I’m sorry to say but PC gaming “is” in fact dying. Take a look at the list of titles being released for 2008. There really isn’t much to get excited about at all. I see Warhammer being the only one. Other than that, you really have ports from already successful console titles. (And we all know how well ports work. Ok, sometimes you get a great port, but it’s pretty rare.)

Huxley has been pushed back, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Starcraft 2 and WoW: WotLK will be pushed into 2009. Look at the list of releases for the PS3/360 and then compare them with the PC. It’s really sad.

A Battlefield game for the console but not for the PC. That is just wrong on so many levels. UT3 was clearly designed for the console before the PC, again, such a sad day when past PC dominant games are starting to take a back seat to the consoles.

About the only thing I play on my PC now is Call of Duty 4, and the only reason I do so is because I can’t stand playing with a controller. Other than that, the game looks a lot better on my PS3 with a 37″ HDTV vs. my current rig. Granted it’s a bit outdated, it still runs CoD4 with most of the settings maxed.

I just think that developers are the problem here. They see the money in the market of the consoles and PC’s are now becoming the after thought. MMO’s are going to be the only thing PC gamers have left.

Such a sad state. I need my mouse and KB to frag! :(

@vacri – I keep hearing about the Dwarf fortress. I will need to check it out. I’m not that big into strategy games but my brother is so maybe I can infect him :P

@Muhammad – thanks for the link to Rampart games. I will definitely check it out. Indy games FTW!

@Jaba – LOL, sorry. I was totally convinced it was Jabba as in Jabba the Hutt. Believe it or not, he does have a following out there. :P

@Mckenzie – well, installing linux on things became sort of an art over the years. There are few electronic devices out there that can’t run some sort of linux based OS. Last time I checked, regular release of Ubuntu will actually install and run on a PS3 without major tinkering. :)

Xbox controllers can be connected too USB because the Xbox controller port is actaully a cleverery disguised USB port. An Xbox is a scaled down cut back PC- Hence it’s easily possible too convert it too one by ripping out the HD and installing one with Xboxlinux on.

Never too late for a game at StarCraft. SC2 seems to be simply GREAT (check it out on youtube), but meanwhile SC has earned his name…
[OT] I’m not linked with “The Hutt” in any sense, my nick is about the “Jabawack”, or “Jabberwocky” :D I really don’t like much Hutt-slug, does anybody? :D [/OT]

Forgot to add, for the benefit of those who don’t know, a good place I’ve found recently for indie games would be Rampant Games. There are quite a number of hidden gems there too. Discovered Eschalon: Book 1 from that site.

@ vacri: Windows 2003 has official PAE support. I’ve also just recently installed RHEL5 32-bit on 2 servers with 8GB ram at my workplace, but you will need to download the kernel with PAE. I’ve read some articles on the web on turning on PAE for Vista (but none so far for XP), but since it’s not a supported feature, I’m not sure how stable it will be.

Yeah, the money factor is true. I was a bit sad when EA bought Maxis. I had so much high hopes for Spore. Now, I’m scared it will end up like another Bio-Shock fiasco.

Thanks for the Dwarf Fortress recommendation! I’ll be sure to check it out!

I just found out that you can compile a 32-bit kernel in linux to use PAE which allows the use of RAM past 4GB – a friend just did it with an 8GB ram machine. So if your cpu has PAE flags, you can do it. Theoretically Windows could do it but… then they lose leverage to make you buy another copy.

@Mackenzie
What you just did was a beautiful example of a strawman argument.

@Muhammad
I have to agree on the increasing monoculture in gaming. To me, gameplay is king, graphics a distant second. Given that I like strategy/resource management games, I like PC gaming, because no-one else has much of a range in that area. Plus I get most console games on the PC anyway, regardless of which console they’re originally released on.

Part of the reason why gameplay has taken a backseat is because games software is such a big business now that the folks with marketing dollars don’t want to gamble. They want tried-and-true formulas. So here comes another graphics-intensive FPS/sports sim.

If you’re into a great example of gameplay over graphics, try Dwarf Fortress. Freeware, beta stage, only a year old or so. ASCII-style graphics, and a learning curve like a brick wall… but if you like strategy/management games, it will own your life for a while. So far I haven’t met a single Dwarf Fortress lover that hasn’t sworn violently at the person that introduced them to it. All this in a 2.5mb game (5mb with music). And for the mousecontrol haters out there, you never need touch the mouse :)

@Muhammad – very good point. The quality of games does seem to decrease. But maybe it’s just an illusion because the shallow but pretty looking games get all the hype and media attention.

@Geoff – oh… Hmm… I think I wanted to say DRM in there and then forgot. But I guess now we could just go with what Muhammad said – the pursuit of graphical perfection at the cost of neglecting game play.

So what’s the second thing that may harm PC gaming in the future? The 4GB memory limit?

Three cheers for PC games! Even though Doom3 is the newest game I can run without buying new hardware!

@ Mackenzie: Hi dude! I’m not here to bash your posts or anything, but if you had been offended by mine in the other blog post of Luke’s, I apologize. I

@ Luke’s post: I think PC gaming in general is not dead. I’ve just read that Blizzard-Activision just said that their subscription base for World of Warcraft has reached 10 million, a number unprecedented in previous MMOs. Is that number real? They’re making more than a billion dollars in revenue every year! The “PC gaming is dead” cry is heard approximately every 4-5 years, when a new gen console comes out. But each time, it has prevailed on, unabated.

However, i do think good games for PC are dying.

My gaming career started when I was 9 or 10, with the Sega Genesis console. From there, my dad’s boss at the time donated his old PC to him which my dad gave to me, an ancient 386 at the time when Pentiums were just about coming out. It was my first foray into PC gaming. And I’ve never looked back since.

There are some games I absolutely loved since then. XCOM: Ufo Defense (adapted to run in XP now), Star Control 2 (now released as freeware under the name “The UrQuan Masters”), Civilisation, Simcity, Transport Tycoon… the list will go on.

Today, gaming has reached mass appeal and the PC industry has thrived in its wake. But to me, it has just been one fancy graphical application after another. There have been some gems in there: Command & Conquer, Warcraft 2, Baldur’s Gate (1 & 2), Diablo 2 (median 2008 mod looks great), Fallout, etc. But somehow, lately, I’ve been having trouble finding games to play.

I just don’t buy into this whole graphical debacle that gaming has become. A game sucks just because the graphics suck. A game is awesome because the game looks awesome. There seems to be some shift somewhere in the past: improving graphics became more important than improving gameplay. Oblivion is a good example. Graphics are killer for an RPG. The world is huge. But I had to use a few user created mods to make it a nice game to play. I always wondered why the devs thought the world leveling with you would be a good touch.

Sigh. To me, the PC gaming scene is dwindling down to dumb, uses-less-imagination, leet-graphics, FPS-like genre.

Lucky me, there’s hope! For every 10 “Crysis”-es, there’s always “Eschalon: Book 1”. For each “Hellgate: London”-s, there’s “The Witcher”. In between, I kill time by playing (and dying in) Madness Interactive or I Want To Be The Guy (thanks for this Luke!).