PC gaming stronger than ever! 24 billion dollar a year revenue

Carfax83

Diamond Member
Nov 1, 2010
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PC Gaming is open, it’s high powered, it’s flexible, moddable, malleable, it’s not "one size fits all," it’s gaming greatest breeding ground for experimentation and original ideas. There’s no platform that offers the same amount of choice, value, variety and performance as PC gaming.
Higby also mentioned that piracy has been dropping due to games moving online and on new business platforms, enabling developers to actually run a company off of making PC games. Roberts agreed, also mentioning the shift to digital distribution as a positive aspect for developers as it cuts out the middleman and reduces piracy.
Source

Interestingly, they claim that piracy is in decline. I can well believe that, as the games are so big these days, that downloading them is now much more problematic for the majority of the people that pirate games. The latest big AAA games I've noticed are hitting around 25GB and up now, which is a huge file to download on slower VPN protected torrents. Not only does it take a lot more time, but the chances of something going wrong with the download is significantly increased as well. The increased use of 64 bit exes is going to increase file size even further, as developers start to take advantage of the greater memory space to leverage bigger and more complex games.

All of that is counterbalanced against the ease and convenience of using digital distribution platforms like Origin, Steam, Uplay etcetera which have quick download speeds, and have really good sales and free games.. And governments in Western developed nations are uniformly cracking down on piracy..

At any rate, it's good to hear that the PC gaming industry is doing well, especially with the lackluster performance of the overall PC market.. :cool:
 

CPA

Elite Member
Nov 19, 2001
30,322
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Nice to read about the excitement around the future of PC gaming, but that article was horribly written.
 

norseamd

Lifer
Dec 13, 2013
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And governments in Western developed nations are uniformly cracking down on piracy..

no western governments are increasingly more corrupt

and they will pirate just because of something was unethical as a law
 

Moe Zart

Member
Apr 5, 2014
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The latest big AAA games I've noticed are hitting around 25GB and up now, which is a huge file to download on slower VPN protected torrents. Not only does it take a lot more time, but the chances of something going wrong with the download is significantly increased as well. The increased use of 64 bit exes is going to increase file size even further, as developers start to take advantage of the greater memory space to leverage bigger and more complex games.

All of that is counterbalanced against the ease and convenience of using digital distribution platforms like Origin, Steam, Uplay etcetera which have quick download speeds, and have really good sales and free games.. And governments in Western developed nations are uniformly cracking down on piracy..

That doesn't make sense.
1- Torrents are practically the fastest way to download. And people who buy the game also have to download the whole game at even bigger file sizes, because torrent uploaders usually compress the game files before uploading (bless their souls).
2- Torrents are the safest way to download, if there was an error you can simply make a force recheck and redownload only the corrupted files, which wouldn't amount to more than 1 or 2 MB. On the other hand some game clients don't have that option, forcing you to redownload the whole game if something went wrong.
3- The ease and convenience of torrents is far greater, you don't have to open up a game client every time you want to play the game, just install the game once and launch.
4- Yes, Origin, Steam, Uplay etcetera have have really good sales, but torrents are even cheaper.
 
Aug 11, 2008
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Couple of things I would take issue with.

First, I think streaming has a *long* way to go, unless everyone suddenly gets cheap fast fiber internet (not likely). Also except for indy games, innovation is sadly lost in both the PC and console gaming spaces. Seems like almost every AAA game is some sort of sequel.

That said, I am a fan of PC gaming, and dont even bother with consoles. My main concern is that the mobile "gaming" craze is going to draw too many resources away from development of PC games.
 

Sable

Golden Member
Jan 7, 2006
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Steam sales are the biggie imo. It's just too cheap not to buy them.
 

CRV

Senior member
Apr 8, 2014
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I went from console (PS4) to PC. For the reasons that console can't do or hardly do 1080p 60 fps. It seem as you can only have one and not the other. Next Gen consoles aren't truly next gen.
 

HeXen

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 2009
7,832
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My hopes for PC gaming is that SteamOS takes off and has similar support for new games that Windows has. At least for those of us that want a more streamlined experience and an OS designed first and foremost towards gaming. I always hated having to jump through UI hoops to get a game going.

I went from console (PS4) to PC. For the reasons that console can't do or hardly do 1080p 60 fps. It seem as you can only have one and not the other. Next Gen consoles aren't truly next gen.

After all this time you just now went from a newly released console to PC? You should've done that years ago not to mention should have known the differences. Of course whether you get 60fps depends on settings chosen or hardware, it's never a given rule for maxed out games. The minimum frame rate is what matters most. However there are quite a few PS4 titles that do 1080p/60fps and likely many more but always research before you buy anything.
BTW, there is no "next gen". It's a marketing term.
 

Mondozei

Golden Member
Jul 7, 2013
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I listened to the stream while playing Titanfall. It was a very good panel, the only spoiler was the Nvidia marketing guy. He kept pushing streaming but it was gratifying to see him getting shut down by the others, saying that streaming is terrible for latency and could only work for SP-games that are slow like the Civilization series.

It was also funny to hear Luckey diss streaming, saying it would be impossible to fool people about the worse latency "even the peasants would notice". That line got a lot of laughter and rousing approval :D

Chris Roberts also had many great comments, he and Luckey basically dominated the panel. I wouldn't rely on that article alone, there was plenty of good stuff the author missed.
 

norseamd

Lifer
Dec 13, 2013
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That last sentence made no sense at all, leaving aside the botched grammar.

when the witcher 2 came out and available as a drm free download from gog or a retail box with drm the torrenters cracked the drm version and were downloading that instead of an easier to pirate gog version

cd projekt red said that was telling about the situation
 

Lonyo

Lifer
Aug 10, 2002
21,938
6
81
I hate how everyone reports revenue in this day and age for everything.

It's pointless to talk about revenues due to the massive shift in consumption. In the past, if your revenue was $100, you would have a LOT of base costs coming out of that for store overheads, physical packaging etc.

Nowadays, $100 revenue gets you a lot more in the underlying people's pockets due to digital distribution, because the cost is much lower. That means that strong revenues are in fact EVEN STRONGER when it comes to revenues earned by the actual developer/publisher compared to in the past. Bad news for stores, yes, but even better news for developers/etc than the figures themselves would otherwise seem.

It's just as bad with the music industry due to the same changes towards digital. People talk about revenues, ignoring the fact that the whole business model has changed and digital is basically a zero marginal cost product, meaning even if revenue was flat, profit would increase.
 

Carfax83

Diamond Member
Nov 1, 2010
6,841
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That doesn't make sense.
1- Torrents are practically the fastest way to download. And people who buy the game also have to download the whole game at even bigger file sizes, because torrent uploaders usually compress the game files before uploading (bless their souls).

Torrents work great when there's lots of people seeding. But that's not always the case. Plus, unless you live somewhere with lax or no copyright infringement laws, you will most likely need to use a VPN which slows down your downloads significantly..

2- Torrents are the safest way to download, if there was an error you can simply make a force recheck and redownload only the corrupted files, which wouldn't amount to more than 1 or 2 MB. On the other hand some game clients don't have that option, forcing you to redownload the whole game if something went wrong.
Steam and Origin both have a verify file integrity function which checks for corrupt or missing files, and neither force you to re-download the entire game..

Also, with pirated games, viruses and malware are a reality..

3- The ease and convenience of torrents is far greater, you don't have to open up a game client every time you want to play the game, just install the game once and launch.
Yes, but what if a game has multiplayer? Then you're S.O.L.. Modern digital distribution platforms like Steam and Origin do more than just serve games and act as DRM. They also provide social networking for gamers to game with their friends and other gamers..

Yes, Origin, Steam, Uplay etcetera have have really good sales, but torrents are even cheaper.
You can't beat free that's for sure. But stealing is stealing, and it harms the industry..
 

HeXen

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 2009
7,832
37
91
when the witcher 2 came out and available as a drm free download from gog or a retail box with drm the torrenters cracked the drm version and were downloading that instead of an easier to pirate gog version

cd projekt red said that was telling about the situation

I'm guessing that the DRM version came out first, was cracked and on torrents where it was shared and by the time the DRM free version came out, only the cracked version already had a significant seed and therefore was a no brainer on which one a pirate would choose. Usually whichever has the most seeds and fewest leeches is what gets chosen.

Anyways, the entire pirate thing has been nothing but a knee jerk reaction ever since Napster days. Really it's about convenience, people will buy if you make it convenient to do so. The music industry learned a hard lesson.
 

Blitzvogel

Platinum Member
Oct 17, 2010
2,012
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I've bought a few Steam sale games that past year, but nothing major. Last major purchases were Tomb Raider when it came out and Far Cry 3 back in 2012. However, I've sunk probably $75+ into War Thunder since I started playing in late 2012. I feel ashamed, but I guess I've gotten well over $100 worth of gameplay out of it so I would say that's easily fair :D
 
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KentState

Diamond Member
Oct 19, 2001
8,397
393
126
I hate how everyone reports revenue in this day and age for everything.

It's pointless to talk about revenues due to the massive shift in consumption. In the past, if your revenue was $100, you would have a LOT of base costs coming out of that for store overheads, physical packaging etc.

Nowadays, $100 revenue gets you a lot more in the underlying people's pockets due to digital distribution, because the cost is much lower. That means that strong revenues are in fact EVEN STRONGER when it comes to revenues earned by the actual developer/publisher compared to in the past. Bad news for stores, yes, but even better news for developers/etc than the figures themselves would otherwise seem.

It's just as bad with the music industry due to the same changes towards digital. People talk about revenues, ignoring the fact that the whole business model has changed and digital is basically a zero marginal cost product, meaning even if revenue was flat, profit would increase.

Pricing is also completely different. You have Steam giving away games half the year. So easy to rack up hundreds of dollars on games when they are $5-10 each. On the other side, you have Limited/Enhanced/Collector/... editions of everything going for $80+ and then there is DLC. Games like BF4 + Premium turn into a $100 proposition if you buy it before launch which plenty of people did. Same thing for Imperial Edition of Elder Scrolls Online and many other games. Add in the increased buying power of PC gamers that probably pirated games back in college, but now make 100k+ in their 30s. Now add in the kids that grew up in a DRM world and are used to buying everything without the thought of pirating.
 

motsm

Golden Member
Jan 20, 2010
1,822
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I would be happy about results like this if they were because of PC exclusives, well made ports and worthwhile DLC. Unfortunately, the entire platform is just being held together by publishers that don't give the least bit of a crap about it, and this shows that gamers are fine with that.
 

Red Hawk

Diamond Member
Jan 1, 2011
3,266
169
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downloading files that are restricted with ip is not stealing

Semantics. It's illegal, it's unethical, and it's immoral. It is never right to illegitimately take a product for free when the producers rely on money from sales to keep making more products and for their very livelihoods.
 

mmntech

Lifer
Sep 20, 2007
17,501
12
0
I went from console (PS4) to PC. For the reasons that console can't do or hardly do 1080p 60 fps. It seem as you can only have one and not the other. Next Gen consoles aren't truly next gen.

I'm thinking of selling my PS4 but for a different reason. The games are getting damn expensive. Could probably get at least a very nice CPU/GPU combo for the money I'd get for it. Still haven't made a decision though.

I probably do about 60% of my gaming on PC these days.
 

HeXen

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 2009
7,832
37
91
I'm thinking of selling my PS4 but for a different reason. The games are getting damn expensive. Could probably get at least a very nice CPU/GPU combo for the money I'd get for it. Still haven't made a decision though.

I probably do about 60% of my gaming on PC these days.

I found I spent more on Steam overall. 109 games, many at sale prices but yet there are tons I either never played or realized I don't like them.
On consoles I have always been a lot more picky. Plus I'll rent them first to see how much I'll like it. Only own 2 games on PS4 and maybe 8 on PS3.
If I can get 15 ~ hours out of a game I'm usually happy for $60. It's more entertainment than I'll get at the movies for almost that cost.
I'm waiting to see how PC pans out over the next couple of years, namely SteamOS or what MS is going to do with Metro interface.
Steam's getting terribly cluttered with a lot of games I flat out don't care about, plus all the indie alpha's/beta's. it's almost a mess.
 
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