2013, just me or terrible first half year for PC gaming?

[Dariune]

No, don't worry. I'm not suggesting PC Gaming is dead or anything along those lines. (In-fact I am looking forward to more games than I have in a long time)

BUT... Is it just me or has this year been terrible for games?

"Big hitters" like Aliens: Colonial Marines and Tomb Raider have under performed, according to their publishers.

I admit that Bioshock seems to have been met with a generally positive response (Not my kind of game so I didn't play it) but every other game seems to have either under performed, been small fry or been negatively received.

Maybe I'm totally off the mark here. What do you guys think?

Edit: Actually just look at the first page of posts on these forums. Few of them are excitedly discussing a new release.

[jnx]

Q1 is traditionally veery quiet when it comes to new releases.

[Sketch]

New console year, I expect it to be quiet until after E3/the next Xbox is announced. At least in terms of multiplatform.

[NathanH]

Very quiet on the strategy and RPG front so far this year, but there are some things round the corner that look exciting.

[Dariune]

Very quiet on the strategy and RPG front so far this year, but there are some things round the corner that look exciting.

Lol it's almost as if you know me.

Yes I am looking forward to a lot of these.

I suppose I don't recall a year where the start of the year has been quite this barren. Having said that I don't remember 5 minutes ago so my memory is an unreliable source.

Maybe it is due to the new consoles. May AAA really has nothing left and many of the Indie and Kick Starter games are due to come out next year (Certainly a lot of the ones I am looking forward to.)

Edit: Spelling

[QuantaCat]

Im sorry, I and atleast 235 other RPSers are having a blast in Planetside2, which was a "sortof" start of 2013 release.

[SephKing]

Personaly, I'm pretty happy so far with games this year. I've had a good time playing the likes of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, Tomb Raider, Bioshock Inifinite, Planetside 2, Arma 3 (even though it's Alpha), Most Wanted, Trials Evolution, Crysis 3 (kind of), Papo & yo & Devil May cry ....to name a few :)

[Jesus_Phish]

No, don't worry. I'm not suggesting PC Gaming is dead or anything along those lines. (In-fact I am looking forward to more games than I have in a long time)

BUT... Is it just me or has this year been terrible for games?

"Big hitters" like Aliens: Colonial Marines and Tomb Raider have under performed, according to their publishers.

I admit that Bioshock seems to have been met with a generally positive response (Not my kind of game so I didn't play it) but every other game seems to have either under performed, been small fry or been negatively received.

Maybe I'm totally off the mark here. What do you guys think?

Those games are multi-platform, nothing to do with PC gaming. As jnx and Sketch both have said the first quarter of the year is always a quiet period and we're going into a new console cycle this year.

If anything this is a good year so far because those games all got pretty good PC ports compared to what we got in the past. Also see the new Metro game, it really shows what PCs can do.

[Dariune]

Im sorry, I and atleast 235 other RPSers are having a blast in Planetside2, which was a "sortof" start of 2013 release.

Don't be sorry, glad you and 235 RPS members are having fun.

I actually forgot about that game but I don't think it is enough in itself to make my point void.

And it certainly isn't for me.

[Wednesday]

Those games are multi-platform, nothing to do with PC gaming. As jnx and Sketch both have said the first quarter of the year is always a quiet period and we're going into a new console cycle this year.

That's a pretty fishy argument. If you remove anything cross platform, you are left with a rather dry and arid PC gaming land, at least in the realm of the "AAA" or whatever you want to call it.

[Fanbuoy]

Just watched Total Biscuit's take on Metro: Last Light, which seems very promising. With the exception of FoV and the Ranger mode being DLC, pretty much everything seems to have been improved from 2033.

Far Cry 3 came out last year.

[zappeo]

with Carmageddon Reincarnation and South Park: The Stick of Truth missing the march deadline (not that I'm complaining, at least concerning carma. I'm quite pissed off at Ubilol not saying anything about South Park though) I'd say my most played this year have been Planetside 2, Prison Architect, Trials and Monaco. I bought Bioshock Infinite but as always with big long AAA productions I have to find the right moment to play it (and it could be 2-3 months from now).
I think that for a usually "quiet" time of the year there is a good amount of games to play with.

[Kelron]

If there's no new games, play one of the many amazing older games you haven't played yet. They tend to be more fun anyway.

[sonson]

Very quiet on the strategy and RPG front so far this year, but there are some things round the corner that look exciting.

Civ Expansion, Broken World, Rome II, Age of Wonders 3, sequel to European Escalation

[Jesus_Phish]

That's a pretty fishy argument. If you remove anything cross platform, you are left with a rather dry and arid PC gaming land, at least in the realm of the "AAA" or whatever you want to call it.

My point is that it hasn't been a stellar start to the year for gaming in general. It never is really. You get three or four "big" titles peppered across the first few months. They usually all end up actually getting released really close to each other, February had Dead Space 3, Aliens CM, Crysis 3 all coming out week on week on week.

March got SimCity and Tomb Raider on the same day, followed a week later by Starcraft 2:HoTS and Bioshock:Infinite two weeks later. And I'm only including the games that came out also on PC there, if you want to include console only ones you also have competition from Gears of War:Judgement and MGS:R and probably some others.

The start of the year is generally just very quiet, because it's made up of the games that companies didn't want to release before christmas because they knew they'd get slaughtered by CoD.

So in a two month space, we ended up getting all the big name releases so far. And they're all sequels or reboots. New IP is being saved for when the next consoles start hitting the streets.

As for PC only games, there's plenty that came out this year, but they probably don't count as AAA so people seem to not pay attention to them.

[zappeo]

If there's no new games, play one of the many amazing older games you haven't played yet. They tend to be more fun anyway.

Absolutely true.
Sometimes I find myself hoping that there won't be any good release for like 6 months in order to pick some games from my steam library and finally play them. I still have to play the "new" X-Com and I feel ashamed about it :°

[Jesus_Phish]

Now is the time to clear your backlog, before summer hits and we start getting things like Remember Me, expansions to Civ V which will eat our souls and our time and a bunch of Kickstarter games start hitting the digital shelves (potentially unless they get pushed back)

[Heliocentric]

Too many games, releases slow, feel grateful, backlog still too big, send help.

[luukdeman111]

Civ Expansion, Broken World, Rome II, Age of Wonders 3, sequel to European Escalation

You should work at the marketing team of eugen systems. Sequel to European escalation is probably a better name then bloody Airland battle...


Btw: if you like rts but think Starcraft and the like are too fast: DEFINITELY check out Airland battle(ugh), it's the best rts I've played in years, even in beta... It's really putting the s back in rts...

[Internet]

I'm looking forward to Shadowrun Returns, which hits in June. I'm interested to see how long the single-player campaign is, but either way it looks like it'll provide a good platform for future games.