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Are you sick and tired of people declaring PC gaming dead and gone when it's actually still alive and kicking? Does it make you want to physically kick them? In the head? Well, that'd probably get you slapped with some pesky assault charges, so let's not do that! Instead, in case of just such an emergency, we recommend you break the glass around Blizzard executive VP of game design Rob Pardo's viewpoint of the whole situation.
“The PC games industry and the gaming industry is super healthy. It's always been tough to do metrics in any industry and especially once you start having a lot of digital distribution it's hard to capture the real metrics of the health of the industry,” he told GamesIndustry.biz.
“Even if you look at something like NPD there's still an estimation involved there, they don't really have real-time data from every retail chain. By necessity they're guessing. But I think the industry is as healthy as ever. From our experience our games continue to sell better than the last ones. I always laugh because as long as I've been in the games industry, every year I'm asked 'is PC gaming dead?' But it keeps on growing despite the fact it's been pronounced dead 20 times.”
So that's that, then. Of course, now people will be needing another irrelevant gaming topic to perpetuate. So let's see, may we recommend a thoroughly used, mentally broken beyond repair Jack Thompson? Or how about an impassioned argument about the Xbox 360 vs. PS3 console war? Those are always fun.
Comments are closed on this article
sniggler
October 27, 2010 at 3:07pm
ATI gives updated drivers thru Steam, and lots of newer PC games update automatically - Blizz titles in particular, Starcraft 2 and World of Warcraft are the fastest-selling PC games of all time (yeah i went Kanye with it), and they update automatically whenever an internet connection is present (well with WoW it's a given, obviously).
Lots of other titles do this as well.
Blues22475
October 27, 2010 at 2:34pm
I highly doubt that PC gaming is actually dying, period. As it was already stated, so long as folks have PC's and use gaming for fun on those PC's then we're gonna have PC gaming. As a matter of fact I am starting to convert to a PC gamer myself (coming from a console gamer background). This is because I use my PC more than anything now, more than my old PS2 console (and I am still debating on getting another Gen console period). In my case, it'd just be cheaper for me to use my PC as a gaming device anyway as it's fairly powerful as it is (and I am upgrading the video card as well). It'd be cheaper for me overall.
violian
October 27, 2010 at 11:04am
I prefer consoles because I hate having to install games, enter serial numbers, and having to get the latest driver updates, etc. With the Xbox360, if an update is needed, the console automatically updates. That being said, it'd be super cool if one day, you could just pop in a PC game into your computer just like a console game and play it right off the bat. One day.
stradric
October 27, 2010 at 8:32am
There's definitely something to be said about the success of consoles in such a short time period compared to the PC. And there's something to be said of the financial burden of maintaining a top-notch PC compared to a $200 console. But that's about it. When it comes down to it there's room for both Consoles and PCs in the market -- clearly.
Same goes for Xbox 360 vs PS3. There's room for both. People that get up in arms over one or the other are falling into a marketing trap designed by Microsoft and Sony. Meanwhile Nintendo won a while ago.
The new tired argument on the block is iOS vs Android (vs WebOS). Again, there's room for both (or all 3, or all 4 if you count Symbian, or all 5 if you count Blackberry). It's just a matter of picking your poison. More choice 95% of the time is better for consumers than less choice. So why are we fighting?
oleg.ko@gmail.com
October 26, 2010 at 9:27pm
Think about it - every kid have PC. Does every kid has personal TV with game console? I do not see it. PC gaming would be alive and kicking as long as we have PCs.
