PC games, The end is nigh... is it?

Kiith

oceanclub wrote: »

I like having boxes! Thought admittedly, you can have too many (I'm just at the limit of the top of my Ikea workstation), and with 170 Steam games, I'm glad I don't have to keep _all_ those as boxes.

P.

Sure i still miss the days of getting really think booklets, so i could have something to read on the train back from Dublin, where you had to go to get the games in the first place.

Man i feel old :P

oceanclub

Dara Robinson wrote: »

Console gamers bitching about console games needing patching, which I think is a joke but anyways welcome to the corporate world of making a buck with as little input as possible

These days, Steam is actually more seamless than the XBox when it comes to patching; it just happens; no need to reboot or even click a button, the game automatically updates with absolutely no sign anything is going on.

P.

humanji

oceanclub wrote: »

These days, Steam is actually more seamless than the XBox when it comes to patching; it just happens; no need to reboot or even click a button, the game automatically updates with absolutely no sign anything is going on.

P.

The only downside is when you install a new game and it starts patching automatically, and won't play until it's finished. It's a pain when it's a huge update too.

marco_polo

humanji wrote: »

The only downside is when you install a new game and it starts patching automatically, and won't play until it's finished. It's a pain when it's a huge update too.

You should try finding the correct patch file for the boxed version of F.E.A.R , attempt number three was the correct file for my version of the game. Having downloaded a two useless large files for nothing I now have a greater appreciation of steam, no matter how annoying the auto updates can be at times.

oceanclub

marco_polo wrote: »

You should try finding the correct patch file for the boxed version of F.E.A.R , attempt number three was the correct file for my version of the game. Having downloaded a two useless large files for nothing I now have a greater appreciation of steam, no matter how annoying the auto updates can be at times.

The worst was Company of Heroes which had a series of confusingly-named region-locked patches, but no uber-patch. Although I already had it on disk, I I bought it on the Xmas Steam sale just for convenience.

P.

Overheal

Kiith wrote: »

Sure i still miss the days of getting really think booklets, so i could have something to read on the train back from Dublin, where you had to go to get the games in the first place.

Man i feel old :P

If you're not looking at a dirty magazine when you're on a train, you're doing it wrong.

spooky donkey

I alternate between playing BF Bad Company 2 on xbox and PC.
The PC version pisses me off online though .
Every sever I go into has rules of what you can and cant do, on the xbox you just just jump in and do what you like.
I do think the PC is gona die out eventually for gaming.

Dara Robinson

Kiith wrote: »

Sure i still miss the days of getting really think booklets, so i could have something to read on the train back from Dublin, where you had to go to get the games in the first place.

Man i feel old :P

You should try StarWarsGalaxies Emu. I just installed it there now and will be helping test it for the summer. You need the original disk and there was a thick manual, to get it into the normal DVD box I was forced to remove the standard manual holders cause other wise it did not fit. And even at that its a serious squeeze Biggest manual I have seen up until Civ 4 came out, where they were forced to release the DVD box on its own with the manual outside and a sleeve to hold them together

oceanclub

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/06/22/kotick-70-of-profit-non-console

In the original article:

"Today, probably 70 percent of our operating profit comes from non-console-based video games"


[...]

Maryanne Lataif, VP of corporate communications for Activision Blizzard, said in a phone call with Gamasutra that "non-console-based video games" means just that.

That shows the power of World of Warcraft, which is easily Activision Blizzard's primary online breadwinner, with 11.5 million active subscribers. At E3 2009, Activision said that operating margins for World of Warcraft were 55 percent. That's compared to a 23 percent overall profit margin from all of Activision's operating segments for the quarter ended in March 2010.

Other "non-console-based" Activision games include iPhone titles and PC games, but those businesses are small compared to World of Warcraft.

PC gaming still dead.

This is interesting too, though Microsoft have a habit of making a hames of it:

http://kotaku.com/5567711/fable-iii-really-signals-a-larger-microsoft-push-for-pc-gaming-this-time

P.