Armchair Speculation Pt 2

by electricpirate , Friday, March 01, 2013, 11:54 (4071 days ago) @ narcogen

I don't think that can be substantiated.

These sorts of titles certainly do make up a lot of the PC sales that do exist. (Although Minecraft also did really, really well on XBLA as well.) Myself, I started playing on XBLA and moved over to my Mac so I could access mods.

But it's a different thing to say that indies and experimental games and models are driving PC sales than to say they are driving PC growth as a platform.

I think it can be easily substantiated, look at the top 5 PC games being played online, 3 out of the top 5 came from independant/smaller developers. 4 out of the top 10 are Free to play, and most of them aren't on consoles. I overfocussed on Indy/Experimental games there, I should have put in, Indy/ experimental business models.
(link)

It's not really growing, though. It's gaining in comparison to the console markets, which are slowing at the end of a cycle. As a platform, Windows (which is really what you mean when you say PC gaming) is not really growing as a platform for gaming. It is being beat out by consoles and now, in past few years, mobile devices and tablets.

I'd disagree with that, Here's a chart of revenue. http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/97047-thank-you-farmville-pc-gaming-will-soon-overtake-consoles

PC gaming has grown ~30 percent in the last 6 years, while consoles have basically been stagnant. That is Tremendous growth, and it's growth that EA has also pointed out.

Given that the installed userbase of windows is so fricken huge, I don't think looking at windows platform growth is instructive, focusing on actual revenues is more important.

Those platforms will grow, but as other kinds of devices take up residence in niches that before would have had PCs in them, and expand to fill other niches that PCs never could, we may in the future look back at some point around this time and realize that this was the peak for traditional PCs-- not just for gaming, but for a whole range of applications. These kinds of shifts-- from general purpose to specific purpose and back again-- tend to be cyclical, but I think we're still at the beginning of a special purpose cycle, not heading back the other way yet.

I actually think you are right in this, the number of PCs in the wild is going to go down, and tablet/smartphones/smart Tvs etc will rise.

As it applies to gaming, I'm not sure that this fact necessarily matters. Looking again at the most popular online PC games, those aren't casual games, these are very niche games, that cater to a really big Niche. I mean, League of legends alone has nearly as many active players as Xbox Live, and LoL is about as hardcore as can be (Link). As long as the gamers playing on PC are there (and they seem to be growing, or at least spending more) the trajectory of windows as a platform is less important.

I pretty much expect it to be reversed entirely, at least in terms of market share. That doesn't mean that PC games won't have an absolute increase in titles sold, year over year, or that platforms like Steam and Origin won't continue to increase their market share, but I think by the time that the current consoles are so old that no more new releases are coming out, the new consoles will have enough installed base to take up the slack. Perhaps 2-3 years.

Let's come back in 2-3 years. I'll say in 2-3 years, PC gaming revenue will be on par with console revenue. Deal?

I think that's only part of it. I don't really think Bungie is that bottom-line motivated, although they are not immune to commercial considerations. It'd be silly to think so.

I think what they're looking at is accessibility. Matchmaking is much more accessible than a server list, but a system that does matchmaking behind the scenes is even more so. I think Bungie is very aware of how the multiplayer Halo community is perceived, and how much of those interactions are colored by the nature of the experience. I think Bungie wants to make a cooperative experience just as accessible, and just as seminal, as the solo and vs multiplayer experiences are.

True, I don't think I phrased that well. Here's what I mean, You could achieve what Bungie is attempting with a well designed standard client-server system, and just showing players those that fit the matchmaking criteria. The Hocus pocus of constant connection swapping seamlessly *seems* like it's there to keep costs down. The matchmaking, and the idea of the game nudging us into these great multiplayer moments is what's exciting though. I Lumped in implementation tech with game design there. Shame on me ;).

Blah, I have more to say, but I'm running up against the character limit. Who set the DB up with a fixed VARCHAR field? ;)