Is pc Gaming Dead?

Over the years I have watched the pc video game section dwindle down to almost nothing.

Ten years ago it was two rows in the electronics section at Wal~mart. Now it is half a row, at the ones that even carry pc. That of course is after they share the rack with software, and some psp accessories. At Game Stop , pc games had a whole wall 4 years ago, and two racks on the floor. Now , pc gaming is one side of a floor display rack.

It’s not even the whole rack. Just one side. It seems that the console companies have made a great push and have nearly removed all of the pc games. You must figure that the most popular operating system, has one of the two dominant consoles, you can see why game makers don’t make pc video games.

now I quote myself from the gtaforum.com  thread.

On the left side of the rack is like two pins to hang psp junk on.
On the back is a bunch of console accessories ( well you know
a handful of the stuff none really buys like game sleeves and
cloth controller warmers) on the right side is new releases mixed
with current popular for 360.

I find it a disgrace.
The display shows a video game that is older than 4 years old.
a video game that is now the stereo type of all pc gamers.

When I walked up to the counter to confirm, the kid asked me
“well what are you looking for?”
I responded ” something I haven’t played before”

Are we being dumbed down?  are we being reduced of our resources?  there could be a whole lot more to it than just ” no one plays games on computers anymore”  google.

*****Updated *****
Piracy is a fact.
But pc gaming piracy being a fact is an exaggeration.
There are not near as many people out there willing to dl a video game for a pc
as there are ones who are willing to dl one for a console. I know a bunch of people
who use me as their computer guy, yet they had someone else crack their xbox
so it will play burned games and directly run iso from an emulated drive.

Come on, what other reason you need a 180 gig hd on a fricken console?????

See console companies throw up this big stink “make games for us to stop piracy”
but really in the end, it’s just a smear campaign to get to the top of selling lists.

Go to any game shop in the usa, you will see that if they have pc games, it is one tiny
rack on the floor. If you are lucky, pc games are both sides of that rack. don’t count
on it though. Ok you can raise your fist in triumph and scream d2d or steam.

But, how many games are available through microslops xboxlive? I know you can sample
but can’t you also buy?
If microslop stopped pc gaming on their o/s platform, it in theory would only solidify the sales
for their console. This of course would allow them to raise their price as high as they want.
Oh wait, they thought it was time already a couple years ago. Would have worked too if not
for the red ring of death.
Now the price is way down where it should have been to begin with. We all know the quality of
consoles suck, but look at who the target market is. people who know nothing of tech and live
by the code of “it’s expensive so it must be good”. When in fact the cooling sucked because of
no actual direct flow of air on the cpu heatsink and hardly any cooling for the video. the video
was next to the power source absorbing any heat that can dissipate from the power source.

See it’s all marketing. sure they can’t just come out and say “gaming on pc sucks, we rule buy our stuff”
it has to be gradual, kinda like a slow brain wash. one commercial shows it being easy, another
commercial shows it being small and pretty, then a mention of “unique” disks for games, it sounds
solid…
It’s just sales. and pc gaming is being pushed off the planet by it. deal with it. understand that
computers will upgrade slower and technology will nearly run at a trickle.
why? because we aren’t going to be here to say “hey the game would run smoother if you just blah blah”
Our kids will be dumbed down.
reduced to three buttons to mash and graphics only as good as they are now.
*****Updated *****

No more fees for Windows live gamers

Microsoft said late Tuesday that it will no longer charge a fee for PC game players who wish to connect with each other over the company’s Games For Windows Live online service.Games For Windows Live is “now offering completely free online multiplayer” service, Microsoft said in a statement posted on the service’s Web site. The company previously charged a monthly fee of $7.99. However, the emergence of several free online gaming services may have prompted Microsoft to drop the monthly charge.

.

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Microsoft introduced the Games For Windows program last year in an effort to bring console-like dependability to the PC gaming market. Titles bearing the Games For Windows logo are guaranteed to be playable online or offline on systems that meet certain specifications, according to Microsoft

Source: http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=209600008&subSection=News

I will be passing this on to my kid. I found this on Digg.com

A Day With Vista

Off the bat, I have to tell you, I do not have the fastest or the best machine in the world.
I have a machine that is at the max processor and ram for the motherboard’s capability.
Here are the specs for the machine I am using.
Sis 755 A-2 Motherboard
Sempron 3400+ 64 bit Processor
Nvidia 7600GS 512 mb
2 Gigs kingston 3200 ddr Memory
Sony cd/dvd burner
500 watt power supply

Ok for the past 7 or 8 years, The way I have benchmarked computers and operating systems Would be by playing Grand Theft auto III.
Of course I have since then added vice city and San Andreas to the mix. But GTAIII Is the benchmark for me. If you do not like the game sorry
But please hang with me on this.
For a long time I fought trying to make my computers strong and sturdy enough to handle the demands this game calls out. Computers these days are actually strong enough to handle these demands.
After the install of just straight vista drivers I went to pcpitsop and did my first benchmark of my machine. The score was pathetic. I kind of knew what would happen after I installed gtaIII, But I go ahead and start the game. Before the load screen I get a notice saying that there is some sort of dll missing (sorry all, I did not write it down) . I then hear the game start up but minimized in the task bar. I click the notification and the game takes over the screen. I see this look that took me back to the days of 256 megs ram and nvidia 440 on a 800 meg processor. This game looked wretched. But what do you expect with o/s drivers and not vendor drivers? Well since it’s a newer o/s than XP, I would expect better results than xp, not similar to win 98 on a crap machine. Very pixilated simi laggy but not as laggy as you would think with the way it looked.
After the drivers had been installed I start GTAIII again. Again it gave me the notice of missing dll. When the unnamed player in gtaIII walked out of his hide out I noticed artifacts. The garage was covered with imaging from the walls adjacent to the Entry to the garage. The player had openings so you could see through him in many places. I moved on and walked into the garage and drove the banshee down the ocean blvd to check how the game (typically) lags (with bad bad drivers or bad hardware) as you drive under objects, like the over head train, and trees and bridge. The game was very jaggedly laggy and objects where not being displayed properly.
After the gtaIII test I tried the other two Grand Theft Auto games and got the same mess. I swear the game looks better and plays better on linux with just the linux basic drivers, but the lag is way worse on Linux.
So I did searches for help forums and the like. I found that allot of people with the 7000 series nvidia video cards had similar issues. I never found a solution that worked. No, using older drivers did not help. Until sis/ecs releases more than one gart driver I am pretty much stuck in the same spot.

I did notice that the fonts on websites looked a bit bigger than when on xp.
As much as I enjoyed the looks of Aero (makes me think of Ubuntu) I decided to try turning it off. I used Black Viper’s tips from his tweak site .
The game did not change. and my bench score on pcpitstop only went up 10 points from the first test with base drivers.

Vista test was done 3/29/08. So please wait a few months before you tell me they fixed the operating system. I did try all online update and nothing got better that I could witness myself.
I am now back on xp and my machine runs three times a fast. using the same direct version as I used on vista.. 9.0c