I disagree with you completely Bob. Let's look at a console for a moment, a PS3/360 is essentially a PC that's FIVE generations behind current hardware with restrictive OS by Sony/Microsoft. Why the hell would I want that when I could just have a PC? PC hardware advance every month while a console cycle takes 5 years. In terms of hardware there's no way a console could catch up to a PC in whatever shape or form. PC are the foundation of cutting edge consumer hardware, all of console's hardware are BASED on PC hardware. That means the advancement of PC effects directly to the advance of consoles/phones/tablets/whatever consumer gadget you can think of. If PC cease to exist, console would soon follow. Saying console having better game than PC is just not true. Even back in 90's while console had Super Mario 64, Ocarina of time and so on, we had Baldur's Gate, System Shock 2, Wolfenstein 3D, StarCraft, diablo and so on Not to mention almost all multi-platform games are best played on PC. Gaming is a big commitment, if you are serious about it(as you are about movie) why not have the best possible experience? And Bob, saying motion control can replace a mouse and keyboard is just naive. Unless a holographic mouse are keyboard are invented, I don't buy it.
One thing that most if not all of my PC gaming friends and myself agree on is that the rise of console gaming has made PC gaming easier and cheaper. Since most games released now must run on Xbox to earn as much money as possible all you need for a gaming rig is a computer as powerful as an Xbox 360. This is a vast improvement over the old Red Queen's race we used to face. I just wish there were more combat flight sims available, and it has been far too long since I have been able to blast Tie fighters out of a galaxy far far away. Sigh.
Before I watch this, I am going to guess that the title is entirely serious, without any hint of irony whatsoever.
Given what has been stated in the Game Overthinker series (“Worst Person”…”Neat trick”), and the strong affinity toward Nintendo, I would not be surprised. I am also going to guess that the oft repeated complaints of the cost of entry and the required technical knowhow to upgrade are given as reasons why PC gaming is legitimately dead.
I'll watch and hope I am wrong.
(Normally I'd post this over at the escapist, but over there it would be drowned out 😉
RTS is probably my favorite genre of game. Having said that I have not owned PC in over 3 years. I think PC gaming is turning into laptop gaming. Thank god for Korea and e sports because they have ensured that RTS wont die with the home computer. GOT episode on esports? please?
I've got to disagree on a few counts–most notably that PC gaming is 'dead' when it's really only fair to say that the niche PC gaming used to fill is increasingly shared by other devices that do the same thing. But Goldeneye came out in 97 and PC shooters are still popular.
And for me, a PC will always be necessary. As an artist (and game developer) I cannot envision a near future where an available tablet is capable of doing the kinds of tasks a PC can, even with the most advanced touch display. While developing games for that kind of niche user is obviously foolish, it's not so foolish to remember that the one thing the PC market has that no console does is the ability to market to an expanding legacy market. Steam and other functions lets me not only sell games to the new PCs out there, but old ones–some so old that we need to devise arcane patches for out-of-date DirectX patches and such.
And personally, I find the need to use a tablet, smartphone, laptop, and several other independent devices hilariously archaic compared to my single wifi-linked basement box that houses many of the slumbering modules that my artist's renderbox doesn't need.
With my two big high-def widescreen supermonitors here capable of supporting my PS3's full HDMI glory, the thing I think that is risking an inglorious scrapping is my television. While the idea of a seperate PC dedicated to websurfing may be absurd nowadays, the TV is increasingly a relic of an era before the internet, and the only difference between a modern PC and a modern TV is that one helps me with my taxes when I'm not working or gaming and the other sits there off a lot.
The idea of a dead medium of PC gaming is pretty unlikely, since the same thing that powers a tablet or a console powers a PC, and outside of the gizmo-gadget convenience of tablets, a super-powered smartphone is going to eclipse most of what you need a laptop or tablet for amongst the general population. Games will exist for whatever exists. PC games aren't deads. PC games won't be dead. You can't develop a console with the power to bury a PC without, by definition, creating a PC of equal potency. And once the artificial barrier of the television evaporates into a single wifi-connected device hub centered around a single monitor display… then we're going to really have some interesting new labels. How many people even use their TV anymore except for consoles? Netflix is going to kill television, and then your console may as well just be another PC.
I started out as that kid whose parents wouldn't buy him a console, but quickly moved to console gaming as soon as I had scraped together enough birthday money to buy one.
With the latest gen of hardware, I bought a Wii, was happy with it for a few years, and then decided I wanted a second system. Not wanting to fork over the money for a ps3 or 360 I tried, very briefly, to get back into PC gaming, although I can't say I was ever that hardcore as an 11 year old. I then bought a ps3 because I liked the exclusives more and I wanted a blu ray player (I know, I'm part of the problem).
There's something about the consoles I just like more than the PC. I'm sure there are many reasons, but one of them is not having to check the system requirements every time I want to pop in a game into my wii or ps3. I don't like the idea of having to spend hundreds of dollars a year, or every few years, just to be able to play the latest games, when I could buy a multi-functional system, pay once, and then not have to worry about it until the next console cycle.
The ps3 is, essentially, my media centre for everything I would play through my TV. I love that – one system, and I get one of the best consumer-level blu-ray/dvd players, a hub for any video content I might download off the internet, and a way to view my own photos/videos on my tv. I play tons of games too, and I really enjoy it. If they developed a North American version of the European PlayTV, I wouldn't even have a cable box. I would just have my ps3 plugged into my TV.
I know that seems “soft”, “casual”, or “gheeeyyy” but, honestly, it's just practical. I have no problem with gaming being “just” one aspect of a system, or tablet, or phone, etc. In fact, I embrace it. It saves me money, space (crucial for me), time, and energy. I don't see a downside.
I suppose that could be an argument for PC gaming as well, but, for some reason, I don't think it applies. Maybe as far as saving space goes, but, really, it's just such a bother to be a PC gamer that I really don't care.
@bob I have to disagree with the fundamentals of this, but not for the reasons many will. In fact, I think, perhaps, your statement “PC gaming is dead” (rather, WILL die), may be true. But based on the logic you've stated, I think those same arguments could be made to say “CONSOLE GAMING IS DYING” as well. Right? I mean, you're talking about the needlessness of separate devices. how everythign will be spread throughout our entire lives. Doesn't this make the console archaic as well? might we just plug our TV into the wall and then be able to play God of War 8 (If we pay for the license). Might we then be able to resume the game while we're out and about on our omnitools or ipad10s or whatever? I think these statements apply to each of these devices… just that PC gaming is leading the charge. Also, Bob, be careful with making these kinds of predictions. Do you want to look like the guys who predicted we'd all be on Mars by 2000?
@Bill The idea that PC hardware advances every month, and that console does not is a fallacy, i think. 1) the vast majority of people upgrade a computer every several years, not every month. not even once a year. i consider myself pretty tech savy, and for me, there's a solid 3 years in between upgrades. Thus, the market and developers have to deal with this huge range of system power, thus the “Crysises” and other power-pushes are very few and far between, as it just doesn't make economic sense. And besides, the console technology DOES improve every month, simply not for the consumer. i'm pretty sure Sony is spending March coming up with some new cool tech. and Nintendo will do the same in April. The difference is just that such things are released so rarely, relative to new video cards, processors, etc. And, as bob has mentioned, consoles essentially are PCs now. if the true “PC” died, consoles, tablets,phones, wouldn't die as well – they'd simply take up the R&D mantle themselves.
Never been a PC gamer. Just not interested in the majority of games that thrive on the system. I think the world is changing as how people interact with computers. It will be a while before desktops go away completely (if they do) but it's just getting more and more convenient to compute elsewhere. We have internet on our TV's now with keyboards and the pointer controls of remotes (while not as good) are forming a functional substitute. Frankly if I had to choose I'd much rather sit nice and comfy on my couch and do my computing there as opposed to slumped over a desk. And the advance in technology applies to everyone, not just gamers. The vast majority of people who own PC's outside of the workplace likely only use them to do basic things like internet, personal bookeeping, and word processing if not much else. When people require so little from their rigs porting them over to their big screen TV's as opposed to desktops and even their notebooks can be a very appealing propsect.
@counterpoint Some of the thing I said is arbitary. Of course you don't have to upgrade every month, but the market comes out with more Power hungry CPU/GPU every few month. “And besides, the console technology DOES improve every month, simply not for the consumer.” That's subjective, if you meant rendering technologies and optimizations sure, but those things are done on a computer. Even things like firmware update have nothing to do with the hardware on the console it self. The biggest difference from a PC to a phone and console is it's Interchangeable parts. AMD/Intel/Nvidia comes out with their cutting edge hardware every few month, and a company like apple cannot, therefore it needs to use pre-existing hardware that's already avaible on the market. So in a sense, console will NEVER surpass PC and consoles ALWAYS needs PC. Few hundreds of years in the future this may change in form, but the concept remains the same. Hence why PC will never die, conceptually.
Good video, although your argument for “point and click adventure games are making a comeback on the wii” to my knowledge has no basis in fact.
I haven't really seen a wild revival of the genre on the system. If it was, I'd buy them. Instead all we have are Zack and Wiki and some Sam & Max ports from the PC about a year after. I guess the closest to that would be the Phoenix Wright port on wiiware and the silly shovelware “find the object” games.
I don't know why I'm telling you this, because you don't give a toss, but:
You're mostly wrong.
PC Gaming in the mundane going-to-a-store-and-buying-a-game way that the rest of you experience it is dying.
Soon will be the day that you cannot buy a PC game in the Electronic Boutiques that used to hold them in such regard.
PC Gaming is in the process of consolidating into a few online store fronts.
BTW your assertion that PC Gamers haven't played consoles is incorrect. I was a pure console gamer until 2005, I would make impassioned arguments about how PC's were only good for playing strategy games.
But then I played Battlefield 2, a game with a depth and scale of choice that no console not even one of the ones around today, could provide.
PC gaming provides the grandest and meanest experiences of gaming, from the bizzare little indie titles to the sprawling solar systems of EVE, there is plenty of juice left in PC Gaming where barriers are low and distribution cheap.
But hey, I'll keep playing fantastic games with never-ending updates like Team Fortress 2.
I'll keep playing mind-blowing indie successes like Minecraft.
You have fun, thinking of me as some cardboard flamer that isn't cool enough to settle for limited games, paid updates, slow support, and an endless torrent of 12-yea-olds screaming shut-up at french people*.
Your Friend, ANkh
*True story: being in Ireland COD would mix us in with players from France and players from the US, when the French players talked the children from the US would scream and shout and talk over them. Because XBOX games don't have real servers, there were no moderators. My XBOX was a portal to hell. A portal I had to pay an annual subscription to access. No thanks.
This future is possible for those who have the fucking money. The rest of us normal human beings will have to deal with hand me downs and good will shops for our future ten year old i-pods and live in what already is a cyber punk future. Right now I'm on the verge of getting a dual core proccessor in order to finally edit Hd video and have had a pentium 4 for the past seven years and yet I was able to play Dawn of war II, Mass effect and all that crap.
Someone mentioned Cloud Computing being unlikely, and someone else mentioned a tablet PC being incapable of what a desktop can do.
For an example of a Cloud already at work, I point to Netflix Instant. If every movie ever was available on Netflix Instant, the only reason to ever buy a movie would be so you could physically own it. We're already reaching generations where people shrug and say “I'd rather not take up the space”. Not to mention $9/month for all those movies is a sweet deal, right?
In that regard, I imagine most entertainment media will no longer be a purchase-by-purchase basis, but a subscription based one. Use Adobe products for just $20/month! No need to download or install, just pay your monthly bill and you can use any of the software via Cloud Computing.
Is it an immediate future? No, but it's getting there. As such, I do agree with what Bob is saying…I think. I mean, really, our traditional concepts of gaming are breaking down as anything that is electronic and has a screen can be a gaming device. Trying to define types of gaming is starting to be like defining sub-genres of Heavy Metal. There's just too many categories and no one really cares.
I'm curious as to what Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo will do once Cloud Gaming becomes a more likely option.
PC gaming is by no means dead lets just say its in transition or convergence. The home entertainment systems as we know it are changing. I use my PC for everything even with a WII and a 360 in the house. I don't use them at all and I game alot primarily via steam. MY PC is now my TV, music player, web browser and communication hub and work station. If anything I see the pc on a major resurgence. One system to rule them all. Brand new titles released on all major systems this includes PC(example dragonage 2) . Digital downloading and cloud are the major comeback tools for pc gaming who needs shelf space in a physical store. Along with an adaptable system. It can play 360, wii or ps3 games but you cant do it the other way around. Just think all you really need is a pc mode called 360 that just has all the xbox games and interface available via streaming, who needs another system just for that. All I need to play ps3 or 360 games is a controller and some improvement for multiplayer(in the area of playing with each other in the same location). Dead yeah right!
By the way… long time console fan. started on atari moved to Nintendo to SNES to Playstation. Finally to PC. Call it an evolution each one more powerful and diverse.
What do you use to edit and render your video? I realize that for stuff like EttM and Big Picture, and even to a lesser extent Game Overthinker, you don't need a lot of processing power or hard drive space, but as even a part time indie filmmaker, one would think you needed a PC for your (for lack of better term) extracurricular projects. I run the Adobe Creative Suite for my movies and couldn't really run on anything BUT a PC (or a Mac if I used one). I know there's already a LOT of integration with the new tech – Red Cameras can stream live to iPads for the director to use as a monitor – but tablets and things like that aren't going to have the processing power or storage for heavy video editing for quite a while. I realize this is a very specific example of PCs hanging around, but it makes me wonder how many other things aren't going to be so easily integrated into the sort of futuristic computing you describe in the video.
Not to be a contrarian, I think the video was really good, I just think some of the ideas behind the video are jumping the gun a little.
I think what PC gamers are lamenting is the loss of a specific sub-clique of gaming culture. There's a big difference between the PC community and the console community when it comes to things like modding. When a game gets locked onto a console, the ability for gamers with some programming and design talent to fiddle with it are severely limited.
A great example would be the Europa Barbarorum mod for Rome: Total War. R:TW vanilla is a pretty fun game, but the EB mod is a complete overhaul. The map is expanded, hundreds of new and historically accurate units are added, the graphics are actually vastly improved, and an immense amount of depth and strategy are infused into the game making it a wholly new and infinitely better experience. If R:TW had been released only on the console, such an achievement would have been impossible.
While it is not always the case, I've found that by-and-large PC games have a depth to them that console games often do not. But those depth-driven games are most often strategy or flight-simulator games, and the occasional RPG–things that are slowly making their way onto the console. However, I think the PC gamers are afraid that, through the migration, something will be lost. Either it will be actual depth and/or “dumbing down”, or it might simply be something more intangible and subtle–a simple loss of that feel that one used to get playing PC games in the first place.
“How many people actually still need a PC?” Well, there's A. the people who like to type on actual keyboards with real, non-kludge tactile response, B. the people who use a computer for anything more intensive than word processing and web browsing, and C. the people who want to run software that either a. hasn't been ported to tablet/phone operating systems, b. wouldn't be very usable on one anyway, or c. (in the iPhone's case) hasn't been cock-blocked by Apple in order to prevent it from threatening something they're planning to release in the vaguely near future. But other than that…oh wait, that's everybody who does any kind of real work on a PC, isn't it?
(Note: I am including laptops in the “PC” group because they are, in fact, PCs. Smartphones and most tablets are not.)
As for PC gaming, it all depends on what you mean by the term. The market for commercial, big-budget PC games may indeed be gasping its last (though people have been saying that for at least ten years and it's still around.) However, PCs still offer the widest variety (and widest userbase) for small-scale/independent gaming, since developers are free to use absolutely any tools they want with no restrictions on content or outside control of releases at all, ever. Microsoft has been making some efforts towards giving independent developers an in on the Xbox, but they're restricted to using only MS-sanctioned tools – and let's not even start on Nintendo, whose WiiWare development process is only barely less restrictive than the crap they make full-fledged disc titles go through. Until the console developers get their act together and stop tying independent developers down, the PC is always going to have the edge there.
P.S. please, please, please stop talking about “cloud computing.” The term you're looking for, the one that isn't a goddamn Wired buzzword, is “distributed computing.” Distributed computing is extremely useful for some applications (i.e. running a big-ass server farm like Google does,) but it's not the “next wave of computing technology” the cyberpunk-wannabe future-fetishists in the pop-tech-journalism industry want you to think. This is because A.anything you do with it is potentially visible to any random cracker on the Internet,B.it will start costing subscription fees as soon as it starts getting heavily utilized, and C.YOU HAVE TO HAVE A RELIABLE INTERNET CONNECTION OR IT DOESN'T WORK. Desktop PCs, laptops, or hell, even hacked consoles still beat out distributed computing on all three counts.
You know, Bob, I've been a Hardcore PC Gamer as long as I can think – indeed, my first *real* gaming memories are about some all to green nights of “The Bard's Tale”, spent in front of a miniscule CGA monitor, somewhere in the mid 80s. I had just learned to read and write, and I didn't know any English (I'm German, FYI), but that didn't stop me.
And while I disagree with you on some critical points… I can't help but realise that, in the long run, what you say is true. PCs are not doomed – not in the sense you think, anyway. Buisiness and Office applications, Video and Image editing and, last but not least, good old *programming* will allways be performed on dedicated machines, if only for convinience. BTW: Laptops are PCs too, you know?
Also, PC Gaming isn't dead – in fact, it's more healthy than ever. What was the most talked-about game in 2010? Motherfucking Minecraft. And that should give you some indication of the Shape of PC games to come: Indie.
What *is* dead – and here's where you are absolutely right – is “Triple A” PC Gaming. As you rightly said, the once great dominance of the PC in exclusive series has withered – all that is left is basically Total War and The Sims, and the latter isn't exactly the most non-casual of games. It's time for us, I am afraid, to accept this. The next Half-Life will propably be on the PC – but it will be a port. Peggle, Farmville and all their derivates are not dependent on any platform. With technical developement stagnant for at least five years, the PC's days as a technical spearhead are numbered. Let's face it, it was all inevitable from the beginning. Wing Commander wasn't the pinnacle – it was the beginning.
Still… what I bemoan isn't a fucking *platform*. I couldn't care less if my favourite games run on my trusty old Dual Core or my Xbox. What I bemoan is a loss of innovation, a loss of *genres*. The complexty and depth of the PC games of lore are things of the past, I'm afraid. EA, Ubisoft or Activison will not make a new Jagged Alliance, a new Fantasy General or a new Deus Ex (I won't believe for one second that Human Revolution will live up to the first one. Just like Bioshock didn't live up to System Shock 2). That's the sad thing. The good thing is…. Minecraft? Have you played it? If not, do so, and you might understand why I'm still cautiosly optimistic about the PC.
Excellent one sir Bob. I was the kid who had a computer and also had to buy his own console(NES). Longest 6 months of my young life.
I would say if it weren't for Steam and the occasional kick-ass bargain bin discovery(MOO3 $10) my computer would be just a work device that I consume media on. Nintendo and Valve are the only game companies I give any attention these days. Speaking of which, a console Zelda game and a Portal sequeal in one year, SCORE!
Yep, the computer is going mobile, if it isn't already obvious, it will be in a year's time. I stare at the saucy bit of tech-porn that is the xoom imagining what it will be like to get a piece of that. Maybe she will go 4g for me.
Though I still can't quite envision a world where I can play any FPS without a keyboard not wanting to embed the waggle or traditional controller into the wall. Sony, Microsoft, even you my beloved Nintendo, don't just make it possible to use a keyboard and mouse, make it work like a PC. Not keymapping of button controls to keys, but an alternative set of controls, the proper controls. It can't be that hard, the device is hardly new, it's just been Modified….he he he…
We may come to a time when laptops could carry the processing power of a bulky PC making it, as Bob said, dead.
Being a PC raised gamer myself, this is very disturbing. But it is very likely, given the evolution of technology these days, the strength of a PC will eventually be carried on by other devices.
This is probably going to sound semi-hypocritcal but I'm going to say it.
If one define “PC Gaming” as “Games played a personal computer that you can't lug around”. I think PC Gaming is what is never going to die for one main reason…..emulators.
Ok so the PS3 is out and has brutal computing power. Let's say you don't want to buy it, you want to say….pirate it…let's face it NO Laptop is going to run that without blowing a very large amount.
But by sacrificing movement ability for spending less, one could likely get a less mobile device that, if given the ISOs and output devices to run them, play every current console game.
Heck I know for a fact that a fair number of Xbox games are on PC although maybe not in high def. And I also know for a fact from my research via google while writing this that there exist an emulator named after the project that gave us the gamecube that can run both gamecube AND Wii games assuming one is willing to take a long time programming their keyboard/mouse to work as controls.
Sure you might have to wait 3 years to get the stuff, but if you're willing to wait. 3 1k gaming console and 60 bucks a game becomes a 1.2k personal computer that can do all 3, and play every single game assuming you can find the roms.
Nah, PC gaming isn't going to die. It's just going to become the pot of the gaming world. Illegal and black market but still there, and have rabid people arguing on both sides in a battle of white and gray morality.
Bob, I've never disagreed with you more on an issue. Ever.
How you came to this conclusion boggles my brain.
Do you REALLY expect we'll all be programming, rendering, editing or whatever on hand-held devices?
I do 3D animation, and let me tell you, the intensive hardware needed to do anything big is exclusive to full PC towers.
Laptops are all well and good, but in my experience they all have major overheating problems as they get more powerful and are more of an investment than full towers due to special notebook parts which are more expensive.
Apps are nice, but custom programs need breathing room.
I don't doubt that we'll put more and more power, more efficiently into smaller and smaller devices that will be more capable, but you will NEVER encounter a scenario where a big monitor, keyboard, mouse and subsequent tower don't come into the picture somewhere, especially at the developmental level. Artists alone need all kinds of programs to get stuff done.
On the gaming end, I will always prefer a mouse and keyboard over a controller. I'd love to use one on my XBox, but whatever. Fact is, Minecraft is still PC-based and flourishing, and Valve is one of the game companies that matter most to me, and they have an extreme loyalty to the PC as well as a near monopoly on online game distribution. As long as Valve stays cool, I don't care.
I just can't imagine you thought very hard on this one Bob. Your position seems pretty ignorant.
I must be missing something. What advantage is there to having 4-6 devices that sacrifice so much performance, usability, screen size, and ergonomics for portability? Why would I type an e-mail on my tiny phone, squint at a movie on my laptop, and chat with friends with my x-box when I can do all that an more at my very comfortable computer desk?
Miniaturization of technology takes time and money. Mobile and peripheral devices will, for the foreseeable future, be more expensive and less powerful than their box-in-the-corner grandfathers.
The saving grace of traditional PCs is that they offer nearly limitless gaming opportunities whereas console and mobile gaming have many gatekeepers. Rating systems, apple store-style screening processes, and $10 premiums are incredible limiters to games. Presently, there's almost no possibility for adult-oriented games, little possibility for open development of mobile apps, and no opportunity for free games in the console market. I can't imagine a home computer being replaced until there's a comparable device with an open, free operating system with no gatekeepers hindering progress.
I see far more opportunity in the open range of the PC world than in the profit-driven world of console or mobile gaming.
@Jdude With CPU's and GPU's constantly getting smaller, in 5-10 years, everything will be at 12nm or smaller, so you can basically do it on a laptop or a very little portable case. —– For the rest: I'm still waiting until we can get a tablet that is more than just an app player (iPod XL)I'm sure there will be some selection in the future with a proper Linux distro. (I say Linux meaning 'everything but x86 Windows')
Damn… Was all ready to defend the PC just by the title, then I watched the video…. Can't really say that I disagree with anything you said. Brought up some really good points. Everything a PC was capable of doing can now be done with laptops and hendhelds on the go. There is really no need to wait till you get home so you can use the PC to check your email/credit card statements or chat… It can all be done in the palm of your hand now days. Good video Bob.
Also… to anyone that didn't watch the video and is just responding because of the title… I suggest you watch it. He very clearly says “The PC is dead, NOT PC gaming”.
PC gaming will not die until something with a better experience comes along.
PC owners are not married to the platform. If something better comes along we would jump to it. But at the moment supposed alternatives mean making sacrifices to your gaming experience. Scarifies for greater mobility or ease use. This does not equal better.
All PC gamers want is the best gaming experience without compromise. Whether that is on the PC or another better platform does not matter. That to me that should be the definition of hardcore gamers. Not people happily playing their toned down console FPS's, etc. Anyone who makes comprises to their gaming experience surely are casual gamers.
And lets get this straight for everyone. Laptops are PC's. PC does not = desktop PC's. PC means an IBM compatible, which in turn means anything running a 8086 derided CPU / code. So that includes Laptops, and atom powered tablets. That also means you too Mac owners. So PC gaming is any gaming that happens on the above devices. This is not a secret and I cannot take seriously comments from anyone who cannot understand this basic concept.
I am disappointed as this video instead of moving the discussion forward with new idea's just seems to be aimed at inflaming old arguments. I expected better from Bob.
I think a lot of people are missing how Bob differentiated a laptop/notebook from a PC here, and when you get right down to it, part of PC Gaming tradition has always been a bad ass computer tower with LED's and cooling units and fans and etc. etc. Sort of like guys that drive muscle cars.
The thing I don't think PC gamers understand is, just like muscle cars, that's all niche. The number of people that buy the latest and greatest muscle cars are few, and all the rest wind up buying old ones and trying to restore them (or just fucking them up. As with computers, there's a lot of car people out there that think they know what they're doing but don't have a single clue).
A notebook is still a portable device that can come in any size and sacrifices a lot of what the traditional desktop provides for the sake of convenience. Yet laptops are getting powerful to the point that, well, why WOULD you get a desktop instead of a laptop?
@john:
“However, PCs still offer the widest variety (and widest userbase) for small-scale/independent gaming, since developers are free to use absolutely any tools they want with no restrictions on content or outside control of releases at all, ever.“
There's a few things wrong with this assumption. If you check any beginner's Game Dev forum you are bound to see the question “What language should I use?” asked, and veterans will always respond with a list of languages that all have pros and cons. C# is a great tool and Microsoft's XNA is a great framework, but your game is pretty much limited to Xbox and Windows without some major work. In which case you can use Java or C++ to make a cross-platform game, but the tools to help make it easier are limited. You can make a Flash game, but you'll be restricted to the web browser.
You also mention Microsoft and Nintendo (and I imagine likewise Sony) being very restrictive in what they release. Do you remember what happened to the Atari when there was no “Seal of Approval”? Have you seen the Xbox Live Indie Games? There's a lot of people that seem to ignore the axiom “Just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD”, and thus there's a whole lot of shit that obscures the few diamonds in the rough from view.
This is even more true on PC's, where there is no handy way for someone to find your game like Xbox Live Indie Games. They pretty much have to trip over it (yes, I know there are sites that act as resources, but each of these sites is a niche. People love to praise Minecraft as being some major achievement of both Indie gaming AND of PC gaming's future, but let's face it. The guy got lucky and he could just as easily have remained obscure).
I'd have to say I pretty much agree with Bob here. I see a lot of people saying that right now they wouldn't want to do things on other devices that they would do on a PC, and I completely agree. Surfing the web on my iPhone isn't as convenient as doing it on my computer. PC games can be modded in ways that console games can't. Only a PC gamer could take an RTS and make it an FPS.
But times will change, and who knows where PCs and even consoles will be twenty years from now? Would the Super Lumiere Bros. have ever thought that someone could make a movie on a camera that could fit in the palm of a hand and without using film stock? Would the inventors of ENIAC ever have thought that one day a computer could be carried around? Just because we can't imagine the PC going away now doesn't mean that it won't a couple decades from now.
I think Bob's looking at the big picture here (get it?), and not just the immediate future.
Take the second half of this show (from the point wher he talks about the uselessness of the PC itself) and replace the word PC with Consoles.
See how it still fits? Frankly Bob, I'd be more concerned that your underpowered, old Wii would be the first of the gaming systems to be replaced by the cloud backend with screen only front end due to the technical specs of the Wii being massively under that of all other systems. Essentially, replicating the Wii system compared with any other system is easy especially now everyone is pumping money into motion control.
And I love how you trivialize Starcraft 2 into a half-second image, ignore the dedicated servers and mod support arguments, but should I be surprised over cherry picked arguments?
Also it's nice that you didn't bring up piracy. Oh wait, you can't anymore as both the ps3 and xbox360 have been broken open by people looking to pirate games as well. Guess it's not just PC Gamers who want to steal.
@Chris Cesarano: Yes, it's true that there's often a tradeoff between the flexibility of a language and the quality of its game-dev support tools (though that's much, much less true than it used to be.) But it's basically irrelevant, because with XBLM you don't have a choice. You have to use XNA, and you're stuck with either C# or VB.NET. If you want to develop for the Xbox and don't like either of those, you're shit out of luck.
It's even worse if you have a pre-developed game in some other language (i.e. any of the most common programming languages out there.) You can't just change out some wrapper functions to work with new libraries, you're going to have to re-write that sucker in one of the Microsoft-approved languages. Take, for example, Kornel Kisieliwicz's popular DOOM: The Roguelike. (Putting aside that it's based on someone else's franchise and thus probably couldn't see commercial release, that is.) That's written in FreePascal, which is not (and is unlikely to ever be) supported by XNA. In order for that to see an Xbox port, it'd have to be completely re-written in C# or VB.NET – neither of which are very similar to FP.
And yes, I most certainly do remember the age of horseshit third-party Atari games. There were indeed tons of crap games, but do you know what else that brought us? Motherfucking Activision. (The real one, not the soulless husk reanimated by corporate voodoo.) They invented unlicensed third-party development, and they gave us some of the best games the console ever saw, and they didn't need any corporate vetting to tell them “yes, this is some kickass stuff.” If they had, they'd never have gotten it anyway, since they were founded by disgruntled Atari programmers and there's no way Atari would have let them back in the fold, especially not as a third party. If the Atari had had a release model like XBLM, we would never have gotten Chopper Command,H.E.R.O., or freaking Pitfall!
That's what it's about: choice. Whatever disadvantages the PC has, it offers unlimited choice for the game developer. You can code big, code small, write a fairytale, write a porno, give it away, sell it for $20, email it to your grandma, what the hell ever you damn well please. With consoles, you can't. You can rationalize Microsoft's policies, and you might even make some good points in so doing, but that's not going to change the fact that they don't offer you any choice as a developer. You have it their way, or not at all, and unless they change their ways, the PC will always be the better platform for independent game development.
@john, it sounds like you're trying to argue PC will always be better than console, but once again it's completely subjective and dependent on one's goals and skill level. Personally, if I wanted to develop games (which I sort of do), I'd want to do it on console. As such, I'd love to use C# and XNA.
That doesn't mean I think those are the best options or tools, just the best for my own personal goals.
Once more, though, you are assuming consoles will always be as they are. I don't think Bob was implying that they WOULDN'T change in the future, but he was more arguing against one of the more vocal and elitist groups in gaming today. Who knows what the best platform will be for anything.
To put it another way, think about how companies are trying to get devices to all work together. In particular, think about how much Microsoft has been trying to get consumers to use their Windows computer (desktop or laptop) to sync with their Xbox 360 to sync with their Windows Phone. The biggest failure for these concerns is that they are exclusive to Microsoft products.
The better option is for them to just write frameworks for software so developers can link ANY device to ANY Microsoft product. My Blu-Ray player has an Internet connection. What if, ten years from now, I can have a tablet PC, and if I want to do some serious programming I just push a button on my tablet and it tells my Blu-Ray player to open up some software development tools.
Then again, I imagine a future where whole walls of houses are touch screen. Not in this lifetime, though.
I bet if you go back 10-20 years you'll imagine artists that will say there's no replacing a good old paintbrush and canvas. Now we have artists that don't even bother with paper and pencil and skip right to digital.
I think technology should have taught all of us that the way we do things is only temporary, and in a few decades time we'll have to be ready to completely change how it's done. Which, in the end, I think is what Bob is arguing, hence I agree with it.
@Chris Cesarano: I wasn't talking about what's best for your personal goals. Languages of choice are languages of choice, and if C# and XNA work for you, that's awesome. (I mentioned FreePascal, and I don't like that either, so there you go. I'm a C/C++ and SDL man, myself.) Nor do I have a problem with the Xbox as a platform – it's certainly a capable enough machine for just about any kind of game.
My problem is with the “you use our languages and our library or you don't get to play the indie-developer game” mindset Microsoft has. It's like the old studio system in Hollywood, where movie studios owned the theaters; filmmakers had to work for a studio, or their movies wouldn't get a release. That was bad for creativity then, and it still is now.
(And Microsoft might be pushing for generalized software frameworks and inter-device integration and compatibility, but they're still pushing it with their languages and libraries.)
That lack of freedom is why I say PCs have the edge in independent gaming, and why they will continue to maintain that edge until console manufacturers quit tying them down. I didn't intend to imply that won't ever happen, I'm just not going to hold my breath waiting for it to.
You do bring up good points, but I think Microsoft is going to be forced to change their game plan soon nonetheless. But that starts to go way off topic and be more focused on theories as to what Steam on the PS3 means and can lead to.
I agree with what Ankhwatcher said. Maybe not so angst-ily, but I agree with the points made. Also, something I often wonder about is other peoples ideas of the future. You make it out to be a future full of smaller, more portable, multipurpose, computer-ish devices where everything is connected to the internet. Doesn't this strike anyone else as silly? Maybe it will happen, but maybe, 20 years down the road some new innovative piece of technology will have been invented that we cannot even imagine now. It would make our fantasies of gadgets and the internet (God, remember that ancient thing?) seem just as silly as steampunk, or the Jetsons.
You know, I was going to explain that I disagree for a few reasons but hell, theres a few dozen comments above me are already writing a mini-thesis about PC gaming “greatness”.
As a PC gamer, I believe the vice versa of what your saying. PCs will live on but PC games will die. I mean the non-flash, “hardcore” games.
When I can play a small section of Half-Life in my browser, its a sign that people aren't going to put up with upgrading their computers and the hundreds/thousands of dollars that go with it.
PCs will live because everything you described is all spread out among many gadgets while PC is everything, and more, in one.
Until I saw one gadget do everything my PC can and more, I say PCs will live but PC gaming (non-flash, non-web, disc based gaming) is going to die and we're going to live to see it.
MOVIEBOB CENTRAL 
Well argued Bob. And all without mentioning the biggest elephant in the room, piracy!
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I disagree with you completely Bob.
Let's look at a console for a moment, a PS3/360 is essentially a PC that's FIVE generations behind current hardware with restrictive OS by Sony/Microsoft.
Why the hell would I want that when I could just have a PC?
PC hardware advance every month while a console cycle takes 5 years.
In terms of hardware there's no way a console could catch up to a PC in whatever shape or form.
PC are the foundation of cutting edge consumer hardware, all of console's hardware are BASED on PC hardware.
That means the advancement of PC effects directly to the advance of consoles/phones/tablets/whatever consumer gadget you can think of.
If PC cease to exist, console would soon follow.
Saying console having better game than PC is just not true.
Even back in 90's while console had Super Mario 64, Ocarina of time and so on, we had Baldur's Gate, System Shock 2, Wolfenstein 3D, StarCraft, diablo and so on
Not to mention almost all multi-platform games are best played on PC.
Gaming is a big commitment, if you are serious about it(as you are about movie) why not have the best possible experience?
And Bob, saying motion control can replace a mouse and keyboard is just naive.
Unless a holographic mouse are keyboard are invented, I don't buy it.
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Ah, Bob.. I love your ramblings.
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One thing that most if not all of my PC gaming friends and myself agree on is that the rise of console gaming has made PC gaming easier and cheaper. Since most games released now must run on Xbox to earn as much money as possible all you need for a gaming rig is a computer as powerful as an Xbox 360. This is a vast improvement over the old Red Queen's race we used to face. I just wish there were more combat flight sims available, and it has been far too long since I have been able to blast Tie fighters out of a galaxy far far away. Sigh.
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Before I watch this, I am going to guess that the title is entirely serious, without any hint of irony whatsoever.
Given what has been stated in the Game Overthinker series (“Worst Person”…”Neat trick”), and the strong affinity toward Nintendo, I would not be surprised. I am also going to guess that the oft repeated complaints of the cost of entry and the required technical knowhow to upgrade are given as reasons why PC gaming is legitimately dead.
I'll watch and hope I am wrong.
(Normally I'd post this over at the escapist, but over there it would be drowned out 😉
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RTS is probably my favorite genre of game. Having said that I have not owned PC in over 3 years. I think PC gaming is turning into laptop gaming. Thank god for Korea and e sports because they have ensured that RTS wont die with the home computer. GOT episode on esports? please?
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I've got to disagree on a few counts–most notably that PC gaming is 'dead' when it's really only fair to say that the niche PC gaming used to fill is increasingly shared by other devices that do the same thing. But Goldeneye came out in 97 and PC shooters are still popular.
And for me, a PC will always be necessary. As an artist (and game developer) I cannot envision a near future where an available tablet is capable of doing the kinds of tasks a PC can, even with the most advanced touch display. While developing games for that kind of niche user is obviously foolish, it's not so foolish to remember that the one thing the PC market has that no console does is the ability to market to an expanding legacy market. Steam and other functions lets me not only sell games to the new PCs out there, but old ones–some so old that we need to devise arcane patches for out-of-date DirectX patches and such.
And personally, I find the need to use a tablet, smartphone, laptop, and several other independent devices hilariously archaic compared to my single wifi-linked basement box that houses many of the slumbering modules that my artist's renderbox doesn't need.
With my two big high-def widescreen supermonitors here capable of supporting my PS3's full HDMI glory, the thing I think that is risking an inglorious scrapping is my television. While the idea of a seperate PC dedicated to websurfing may be absurd nowadays, the TV is increasingly a relic of an era before the internet, and the only difference between a modern PC and a modern TV is that one helps me with my taxes when I'm not working or gaming and the other sits there off a lot.
The idea of a dead medium of PC gaming is pretty unlikely, since the same thing that powers a tablet or a console powers a PC, and outside of the gizmo-gadget convenience of tablets, a super-powered smartphone is going to eclipse most of what you need a laptop or tablet for amongst the general population. Games will exist for whatever exists. PC games aren't deads. PC games won't be dead. You can't develop a console with the power to bury a PC without, by definition, creating a PC of equal potency. And once the artificial barrier of the television evaporates into a single wifi-connected device hub centered around a single monitor display… then we're going to really have some interesting new labels. How many people even use their TV anymore except for consoles? Netflix is going to kill television, and then your console may as well just be another PC.
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I started out as that kid whose parents wouldn't buy him a console, but quickly moved to console gaming as soon as I had scraped together enough birthday money to buy one.
With the latest gen of hardware, I bought a Wii, was happy with it for a few years, and then decided I wanted a second system. Not wanting to fork over the money for a ps3 or 360 I tried, very briefly, to get back into PC gaming, although I can't say I was ever that hardcore as an 11 year old. I then bought a ps3 because I liked the exclusives more and I wanted a blu ray player (I know, I'm part of the problem).
There's something about the consoles I just like more than the PC. I'm sure there are many reasons, but one of them is not having to check the system requirements every time I want to pop in a game into my wii or ps3. I don't like the idea of having to spend hundreds of dollars a year, or every few years, just to be able to play the latest games, when I could buy a multi-functional system, pay once, and then not have to worry about it until the next console cycle.
The ps3 is, essentially, my media centre for everything I would play through my TV. I love that – one system, and I get one of the best consumer-level blu-ray/dvd players, a hub for any video content I might download off the internet, and a way to view my own photos/videos on my tv. I play tons of games too, and I really enjoy it. If they developed a North American version of the European PlayTV, I wouldn't even have a cable box. I would just have my ps3 plugged into my TV.
I know that seems “soft”, “casual”, or “gheeeyyy” but, honestly, it's just practical. I have no problem with gaming being “just” one aspect of a system, or tablet, or phone, etc. In fact, I embrace it. It saves me money, space (crucial for me), time, and energy. I don't see a downside.
I suppose that could be an argument for PC gaming as well, but, for some reason, I don't think it applies. Maybe as far as saving space goes, but, really, it's just such a bother to be a PC gamer that I really don't care.
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Wow, neither are directly mentioned, and as Wright stated, neither is piracy. Congrats.
However, I will strongly disagree with the idea of computing entirely “in the cloud,” which could also be called “communist computing.”
Dumb buffers attached to mainframes is how computing started out, not where it is going.
People do not now rent computing power and software like they did from the likes of IBM in the 60's. They own them.
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I meant dumb frame buffers.
I fail at proofreading.
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@bob
I have to disagree with the fundamentals of this, but not for the reasons many will. In fact, I think, perhaps, your statement “PC gaming is dead” (rather, WILL die), may be true.
But based on the logic you've stated, I think those same arguments could be made to say “CONSOLE GAMING IS DYING” as well. Right? I mean, you're talking about the needlessness of separate devices. how everythign will be spread throughout our entire lives. Doesn't this make the console archaic as well? might we just plug our TV into the wall and then be able to play God of War 8 (If we pay for the license). Might we then be able to resume the game while we're out and about on our omnitools or ipad10s or whatever? I think these statements apply to each of these devices… just that PC gaming is leading the charge.
Also, Bob, be careful with making these kinds of predictions. Do you want to look like the guys who predicted we'd all be on Mars by 2000?
@Bill
The idea that PC hardware advances every month, and that console does not is a fallacy, i think. 1) the vast majority of people upgrade a computer every several years, not every month. not even once a year. i consider myself pretty tech savy, and for me, there's a solid 3 years in between upgrades. Thus, the market and developers have to deal with this huge range of system power, thus the “Crysises” and other power-pushes are very few and far between, as it just doesn't make economic sense.
And besides, the console technology DOES improve every month, simply not for the consumer. i'm pretty sure Sony is spending March coming up with some new cool tech. and Nintendo will do the same in April. The difference is just that such things are released so rarely, relative to new video cards, processors, etc.
And, as bob has mentioned, consoles essentially are PCs now. if the true “PC” died, consoles, tablets,phones, wouldn't die as well – they'd simply take up the R&D mantle themselves.
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Never been a PC gamer. Just not interested in the majority of games that thrive on the system. I think the world is changing as how people interact with computers. It will be a while before desktops go away completely (if they do) but it's just getting more and more convenient to compute elsewhere. We have internet on our TV's now with keyboards and the pointer controls of remotes (while not as good) are forming a functional substitute. Frankly if I had to choose I'd much rather sit nice and comfy on my couch and do my computing there as opposed to slumped over a desk. And the advance in technology applies to everyone, not just gamers. The vast majority of people who own PC's outside of the workplace likely only use them to do basic things like internet, personal bookeeping, and word processing if not much else. When people require so little from their rigs porting them over to their big screen TV's as opposed to desktops and even their notebooks can be a very appealing propsect.
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@counterpoint
Some of the thing I said is arbitary.
Of course you don't have to upgrade every month, but the market comes out with more Power hungry CPU/GPU every few month.
“And besides, the console technology DOES improve every month, simply not for the consumer.” That's subjective, if you meant rendering technologies and optimizations sure, but those things are done on a computer.
Even things like firmware update have nothing to do with the hardware on the console it self.
The biggest difference from a PC to a phone and console is it's Interchangeable parts.
AMD/Intel/Nvidia comes out with their cutting edge hardware every few month, and a company like apple cannot, therefore it needs to use pre-existing hardware that's already avaible on the market.
So in a sense, console will NEVER surpass PC and consoles ALWAYS needs PC.
Few hundreds of years in the future this may change in form, but the concept remains the same.
Hence why PC will never die, conceptually.
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Good video, although your argument for “point and click adventure games are making a comeback on the wii” to my knowledge has no basis in fact.
I haven't really seen a wild revival of the genre on the system. If it was, I'd buy them. Instead all we have are Zack and Wiki and some Sam & Max ports from the PC about a year after. I guess the closest to that would be the Phoenix Wright port on wiiware and the silly shovelware “find the object” games.
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Eh, whatever. I don't want to pick sides on this, especially given my current opinion of Bob, but again, he does make some good points…
…I think, I found it hard to keep track of the first time through.
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I don't know why I'm telling you this, because you don't give a toss, but:
You're mostly wrong.
PC Gaming in the mundane going-to-a-store-and-buying-a-game way that the rest of you experience it is dying.
Soon will be the day that you cannot buy a PC game in the Electronic Boutiques that used to hold them in such regard.
PC Gaming is in the process of consolidating into a few online store fronts.
BTW your assertion that PC Gamers haven't played consoles is incorrect. I was a pure console gamer until 2005, I would make impassioned arguments about how PC's were only good for playing strategy games.
But then I played Battlefield 2, a game with a depth and scale of choice that no console not even one of the ones around today, could provide.
PC gaming provides the grandest and meanest experiences of gaming, from the bizzare little indie titles to the sprawling solar systems of EVE, there is plenty of juice left in PC Gaming where barriers are low and distribution cheap.
But hey, I'll keep playing fantastic games with never-ending updates like Team Fortress 2.
I'll keep playing mind-blowing indie successes like Minecraft.
You have fun, thinking of me as some cardboard flamer that isn't cool enough to settle for limited games, paid updates, slow support, and an endless torrent of 12-yea-olds screaming shut-up at french people*.
Your Friend,
ANkh
*True story: being in Ireland COD would mix us in with players from France and players from the US, when the French players talked the children from the US would scream and shout and talk over them. Because XBOX games don't have real servers, there were no moderators. My XBOX was a portal to hell. A portal I had to pay an annual subscription to access. No thanks.
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“I AM INTERFACED!!!”
Sorry, had to do it.
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That'll do, Bob. That'll do
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This future is possible for those who have the fucking money. The rest of us normal human beings will have to deal with hand me downs and good will shops for our future ten year old i-pods and live in what already is a cyber punk future. Right now I'm on the verge of getting a dual core proccessor in order to finally edit Hd video and have had a pentium 4 for the past seven years and yet I was able to play Dawn of war II, Mass effect and all that crap.
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Someone mentioned Cloud Computing being unlikely, and someone else mentioned a tablet PC being incapable of what a desktop can do.
For an example of a Cloud already at work, I point to Netflix Instant. If every movie ever was available on Netflix Instant, the only reason to ever buy a movie would be so you could physically own it. We're already reaching generations where people shrug and say “I'd rather not take up the space”. Not to mention $9/month for all those movies is a sweet deal, right?
In that regard, I imagine most entertainment media will no longer be a purchase-by-purchase basis, but a subscription based one. Use Adobe products for just $20/month! No need to download or install, just pay your monthly bill and you can use any of the software via Cloud Computing.
Is it an immediate future? No, but it's getting there. As such, I do agree with what Bob is saying…I think. I mean, really, our traditional concepts of gaming are breaking down as anything that is electronic and has a screen can be a gaming device. Trying to define types of gaming is starting to be like defining sub-genres of Heavy Metal. There's just too many categories and no one really cares.
I'm curious as to what Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo will do once Cloud Gaming becomes a more likely option.
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PC gaming is by no means dead lets just say its in transition or convergence. The home entertainment systems as we know it are changing. I use my PC for everything even with a WII and a 360 in the house. I don't use them at all and I game alot primarily via steam. MY PC is now my TV, music player, web browser and communication hub and work station. If anything I see the pc on a major resurgence. One system to rule them all. Brand new titles released on all major systems this includes PC(example dragonage 2) . Digital downloading and cloud are the major comeback tools for pc gaming who needs shelf space in a physical store. Along with an adaptable system. It can play 360, wii or ps3 games but you cant do it the other way around. Just think all you really need is a pc mode called 360 that just has all the xbox games and interface available via streaming, who needs another system just for that. All I need to play ps3 or 360 games is a controller and some improvement for multiplayer(in the area of playing with each other in the same location). Dead yeah right!
By the way… long time console fan. started on atari moved to Nintendo to SNES to Playstation. Finally to PC. Call it an evolution each one more powerful and diverse.
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What do you use to edit and render your video? I realize that for stuff like EttM and Big Picture, and even to a lesser extent Game Overthinker, you don't need a lot of processing power or hard drive space, but as even a part time indie filmmaker, one would think you needed a PC for your (for lack of better term) extracurricular projects. I run the Adobe Creative Suite for my movies and couldn't really run on anything BUT a PC (or a Mac if I used one). I know there's already a LOT of integration with the new tech – Red Cameras can stream live to iPads for the director to use as a monitor – but tablets and things like that aren't going to have the processing power or storage for heavy video editing for quite a while. I realize this is a very specific example of PCs hanging around, but it makes me wonder how many other things aren't going to be so easily integrated into the sort of futuristic computing you describe in the video.
Not to be a contrarian, I think the video was really good, I just think some of the ideas behind the video are jumping the gun a little.
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I think what PC gamers are lamenting is the loss of a specific sub-clique of gaming culture. There's a big difference between the PC community and the console community when it comes to things like modding. When a game gets locked onto a console, the ability for gamers with some programming and design talent to fiddle with it are severely limited.
A great example would be the Europa Barbarorum mod for Rome: Total War. R:TW vanilla is a pretty fun game, but the EB mod is a complete overhaul. The map is expanded, hundreds of new and historically accurate units are added, the graphics are actually vastly improved, and an immense amount of depth and strategy are infused into the game making it a wholly new and infinitely better experience. If R:TW had been released only on the console, such an achievement would have been impossible.
While it is not always the case, I've found that by-and-large PC games have a depth to them that console games often do not. But those depth-driven games are most often strategy or flight-simulator games, and the occasional RPG–things that are slowly making their way onto the console. However, I think the PC gamers are afraid that, through the migration, something will be lost. Either it will be actual depth and/or “dumbing down”, or it might simply be something more intangible and subtle–a simple loss of that feel that one used to get playing PC games in the first place.
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“How many people actually still need a PC?” Well, there's A. the people who like to type on actual keyboards with real, non-kludge tactile response, B. the people who use a computer for anything more intensive than word processing and web browsing, and C. the people who want to run software that either a. hasn't been ported to tablet/phone operating systems, b. wouldn't be very usable on one anyway, or c. (in the iPhone's case) hasn't been cock-blocked by Apple in order to prevent it from threatening something they're planning to release in the vaguely near future. But other than that…oh wait, that's everybody who does any kind of real work on a PC, isn't it?
(Note: I am including laptops in the “PC” group because they are, in fact, PCs. Smartphones and most tablets are not.)
As for PC gaming, it all depends on what you mean by the term. The market for commercial, big-budget PC games may indeed be gasping its last (though people have been saying that for at least ten years and it's still around.) However, PCs still offer the widest variety (and widest userbase) for small-scale/independent gaming, since developers are free to use absolutely any tools they want with no restrictions on content or outside control of releases at all, ever. Microsoft has been making some efforts towards giving independent developers an in on the Xbox, but they're restricted to using only MS-sanctioned tools – and let's not even start on Nintendo, whose WiiWare development process is only barely less restrictive than the crap they make full-fledged disc titles go through. Until the console developers get their act together and stop tying independent developers down, the PC is always going to have the edge there.
P.S. please, please, please stop talking about “cloud computing.” The term you're looking for, the one that isn't a goddamn Wired buzzword, is “distributed computing.” Distributed computing is extremely useful for some applications (i.e. running a big-ass server farm like Google does,) but it's not the “next wave of computing technology” the cyberpunk-wannabe future-fetishists in the pop-tech-journalism industry want you to think. This is because A. anything you do with it is potentially visible to any random cracker on the Internet, B. it will start costing subscription fees as soon as it starts getting heavily utilized, and C. YOU HAVE TO HAVE A RELIABLE INTERNET CONNECTION OR IT DOESN'T WORK. Desktop PCs, laptops, or hell, even hacked consoles still beat out distributed computing on all three counts.
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Interesting video, Bob.
Since you brought up the subject of the future of PCs, let me pick your brain on this tidbit.
AT&T places caps on Internet Use
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You know, Bob, I've been a Hardcore PC Gamer as long as I can think – indeed, my first *real* gaming memories are about some all to green nights of “The Bard's Tale”, spent in front of a miniscule CGA monitor, somewhere in the mid 80s. I had just learned to read and write, and I didn't know any English (I'm German, FYI), but that didn't stop me.
And while I disagree with you on some critical points… I can't help but realise that, in the long run, what you say is true. PCs are not doomed – not in the sense you think, anyway. Buisiness and Office applications, Video and Image editing and, last but not least, good old *programming* will allways be performed on dedicated machines, if only for convinience. BTW: Laptops are PCs too, you know?
Also, PC Gaming isn't dead – in fact, it's more healthy than ever. What was the most talked-about game in 2010? Motherfucking Minecraft. And that should give you some indication of the Shape of PC games to come: Indie.
What *is* dead – and here's where you are absolutely right – is “Triple A” PC Gaming. As you rightly said, the once great dominance of the PC in exclusive series has withered – all that is left is basically Total War and The Sims, and the latter isn't exactly the most non-casual of games.
It's time for us, I am afraid, to accept this. The next Half-Life will propably be on the PC – but it will be a port. Peggle, Farmville and all their derivates are not dependent on any platform. With technical developement stagnant for at least five years, the PC's days as a technical spearhead are numbered.
Let's face it, it was all inevitable from the beginning. Wing Commander wasn't the pinnacle – it was the beginning.
Still… what I bemoan isn't a fucking *platform*. I couldn't care less if my favourite games run on my trusty old Dual Core or my Xbox. What I bemoan is a loss of innovation, a loss of *genres*. The complexty and depth of the PC games of lore are things of the past, I'm afraid.
EA, Ubisoft or Activison will not make a new Jagged Alliance, a new Fantasy General or a new Deus Ex (I won't believe for one second that Human Revolution will live up to the first one. Just like Bioshock didn't live up to System Shock 2).
That's the sad thing. The good thing is…. Minecraft? Have you played it? If not, do so, and you might understand why I'm still cautiosly optimistic about the PC.
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Excellent one sir Bob. I was the kid who had a computer and also had to buy his own console(NES). Longest 6 months of my young life.
I would say if it weren't for Steam and the occasional kick-ass bargain bin discovery(MOO3 $10) my computer would be just a work device that I consume media on. Nintendo and Valve are the only game companies I give any attention these days. Speaking of which, a console Zelda game and a Portal sequeal in one year, SCORE!
Yep, the computer is going mobile, if it isn't already obvious, it will be in a year's time. I stare at the saucy bit of tech-porn that is the xoom imagining what it will be like to get a piece of that. Maybe she will go 4g for me.
Though I still can't quite envision a world where I can play any FPS without a keyboard not wanting to embed the waggle or traditional controller into the wall. Sony, Microsoft, even you my beloved Nintendo, don't just make it possible to use a keyboard and mouse, make it work like a PC. Not keymapping of button controls to keys, but an alternative set of controls, the proper controls. It can't be that hard, the device is hardly new, it's just been Modified….he he he…
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This actually makes a lot of sense.
We may come to a time when laptops could carry the processing power of a bulky PC making it, as Bob said, dead.
Being a PC raised gamer myself, this is very disturbing. But it is very likely, given the evolution of technology these days, the strength of a PC will eventually be carried on by other devices.
Thanks Bob for this insight.
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This is probably going to sound semi-hypocritcal but I'm going to say it.
If one define “PC Gaming” as “Games played a personal computer that you can't lug around”. I think PC Gaming is what is never going to die for one main reason…..emulators.
Ok so the PS3 is out and has brutal computing power. Let's say you don't want to buy it, you want to say….pirate it…let's face it NO Laptop is going to run that without blowing a very large amount.
But by sacrificing movement ability for spending less, one could likely get a less mobile device that, if given the ISOs and output devices to run them, play every current console game.
Heck I know for a fact that a fair number of Xbox games are on PC although maybe not in high def. And I also know for a fact from my research via google while writing this that there exist an emulator named after the project that gave us the gamecube that can run both gamecube AND Wii games assuming one is willing to take a long time programming their keyboard/mouse to work as controls.
Sure you might have to wait 3 years to get the stuff, but if you're willing to wait. 3 1k gaming console and 60 bucks a game becomes a 1.2k personal computer that can do all 3, and play every single game assuming you can find the roms.
Nah, PC gaming isn't going to die. It's just going to become the pot of the gaming world. Illegal and black market but still there, and have rabid people arguing on both sides in a battle of white and gray morality.
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Bob, I've never disagreed with you more on an issue. Ever.
How you came to this conclusion boggles my brain.
Do you REALLY expect we'll all be programming, rendering, editing or whatever on hand-held devices?
I do 3D animation, and let me tell you, the intensive hardware needed to do anything big is exclusive to full PC towers.
Laptops are all well and good, but in my experience they all have major overheating problems as they get more powerful and are more of an investment than full towers due to special notebook parts which are more expensive.
Apps are nice, but custom programs need breathing room.
I don't doubt that we'll put more and more power, more efficiently into smaller and smaller devices that will be more capable, but you will NEVER encounter a scenario where a big monitor, keyboard, mouse and subsequent tower don't come into the picture somewhere, especially at the developmental level. Artists alone need all kinds of programs to get stuff done.
On the gaming end, I will always prefer a mouse and keyboard over a controller. I'd love to use one on my XBox, but whatever. Fact is, Minecraft is still PC-based and flourishing, and Valve is one of the game companies that matter most to me, and they have an extreme loyalty to the PC as well as a near monopoly on online game distribution. As long as Valve stays cool, I don't care.
I just can't imagine you thought very hard on this one Bob. Your position seems pretty ignorant.
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Hi, Bob.
I must be missing something. What advantage is there to having 4-6 devices that sacrifice so much performance, usability, screen size, and ergonomics for portability? Why would I type an e-mail on my tiny phone, squint at a movie on my laptop, and chat with friends with my x-box when I can do all that an more at my very comfortable computer desk?
Miniaturization of technology takes time and money. Mobile and peripheral devices will, for the foreseeable future, be more expensive and less powerful than their box-in-the-corner grandfathers.
The saving grace of traditional PCs is that they offer nearly limitless gaming opportunities whereas console and mobile gaming have many gatekeepers. Rating systems, apple store-style screening processes, and $10 premiums are incredible limiters to games. Presently, there's almost no possibility for adult-oriented games, little possibility for open development of mobile apps, and no opportunity for free games in the console market. I can't imagine a home computer being replaced until there's a comparable device with an open, free operating system with no gatekeepers hindering progress.
I see far more opportunity in the open range of the PC world than in the profit-driven world of console or mobile gaming.
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@Jdude
With CPU's and GPU's constantly getting smaller, in 5-10 years, everything will be at 12nm or smaller, so you can basically do it on a laptop or a very little portable case.
—–
For the rest: I'm still waiting until we can get a tablet that is more than just an app player (iPod XL)I'm sure there will be some selection in the future with a proper Linux distro. (I say Linux meaning 'everything but x86 Windows')
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Damn… Was all ready to defend the PC just by the title, then I watched the video….
Can't really say that I disagree with anything you said.
Brought up some really good points.
Everything a PC was capable of doing can now be done with laptops and hendhelds on the go.
There is really no need to wait till you get home so you can use the PC to check your email/credit card statements or chat… It can all be done in the palm of your hand now days.
Good video Bob.
Also… to anyone that didn't watch the video and is just responding because of the title… I suggest you watch it.
He very clearly says “The PC is dead, NOT PC gaming”.
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As a person who was raised with both a PC and a PS2, gonna have to agree with Bob here.
Personally I'm just surprised they aren't already dead.
As for the trolling, well, I guess the truth does hurt.
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PC gaming will not die until something with a better experience comes along.
PC owners are not married to the platform. If something better comes along we would jump to it. But at the moment supposed alternatives mean making sacrifices to your gaming experience. Scarifies for greater mobility or ease use. This does not equal better.
All PC gamers want is the best gaming experience without compromise. Whether that is on the PC or another better platform does not matter. That to me that should be the definition of hardcore gamers. Not people happily playing their toned down console FPS's, etc. Anyone who makes comprises to their gaming experience surely are casual gamers.
And lets get this straight for everyone. Laptops are PC's. PC does not = desktop PC's. PC means an IBM compatible, which in turn means anything running a 8086 derided CPU / code. So that includes Laptops, and atom powered tablets. That also means you too Mac owners. So PC gaming is any gaming that happens on the above devices. This is not a secret and I cannot take seriously comments from anyone who cannot understand this basic concept.
I am disappointed as this video instead of moving the discussion forward with new idea's just seems to be aimed at inflaming old arguments. I expected better from Bob.
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I think a lot of people are missing how Bob differentiated a laptop/notebook from a PC here, and when you get right down to it, part of PC Gaming tradition has always been a bad ass computer tower with LED's and cooling units and fans and etc. etc. Sort of like guys that drive muscle cars.
The thing I don't think PC gamers understand is, just like muscle cars, that's all niche. The number of people that buy the latest and greatest muscle cars are few, and all the rest wind up buying old ones and trying to restore them (or just fucking them up. As with computers, there's a lot of car people out there that think they know what they're doing but don't have a single clue).
A notebook is still a portable device that can come in any size and sacrifices a lot of what the traditional desktop provides for the sake of convenience. Yet laptops are getting powerful to the point that, well, why WOULD you get a desktop instead of a laptop?
@john:
“However, PCs still offer the widest variety (and widest userbase) for small-scale/independent gaming, since developers are free to use absolutely any tools they want with no restrictions on content or outside control of releases at all, ever.“
There's a few things wrong with this assumption. If you check any beginner's Game Dev forum you are bound to see the question “What language should I use?” asked, and veterans will always respond with a list of languages that all have pros and cons. C# is a great tool and Microsoft's XNA is a great framework, but your game is pretty much limited to Xbox and Windows without some major work. In which case you can use Java or C++ to make a cross-platform game, but the tools to help make it easier are limited. You can make a Flash game, but you'll be restricted to the web browser.
You also mention Microsoft and Nintendo (and I imagine likewise Sony) being very restrictive in what they release. Do you remember what happened to the Atari when there was no “Seal of Approval”? Have you seen the Xbox Live Indie Games? There's a lot of people that seem to ignore the axiom “Just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD”, and thus there's a whole lot of shit that obscures the few diamonds in the rough from view.
This is even more true on PC's, where there is no handy way for someone to find your game like Xbox Live Indie Games. They pretty much have to trip over it (yes, I know there are sites that act as resources, but each of these sites is a niche. People love to praise Minecraft as being some major achievement of both Indie gaming AND of PC gaming's future, but let's face it. The guy got lucky and he could just as easily have remained obscure).
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I'd have to say I pretty much agree with Bob here. I see a lot of people saying that right now they wouldn't want to do things on other devices that they would do on a PC, and I completely agree. Surfing the web on my iPhone isn't as convenient as doing it on my computer. PC games can be modded in ways that console games can't. Only a PC gamer could take an RTS and make it an FPS.
But times will change, and who knows where PCs and even consoles will be twenty years from now? Would the Super Lumiere Bros. have ever thought that someone could make a movie on a camera that could fit in the palm of a hand and without using film stock? Would the inventors of ENIAC ever have thought that one day a computer could be carried around? Just because we can't imagine the PC going away now doesn't mean that it won't a couple decades from now.
I think Bob's looking at the big picture here (get it?), and not just the immediate future.
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Take the second half of this show (from the point wher he talks about the uselessness of the PC itself) and replace the word PC with Consoles.
See how it still fits? Frankly Bob, I'd be more concerned that your underpowered, old Wii would be the first of the gaming systems to be replaced by the cloud backend with screen only front end due to the technical specs of the Wii being massively under that of all other systems. Essentially, replicating the Wii system compared with any other system is easy especially now everyone is pumping money into motion control.
And I love how you trivialize Starcraft 2 into a half-second image, ignore the dedicated servers and mod support arguments, but should I be surprised over cherry picked arguments?
Also it's nice that you didn't bring up piracy. Oh wait, you can't anymore as both the ps3 and xbox360 have been broken open by people looking to pirate games as well. Guess it's not just PC Gamers who want to steal.
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@Chris Cesarano: Yes, it's true that there's often a tradeoff between the flexibility of a language and the quality of its game-dev support tools (though that's much, much less true than it used to be.) But it's basically irrelevant, because with XBLM you don't have a choice. You have to use XNA, and you're stuck with either C# or VB.NET. If you want to develop for the Xbox and don't like either of those, you're shit out of luck.
It's even worse if you have a pre-developed game in some other language (i.e. any of the most common programming languages out there.) You can't just change out some wrapper functions to work with new libraries, you're going to have to re-write that sucker in one of the Microsoft-approved languages. Take, for example, Kornel Kisieliwicz's popular DOOM: The Roguelike. (Putting aside that it's based on someone else's franchise and thus probably couldn't see commercial release, that is.) That's written in FreePascal, which is not (and is unlikely to ever be) supported by XNA. In order for that to see an Xbox port, it'd have to be completely re-written in C# or VB.NET – neither of which are very similar to FP.
And yes, I most certainly do remember the age of horseshit third-party Atari games. There were indeed tons of crap games, but do you know what else that brought us? Motherfucking Activision. (The real one, not the soulless husk reanimated by corporate voodoo.) They invented unlicensed third-party development, and they gave us some of the best games the console ever saw, and they didn't need any corporate vetting to tell them “yes, this is some kickass stuff.” If they had, they'd never have gotten it anyway, since they were founded by disgruntled Atari programmers and there's no way Atari would have let them back in the fold, especially not as a third party. If the Atari had had a release model like XBLM, we would never have gotten Chopper Command, H.E.R.O., or freaking Pitfall!
That's what it's about: choice. Whatever disadvantages the PC has, it offers unlimited choice for the game developer. You can code big, code small, write a fairytale, write a porno, give it away, sell it for $20, email it to your grandma, what the hell ever you damn well please. With consoles, you can't. You can rationalize Microsoft's policies, and you might even make some good points in so doing, but that's not going to change the fact that they don't offer you any choice as a developer. You have it their way, or not at all, and unless they change their ways, the PC will always be the better platform for independent game development.
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@john, it sounds like you're trying to argue PC will always be better than console, but once again it's completely subjective and dependent on one's goals and skill level. Personally, if I wanted to develop games (which I sort of do), I'd want to do it on console. As such, I'd love to use C# and XNA.
That doesn't mean I think those are the best options or tools, just the best for my own personal goals.
Once more, though, you are assuming consoles will always be as they are. I don't think Bob was implying that they WOULDN'T change in the future, but he was more arguing against one of the more vocal and elitist groups in gaming today. Who knows what the best platform will be for anything.
To put it another way, think about how companies are trying to get devices to all work together. In particular, think about how much Microsoft has been trying to get consumers to use their Windows computer (desktop or laptop) to sync with their Xbox 360 to sync with their Windows Phone. The biggest failure for these concerns is that they are exclusive to Microsoft products.
The better option is for them to just write frameworks for software so developers can link ANY device to ANY Microsoft product. My Blu-Ray player has an Internet connection. What if, ten years from now, I can have a tablet PC, and if I want to do some serious programming I just push a button on my tablet and it tells my Blu-Ray player to open up some software development tools.
Then again, I imagine a future where whole walls of houses are touch screen. Not in this lifetime, though.
I bet if you go back 10-20 years you'll imagine artists that will say there's no replacing a good old paintbrush and canvas. Now we have artists that don't even bother with paper and pencil and skip right to digital.
I think technology should have taught all of us that the way we do things is only temporary, and in a few decades time we'll have to be ready to completely change how it's done. Which, in the end, I think is what Bob is arguing, hence I agree with it.
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@Chris Cesarano: I wasn't talking about what's best for your personal goals. Languages of choice are languages of choice, and if C# and XNA work for you, that's awesome. (I mentioned FreePascal, and I don't like that either, so there you go. I'm a C/C++ and SDL man, myself.) Nor do I have a problem with the Xbox as a platform – it's certainly a capable enough machine for just about any kind of game.
My problem is with the “you use our languages and our library or you don't get to play the indie-developer game” mindset Microsoft has. It's like the old studio system in Hollywood, where movie studios owned the theaters; filmmakers had to work for a studio, or their movies wouldn't get a release. That was bad for creativity then, and it still is now.
(And Microsoft might be pushing for generalized software frameworks and inter-device integration and compatibility, but they're still pushing it with their languages and libraries.)
That lack of freedom is why I say PCs have the edge in independent gaming, and why they will continue to maintain that edge until console manufacturers quit tying them down. I didn't intend to imply that won't ever happen, I'm just not going to hold my breath waiting for it to.
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You do bring up good points, but I think Microsoft is going to be forced to change their game plan soon nonetheless. But that starts to go way off topic and be more focused on theories as to what Steam on the PS3 means and can lead to.
It's an ever changing market.
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I agree with what Ankhwatcher said.
Maybe not so angst-ily, but I agree with the points made.
Also, something I often wonder about is other peoples ideas of the future.
You make it out to be a future full of smaller, more portable, multipurpose, computer-ish devices where everything is connected to the internet.
Doesn't this strike anyone else as silly? Maybe it will happen, but maybe, 20 years down the road some new innovative piece of technology will have been invented that we cannot even imagine now. It would make our fantasies of gadgets and the internet (God, remember that ancient thing?) seem just as silly as steampunk, or the Jetsons.
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You know, I was going to explain that I disagree for a few reasons but hell, theres a few dozen comments above me are already writing a mini-thesis about PC gaming “greatness”.
As a PC gamer, I believe the vice versa of what your saying. PCs will live on but PC games will die. I mean the non-flash, “hardcore” games.
When I can play a small section of Half-Life in my browser, its a sign that people aren't going to put up with upgrading their computers and the hundreds/thousands of dollars that go with it.
PCs will live because everything you described is all spread out among many gadgets while PC is everything, and more, in one.
Until I saw one gadget do everything my PC can and more, I say PCs will live but PC gaming (non-flash, non-web, disc based gaming) is going to die and we're going to live to see it.
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