Nah, you can find good PC games that aren't rip-offs. Avoid anything EA makes.

The only problem with expansion packs is that the original game is unfinished, or they don't add very much. Stick with games that have trials, and good reviews, before buying.

EA makes some good games, but not enough to warrant buying more than one or two.

A game only needs a couple features, the question is: "Is the game the full length?". If it can keep you for 100+ hours, it's finished, regardless if it's pretty much just an interactive movie, with no depth, and you have only one or two commands available, versus a game with 20,000 unique things to do, but will only keep you long enough to try each. 

Bakers keep people alive. Artists make life worth living.

So who's ultimately more important



That's patently ludicrous. HL2 has about 20 hours of gameplay in it, and it's about as finished of a game as it gets. Would it have somehow been better if it had been 100 hours worth of levels? No. The gameplay would have gotten stale or they would have had to introduce too many different bits of gameplay into it, to the point were it would have been 3-4 games rather than just one.



Do you have to download drivers/patches when you drop a DVD into a DVD player? Your TiVo may get patched, but it does so automatically and when you're not actually using it. It doesn't stop and prompt you to go to a random site and download something. TVs do not need patches either, nor does your refrigerator, microwave, or stove.

Software that "just works" will always sell better than something that requires substantial effort to play. PC gamers have simply learned to put up with the crap just to play their games. Why should they have to?

That reminds me - just like PCs do, consoles get updated every couple of years. Nintendo is in its fifth generation (NES, SNES, N64, GameCube, Wii), PlayStation is in its third, and Xbox in its second. It appears that that you're spending money regularly on consoles (and their games) on a regular basis, just like PCs.

FYI, I probably spend less than than in a year on keeping my computer up to date. I'd say about $1000 every two years. Probably more today than a few years ago, since I have a full time job and can afford a bit more.



Every game on SDC, Impulse, and Steam gets updated automatically . PC games are at the point where I can click an icon and the game just works. I don't even have to bother looking for the right CD anymore.

On the other hand - have you seen how many games on the consoles are starting to get patches you can download online? Now that they're getting internet connectivity, they're beginning to see patches as well.



Windows does it automatically through Windows Update on my system. I don't have to touch anything.

I'd say that PCs are quickly getting to the point where they "just work," just like consoles supposedly do, especially now that online markets are flourishing.

Indeed, Consoles seem to have problems of their own - Three Red Rings of Death on the 360, anybody? At least when my PC's hardware breaks, I can fix or replace it easily.

I have to say, that yes i think pc gaming is dwindling, but not by marketing or prodution means, its all those hackers/pirates, there are tons of people who just downlaod an illegal copy of a game and cheat companies out of money. BUY your games don't steal them......

you must factor into the cost of the computer the fact taht you do more than just game. It is a MUST for today's work.

Also, consoles do have failures, its just a lot of people just accept it and work around it. Also, ps2s are infamous for having problems with reading after a while. My burnout disk is no longer read much to my disappointment.

That's just the console. They actually make most of their money by selling games.



My point is that, as far as ease of use is concerned, PCs and consoles are actually getting closer to each other. You no longer have to go through lots of hoops to buy, install, and play a game.



nVidia provides an automatic update utility, although I usually do the update manually. I'm not sure why they don't go through Windows Update, but theoretically they could.

Give Brad some time and he'll have automatic driver card updates hooked in to Impulse.

Seriously.

I'm not kidding.

He's in talks with both nVidia and ATi right now.

PC gaming? dying? not yet.

I love my ps3 and all, but I can't imagine trying to play a decent rts to tbs on it. RPGs suck on it, don't believe me? try Oblivion. Good game and all, but better on pc.

I look at it this way, as long as they WRITE the game on a pc, PLAYING the game on pc will always be a little faster, alittle more intuitive. If I want to play madden or any FPS, I go to the ps3. Anything else I play on the computer.

I will say this to devs tho. If you sell me an incomplete game on pc I'll be irritated. I'll spend 50 or 60 bucks on a good game, but not on a beta. Tweaks are one thing, overhauls and rereleases are another. Another thing is that if you're going to make a series, or join a series, don't make the game into something it wasn't in the first one. Take MOO/Starlords. All about researching that cool new gun you can stick on your fighter to go blast some nasties in tactical combat. MOO3-macromanagement at empire level and "formations" of ships that look pretty much the same, all in the name of keeping to the"storyline". Feh. Look at Civ now. You could learn how to play on Civ1, break out a copy of civ4 and pretty much jump in. It's prettier, a little more depth, a little smarter ai, but it's still the same game. If there's a sins 2 I expect a civ like evolution versus a Moo style redo.

(steps off of soapbox)

Yep, PC games require an obscene amount of setup. With only 8 GB free at my best times, I can't buy $60 games in their PC equivalent because they require four GB at least (or so I hope).

I never said it would die off, merely that it is dying, and has a potential to do so in the event of a catastrophe. It's simply likely that the fall (or exodus) of commercial titans will turn it into having 10% of the activity from said titans it used to have. This would leave an open-source and Indie majority.

Hey, you're forgetting, I'm more open-source/indie than commercial. Quite frankly, the profit devotion puts me off too. Quality suffers too much.

Yep, large-scale and profits-first means that you get a huge group of people coming up with as many ways as possible to make it impossible to play the game.

No, it means you make one good, playable game, and add in ads and a couple new features (cycling them in and out occasionally until they're forgotten), and building crappy game engines that allow you to swap models and gameplay features in and out to utilize franchises cheaply and efficiently while needing upgrades only once every five years when the consoles come out.