Video Games

[bchris02]

I never thought I would admit this but PC gaming is on its death knell. Best Buy, the store that used to have 3-4 entire isles of PC games now just has an endcap. I have little reason to upgrade my gaming PC as few games that are coming out these days.

[elitespy]

I never thought I would admit this but PC gaming is on its death knell. Best Buy, the store that used to have 3-4 entire isles of PC games now just has an endcap. I have little reason to upgrade my gaming PC as few games that are coming out these days.

Not sure if serious or trolling..

[Midtowner]

I never thought I would admit this but PC gaming is on its death knell. Best Buy, the store that used to have 3-4 entire isles of PC games now just has an endcap. I have little reason to upgrade my gaming PC as few games that are coming out these days.

Very few gamers rely on brick and mortar stores for the delivery of their products. Services such as Steam and Origin giving a direct to drive instant delivery without having to worry about holding on to stupid manuals and boxes and media make life quite a bit easier.

[Achilleslastand]

Very few gamers rely on brick and mortar stores for the delivery of their products. Services such as Steam and Origin giving a direct to drive instant delivery without having to worry about holding on to stupid manuals and boxes and media make life quite a bit easier.

Go into a BestBuy or a Gamestop[especially}and your likely to find a few scant boxed pc titles while some will even be just a purchase for a serial key for a download. One gripe I do have with Gabe Newell/Steam is that for a 50/60 dollar purchase all you receive is basically a serial key while none of the costs involved with a boxed copy{production, printing of Disks, Boxes and any guides/manuals as well as shipping said product from point A to the brick and mortar store} are involved for the same price. I think some of those savings should be passed on to the consumer. Also for some consumers downloading a 15-20 Gig game could take a while especially on slower connections.
Not trying to turn this into a bash steam thread as I do love their sales.

[Midtowner]

Go into a BestBuy or a Gamestop[especially}and your likely to find a few scant boxed pc titles while some will even be just a purchase for a serial key for a download. One gripe I do have with Gabe Newell/Steam is that for a 50/60 dollar purchase all you receive is basically a serial key while none of the costs involved with a boxed copy{production, printing of Disks, Boxes and any guides/manuals as well as shipping said product from point A to the brick and mortar store} are involved for the same price. I think some of those savings should be passed on to the consumer. Also for some consumers downloading a 15-20 Gig game could take a while especially on slower connections.
Not trying to turn this into a bash steam thread as I do love their sales.

I'll take the positives over the negatives. No need to store years and years worth of games you'll probably never play. When was the last time you pulled out your copy of NCAA 2010? If you have a serious equipment failure or just want to migrate to another PC, your games are stored for free in the cloud and you can just download and install (and uninstall) games as you wish to. One thing I am running into with regard to the switch to the next console is backwards compatibility. Absent some ancient games I'd like to see running on an emulator (maybe this exists) like Ultima X, backwards compatibility on the PC >>>>> consoles.

I can also build a PC which from a specs standpoint right now will demolish any console on the market, but will admit the consoles offer a better performance per $ ratio than PC can.

[Richard at Remax]

Before steam, origin, ect became popular I used to preorder games at GameStop. Used to love employee reactions when preordering PC games. They thought I was kidding then more confused when I was serious.

Only downside to PC games is you can't resell them like console. So if I don't see any longevity with the game I'll usually get it on console.

[venture]

Mentioned this earlier: https://www.humblebundle.com/

I've got some extremely good deals on it in the past and also introduced myself to some great games. I had to buy the recent one with Cities in Motion 2 just to be a dork for a bit and play with transportation with in a city. LOL

[bchris02]

Go into a BestBuy or a Gamestop[especially}and your likely to find a few scant boxed pc titles while some will even be just a purchase for a serial key for a download. One gripe I do have with Gabe Newell/Steam is that for a 50/60 dollar purchase all you receive is basically a serial key while none of the costs involved with a boxed copy{production, printing of Disks, Boxes and any guides/manuals as well as shipping said product from point A to the brick and mortar store} are involved for the same price. I think some of those savings should be passed on to the consumer. Also for some consumers downloading a 15-20 Gig game could take a while especially on slower connections.
Not trying to turn this into a bash steam thread as I do love their sales.

Well PC games used to be cheaper than their console counterparts, but now they are the same price. One thing that has had an effect on the decline of PC gaming that a lot of people don't mention is the fact all the independent game developers got bought up by EA in the mid 2000s. Ten years ago, you had quite a few exclusive games coming to the PC that you couldn't get on console. They were also designed specifically for PC so they could take advantage of the platform's advantages. EA is all about the bottom dollar. Pretty much everything coming out for PC today is a console port and many times its half-done. In the past two years, Skyrim and Bioshock Infinite were the only PC games I have played that I thought were good, but they both were primarily designed for console. Lately I have been playing some older PC games and they are far superior to what is coming out on the platform today.

[Midtowner]

I couldn't imagine playing Skyrim without the console codes to fix all the bugs.

[elitespy]

Well PC games used to be cheaper than their console counterparts, but now they are the same price. One thing that has had an effect on the decline of PC gaming that a lot of people don't mention is the fact all the independent game developers got bought up by EA in the mid 2000s. Ten years ago, you had quite a few exclusive games coming to the PC that you couldn't get on console. They were also designed specifically for PC so they could take advantage of the platform's advantages. EA is all about the bottom dollar. Pretty much everything coming out for PC today is a console port and many times its half-done. In the past two years, Skyrim and Bioshock Infinite were the only PC games I have played that I thought were good, but they both were primarily designed for console. Lately I have been playing some older PC games and they are far superior to what is coming out on the platform today.

I still don't know if you are being serious or trolling. Most PC games are still a lot cheaper than console games if you look on steam they are probably 10 to 20 bucks cheaper the only ones that don't go cheaper are the Call of Duty's and games like that and that has to do more with the publisher then anything else. Also this year has been the year of indie games, I could get a list but it's to early and I need to head to work but if you go and look at some of the top games this year it's been Indie games that came out first on the PC then the came out on consoles months later. Also, EA isn't the only company out there making video games there are tons more. There is no decline in PC games that you speak of, if anything PC gaming is getting stronger by the year. Steam now has more users than Xbox live at 65 million compared to Xbox lives 45 million, now it may just be your own opinion that PC gaming is dying and it may well be dying for you, but in reality it is still very much alive and getting better and better.

[Richard at Remax]

I still think one of the best pc games/series that a lot of people have never played was S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl

Also the true versions of Half Life 2 and Crysis (before they were eventually ported and chopped up) still hold up to the best games of today.

[td25er]

PC games also have mods that can make games even better. MANY people prefer keyboard and mouse (I usually prefer controller, but I don't play multiplayer online). Graphically, even budget gaming PCs will always have more capability (outside of 1st year or so of a next gen console).

I like consoles too. I have xbox360, ps3, and Wii and will eventually get a ps4 and maybe wiiu. I got a decent laptop 3 years ago to work from home. It has an nvidia gtx 460m (which was a decent laptop GPU at the time) which is still going strong. Thinking of building a desktop for true PC gaming.

[venture]

ESO has a release date for those interested. April 4th for the PC. Consoles will have to wait until June.

[Achilleslastand]

ESO has a release date for those interested. April 4th for the PC. Consoles will have to wait until June.

I may have/or may not have played the beta and I may have/or may not have liked it. On 4-4-14 I may/maybe not purchase ESO.

[Achilleslastand]

I couldn't imagine playing Skyrim without the console codes to fix all the bugs.

IDK if you have ever heard of Nexus Skyrim Nexus - mods and community but they have tons and tons of mods for Skyrim that makes the game much much better including bug fixes. They also have a mod manager which is easy to use for dl/installing said mods.

[Achilleslastand]

GOG is having their winter sale right with a ton of games on sale for 50% off and more. RPG fans especially should take note. Both Witcher titles as well as Baldurs Gate 1&2 ,Neverwinter Nights 1&2 also titles in the Ultima and Wizardry franchise are on sale.
GOG.com

GOG.com

[venture]

I may have/or may not have played the beta and I may have/or may not have liked it. On 4-4-14 I may/maybe not purchase ESO.

Oh yeah there was/is a NDA isn't there on people who have or have not played beta that may or may not exist?

[bchris02]

I still think one of the best pc games/series that a lot of people have never played was S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl

Also the true versions of Half Life 2 and Crysis (before they were eventually ported and chopped up) still hold up to the best games of today.

I agree with you on Half Life 2. Amazing game. Portal 2 was awesome as well. I liked Far Cry better than Crysis personally. Never played S.T.A.L.K.E.R. but I had heard a lot about it prior to its release. It was one of those games that was delayed and delayed and when it finally did come out everybody who was anticipating it had forgotten about it.

I would advise anybody to also check out Amnesia: The Dark Descent. It's a one of a kind game and probably one of the better PC exclusive games of the past few years.

[Richard at Remax]

The dark decent was great. A machine for Pigs as well as outlast were both OK. They did great on creepiness but thought left a lot to be desired on story and length. Although older, Dark messiah of might and magic is also one of my fav PC games too

[Achilleslastand]

Just a quick FYI that steams holiday sale is got some very good deals right now...
Skyrim......7.49
Max Payne 3........7.99
As well as numerous others!
Welcome to Steam

[Richard at Remax]

Deus Ex Human Revolution for $5 is a steal

[elitespy]

I picked up "The Walking Dead" and "Tomb Raider" the other day, both of them together was less than 15 bucks, can't beat that. Also got DayZ and it's beel a lot of fun, can't wait for that game to be a finished product cause it will be amazing.

[Martin]

dayz is online multiplayer only, right? -M

[elitespy]

dayz is online multiplayer only, right? -M

Yes sir it is. I haven't followed development to close but I do believe the mean to keep it online only.

[Achilleslastand]

dayz is online multiplayer only, right? -M

Yes.....You can also download the free version of the DayZ mod.......But you need Arma 2 as well as the Op Arrowhead expansion{both on sale right now for 12.49}to play the free version of Day Z. You can also purchase the still in development version of Day Z right now on steam for 29.99 but I would advise against it.