PC games are now outselling console games worldwide

Morag

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/digital-life/item/36658-pc-games-are-now-outselling

In one of the most unlikely shifts in the industry, gamers are now buying more PC copies of games than console versions, according to a new report from DFC Intelligence.

I really don't know why this is so 'unlikely' with all the uncertainty about consoles atm and the fact consoles are not backwards compatible, unlike pc.

Duggy747

Well, if I had a console I know I wouldn't be buying nowhere near the amount of games that I would for the PC...........even if I don't play a large chunk of them and put them on the "list to get to".

Goddamn Steam sales, it's like specials in Lidl where you'd buy stuff you wouldn't necessarily need otherwise :pac:

Years and years ago I used to pirate games but the prices of PC games, including indie titles, and Steam's great service pretty much eradicated the need for me to do that.

I also like that I can go to GoG and get an old game if I have the hankering for it.

Retr0gamer

PC and console sales flip flop. When the console generation is in full swing the PC is dying bull**** starts up. When a new generation begins console game sales bottom out and PC sales increase since it's a more attractive platform.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

it's not hard to sell lots of titles when they're discounted to 75% off 4-5 times a year, this says sweet **** all about the health of the pc gaming market. we already knew there were loads of cheap bastards with 1000 euro machines.

Antar Bolaeisk

PCConsole Gaming is dying!

Pity that it doesn't give details for example the breakdown between normal sales and f2p sales.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

Antar Bolaeisk wrote: »

PCConsole Gaming is dying!

Pity that it doesn't give details for example the breakdown between normal sales and f2p sales.

or even what titles. i wonder how many of these are humble bundles which people are buying for at 3 cent for 78 games.

wyrn

I have to admit that when I see a game that I have on console for sale on Steam, I tend to buy a 2nd copy (Mirror's Edge, GTA, Mass Effect, Skyrim etc..) I can't help it. I can't remember how much Mirror's Edge was for xbox (€45 or so) and I just checked, I bought it for PC for 3.74.

ScumLord

Ugh, does this mean we're like the commoners. *shudder*

marco_polo

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

it's not hard to sell lots of titles when they're discounted to 75% off 4-5 times a year, this says sweet **** all about the health of the pc gaming market. we already knew there were loads of cheap bastards with 1000 euro machines.

Although that is true, (and some definitely take it to ridiculous extremes), I'm not convinced it is quite as bad as you imagine.

Impossible to say without a better breakdown of figures, but I'd suspect that the lower average price of digital PC games means revenue tends to get spread around a bit more evenly, rather that the bulk of it going to probably a dozen or so of the top AAA games every year.

Lone Stone

Well for me the main reason is the price tag, i was considering a ps4 but when i saw the prices on the games i just said to myself time to stick to the pc.

Nody

I think this trend is likely to continue simply because of the hardware. It used to be expensive to get equal/better quality at relase of a console but with the latest gen that's no longer really the case and as the PC continue to improve the consoles will have even harder time to compete. This does not even address the price difference (PC tends to cheaper from what I've seen) or sales (or "you don't really need anything but noodles this month anyway") or Indi games which now make up a much bigger part of time spent on gaming vs. previous decades.

I'm with Duggy, I'm a nightmare for buying games I haven't even played on steam just because there piss cheap.

Not to veer off main topic;
I would love to understand why the digital CD key re-sellers get there stock so cheap and be able to afford to sell Steam keys and still turn a profit. Surely this has an effect on the figures above?

Adamocovic

With Steam selling them at such low prices no surprise! Also it is a lot handier having it without the disc so there is no fear of it scratching and you losing your game. Plus most people already need to use laptops/computers in work or education so don't see the need for a console if they can just use their computer or laptop. Not to mention multi platform gaming too. It doesn't matter what operating system your friends have you can still play together. Console gaming is still decent but atm PC is just cheaper and more practical.

jaykhunter

I realise this article says more PC games have been sold (unspecified parameters) than console games but it's shoddiness irked me.

1. The headline "PC games are now outselling console games worldwide" is NOT the same as what's written in the opening paragraph: "gamers are now buying more PC copies of games than console versions", which from my research, is garbage.

2. "gamers are now buying more PC copies of games than console versions" but the article doesn't cite ONE example.

3. "The recently released report (behind a paywall) would appear to show..." oh, that's not suspicious at all, I can't check your stats without paying.
Here's some numbers from cross-platform games on VGChartz - if you have a more accurate source, post it.

South Park : Stick of Truth
360: 0.45
PS3: 0.43
PC: 0.09

Assassin's Creed IV
360: 2.48
XOne: 0.75
PS3: 2.83
PS4: 1.55
PC: 0.42

I bet Watchdogs follows the same trend. I've no doubt steam etc are doing wonders selling loads, but the article sounds like unweighted garbage. It gives general PC stats but not console stats. I have a gaming rig & consoles, if a title is available on PC, that's the version I buy, but this "report" and this article sounds like "shock headline" BS.

Retr0gamer

VGchartz's figures are total bull**** though. The only reliable source for software sales figures is from NDP and NDP doesn't include digital sales which is why PC sales look low in them.

Kiith

Have Steam ever released sales numbers? Or even given indications as the what sort of ballpark they are in?

ScumLord

I would hazard a guess that there's a lot more games for PC too, loads of cheap indie titles that you just wouldn't get on PC.

the groutch

you have to also bear in mind that there is virtually no pre-owned market for PC games.
one copy of an Xbox/PS game could be traded in and resold or sold privately, several times within it's lifespan, and still only count as one sale for the purpose of these stats.

Mr Bloat

Ars Technica had an interesting article a couple of weeks ago where they put together accumulated data from thousands public Steam profiles. It doesn't give data on how much a particular game may have made but it shows how many people own particular games and how often they are played:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/04/introducing-steam-gauge-ars-reveals-steams-most-popular-games/

If there's one big takeaway from looking at the entirety of our Steam sales and player data, it's that a few huge ultra-hits are driving the majority of Steam usage. The vast majority of titles form a "long tail" of relative crumbs. Out of about 2,750 titles we've tracked using our sampling method, the top 110 sellers represent about half of the individual games registered to Steam accounts. That's about four percent of the distinct titles, each of which has sold 1.38 million copies or more. This represents about 50 percent of the registered sales on the service.

By contrast, the bottom 1,000 games, which have sold less than 30,000 copies each, represent just 1.6 percent of all the registered games on Steam, forming a relatively paltry "long tail" of sales for relative underperformers. The median game on Steam sells just under 50,000 copies on the service, according to our estimates, while a game in the 25th percentile has sold about 215,000 copies. The distribution looks pretty much the same when looking at the number of players rather than the number of owners.

Skerries

I was just going to look for that article as well, very interesting read

Blowfish

I'd argue that PC gaming has never been weak, it's just that all the analysis tended to apply metrics that consoles used for success like 'number of games sold' to PC, despite it being a worthless metric for PC due to how PC gaming actually works.

The obvious behemoth WoW, generated last year solely through subscriptions and microtransactions (i.e. ignoring sales) roughly equivalent to the same as the total sales of GTA across all platforms. This is despite it being probably their worst year in a long time, with an increase expected later this year due to a new expansion.

Then there are games like CrossFire, LoL, Dota2, WoT etc, which technically have a total of zero sales due to no cost, yet in a single year all have revenues roughly equivalent to the sales of one of the Modern Warfare series across all platforms.

That's not even taking into account the whole retail vs digital sales sillyness.

Genghiz Cohen

Blowfish wrote: »

I'd argue that PC gaming has never been weak, it's just that all the analysis tended to apply metrics that consoles used for success like 'number of games sold' to PC, despite it being a worthless metric for PC due to how PC gaming actually works.

Or devices sold. Laptops for light use are losing ground to tablets and phones, so you constantly hear about how the PC is dying and Mobile is taking over.

2Mad2BeMad

not surprised considering you can get a **** ton of pc games for pennys now a days :L they may be outselling but the developers are not getting any profits from the 75-90% sales of steam unless steam are covering the costs which I doubt

gaynorvader

M!Ck^ wrote: »

{...}

Not to veer off main topic;
I would love to understand why the digital CD key re-sellers get there stock so cheap and be able to afford to sell Steam keys and still turn a profit. Surely this has an effect on the figures above?

I'm not sure how they do it, but if it were me I'd buy up a load of games as gifts when they're 75%+ off and resell the codes later when they're full price again at a nice little profit.

Retr0gamer

2Mad2BeMad wrote: »

not surprised considering you can get a **** ton of pc games for pennys now a days :L they may be outselling but the developers are not getting any profits from the 75-90% sales of steam unless steam are covering the costs which I doubt

Publishers are making quite a lot off of those sales. These are games that would never sell at full price. After a sale Valve take 30%, the rest then goes to the publisher after tax is deducted. There's no additional costs since all the money spent developing the game and getting it published have already been paid and there's no manufacturing costs either.

That's the beauty of digital sales, there's no costs to cover.

ScumLord

2Mad2BeMad wrote: »

they may be outselling but the developers are not getting any profits from the 75-90% sales of steam unless steam are covering the costs which I doubt

I'm not sure what the costs of steam are for developers. The main overhead for Steam would likely be servers and bandwidth, but I'm sure the cost per game is pretty low all things considered. They certainly wouldn't have the overheads that a hard copy would undoubtedly have, from the point of view of the developers all they need to do is upload their game to steam servers.

I'm sure steam sales are successful, I'm fairly sure as long as they sell enough stock the sale works out for everyone or no one would be doing it. It would be important for developers to get money in more so than have a lot of sales, so if they need €50,000 each month to cover their costs and make a profit it doesn't matter if they sell 10,000 or 100,000 games, all that matters is that the money comes in.

With many PC games having a life that includes DLC, the more users they get the more money they'll make in over the lifespan of the game too.

Genghiz Cohen

gaynorvader wrote: »

I'm not sure how they do it, but if it were me I'd buy up a load of games as gifts when they're 75%+ off and resell the codes later when they're full price again at a nice little profit.

Some do that, others buy them in Eastern Europe or Russia and sell them here at a gain.

gizmo

As jaykhunter indicated above, the Silicon Republic article is absolutely awful and you'd be better off reading their "source" directly.

The PC games market has now surpassed the console gaming sector in terms of revenues, an analyst has claimed.

So this has nothing to do about traditional game sales.

In terms of the most popular PC games, DFC says that MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) titles and free-to-play games are continuing to perform strongly.

"The MOBA games League of Legends and Dota 2 dominate everything else by an order of magnitude in terms of more usage than other products," added Cole.

I'm not going to cheer this delightful set of stats one bloody bit.

In fact, the figures point to a more worrying trend as the biggest earners aren't even newer titles.

“We can say that our top 20 list for 2013 had no titles released that year and in Q1 2014 we saw three new titles crack the list: DayZ, Rust and Hearthstone,” Cole said.

Blowfish

gizmo wrote: »

In fact, the figures point to a more worrying trend as the biggest earners aren't even newer titles.

That was a bit of an odd statement as Dota2 was officially released in 2013. Granted they could claim it was accessible through the beta before that, but if you count that, then Hearthstone beta was available in 2013, so the statement still wouldn't have been true.

In any case, it's always been the case on PC that older games have a long lifespan, from Quake/Unreal to Starcraft to MMO's etc. the popular ones just run for a long long time.

Magill

Are these numbers compared to the entire console market ? I'd have thought it would be at least on par with one of the consoles, but all three is surprising.

Hard to argue the success moba's have had, the numbers that league of legends and even dota get are incredible... LoL in particular dwarfs anything we've ever seen on console. Even games like TF2 are still doing incredibly ! I seen it made $140m last year or something crazy like that... impressive for a 7 year old game. Will be interesting to see how Dota2 and even CS:GO do this year as I don't think their are any numbers for these games yet (In terms of microtransactions).

Good to see the market is in good shape tho, even if the numbers are a little muddled. And why would you not be happy that most of the top grossing games aren't new ? They're constantly adding new content to these games, its not like they the same game as was released. Infact... i'd argue there is probably more change and content added to these games over the space of a year than some of the big sellers on console (Fifa,madden.. hell even CoD).

ShadowHearth

Blowfish wrote: »

That was a bit of an odd statement as Dota2 was officially released in 2013. Granted they could claim it was accessible through the beta before that, but if you count that, then Hearthstone beta was available in 2013, so the statement still wouldn't have been true.

In any case, it's always been the case on PC that older games have a long lifespan, from Quake/Unreal to Starcraft to MMO's etc. the popular ones just run for a long long time.

I actually was confused about that too. How's that a bad thing. Games on pc generally have a lot more life in them. They are not being recycled as fast as on consoles. Look at that new stalker mod that became standalone. It's being downloaded like hot pancakes!
Free to play games on pc are very good too. No wonder why they stay active for so long. Even when you do a break from them for a good few months or a year, when you come back there is a ton of new content.

SeantheMan

Mr Bloat wrote: »

Ars Technica had an interesting article a couple of weeks ago where they put together accumulated data from thousands public Steam profiles. It doesn't give data on how much a particular game may have made but it shows how many people own particular games and how often they are played:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/04/introducing-steam-gauge-ars-reveals-steams-most-popular-games/

You can check this yourself everyday , over a period of time and see yourself

http://store.steampowered.com/stats

Shows you how many people currently online on Steam, the 100 most played games today by users at peak...and the current number of online users playing

DOTA2 and CS are always winning, but Dark Souls 2 had near 80,000 users at it's peak today on at the same time , 50,000 of them playing now

gizmo

Blowfish wrote: »

That was a bit of an odd statement as Dota2 was officially released in 2013. Granted they could claim it was accessible through the beta before that, but if you count that, then Hearthstone beta was available in 2013, so the statement still wouldn't have been true.

Quite true, it's hard to tell what the logic is without seeing the full report though. If I was to hazard a guess I'd imagine it was something to do with the long, expansive and highly publicised beta phase DOTA2 went through compared to most titles, arguably including Hearthstone.

Blowfish wrote: »

In any case, it's always been the case on PC that older games have a long lifespan, from Quake/Unreal to Starcraft to MMO's etc. the popular ones just run for a long long time.

This isn't about the popularity of titles though, this is revenue generation year on year, a very different metric altogether.

Magill wrote: »

Good to see the market is in good shape tho, even if the numbers are a little muddled. And why would you not be happy that most of the top grossing games aren't new ? They're constantly adding new content to these games, its not like they the same game as was released. Infact... i'd argue there is probably more change and content added to these games over the space of a year than some of the big sellers on console (Fifa,madden.. hell even CoD).

This isn't really about a couple of titles though, it's about the entire top 20 in 2013 and the vast majority of them in 2014 so far. Not only that but many of these titles are, from the same report, deemed to be dominating everything else by an order of magnitude. I just don't see this as a particularly good situation for anyone who isn't a fan of online-orientated MOBA and F2P titles. It certainly doesn't indicate something so general as "PC games" outselling console games worldwide.

ShadowHearth wrote: »

I actually was confused about that too. How's that a bad thing. Games on pc generally have a lot more life in them. They are not being recycled as fast as on consoles. Look at that new stalker mod that became standalone. It's being downloaded like hot pancakes!
Free to play games on pc are very good too. No wonder why they stay active for so long. Even when you do a break from them for a good few months or a year, when you come back there is a ton of new content.

Again, games having prolonged lifespans on the PC is a great thing, you won't find me complaining about that here. But as I said above, this is year on year revenue generation and when new titles are finding it difficult to break into even the top 20 titles, it's going to have some adverse effects when it comes to publishers and the kind of games they choose to fund in the future.

As for STALKER, case in point, instead of getting STALKER 2 or another strong single player experience we get another F2P MMO-like FPS in the form of Survarium.

Again though, this isn't some criticism of F2P in general, I'd be just worried that in an industry which shown time and time again to be extremely reactionary, we're going to continue to see a strong push in the direction of online-orientated, micro-transaction-centrc F2P games at the expense of other areas. Not only that, but that push may also continue to bleed out into more traditional single player games (look at Dead Space 3 for instance) affecting their design too.

Let me put it like this, I'd much prefer to see the figures behind this headline pointing to higher sales of multi-platform games on the PC. At least then we may see publishers put more effort into higher quality (and less delayed) ports which offer an experienced tailored to platform or even more interest in PC-orientated titles from some publishers which still focus on console titles. This could still include the development of titles this particular report is championing but also not necessarily trigger any potentially negative changes in publisher attitudes going forward.

Hercule

the revenue figures are mostly skewed by people buying hats in TF2

Magill

gizmo wrote: »

This isn't really about a couple of titles though, it's about the entire top 20 in 2013 and the vast majority of them in 2014 so far. Not only that but many of these titles are, from the same report, deemed to be dominating everything else by an order of magnitude. I just don't see this as a particularly good situation for anyone who isn't a fan of online-orientated MOBA and F2P titles. It certainly doesn't indicate something so general as "PC games" outselling console games worldwide.


Again, games having prolonged lifespans on the PC is a great thing, you won't find me complaining about that here. But as I said above, this is year on year revenue generation and when new titles are finding it difficult to break into even the top 20 titles, it's going to have some adverse effects when it comes to publishers and the kind of games they choose to fund in the future.

As for STALKER, case in point, instead of getting STALKER 2 or another strong single player experience we get another F2P MMO-like FPS in the form of Survarium.

Again though, this isn't some criticism of F2P in general, I'd be just worried that in an industry which shown time and time again to be extremely reactionary, we're going to continue to see a strong push in the direction of online-orientated, micro-transaction-centrc F2P games at the expense of other areas. Not only that, but that push may also continue to bleed out into more traditional single player games (look at Dead Space 3 for instance) affecting their design too.

Let me put it like this, I'd much prefer to see the figures behind this headline pointing to higher sales of multi-platform games on the PC. At least then we may see publishers put more effort into higher quality (and less delayed) ports which offer an experienced tailored to platform or even more interest in PC-orientated titles from some publishers which still focus on console titles. This could still include the development of titles this particular report is championing but also not necessarily trigger any potentially negative changes in publisher attitudes going forward.

There are a number of things you aren't considering.

The console and pc markets are completely different, just because a AAA game sells well on console doesn't mean it deserves to sell well. Why did Assasins Creed 3 not sell as well on PC... because it doesn't deserve to, some games are suited to console and some aren't... its not like multi-plat AAA games never sell well on PC, just look at Skyrim, Battlefield, Darksouls etc These games are appriciated by the community and thus do well.

You also have to take into consideration the much longer selling window on PC, many games continue to sell well years after release thanks to digital store sales... so while the initial revenue gained from releasing a game on PC might not be up to your hopes, it has the opportunity to make money long into its life-cycle. So Southpark hasn't sold amazing on PC ? it has 10 years to make up for it.

At the end of the day, the PC gaming market is never going to be the same as the Console market. CoD outsells every game(With the odd exception) by a mile on console, yet it barely eeks into the top 5 shooters on PC. PC gaming is its own market, its stronger than its ever been... there is no reason to be concerned imo.

ScumLord

Magill wrote: »

The console and pc markets are completely different, just because a AAA game sells well on console doesn't mean it deserves to sell well. Why did Assasins Creed 3 not sell as well on PC... because it doesn't deserve to, some games are suited to console and some aren't... its not like multi-plat AAA games never sell well on PC, just look at Skyrim, Battlefield, Darksouls etc These games are appriciated by the community and thus do well.

I don't think there's any game that wouldn't work well on a PC set up, as long as people don't see PCs as the grey box sitting on a desk in the corner it can act like a console as well. Consoles have problems playing PC titles though, you don't have the sim market on consoles because you don't have the same range of equipment.

You also have to take into consideration the much longer selling window on PC, many games continue to sell well years after release thanks to digital store sales...

It's not just down to digital sales, games become platforms on PC, with people modding them for years and the makers bringing out new content keeping the game alive. The latest driving sim on PC Assetto Corsa, has a development life of at least 5 years after release and most people would be eagerly awaiting DLC rather than feeling like it's just DLC for the sake of making money.

At the end of the day, the PC gaming market is never going to be the same as the Console market.

And that is it's advantage, it can be a jack of all trades and master of all trades.

gizmo

Magill wrote: »

The console and pc markets are completely different, just because a AAA game sells well on console doesn't mean it deserves to sell well. Why did Assasins Creed 3 not sell as well on PC... because it doesn't deserve to, some games are suited to console and some aren't... its not like multi-plat AAA games never sell well on PC, just look at Skyrim, Battlefield, Darksouls etc These games are appriciated by the community and thus do well.

Games selling well despite not deserving to is not a trend limited to consoles, there are plenty of striking examples on the PC too. As for Assassins Creed, entries in that series have always sold considerably better on consoles, the terrible port work on AC3 would have had little to do it with it. None of this has anything to do with my point however, and if anything demonstrates how truly meaningful such a turn around in sales would be rather. Instead we're supposed to laud a report about PC gaming outselling console gaming because of F2P and MOBA games? No thanks.

Magill wrote: »

You also have to take into consideration the much longer selling window on PC, many games continue to sell well years after release thanks to digital store sales... so while the initial revenue gained from releasing a game on PC might not be up to your hopes, it has the opportunity to make money long into its life-cycle. So Southpark hasn't sold amazing on PC ? it has 10 years to make up for it.

I'm not saying this isn't important, I'm pointing out that publishers and those who decide where development funds go see this as less important. Again, this is a comparison between year on year revenues so the ability to make ones money back after ten years due to digital distribution of your title at knocked down prices doesn't really come into it.

Magill wrote: »

At the end of the day, the PC gaming market is never going to be the same as the Console market. CoD outsells every game(With the odd exception) by a mile on console, yet it barely eeks into the top 5 shooters on PC. PC gaming is its own market, its stronger than its ever been... there is no reason to be concerned imo.

My concern has nothing to do with the platform, it's to do with the games being released on it. Over the course of the last generation I don't think anyone could deny the overwhelming influence multiplayer-centric heavy hitters such as CoD had on the market. Whether they were first person shooters or third person adventure games we saw multiplayer elements shoehorned in regardless of whether they fit or not. This obviously led to higher budgets, higher sales targets and ultimately, more expensive flops. My basic point amongst all of this is that I don't want to see the next fad for the coming generation be F2P and micro-transaction based gameplay. Nor do I want to see such facets becoming equally pervasive in genres they have no place in.

But yes, PC gaming is stronger than it's ever been, or at least since the last time it was stronger than it's ever been, but my problem is that, according to this report at least, it's not because of things like the great service/sales provided by Steam and their counterparts or the resurgence of the indie development movement or indeed any particular advantage inherent to the PC as a platform. It's due to the revenues generated by a subset of games that are either derided by a huge number gamers on this site and others (that'd be your F2P or micro-transaction heavy-based games) or those that seem to appeal to the type of gamer that seems to really like paying for aesthetic items (and that'd be your MOBAs). Again, there's nothing wrong with fans of these genres being served but not, imo, if that level of success adversely affects other genres.

Polar101

Magill wrote: »

You also have to take into consideration the much longer selling window on PC, many games continue to sell well years after release thanks to digital store sales... so while the initial revenue gained from releasing a game on PC might not be up to your hopes, it has the opportunity to make money long into its life-cycle. So Southpark hasn't sold amazing on PC ? it has 10 years to make up for it.

That makes me think a lot of new games just get pirated, and are only bought in 75% off Steam sales. Maybe that's old fashioned thinking, but surely piracy is a bigger issue on PC than on consoles.

And PC does suffer from non-backwards compatibility problems as well - in 10 years nothing might run today's game. I'd say digital sales are getting pretty big on consoles as well, so older games can sell on consoles as well.

ShadowHearth

Polar101 wrote: »

That makes me think a lot of new games just get pirated, and are only bought in 75% off Steam sales. Maybe that's old fashioned thinking, but surely piracy is a bigger issue on PC than on consoles.

And PC does suffer from non-backwards compatibility problems as well - in 10 years nothing might run today's game. I'd say digital sales are getting pretty big on consoles as well, so older games can sell on consoles as well.

www.gog.com says hi! :pac:

gizmo

Polar101 wrote: »

And PC does suffer from non-backwards compatibility problems as well - in 10 years nothing might run today's game. I'd say digital sales are getting pretty big on consoles as well, so older games can sell on consoles as well.

If you ignore PS+, digital sales on the consoles have only very recently been a thing. Previously the base RRP was so high that even with a meaty percentage discount, the prices of digital titles on the various store fronts were still way too high. As I said, while that has changed or at least begun to change recently, consoles still have the fundamental problem of being not being directly compatible with each other across generations whereas the PC has no such problem with hardware and there's nearly always a way around any potential compatibility problems brought up by software.

wes

ShadowHearth wrote: »

www.gog.com says hi! :pac:

Those guys have to do a lot of work to get some games running on modern systems, and if you bought a game elsewhere, you would still have to buy a new copy on GOG to get it working on your system, if its not working on your current system. Its not all that different than Nintendo etc re-releasing old games on there stores.

Don't get me wrong PC backward comparability is superior to current consoles (excluding the Wii U), but it does have its issues.

ShadowHearth

wes wrote: »

Those guys have to do a lot of work to get some games running on modern systems, and if you bought a game elsewhere, you would still have to buy a new copy on GOG to get it working on your system, if its not working on your current system. Its not all that different than Nintendo etc re-releasing old games on there stores.

Don't get me wrong PC backward comparability is superior to current consoles (excluding the Wii U), but it does have its issues.

It works, and price is very low. I bought heroes 3 back in the day, then I payed gog.com 2$ on sale and got a complete heroes 3 collection. I am pretty sure if I still had old cds, I would be able to play it on my current pc with a help of a few tweaks and mods.
Backwards compatability is the least of pcs worries and one of its hugest advantages over consoles.

With allmost all pc games having steaM support at this day and age, I don't see any issues with old games at all. Half life 1 game is very old now, still works perfect on pc tanks for steam, and it will still work 20 years from now on my brand new shiny pc or upgraded several times one.

abbir

wes wrote: »

Those guys have to do a lot of work to get some games running on modern systems, and if you bought a game elsewhere, you would still have to buy a new copy on GOG to get it working on your system, if its not working on your current system. Its not all that different than Nintendo etc re-releasing old games on there stores.

GOG do some work to get them running, but it is usually work you could do yourself if you had the original discs. They often use programs like Dosbox and Scummvm. They also apply community patches to games to get them working.

ScumLord

Polar101 wrote: »

That makes me think a lot of new games just get pirated, and are only bought in 75% off Steam sales. Maybe that's old fashioned thinking, but surely piracy is a bigger issue on PC than on consoles.

It is because it's easier to do on PC but I think steam have done the most for preventing piracy by having their sales, like many people have pointed out, you end up buying games you'll probably never play just because it was too cheap to pass up on. The easy updating and just ease of use over all would mean I don't ever see myself pirating a game.

I'll still buy new releases too, I just won't buy them on steam because steam seems to be crippled with high prices on new games. Having said that I would be sorely tempted to pay extra for a steam key just so it's part of my library. The only place it's an issue is with the likes of U-play, if I buy the key anywhere else other than steam it's only linked to my U-play account which is an inconvenience more than anything.

beauf

I've been disappointed at the compatibility of older titles on steam. Something like COD4 and punkbuster was a PITA. That said there was so many hacks for that game it became a bit pointless playing it on any server. But some of the others I tried had issues. They didn't really keep up with the patches. Maybe it was better for newer titles. I only played low end ones because thats all my laptop could play.

Magill

gizmo wrote: »

Games selling well despite not deserving to is not a trend limited to consoles, there are plenty of striking examples on the PC too. As for Assassins Creed, entries in that series have always sold considerably better on consoles, the terrible port work on AC3 would have had little to do it with it. None of this has anything to do with my point however, and if anything demonstrates how truly meaningful such a turn around in sales would be rather. Instead we're supposed to laud a report about PC gaming outselling console gaming because of F2P and MOBA games? No thanks.

You say that as if console sales aren't top heavy tho, yes there are a number of incredibly successful games on PC that inflate the sales figures (LoL, Dota, WoW, Diablo, Guildwars etc) but that trend isn't isolated to PC. Call of duty, Fifa, AC, BF, Halo, GTA.... these games probably generate just as much revenue as the F2P games you're talking about. I'd much rather the biggest sellers on a platform to be games like WoW and LoL than CoD and Fifa but thats just me.

Has this top 20 list even been published btw ? I'm in work so can't go digging for it atm, but i'd be interested in seeing just what games they have on it. If the PC market is comparable to all 3 console markets combined (Or even just the xbox/ps market) then there really has to be more to it than just a few F2P games.

I'm not saying this isn't important, I'm pointing out that publishers and those who decide where development funds go see this as less important. Again, this is a comparison between year on year revenues so the ability to make ones money back after ten years due to digital distribution of your title at knocked down prices doesn't really come into it.

That all depends on how much it costs to port a game, I would image it is much less this generation as the console architecture is apparently much more similar to the typical PC ? Either way, like I said, some AAA games flop on PC... some take a while to get momentum.. some are instant successes... just like on console.... its up to the developers to cater their game to the gamers. Skyrim is a perfect example of how developers crack both markets.

My concern has nothing to do with the platform, it's to do with the games being released on it. Over the course of the last generation I don't think anyone could deny the overwhelming influence multiplayer-centric heavy hitters such as CoD had on the market. Whether they were first person shooters or third person adventure games we saw multiplayer elements shoehorned in regardless of whether they fit or not. This obviously led to higher budgets, higher sales targets and ultimately, more expensive flops. My basic point amongst all of this is that I don't want to see the next fad for the coming generation be F2P and micro-transaction based gameplay. Nor do I want to see such facets becoming equally pervasive in genres they have no place in.

Don't get what your problem with F2p games is, some of the best games released over the last few years have been F2P but I understand your concern... saying that, i don't think there is any real need to worry that traditional single player games are at risk of being forced into this model. Deadspace 3 was a good example... of how it wont work, afaik it was a flop and received massive criticism over its use of micro transactions ?

But yes, PC gaming is stronger than it's ever been, or at least since the last time it was stronger than it's ever been, but my problem is that, according to this report at least, it's not because of things like the great service/sales provided by Steam and their counterparts or the resurgence of the indie development movement or indeed any particular advantage inherent to the PC as a platform. It's due to the revenues generated by a subset of games that are either derided by a huge number gamers on this site and others (that'd be your F2P or micro-transaction heavy-based games) or those that seem to appeal to the type of gamer that seems to really like paying for aesthetic items (and that'd be your MOBAs). Again, there's nothing wrong with fans of these genres being served but not, imo, if that level of success adversely affects other genres.

I think your putting too much on the shoulders of the F2P/Moba's. Yes they are massive, but if that report is correct then there still has to be an incredibly healthy market outside of them if its to be of the size reported.

gizmo wrote: »

This isn't really about a couple of titles though, it's about the entire top 20 in 2013 and the vast majority of them in 2014 so far. Not only that but many of these titles are, from the same report, deemed to be dominating everything else by an order of magnitude. I just don't see this as a particularly good situation for anyone who isn't a fan of online-orientated MOBA and F2P titles. It certainly doesn't indicate something so general as "PC games" outselling console games worldwide.

I forgot to point out that this quote was in terms of usage and player hours. Obviously a multiplayer game like LoL with some 30million active daily users is going to dominate the majority of games when it comes to this stat, why would you be surprised at that ? Its the exact same as how WoW used to do the same (And tbf probably still has incredible numbers in this area too) and how CoD does on the consoles... multiplayer games are not 10 hour games for most people... theres only so many hours a person can get out of even the best SP games.

beauf

Magill wrote: »

...... multiplayer games are not 10 hour games for most people... theres only so many hours a person can get out of even the best SP games.

I don't think there's anything like the the depth and variety of titles that there was in PC gaming heyday. Especially in SP. Which is why game time in SP has fallen off a cliff. The sales maybe bigger, number of players bigger, but they are all very derivative titles, all very similar, and similar MP.

Magill

beauf wrote: »

I don't think there's anything like the the depth and variety of titles that there was in PC gaming heyday. Especially in SP. Which is why game time in SP has fallen off a cliff. The sales maybe bigger, number of players bigger, but they are all very derivative titles, all very similar, and similar MP.

What ? That's the biggest load of tripe I've read in a while. Both your points are completely wrong and if anything it's the complete opposite.

C14N

I imagine that it means in terms of units instead of in terms of revenue. I buy tons of games on PC but I'm usually paying €5-10 for a PC game compared to €10-20 for a console game.