.

It's not DRM on games, but the concept of "one account, one person, one license" even GOG is using that. DRM was never meant in defeating piracy (Steam is probably easier to crack than a CD check from '96).

You can call it whatever you want, but I call it "Digital Rights Management".

PC gaming will die when all connected computers and machinery become self aware and then we can play System Shock for real !

Great I can't wait ! :D