Where have all the PC games gone????

#1 Sad, i've noticed this too, been around computers since I was 4. Back in those days you could find computer stuff nearly everywhere, now its all going to console. I think the big reason is that Consoles are less-expensive, and more people use it, so big companies want to make games to make money, thus they use console. Whats really sad is IMO the console life-time is atleast half the time of a Computer, if not less.

#2 It's a vicious cycle of stupidity actually.

Stores will not accept open games for refunds. In the good old days, if you purchased a game that did not work, or that really sucked hard, you could trade it or get your money back. Now stores will not take back anything that has been opened(hard to see if it sucks or works without opening) on the basis that you COULD have copied it and want to bring it back. Since most people only need to be burned once or twice before they stop buying anything from the stores and start compensating their loses with Kazaa or warez, the sales in the stores are steadily dropping. Consoles are already beginning to show signs of the same problems.

Even though copying a console game is beyond the average gamers capacity or even desires, stores will still not refund an open product(Still not sure how this is legal since you could even return a new car for refund after driving it for a day or two and nearly every product sold in the USA is returnable). So the end result is people are far more careful with their dollars and less likely to purchase from a store.

So the flawed thinking is "If we refuse a refund on an opened copy, people won't rip us off". When in reality people are more likely to rip you off using Kazaa or warez simply because they want to play it before they pay for it. And by that time, there is no need to pay for it. Burn a customer of his hard earned cash, and he'll burn copies of your games for his buddies, lol.

#3 I remember buying an ISA card for my 386 so I could plug a joystick into it at -- where else -- Electronics Boutique. Now this so-called boutique of electronic goods doesn't even carry AGP video cards, but if you're looking for a used console they've got a stack of them.

#4 I was going to say something but it was 6200 characters long...

#5 @Gonzo. Thats why I get all my games from EB. They are the only store here (Adelaide, Australia) that I know of at least, that has a 7 day return policy. And they have made a fair bit of money from me and my friends from it.

But I think online distribution is the future. To quote Tycho from Penny Arcade:

Quote:Imagine that you had to go to a well every time you wanted water. Then, somebody figured out a way to get the water to come out right inside your house! I don't blame them for being scared. Progress is a bitch.

#6 @ Gonzo: That is exactly why I rent any console games I'm considering buying first(extra $5 bullshit), and I only buy PC games that I know I'll play(not just ones that look cool). I'm sure that anyone who can actualy reproduce computer/console games would not mind buying the game itself and selling 50 copies on the street, making a good $500+.

#7 @ Dylan, Yes, EB here does that also, I din't think to mention them, I'm glad you did. I purchase most of my games from them as well. BUT, just like Josh, I prefer to rent them first when dealing with consoles. As for PC, I like the web distribution because not only can I purchase online, but I can usually get a demo first and decide if I like it then.

#8 Where is a good place to go for games online?

#9 If your interisted in full retail games, Yahoo and Comcast has a Games on Demand service. They have a good variety of games on them although most of them are a lil old. This allows you to rent games for a few bucks.

#10 Where is a good place to go for games online?

#11 Garagegames.com :)

#12 @Matthew
www.amazon.com

Don't use the Toys & Games section though - it'll say that everything is out of stock. Use the regular links at the left part of the page or use the search feature.

Also, try www.spiderwebsoftware.com/ if you're interested in RPGS.

#13 Well look at the change in "Shareware" over the last 10 years. I have gone to computers shows monthly for the past 10 years and shareware has all but disappeared off the vendor tables because it has become so cheap to get and resell the $19.99 or $9.99 software.

But Shareware has gone the way of the Dodo in this venue. Funny enough - it has all moved online because it has become so easy to get in the comfort of your own home as Dylan said.

As far as retail software - the production value has declined considerably over the last few years and suffers even more greatly than the console market. Look at it this way - there is NO resale value. You cannot sell back "old" PC software or trade it in for credit.

However, do PC titles get less time on the shelves than console games? Usually - that is the case. Think about your last trip to EBX or Game Stop. There are PS2 and Xbox titles that are still on the shelves from when they console was first created. (Like Fantavision).

But PC titles go from Retail to Bargain to Forgotten-About considerably faster.

#14 There is a lot less Quality Control involved with PC software. I remember seeing a guy striking in front of a CompUSA because he could not get a refund for software that did not do what its box advertised it could do. I don't think any retailer wants to deal with that. Console games must pass the hardware company's QA before they can be released and are therefore much less buggy and prone to being returned.

#15 I think that varies from company to company, Joe. In some cases, our PC software received even more QC than our console games. The main problem is that bugs are far easier to reproduce on a console than on PC - so much has to do with differences in hardware, software, drivers, what other apps are running, etc. You might have a memory leak or buffer overrun that never hurts anything on the console, but it causes the PC game to crash about 1 out of every 40 games. And that is something that you may never see in your QA lab, and it can be a devil to find and fix when it can't be repro'ed.

PC games also require a lot more customization for the user that causes problems... several different screen modes, render quality, sound quality, etc. It's surprising how often those kinds of things cause problems.

I know of a way to crash the original Playstation version of Twisted Metal - something we found and fixed in the PC version thanks to the QA. I don't know if any real players ever discovered it though.

#16 I agree with you. My main point is that console games are in general less buggy than PC software, which means less headaches for retailers. The quality of PC software may vary from company to company, but there is still a lot of PC software out there that is sold with missing features or to poor quality standards. As a retailer who does not except software returns, would you really want to deal with all of the upset consumers these products create?

#17 @Joe - well think about it this way too. A PS2 or an XBOX is the same no matter where you go. Every PC is different. Even the same PC from the same vendor is different the day the end user loads their first piece of software. Full support is an impossibility and upset consumers are bound to happen.

#18 I understand what you all are saying about the problems with developing PC software that will run well on multiple hardware setups. I am just looking at it from a retailer's point of view since the question was, "Where have all the PC games gone?"

#19 Joe: I think we're mainly on the same page, but I don't put the blame on the developer / publisher. I think buying a PC game is about like buying clothing online. Most of the time it's fine (especially for we guys who tend to just wear jeans and T-Shirts), but there's always a non-trivial chance that what you get won't fit or won't look good on you or something.

Is that a really weird analogy? Maybe. But it's not that the clothes manufacturer screwed up, necessarily (though that is sometimes the case). It's just that there's way too many variables to account for.

But I think customer returns are the problem. I think it's returns on unsold merchandise. A retailer has limited shelf space, and so he wants to stock it with stuff that will MOVE. Typically, a top-10 PC game will sell fewer copies than a top-10 PS2 game. You want that shelf generating you money each month. So 'putting the shelf to work' selling 100 PS2 games per month is much better business sense than using it to sell 40 PC games per month - unless your profit margins for the PC games are much higher.

That's also a big reason why PC game boxes have shrunk to their current size... the big bulky boxes of the 1990's took up three times the room as console boxes, meaning even less revenue per inch of shelf space.

As this month's CGW article points out though... the console dominancy is not universal. As the lifecycle for a particular console winds down and the market becomes flooded with titles for it, it begins resembling the PC game market (which is ALWAYS flooded with titles). People are filling out their libraries with old and used versions of previous hits and saving their money for the Next Big Thing. It becomes harder and harder to predict how well a title will do. I think that's a key point that publishers, developers, and retailers are slowly beginning to discover.