And Quake Wars. Crysis and UT3 /= the entirety of PC gaming, and I’m not sure why we should appoint those games as bellweathers of PC gaming’s health. Personally, I was never that excited for Crysis to begin with. It seemed like one of those titles where everyone was excited for the great engine, but you never heard much about the game. Ut3 I’ll probably pick up at some point, but right now I have an overabundance of great multiplayer shooters on my PC, so it’s not real high on my list.
There are definitely fewer PC titles released these days (and I suspect that the success of MMOROGs has a lot to do with that), but I think the primary effect of that has merely been to weed out a lot of the chaff, which one might argue isn’t such a bad thing. There have been some real gems among the titles that have come out in the past year. Only someone who isn’t paying much attention to PC gaming could possibly think that it’s all sloppy seconds from consoles and buggy Eastern European games. Add to Spoofy’s list:
Quake Wars
Armageddon Empires
World in Conflict
C&C 3: Tiberium Wars
Silent Hunter: Wolves of the Pacific
Supreme Commander
Lord of the Rings Online
Medieval II: Kingdoms
Civ IV: Beyond the Sword
NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer
And those (plus stuff that Spoofy already mentioned) are just games that were good–were also a number of AAA releases that turned out to be not so good, like Hellgate: London and Tabula Rasa.
If PC gaming is a wasteland, then it’s a pretty crowded wasteland.
Note- numbers don’t include online purchases such as through Steam and Popcap (which I believe to be a significant portion of sales). It also doesn’t account for subscription fees. If 9 million people pay $10 per month for WoW thats over a billion dollars in pc gaming revenue that isn’t included in these numbers.
According to the articles I read pc gaming had been going through a slow steady decline up until 2006. Im looking for 2007 to see if the growth trend continues. But either way I have to believe that over the past 2-3 years the percentage of revenue brought in through online distribution and subscription services is huge compared with (and probably causing) falling retail sales. If that assumption is correct then PC Gaming continues to grow substantially and is no fear of death.
Lastly a comment about WoW. Many think it is the savior of PC Gaming, obviously driving huge amounts of revenue. I honestly think the opposite and that its dominance is to much much of a good thing. I suspect that the billion dollars in subscriptions costs it pulls out of the gaming market and the general time it consumes of its players leads to them not buying other games. Competition is all well and good, but instead of having to choose between 2 new games this month WoW competes with all games games for years, turning players who reguarly bought 4-8 games a year into 1-2 game per year buyers.
What I want to know about PC game sales figures is: do the much-touted NPD’s take into account: digital downloads? how about games shipped from online retailers like GoGamer? Are those such miniscule portions of the market?
Orange Box (Portal!, TF2!, HL2:Ep2!)
Bioshock
Call of Duty 4
World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade
STALKER
The Witcher
Quake Wars
Armageddon Empires
World in Conflict
C&C 3: Tiberium Wars
Silent Hunter: Wolves of the Pacific
Supreme Commander
Lord of the Rings Online
Medieval II: Kingdoms
Civ IV: Beyond the Sword
NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer
PC Gaming: it’s in great shape if you like shooters, RTS titles and World of Warcraft.
Yeah. Even ignoring subscription revenue for online games (which probably more than doubles that NPD yearly revenue figure, when you take into account all online games and not just WoW), I suspect PC gaming is considerably more healthy than people think. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if direct sales and digital downloads added another 30% (or more) to that figure. The widespread penetration of broadband has turned direct distribution into a very viable business model.
That said, the idea that the GfW initiative has had much effect on PC gaming is laughable. GfW has got to be the most half-hearted and utterly forgettable promotional campaign in the history of gaming. Which is pretty much exactly what I expected it to be, but still.
The titles on that list include multiple RPGs, several turn-based strategy games, a turn-based/realtime hybrid strategy game, a naval simulation, and two MMOs that aren’t WoW. Go join Chris in the penalty box.
Personally, I’ve bought 10-12 pc games over the past couple years, and only 2 or 3 came in a box. I really dislike retail, saves me a 45 minute trip to BB (and often some $$) and all I end up with is an unpredictable stocking situation, and some packing to throw away.
That being said, it has shit to do with GFW, I love buying things on steam… I think UT3 would have sold twice as many copies easily if it had steam integration a la TF2.
EDIT: oh yeah, wow to the news flash that PC has FPS’s, RTS’s, and MMO’s on lockdown (at least in terms of # and quality of games produced for). Welcome to all of gaming history, as well as the forseeable future? You did forget it also dominates casual games (wii be damned, yahoo boggle addicts my aunts) and gambling as well.
Out of sixteen games, I count five shooters, four RTS titles, one Civilization expansion pack, two World of Warcrafts, two RPGs, one sub simulator, and one indie game that appears to be based on collectible card games.
I don’t really see a reason to retract my statement.
11/16 games on the list are RTSes, WoWs or shooters.
Of the remaining five, two are expansion packs, one is badly translated, and one is a fucking sub simulator.
Just to jump on the anecdote train, I haven’t bought a PC game in a box in 8 months or so, but I have bought quite a few PC games during that time through Steam or some other internet distribution method.
