Game Rants 08.15.06: The Death of PC Gaming
Posted by Will Scott on 08.15.2006
Is PC gaming killing itself? Take a look and find out.
Like all gamers, I occasionally get a bit…passionate about my hobby, and sometimes I spend way too much time thinking about the ups and downs of gaming. From time to time, I even give a bit more thought than "this sucks" or "this is cool" – and thus a rant is born.
If it's here, it's just my opinion. You might agree, you might disagree, but hopefully it'll get you thinking about it. Every week, it'll be a different game-related topic (except, you know, when it says it's part X of a series…maybe this was a bad note to start on…) and every week I'll try to provide a little bit of background before I get started. After this, hopefully, I'll even put in some of your comments (positive or negative) before I move on.
Anyway, I'm Will Scott, and here's this week's Rant:
The Death of PC Gaming, Part One
The PC and computer games have gone hand in hand since before the wide distribution of the personal computer, indeed back to SpaceWar in the 1960s. It's a pretty logical connection to make – most Americans have at least one computer in their household, so it's not like any extra money is needed to "get started" in the computer gaming world. Why, then, are computer game sales starting to lose ground? Is it competition from the consoles? Is there are a problem with the computer games themselves? In this day and age of the wired household, why are people starting to turn more away from the computer towards the console? Well, sit back and relax, and we'll try to figure out the problem ourselves.
Issue #1: Keeping up with the Doomses.
The first issue in PC gaming is the dreaded "little white box" – the box on the back or side of every computer game the details the recommended and minimum requirements to play the game. Most of us (i.e., those of us without a super-ultra-gaming rig) have to check out this box at least once every few years. From time to time, there's a standout game so far above the specifications of our measly little machine that there's just no way we can run it – I first encountered this monster with SimCity 3000 several years back (it required 100 MB, the horror!), and more recently with titles like Doom 3 and Oblivion. As computers grow more and more advanced, gaming technology takes advantaged of the changes, as well it should. Unfortunately for computer gamers, this requires a serious bit of money, every so often.
Alright, let's put ourselves in the situation, a couple years down the road: let's say Valve releases Half-Life 3 way ahead of schedule, and it's going to require us to upgrade a couple of key components on our computer. Let's even be absurd, and assume we need the current TOP OF THE LINE components. This isn't going to be cheap, but let's get to work. According to Best Buy , we're going to run about $499 for a Radeon X1900, which ATI.com cites as their best graphics card. At this point, we've actually surpassed the cost of the X-Box 360, the most expensive system currently on the market. Hold on to that thought, we're coming back to it later. We've got our $500 graphics card in hand, but let's assume we actually need a better processor, too. According to Best Buy, we can pick ourselves up a spiffy new AMD Athlon Dual Core Processor for another $429.99. We're at nearly a thousand dollars, and we haven't even gone in to the other fun stuff we might need…of course, at this point, we might think to ourselves, "heck, why don't I just buy a new gaming PC?" Well, that's actually cheaper (but not quite as good) – we can pick up a gaming rig from Dell.com for about $650 with the dual core processor but only a 128MB graphics card. Let's assume this is workable for us…but you know what?
WE STILL SPENT AT LEAST $150 MORE THAN THE COST OF AN X-BOX 360!
That's right ladies and gents, to upgrade to our new gaming rig (not nearly the best, but an affordable one), we're going to be out the cost of a tricked-out 360 and two games. Luckily, we won't have to do this too often – every four to five years seems to be the standard on this one, and minor upgrades over time, while still costly, help PC gamers avoid the sticker shock of buying a new machine every half a decade. However, PC gamers, once they get past the first year or so of having the "best" gaming rig, need to keep looking at the box . Face it, people (gamers included) don't really like dealing with that much complexity, and they REALLY don' like dealing with that kind of expenditure. Even gamers, famed for our throwing away of disposable income, can't usually afford to easily shell out that kind of dough. So, gamers are forced to choose how to spend their money, and often they've got to balance it out against a console.
The main competitor of the PC, the video game console, goes through a cycle fairly similar to the PC. Consoles get a new iteration about once every six years (based on Sony's development cycle – Playstation in 1994, PS2 in 2000, PS3 possibly in 2006/7). The price point on these systems is markedly lower – the X-Box 360 is between $300 and $400, and the PS3 is set to retail at a price point of around $599. Completely tricked out with all the necessities, the price of an X-Box 360 plus three of the most expensive controllers is still only going to run about $550, with the PS3 assumedly costing around $650 with a second controller. The third "next gen" system, the Nintendo Wii, is set to retail for even less. Even when the price points begin to approach the same, there's still a difference. Remember how we put together those top of the line components earlier?
That's what we've got to compare the systems to, because the consoles will continue to run every game developed for them through the duration of the six year cycle – analogous to purchasing the "best" PC parts that can handle the escalating requirements. At that point, the price difference sets in – and PC gamers start to get the short end of the stick. There used to be some very worthwhile differences that helped the PC. The first of which is backwards compatibility – the ability to play older games. PCs have pretty much always had this capability, since you could always count on playing your old games on your new computer. Recently, though, consoles are taking away this edge by incorporating backwards compatibility in to their own systems, starting with the PS2's ability to play Playstation games. Cutting this edge means that console gamers have access to a library of games when buying the system, eliminating a fairly common excuse amongst console buyers for why they don't immediately purchase the latest version. This also cuts down on the reliability of the PC as the only "stable" gaming platform.
The PC's other major selling point was the games released – where else could you get Real Time Strategy Games, the very unique First Person Shooters, and the various other games you could "only" play on the PC? Well…if you ask it today, the answer is "on the console".
But that's another rant.
Agree? Disagree? Think I'm a moron? Drop me a line at thepariaheffect@yahoo.com and let me know.
