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Old 12-30-2010, 08:14 PM   #6
SpiritWarrior
Jack Burton
 

Join Date: May 31, 2002
Location: Ireland
Posts: 5,854
Thumbs Down Re: Haven't been here in a while...

Quote:
Originally Posted by uk_john View Post
It's Blizzard with a single player game every 10 years ala Starcraft 2 that is saving the PC market? How does one PC game every decade allow a market to continue? And as many units as The Sims sell, it's still only one title!

What you're ignoring is what everybody in the U.S. is ignoring - the European developers/publishers! PC only titles like STALKER, that sell as many copies on PC as Dragon Age did on PC, or Bioshock did on PC! PC only titles like The Witcher that is more of a follow up to Baldur's Gate as a cRPG than Dragon Age could ever be!

Then you have all the other European PC titles, that are either only PC or produced on pc then converted to console. PC Games like Metro 2033 and Star Wolves. Then we have all the 'old school PC cRPG's that come out of Europe: Like The Gothic series, Drakensang, Space Rangers 2, The Sacred series, the Divinity series, Arx Fatalis, the Silverall series, Risen and Two Worlds. All his has been released in the last 3-4 years. What have we had from the U.S. side. Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Dragon Age and Alpha Protocol. All multiformat and all much more action based than the European cRPG's which are much more old school!

If sites like this aren't going to support PC cRPG's like the Witcher and instead are going to sell ou to the non CRPG's that are Dragon Age and Starcraft 2, it just isn't going to be around for long, because what keeps these sites going is it's specialization. I know I found it as it was THE site to get info on Wizards and Warriors. It would not even occur to me to come here for Starcraft 2 or Dragon Age!

To this day, if you google Wizard's and Warriors, you will get this site near the top. But for Dragon Age and Starcraft 2, this site would be on page 177!

When I fist came to this site, it was obvious it was a hardcore cPRG site. Now I don't know what it is - and on that basis, why would anyone new find themselves here?
No, Blizzard is currently holding up the PC market almost by itself. Their PC franchises include, Starcraft 1 and 2, Diablo 1, 2 and (soon) 3. Warcraft 1,2,3 and of course, World of Warcraft with its 3 expansions. WoW itself gives a very many casual gamers their only reason to even own a PC. There was an article released a few years back, I think I posted it here, at how struggling PC sales received like a 50% boost due to WoW alone during a fiscal year.

EA with their Sims franchise, also dominate the market. The Sims was the best selling PC game of all time...you do know that? The franchise continues, with 3 expansions to the Sims 3 and the Sims 2 still fighting strong with its, what, 8 expansions or something? That still sells to this day.

Go into any department store and you will see the PC shelves are monopolized by these 2 gaming giants. They have multiple shelves devoted to them. As for the other less-known titles, they're stacked together on some shelf off to the side almost as an afterthought, where you can find games like Risen and maybe Halo on PC.

I am not sure what the issue is. I don't like it anymore than the next person, but the truth is PC gaming is dying and would be even worse off if not for these last few companies carrying the torch. Gamestop and EBgames no longer focus on PC games anymore. IIRC, Ziroc even posted an article about it one time, asking people to boycott one of the companies because they were pahsing out PC games. They may or may not have a shelf in their stores devoted to the PC. If they do, I notice the games are stacked like books in a library to conserve space, as opposed to the console titles that face out. The exception to this at the moment, at my local Gamestop was the fanfare and posters that met the release of WoW: Cataclysm. They had a midnight opening, games, posters, free stuff etc. The only PC game they deemed noteworthy. A shame, but true.

Correct me if I am wrong here, but you seem to be saying there are not enough forums about obscure PC games that nobody plays anymore. See, if one is created, nobody but you will use it. It's been tried before. Check out the Miscellanous CRPG forum - there's a thread about Risen there. Do you honestly think that thread generated so much attention as to deserve a whole forum? I don't. If one was created maybe 3 or four posts would be made and that's it. Hardly warrants a place of its own (anyways, imo that game was lacking, I played it for a few hours). There was a forum about Elder Scrolls - no interest so poof. Take that Darkstone forum as another example, the last post was almost 3 years ago.
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