Seeing as tons of information comes out of E3 and that the PC is claimed by some to just be awful in terms of marketing and making money, why can't we get a small PC section. PC is where a lot of innovation is at, and there are still PC only developers (not sure how many though). I don't see how this could be a bad idea at all.

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why can't we get a small PC section?

I guess because herding PC developers is a lot like herding atheists [smile].

The PC platform relies almost entirely (not to say completely) on third party developers, getting them all organized must be a daunting task when none of them sees a reason not to be the main attraction/one in charge.

Just my $0.02

Because marketting upcoming PC games would just encourage the pirates. It's better to silently release the games to keep piracy numbers low.

Quote: Original post by dpadam450
PC is where a lot of innovation is at

Now you've piqued my curiosity. What do you mean by this? Any examples?

Crayon Physics would be a prime example :p

Quote: Original post by ChurchSkiz
Because marketting upcoming PC games would just encourage the pirates. It's better to silently release the games to keep piracy numbers low.

That's some of the worst reasoning I've ever heard. Silent releases don't just reduce piracy numbers, they reduce sales numbers. Hurting your profits to reduce the number of people playing your game who wouldn't have bought it anyway is just stupid.

Quote: Now you've piqued my curiosity. What do you mean by this? Any examples?

Well just looking at the IGF, there are a lot of innovative games. There was on link on here showing off a game that used perspective shadows in screen space as actual platforms. At any rate, it is definitely not any less innovative than the consoles. Microsoft opened E3 with Rock Band? Nothing unique there.

And encouraging piracy was a weird example as the other guy stated. And that was my point, there is not as good of marketing like E3, to show off all the good new PC games.

Quote: Original post by Promit

Quote: Original post by dpadam450
PC is where a lot of innovation is at

Now you've piqued my curiosity. What do you mean by this? Any examples?

Portal, World of Goo, Alien Hominid (before being ported to console). I know I'm forgetting some others here...

The license to print money known as World of Warcraft although not necessarily innovative, still shows that PC is a viable market. Same with the bazillion copies of the Sims sold for PC.

A lot of games based off social networking sights (ie: facebook) are different than something you'd find on a console (different platform/way of looking at things).

Well, I think its a lot easier to develop for the PC than any other system because well, a lot of people have one and there is no license to start coding. I imagine there's a lot more stuff being developed on the PC by non-conventional developers, which means you'll have a lot more non-conventional games, right? I don't know =(

I've come to realize that the reason PC doesn't have so much attention given to it at events like E3 is not because of the market downturn. It's not because of biased media. It's not because PC games are dying. It's not because no one cares.

It's because PC gaming doesn't require the attention.

Console games, without massive marketing pushes, will be failures. This is a fact of how the console business works. There's simply no possible way to succeed in that market without doing everything in your power to get as much attention as much as the time as possible. The console market is still almost entirely driven by a handful of massive blockbuster hits and therefore, to create those blockbusters that drive the console business model, events like E3 drum up as much fanfare as possible.

PC doesn't need that.

Regardless of the lack of PC presence at E3, millions of people played WoW today. Tens of millions played flash games. Thousands bought creative indie titles on Steam. Tons and tons and tons of people are starting up new game projects every day. They can exist, and they can succeed, without a booth at E3. In fact, a booth at E3 would do very little to help most of these people. PC games -- or at least the successful ones -- target their own audiences who already know about and support their games. E3 is generally not part of that market unless you're still a foolish PC developer trying to make a console-style AAA blockbuster on PC (and there is very little of that strategy left).

So don't cry for PC. It's doing better than ever! Also, the vast majority of exciting AAA games on both the 360 & PS3 have already been confirmed as PC games as well, so we're even doing nicely in that regard.