You could say I've been living under a rock, so forgive me for this question.

When I graduated some years ago there was a pretty decent PC game industry. I could walk into a game or music shop and find walls of new and older PC titles plus a healthy pre-owned section.

When I left uni I dropped out of the computing scene pretty much altogether and spent my time on other things. Only recently I started getting the urge to get back into gaming and programming.

Yesterday, I decided to take a wad of cash into town and see what games I could buy. In the three game shops I tried, one did not have ANY pc titles, the other two had one row of shelves with about 15 different games, and no preowned section whatsoever. The places were full of console games.

I feel like I'm stepping back in time to the death of the Spectrum or the Amiga, when you couldn't buy new software anywhere.

Yet as far as I know the majority of people own PCs.. far more than do consoles. So I don't really get it.

So, I left with my bank balance intact and probably will continue to do so. The only game that really caught my eye was Fallout New Vegas (yeah I haven't played it yet..). I was all for giving them the huge amount of cash they were asking, but then I noticed the red box on the back about Steam. I suppose this is for another thread, but I already vowed never to buy another steam game, for so many reasons.

D

I am sorry to see that console games are far more popular. I think it is partly because market size of PC games (pirate copies are a serious problem) and changed client base.

Our generation that has seen primitives like Commodore 64 are not to be lured by yet another FPS with higher polygon and better graphics. But current client base is feeding game industry with fast paced games directed at reflexes, and game industry feeds them with yet another this type.

Adventure games genre is dead a long time ago. Many nice games, good ideas have lost the war. Strategy is trying its best etc. etc.

Unfortunately new gamers have no idea how much pleasure we get from playing a simpler game from 90s.

PC gaming is still going strong on online content providers like Steam and Impulse. I guess stores find console games more profitable, but honestly I stopped buying CD versions of games long ago because I found them too inconvenient (plus they get scratched). Steam (and to a lesser extent, Impulse) have provided me and my friends with almost every game we've bought over the past four or five years.

I did buy sins of a solar empire on dvd, but only because it was just a few $ more than the digital version to geth the boxed version as well so I could play the digital version while I waited for the CD to arrive (I dont think I ever opened the box actually). Having said that, the few CD games I did buy were all bought online too.

But yeah, stores seem to stock very few, if any, PC games these days.

You could say I've been living under a rock, so forgive me for this question.

When I graduated some years ago there was a pretty decent PC game industry. I could walk into a game or music shop and find walls of new and older PC titles plus a healthy pre-owned section.

When I left uni I dropped out of the computing scene pretty much altogether and spent my time on other things. Only recently I started getting the urge to get back into gaming and programming.

Yesterday, I decided to take a wad of cash into town and see what games I could buy. In the three game shops I tried, one did not have ANY pc titles, the other two had one row of shelves with about 15 different games, and no preowned section whatsoever. The places were full of console games.

I feel like I'm stepping back in time to the death of the Spectrum or the Amiga, when you couldn't buy new software anywhere.

Yet as far as I know the majority of people own PCs.. far more than do consoles. So I don't really get it.

So, I left with my bank balance intact and probably will continue to do so. The only game that really caught my eye was Fallout New Vegas (yeah I haven't played it yet..). I was all for giving them the huge amount of cash they were asking, but then I noticed the red box on the back about Steam. I suppose this is for another thread, but I already vowed never to buy another steam game, for so many reasons.

D

Steam has well [font=sans-serif][size=2]over 30 million active user accounts. The community is lively and sometimes you can buy games for a fraction of the cost they are in the stores without even leaving your house. PC gaming is simply out progressing consoles which is the reason it has so quickly moved to digital downloads. In about 10-20 years I'm sure you won't be able to fine a single console game in stores ether. I have over 150 titles on steam because I hate buying boxed games and it's obvious that all of the other PC gamers feel the same way.[/font]

What happened to the pc game industry?

It's right here.
And here, here, here and here.
Also here. And here(here), and here.
Plus here and here.

But most importantly, it's here and here. And if you don't like shopping here, you can't say, "Where are all the grocery stores? I can't find any!", "Dude, there's a Walmart across the street from you!", "Oh, I don't shop there." <--- Now who's fault is that? Yours.
You are isolating yourself from the thriving PC game market, and then lamenting it's loss. PC games have been doing better than they have in years, primarily thanks to Steam. Although there are now about a dozen different digital stores you can buy from, they are still growing. The largest competitor to Steam is Impulse, or at least that's my impression.
The PC market (as I view it) goes like this: Steam, which is gaining new PC gamers and revitalizing the market, and a fragmented bunch of others that are trying to steal share from Steam, including some that are backed by very large companies which will probably be pretty successful with a year or two's more growth.

Your big mistake is two fold:

1) You walked into a store.
The PC game market is digital now. The majority of it you wont find in stores. People walking in a store to buy a game are console gamers, mostly, so the stores cater to that crowd. Instead, there are a dozen or so (I listed above only the ones I'm aware of) stores that cater solely to PC gamers... they are just digital.

2) You ignore Steam.
Steam is what carries the success of PC games today. Not supporting Steam is not supporting PC games, for the most part. Don't like that? Well, that's your problem. Millions of people are perfectly happy with Steam, myself included. They do so much right, that I'm not about to go on a crusade because of the few things they get wrong. If they made a mistake in the past, then just forgive, forget, and go enjoy some great games.

Does anyone have any actual numbers that indicate PC games are doing worse? I feel like they are doing just as well but are just overshadowed by more popular console games, which have every reason to be more popular.

This discussion has come up enough in the past that I am curious to know if they are actually doing worse or if they are doing the same but are just overshadowed by greater successes.

Does anyone have any actual numbers that indicate PC games are doing worse? I feel like they are doing just as well but are just overshadowed by more popular console games, which have every reason to be more popular.

This discussion has come up enough in the past that I am curious to know if they are actually doing worse or if they are doing the same but are just overshadowed by greater successes.

Actually the PC gaming market has grown quite a bit: http://www.gamepolitics.com/2011/03/01/pc-gaming-alliance-big-pc-gaming-growth-2010

The sky has been falling for quite some time now for "the death of PC". So far, it just hasn't fallen.

The OP's question can be answered quite simply:

online distribution and increased console competition. The PC market remains very healthy and at the moment it seems to be booming.

P.S. Steam is NOT the only online distributor. Direct2drive is another one for example, and there are many others you will find if you care to search for them.

I'm pleased to know it's still ticking over, for the majority at least. What about the indie PC market?

Regarding steam (or other digital providers), I confess I know nothing about it's past failures or present successes. I have no crusade. It simply isn't compatible with my lifestyle or my current setup. If I find the rare time to play games, I don't have the time to wait on download progress bars . In addition, I move around frequently and so I run on mobile broadband. While this meets my needs in almost every way, I simply don't have the bandwidth to download gigabytes of updates. If that means I can't buy games.. then I can't buy games.

It seems that if I want to walk down the street, pay for a game in cash, pop it into my machine and shoot away for an hour.. I'll be looking at a console, which is fair enough.

(or.. do consoles now require a connection to play single player games too?)

D