I want to, I really want to “stick it to the man”. I didn’t buy/download Mass Effect and Spore at all. I tried to stay away.

But Far Cry 2 entices me too, and it got me thinking. Of course there will be 20 lemons for every good game out there that I want to buy and play. Will I no longer be able to enjoy all the latest games due to DRM and DLC? I do enjoy sites like gog.com and also all the indie devs out there, who thankfully ship their games without any DRM or minimal DRM. But at the same time, I also would like to play and enjoy the current batch of games.

My solution now is probably to buy and play as per normal, but at the same time, download a hack for the exe or mini-image from gamecopyworld or gameburnworld, just in case the publisher decides to shut down the activation server for whatever reason.

This is really not elegant, and I feel that I am still directly or indirectly contributing to the whole mess.

A friend of mine recently asked why I bothered to search for a crack since I had already bought the game and it’s highly unlikely that the publishers will shut down the activation servers, if at all. I replied that’s exactly what the customers of MSN music, Yahoo music and Walmart online MP3 store thought too.

But, But, But….
Then I’d have to buy (aquire) one of those Television Things…
NOOoooooooooooooooooooo.!.
I’ll keep my brain cells, what I have left of them. Thank-You.
Seriosly, The Chess board works fine. Doesn’t even need electricity. How about that for ‘CO²’ Free, ‘Green’ friendly. (And reqirest brain cells, – the original GPU – Physics Prosessor.) -d

I think the death of commercial PC gaming will put us back in a state similar to the 70s and early 80s where only the passionate were writing games. People won’t stop writing games for the platform, but without the franchises and powerhouse graphics, physics, and sound engines, we may see a little more focus on gameplay. Or maybe I’m just nostalgic.

Why would the death of PC gaming help Linux? Nobody is going to make commercial Linux-only games, so if Windows games disappear, the already small Linux share won’t stand a chance.

I for one didn’t buy any console since the PSOne, and I’m not planning to do so.
The major “disadvantage” in Consoles VS PC (the price) is /bullshit/. For most people the question isn’t “should I buy a PC or a Console” but “should I buy a PC with a bad graphic card and a Console or a PC with a good graphic card”.
I bought a PC four years ago (and it wasn’t a killer) and since then I only needed to upgrade the graphics card ($70) and I can play CoD4.
Sure, I don’t play it in max settings, but that’s a choice you have in PC.

Other thing that bugs me is today’s bad console hardware: XBox had the Red Ring of Death, PS3 has the 80010514 error, and the repair price is often through the roof.
My N64 is more than 10 years old and still plays as well as the first time.

My only problem is that I would like to help more the companies who still make great PC games (and especially Linux games), but I lack funds, so I have to choose carefully those I can afford to help, and I tend to prefer small companies like Introvision.

I just sold my game PC and bought an XBox. I started PC gaming in the early 80’s. I fell in love with Kings Quests, Starflight, Wasteland, Magic Candle, etc. Those were the days. I stayed loyal for years. About the time Doom came out, the hardware upgrade race started in earnest. I kept up through the Fallouts and Baldur’s Gates and No One Lives Forevers, and Battlefields. Then Fallout 3 came out and the PC I spent $2000 on less than two years ago barely met specs. The upgrade cost a little less than an XBox, which is the default platform, has all the downloadable content, plays all the old XBox games which I can get used, etc. On top of that, I find I’m buying fewer and fewer PC games. Because many of them suck or are released for the consoles with buggy PC ports. At this point, I want PC gaming to die so that Linux gaming can pick up the slack with creative, interesting, original content (no more “It’s like F.E.A.R. meets Battlefield meets Oblivion . . .” garbage). I want some new ideas and I want to see them on a platform I love.

There is still the “go indie” part of the PC segment. Ok, you can say “it’s crap” or “but it is only casual games!”. It isn’t. Oh, wait – there are lots of indie crap, and lots of indie casual. But this has *very much* to do with that abstract idea called money.

This is seems to me to be solved in indie development by “make small games” (or casual, if you want). This take less time, and is thus survivable.

Solution two seems to be; make larger and larger games, living on the (hopefully) incoming profit from the earlier games. This has been done successfully by Spiderweb and Positech (cliffski), among others.

Thirdly, there are a successful example of iterative development; Mount and Blade. Give players something small for free, building upon it until you can start taking money for it. Though I’m not sure if it still is termed indie; if it is not – then it is a success story.

I’m also looking forward to seeing how Rampant Games’ Frayed Knights episodic format will work out.

People care; if (good) AAA games stop arriving for the PC, I’m sure open source engines will get better. Then it will be open for content deliverers to charge for content and, hopefully, donate parts of their profit back to the engine devs.

Naïve and optimistic? Perhaps, but open source works for applications – why not for games?