Comments on: PC Gaming Is Dying Blahblahblah

By: Bazooka Ed

Bazooka Ed — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:33:23 +0000

I consider myself a hardcore PC gamer, and I think Spore is a fantastic game. It would have had one more sale, though, if it had come out before TF2. In fact, all great PC games after Oct 2007 would have had one more sale from me. If not for TF2. I now consider time to be measured in units of BOB (Before Orange Box) and AOB (After Orange Box). I really can’t get over how awesome that game is.

All this to say that gaming in general is now much bigger with more choices than it was five years ago. And that means less time spread to more games. Even if a quarter of WoW subscribers play WoW exclusively, that’s still 2.5 – 3 million gamers that won’t buy Spore. Or anything else. That could be the issue of “low” sales right there.

By: BugHunter

BugHunter — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 17:21:25 +0000

After all that, no one really had any half-way thought out argument against A-Scale. Just face the facts. Spore is a great technology demo. EA forgot to add an actual game while developing it.

By: Winterborn

Winterborn — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:51:42 +0000

A-Scale is closer to right than he’s being given credit for. His point about Starcraft is a very good one.

By: Tjoms

Tjoms — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 09:31:00 +0000

@Shadowmancer:
Watch Firefly and you’ll realize that, while it’s entertaining, that movie(Serenity) should never have existed and the series(the aforementioned Firefly) should have been continued instead.

By: Paul Moloney

Paul Moloney — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 08:53:04 +0000

“I think spore would have sold far more copies if they just put in an actual evolution mechanic and geared the RTS portions of the game towards hardcore gamers”

Yes, because being hardcore is exactly how The Sims managed to sell several squiggilion.

What I don’t understand is why they don’t slap a big “From the Creator of The Sims” sticker on each Spore copy. There are loads of people who’ve obviously bought The Sims and no other game, why not target them?

By: DSX

DSX — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 23:10:01 +0000

Look at all the other titles the “games for windows” ~~restriction~~ implementation has improved upon. In my opinion, it guarantees that the PC version of GTA will look and feel exactly like the xbox version, which contrary to why I own a gaming PC and not a console.

Toss in the joys of Live! for multiplayer and it’s a lose-lose imho.

By: Okami

Okami — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 09:43:46 +0000

@DSX: So how exactly have Microsoft shot us in the face? Because GTA4 is coming out under the “Games for Windows” label? Well, so is almost any other pc game these days.. Because you can buy it on the Live! Markteplace? Yea, I’d prefer to buy it via steam too (that is, if I was going to buy it in the first case – but I allready have it for my 360), but I wouldn’t call that a shot in the face. Or because it uses Live! for it’s multiplayer modes?

Well the last reason kinda sucks, because it’s yet another stupid piece of software you have to install on your pc. But, hey, at least you don’t have to pay for it any more..

By: jigglybean

jigglybean — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 08:43:25 +0000

I think Spore has been the biggest disappointment of 2008. Roll on Dawn of War 2.

I have endless debates at work about the ‘PC in decline’ comments and every time I walk away happy. Sure there has been a huge swing with more hardcore moving to the 360 but Publishers and developers no longer actually develop for the PC – its just a simple/soddy port of an extremely limited console version.

Sins of A Solar Empire has proved that there still is a market for great PC only games and its about time the charts included digital downloads. The music industry cried ‘Pirates’ for so long until i-tunes showed them that people will download and pay for what they want.

Long live the PC!

By: DSX

DSX — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 04:30:22 +0000

I fully retract my comment regarding Grand Theft Auto giving PC gaming a valuable shot in the arm. Instead, Microsoft has shot us in the face.

By: Yhancik

Yhancik — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 23:13:10 +0000

@mjhoward :

Because the console gaming writers already regard it as dead maybe ? :p

By: Kadayi

Kadayi — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 18:33:41 +0000

The problem with the anti-DRM brigade is they tend to paint it that after 3 installs the game is a fancy coaster, when the reality is it isn’t (you phone up and they give you a new code). Sure it’s annoying, but it’s not quite as torturous as it is made out.

By: grumpy

grumpy — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 14:37:53 +0000

I thought 1M copies for Spore was rather low. Keep in mind that the game has bee nhyped to hell and back, it draws on both the “traditional gamers” and the Sims demographic, the huge ad campaign (It’s always a sign that they’re serious about advertising the game when ads even show up in small countries like Denmark. And the streets are plastered with Spore posters), and just the amount of resources EA has poured into the game. How many hundred developers over how many years?

I’d expected a lot more than a million by now, to be honest.
About the DRM, a coworker of mine who is, at best, a casual gamer got wind of it. I think the bad publicity has spread further than a lot of us hardcore gamers may have expected.