Research analyst: Retail PC gaming IS dying

Hell yeah. Keep up the doom and gloom. The fact that the article never once mentions anything about digital makes the writer's credibility very suspect.

Though for people that really do like retail games then I guess they're SOL.

Bite me.

The minute distribution becomes entirely digital, I'll stop buying new games.

visit my blog!

^ Likewise.

I haven't bought a PC game outside of Steam for ages.  ^*

Most games are already devoid of feelies, and sometimes even lack a dead-tree manual ("classics" re-editions always do).

The exception is, of course, gifts (but personnally I don't buy PC games as gifts, I tend to only buy books (and some tabletop/board/card games) these days).

edited 1st Mar '11 12:59:45 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Digital distribution is the worst thing to happen to the video game industry yet.

I don't think so: We lost nothing we hadn't already lost (though of course, it makes it a lot harder for those things to come back).

edited 1st Mar '11 1:23:43 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Well, the problem is that all the downloadable versions of PC games from the Pirate Bay work absolutely fine. If they could find a way to not become so dependent on having the software/CD images to work (which can be simulated with Power ISO), and make it linkable to a medium that the company can manage themselves (AKA, online accounts or active internet connection to a server the company owns), then the amount of piracy will decrease (very minimally).

Troper Page

Still prefer owning a physical copy of my product instead of having to rely upon a virtual copy. If anything ever happens to my account or I run out of "installs" because of some stupid DRM bug, then I might end up losing my game for good. At least I can try to "crack" the DRM on a physical copy to make it playable again if something bad ever happens, though fortunately I've never had to deal with that situation yet.

"Research analyst" and I stopped reading right there.........

A guy called dvorak is tired. Tired of humanity not wanting to change to improve itself. Quite the sad tale.

Good to know.

Troper Page

Uhm, definitely not. How often we have seen games that require a PC much more powerful than the other hardwares. I once knew a programmer (he now works at Codemasters) who explained a problem of engines on PC, the necessity to have them adapt to several configurations and components, the opposite of the single, closed system consoles are. This requires a lot more code which, in turn, makes the engine heavier. Mind you, this doesn't stop the good programmers from making good PC versions but might help understand why games running on now half a decade old consoles require high-end machines to look at least as good on the PC.

That's the only way I buy games. And the only way I want to buy games. I don't trust virtual copies at all. The day physical copies are dead is the day, I stop buying games.

But I miss the old boxes of the eighties and (early/mid) nineties. And that's not just because of Nostalgia Filter...

edited 1st Mar '11 4:25:45 AM by Nyarly

People aren't as awful as the internet makes them out to be.

Not for the past two years it ain't, unless a particular porting team had crazy trouble (MGS 2, we're looking at you!). It was that way before, yes, where you'd have Game A and Game B both come from the X360 and A would have better graphics and LOWER system requirements, but not anymore, at least as far as my previous rig was concerned (P4 single-core, 1,5 Gb RAM, GF 6600 with 256 video RAM).

Videogames do not make you a worse person... Than you already are.

I prefer physical copies, myself. I have no problem with digital distribution, though; I just usually don't have the means (Wi-Fi) to take advantage of it.

I sometimes prefer physical copies, but lately I've run into this little problem where I can't find the damned things when I want to. Also, as certain consoles have become outmoded, my library of games for (say) Genesis has flowed over to the emulation side, since there's no way I'm going to carry around all of those old cartridges while I'm still mobile. Maybe when I settle down again, I'll hook it up to some massive entertainment center in the main room and hide the older ones behind wooden cabinets so most people don't realize they're there.

I would rather retail gaming in general not die. I know PC games are basically gone, as they rarely if ever appear in smaller stores, and larger stores have an ever-shrinking space available for them. Still, if the retail end of things dies out, a lot of specialist stores are going to disappear.

There has to be some sort of middle ground we can manage.

Sakamoto demands an explanation for this shit.

He must have been an analyst to pull that article out of his ass. Digital distribution. It is the future.

I like physical copies myself for console games, in part because I like having a collection.

That said, saying that digital distribution is the worst thing to happen to gaming is bollocks. It's certainly not perfect, and there's a few huge benefits to it. For one, it means independent game development studios can actually afford get their games onto the market. I somewhat doubt we'd see series like Suguri, Minecraft, A.R.E.S.: Extinction Agenda, and the like being released here if it wasn't for digital distribution.

edited 1st Mar '11 8:36:33 AM by Miijhal

Back when I was collecting PS 2 fighters and SHMUPS, I used to like the boxes because of the artwork. Now with IS Os, I have SOOO much more shelf space, so it evens out.

I hope that when the inevitable day comes that video games aren't sold on physical media any more, that they still sell boxes with feelies and an activation code, even if it's at a premium. I don't mind not owning the disk to my games, but I sure want an awesome-looking box and instruction manual...

And "Reality" is unveiled. What did it want...? What did it see...? What did it hear...? What did it think...? What did it do...?

Just wait til having the code on your machine is a thing of the past, with Gaikai allowing you to play Mass Effect 2 on a live VM stream.

Jonah Falcon

I love Steam. Once I have actually money of my own to spend, I look forward to December...

Or the summer perhaps?

I now go by Graf von Tirol.

That works, too.

Frankly, I don't think physical media is going away anytime soon. Aside from the fact that decent connections still aren't common enough for that to work, there's the issue of piracy. The more consoles become like computers, the easier piracy becomes. Developers and publishers don't want that.

I like physical copies and manuals =/ I don't mind the pc games being digital(though, it annoys me when they happens to be games that needs manuals...), but I will became mad if console games become completely digital..