State of PC Gaming in 2016?

I am a bit older user of GS, wasnt active for at least 3 years, swiped gaming for cycling and finished my collage. Wanted to return but reason why i left was that PC gaming was almost dead. I am PC gamer from 1997 till 2010 there was pritty much platinum titles outthere, now what i see that most of gaming is ruined by big corporation such is EA, as. i saw they completely ripped and buried CNC serial, neither ARPG scene isnt in good position only good title i saw is Grim Dawn, is it whole thing dropped to indie developers and selffunding projects like on Kickstarter? Or i did only misjudged whole situation? Only Witcher 3 completed my expectation rest is pritty much casual.

Yeah that never happened in this dimension

@FelipeInside: Nice to see you Felipe. Seriously, maybe PC gaming changed the course, or maybe i am a way too sentimental. For sure that PC gaming is not whats used to.be a decade ago.

Well, everything changes over a decade but I think PC gaming is stronger than ever now. At least it's got so much variety now and content that it's at a good level :)

PC gets all (most) of the console games and more, but so many devs dont give a crap about porting and optimizing. That's the state, along with 800,000 crappy kickstarter/early access games on steam.

This is a joke right? Have you seen CS:GO's population or literally any popular MOBA?

http://steamcharts.com/app/730#All For CS:GO

http://steamcharts.com/app/570#All Dota 2

Not even including LoL which has a bigger population than both of those games.

PC gaming is far larger than it was a decade ago.

I'm pretty sure PC gaming is bigger now than it ever has been before...

the japanese games are pouring into pc now...

street fighter, toukiden, godeater, dragon quest heroes, final fantasy...

its quite awesome.

@Assimilat0r: PC gaming now is in the strongest place it's been in a decade. Largely in part due to the weak ass "next Gen" consoles that came out a few years ago.

War, War Never changes.

Wanted to return but reason why i left was that PC gaming was almost dead.

What?!? I started PC gaming in 1994 and haven't stopped it will now. PC gaming was never dead and it's been thriving ever since Steam came up. Now we have even more outlets like GoG, GMG and many more.

I think it has more to do with age and growing out of gaming a little bit, and of course needing the time to play the amount that there are. That's basically what's happened to me with a lot of PC games. I play them for a week and I'm done with them.

Most of people here doesnt understand point of my view, just wondering what happened with titles like Command & Conquer, Planescape Torment, Baldurs Gate, Sacred, Starcraft, Warcraft... and manny more. Am i too old to adapt on new games like Assassin Creed well i dont get it, i was raised on similiar games like Tomb Raider, Blood'Omen, Soul River etc, where storyline was much better. Thats just one of examples there are dozen others.

I think ms and sony trying to bring out an upgraded version of xbox one (speculated) and ps4 should speak for itself which gaming platforms are having problems right now keeping up :P

Games always change and most of the time I find alternatives. For example Diablo 2, my alternative which exceeded the former was path of exile. (Diablo 3 is still an ok game though, but too different). In your case it might be grim dawn.

For C&C (I played it a lot in the old days) its hard to say, theres nothing very similiar to it but theres many strategy games from casual to very hard you can find and you'll surely will like one. Also maybe your taste for games changed over the years, it definitely did for me.

@Assimilat0r: The RTS genre did take a big hit for quite a while but we've had some good ones in the last couple of years.

more innovation is taking place at the indie level in terms of interesting characters and stories, at the aaa level its more cut and paste, repeat formula. not every sequel is bad and some devs try, like ubisoft montreal did with far cry primal, but these efforts are few.

C&C: i got nothin....anyone making a traditional RTS these days? well starcraft of course.

Planescape torment/BG: pillars of eternity is great and torment tides of numinera is looking quite promising. the old isometric party RPG is on a bit of a comeback. sword coast legends was a bit of a miss apparently (though most of the complaints seem to be coming from the D&D purists).

starcraft is still getting made (legacy of the void was released not too long ago).

space sims: star citizen and elite dangerous pick up on opposite sides of the spectrum. no mans sky also looks interesting. space sims are a thing again..thanks kickstarter :).

then you have epic games like warhammer total war on the way, brilliant ideas realised like super hot, a new unreal tournament is kinda released/kinda in development depending on who you ask :P, the japanese have realised that the PC is a thing (mostly due to capcom and sega...probably) so more coming from the east.

i could go on but the point is that the PC has games of every type, games that are a homage to its past while other games look to the future (or do both). it has the AAA multiplats, its the home of indie development and remains the experimental platform. PC gaming is in rude health.

my only concern has more to do with hardware at the moment....i would like to see more competition amongst PC hardware...especially in the CPU and GPU realm. i would love to see a thrid CPU and GPU designer in the industry. i also want to see a stronger AMD.

oh..i see what you mean...old school pc gaming is dead...

yea..its much different now. casual..like you said.

So you just want the same games that you used to have ? Those games never went away.

Or you mean you want sequels to games you loved ? Well, I'd die for an Age of Empires sequel too. Fact is for every game you listed there are about two dozen new IP. You can't just expect the industry to keep on making sequels to games you love. Sometimes you have to do some effort and look into games you'll like or don't like.

PC gets about half a dozen quality releases each and every month. You just need to look into them and do some research.

Here are some amazing games that just released: Quantum Break, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, Grim Dawn, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Dark Souls III, Hyper Light Drifter, ...

You want a game with a great storyline, look into SOMA :)

rts...

isometric crpg

other isometric games from various genres...

there are still a lot more, check the stickied thread about upcoming pc titles, you will find that we are living in another golden age of pc gaming.

@Assimilat0r: Also you can now see what happened between Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II:

Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear on Steam

ps: Have you played Dragon Age Origins?

@KBFloYd: yeah thata my point, PC gaming today is a way too casual, from time to time some title gives some challenge like Dark Souls

@Coseniath: Yes i did one of better games, storylin too.

Generaly problem is that companies today dont risk at all, withou experiments like Dune 2 and Diablo 1 today we wouldnt have some great genres. I backed Grim Dawn on Kickstarter like other game such are Tides of Numeria,..

@Assimilat0r: Actually PC gaming today is not casual. Gaming generally is casual.

On the other hand there are some indie games that give more challenge that you cannot find in the casual consoles.

When something has a far far far bigger games library and its going to have more options too.

Although I like the companies to innovate and experiment on new games, I don't want them to destroy already great franchises (yeah Diablo I am talking about you).

ps: Got Grim Dawn (when it was in Early Access) and it was awesome. 227hours played. :)

I really dont care about pc gaming anymore either. The revolution is in resolutions. So many cool resolutions, hz and aspect ratios to try. Testing older games is fun like F.E.A.R and Gothic 3.

Me thinks you should look a little harder

Bigger, better, and more awesome than ever!

Word. Plenty of challenge and depth to be found today. Obviously the "AAA" (whatever the hell that means these days...) will pander towards the casual crowd, and that's OK because not every game needs to be a masterpiece so long as they're fun. But there are plenty of amazing and in depth games coming out now.

Anyone that thinks Dune 2 and Diablo 1 are great games relative to today's standards is kidding themselves; they were great games, and I will hold them in high esteem in the recesses of my brain for the rest of my life, but I will never play them again because if I do, I will think "Damn, this game sucks compared to ______". Games like that are sources of inspiration, not something to emulate.

I'm looking forward to the rest of 2016, because even in these first few months I have enjoyed a lot. And 2015 was about as close to "Oh my god this game is amazing" overdose as I can get. I mean, seriously, so much awesome.

*I would kill for another C&C or Dune game, though. Whatever happened to Westwood I haven't heard from them since the terrible C&C4 and/or that web-based crap they were making. Did they get shut down?

lol damn now you have me reminiscing...Nox, Blade Runner, Dune 2, C&C (the original Red Alert was probably my favorite, but all of them were so much fun)...even Generals was fun. C&C Renegade was cheesy but still fun. Never got around to Lands of Lore but I heard good things.

Probably my favorite dev of all time, and I curse EA for killing them slow and painfully.

I think you're thinking of consoles, that is where the resolution war is going on lol.

We'll talk about 4K on PC gaming and be like "Yeah that'd be nice" but it seems like most of the time people are pretty restrained; 1080 is still excellent, and I don't see too many people getting boners for 4K and being like "OMG MUST HAVE!"

I prefer simulations, they never get old for me. FSX, silent hunter series, arma, age of empires, total war. I seem to be stuck in the 2000-2010 era of gaming, nothing recently released has peaked my interest so Im playing a lot of old games in my spare time. Just fired up half life 2 for the 10th play through, and I have max payne on my phone now sooo.....I think many games have been dumbed down too much for my taste which causes me to lose interest. I used to purchase games as soon as they hit the shelves so I had 3oo+ titles at one point, I would start them but never finish...finally decided to cull the herd and kept the ones I truly like, Im under 70 games total now

I've felt as if the PC has been going through a golden age over the last decade. There are so many games from every genre nowadays, and games are released from all around the world rather than being restricted to what you can get from a local retail store.

The only difference is that what used to be popular on PC in the late 90s and early 00s is now more located in the indie scene. It requires extra work to find the games. That's really all there is to it.

I have a theory..

My theory really is with music, but it could apply to games as well. My parents, still prefer music from their teenage years, and I prefer music from my teenage years. My dad is a little bit of an exception he does like Drowning Pool (Dave Williams era). But the point is I think that we our tastes in our teenage era and for the most part don't stray to far from them.

Perhaps the OP just prefers games from the teenage years.

I went from consoles from Nintendo to Super Nintendo to the PlayStation to the Xbox to the Xbox 360 and PS3 then started building my own ultra high end gaming rigs from about 2004 through 2013 when PS4 and Xbox one launched and I sold my gaming Pc for 1800.00 when PS4 launched so I could buy the Ps4 and a new high definition television and honestly I've never went back to gaming Pc and now with the PS4 pro which I have and absolutely love and next year with Xbox Scorpio which will absolutely deliver ultra high end 4K gaming and with the poor shitty Pc ports these days and the ultra high level of optimization for consoles the reality is now is the time to ditch the gaming Pc and go full on board with consoles because that's where the future of gaming is gonna be as developers are now almost exclusively putting all their time and resources into these new consoles where they put in such an ultra high level of optimization that these new consoles especially PS4 pro and definitely XBOX SCORPIO are gonna be so highly supported from game developers that Pc is basically gonna continue to get their shitty ports for another few years but ultimately Pc gaming is dying a slow miserable death as all the money for developers are in consoles which is why Pc is getting shafted with terrible ports of games so whether Pc guys wanna admit it rhe fact is Pc gaming is dying and PS4 PRO & XBOX SCORPIO are the future and possibly even the Nintendo Switch

I dont think games and movies and tv shows work the same way as music.

Real PC gamers remember the flight sim era.

Flight sims are still around with Aerofly FS2 and X-Plane 11. Add also Prepar 3D for those who long for FSX.....

Two to three years ago, I would have said the old school PC gaming is dead. Nope. It's very much alive and kicking.

thread necro-manceeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

@jun_aka_pekto: yeah there are plenty of fight sims, space sims and isometric games nowdays that make pc gaming thrive again like in the 90s.

PC gaming fine. The old "it's dying" line has been spouted for more than a decade now.

Aree with hillelslovak not a fan of all the Kickstarter and early access stuff, as well as Greenlight.

Well you can ignore it, it's polluted in abundance. All these survival games as well, many are have-a-go developers.

Kickstarters been abit better, with some fantastic games, namely Divinity II and Pillars, but on a whole Valve needs to do a Steam cleanup job, add some quality control.

Yup. Can't complain much. There are so many games to pick from.

There might be a lot of games out there but they are all more or less the same. Nothing revolutionary happens anymore. The golden era is definitely over. Most of the games released today, wont stand the test of time. It is not the graphics OR the story BUT the goddamn gameplay that can lift a game to godhood. Such games will be played many years after their initial release.

Luckily the last 3 years, Path of Exile gave me a lot of fun. But when I take a closer peak at the current state of pc gaming: there really isn't that much. There are some interesting kickstarter projects, true. But is all not on the same scale and quality as 10 years ago. I scratch my head when I see people jerking off to Doom 4 which is once again just a glorified console port. And let's not talk about all the giant flops that were hyped up to the sky. Wont be putting any names here.

The only games I am honestly interested in from this and last year, are Divinity Original Sin and Pillars of Eternity (and maybe Tyranny). I also bought Witcher 1 and Divinity 2 on GOG to get some oldschool gems that I missed in the past.

To be honest, Assimilat0r, you haven't missed much.

Doom 2016 plays like the old Quake 2 minus rocket jumps. But, you get to simulate those enough in some levels. Who cares if it's available for other systems. The game plays great using mouse and keyboard and recaptures classic id gaming.

I have the original disc-based TW1 Enhanced Edition with all the custom add-on expansions and CD soundtrack. I still rather play Doom 2016.

PC gaming has been kicking console ass for decades and its been getting better with the rise of steam.