:roll: also.. before you start with the whole pc gaming is dying..........
Valve: Don't Believe The US Press, PC Gaming Is Alive And Well
in an interview with Good Game that slipped under the radar, Valve's business manager, Jason Holtman, said all the talk about PC gaming dieing because of some super-game console comes from "North America press looking at North American reports". "And North America retail reports don't have Europe in them, and they don't have online PCs on them, they don't have micro-transactions PCs in it. Steam has 20 million users right now and you've got figures like the Cartner Group tells us there's 260 million online PC gamers in the world
Valve: PC Gaming Alive and Well, But Developers Off Their Game
Valve's marketing vice president and frequent spokesman, Doug Lombardi, laughed off the idea that PC gaming is dying, but said other developers need to get with the program.
"I mean, I think, we sort of laugh at it," Lombardi said of increasingly high-pitched concerns over the viability of PC gaming in an interview with Shacknews.com
"Because we've been wildly successful - we're very fortunate, you know. Our games have all done really, really well, Steam has taken off and become this whole other business for us, Valve has never been in better shape - and yet everybody is talking about how in the PC world, the sky is falling," said Lombardi.
Lombardi pointed out that the sales data often cited to buttress claims of a dying PC industry do not include MMOG subscribers, Steam users, other customers of digital download services, or even other countries.
"NPD, god love 'em, they release a U.S. retail sales report, and people take that and say that's the world picture. And it's just not true...if people were looking at WoW's subscriptions alone and factoring it in, looking at Steam sales and factoring it in...Just look at what Popcap's doing - Bejeweled and Peggle and all this stuff - they're not in that NPD data."
Lombardi also said part of the brouhaha was effective PR by console makers and the absence of anything similar on the PC front.
"It is absolutely a perception problem. I mean one of the things that happens is - Microsoft has an army of PR people that work for Microsoft. They have at least two agencies that are additional armies. Nintendo I'm not as familiar with their PR outline, but I'm sure it's similar. Sony is similar. The PC has nobody," he said.
At the same time, Lombardi blasted developers for not taking accurate stock of what computers gamers have, and for aiming only at the high-end. He contrasted this with his own company, which conducts surveys twice a year to gauge the horsepower of gamers' computers.
"You know, it's hard to be able to have games that scale, and to write performance on the high end, and write performance on the bottom end, but you know, winning in any industry means some hard work, and there's a certain level of hard work that developers have to take responsibility for," he observed.
BioWare: PC gaming is in fine health
More PC players and more money being generated "than ever before"
The CEO of BioWare has told us that, contrary to numerous 'PC gaming is dying' claims, the sector's in fine health on a number of fronts.
I think there are more people playing PC games and more dollars being spent on the PC space than ever before, but it's taking a different form," Ray Muzyka said in a recent interview.
Developer Stardock Says Piracy Isn't Killing PC Gaming
There have been a lot of recent talks about the decline of PC gaming. Development studios are closing down, and companies are analysing the woes of the industry. One publisher, however, thinks it naïve to blame piracy for the decline of PC gaming sales. Stardock's latest, a space-based real-time strategy game called Sins of a Solar Empire, has sold roughly 200,000 copies since its release last month. So how has Stardock achieved success?
According to Brad Wardell, president and CEO of Stardock, (via the Sins of a Solar Empire forum) piracy is an issue, but he doesn't think it should be used as a scapegoat when a game doesn't sell. Wardwell states that there is a problem with the way that game developers currently look at the PC install base. "When you develop for a market, you don't go by the user base. You go by the potential customer base. That's what most software companies do. They base what they want to create on the size of the market they're developing for. But not PC game developers. PC game developers seem to focus more on the 'cool' factor. What game can they make that will get them glory with the game magazines and gaming websites and hard core gamers? These days, it seems like game developers want to be like rock stars more than businessmen," Wardell wrote.
Rather than trying to craft a game to get the most media coverage, Wardell approaches the situation from a financial point of view. "When I make a game, I focus on making games that I think will be the most profitable… when it comes time to make a game, I don't have a hard time thinking of a game I'd like to play. The hard part is coming up with a game that we can actually make that will be profitable. And that means looking at the market as a business not about trying to be 'cool'."
Following this approach, Wardell cites Sins of a Solar Empire's success. The game has received great critical praise, in addition to having sold nearly 200,000 copies in its first month; an amazing feat for a comparatively small budgeted title. Wardell cites the lack of copy protection on Sins of a Solar Empire as one of the myth busters to piracy killing PC gaming.
Study: PC Software Sales Up 3% To $13.1 Billion In 2009
The PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA), a non-profit PC gaming advocacy group, revealed a new research study indicating that PC gaming software revenues worldwide reached $13.1 billion in 2009, a 3 percent increase over the previous year.
That increase came in spite of decreased retail boxed sales for PC games, which suffered the "biggest downturn" out of all the sales categories PCGA tracked and now accounts for less than 20 percent of total software revenue for the year.
Digital distribution growth also largely offset losses in other PC gaming software categories. In its surveys of PC gamers in North America and Europe, the report found that 70 percent of respondents have purchased a full game online.
"The most notable trend in recent years has been the movement to digital distribution and payment for subscriptions, and the growing popularity with consumers of online games as a service," says PCGA president and Intel director Randy Stude.
Tales of PC gaming's death have been greatly exaggerated
The "death of PC gaming" has become reliable column and blog fodder for tech journalists. Perhaps it stems from lingering bitterness over time wasted editing Warcraft batch files in DOS 6.0. Regardless, you shouldn't take the idea seriously.
To prove it, we won't even lean on that most tempting pillar of PC gaming, the 12 million-strong World of Warcraft monthly subscription-paying player base. Instead we'll point to a report by Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Kieron Gillen from Britain's Develop 09 conference, specifically from a presentation on digital distribution.
Chart Track also estimated that digital distribution makes up 22 percent of the $13 billion global PC market, which boils down to $2.86 billion. If global digital distribution sales follow the same growth pattern that Chart Track projects for Steam for 2009, worldwide digital game sales will climb by $2.23 billion. That brings the global digital from from $2.86 billion in 2008 to almost $5.1 billion for 2009.
Now let's look at retail, in this case we'll use NPD's $701 million in U.S retail sales. Globally, Chart Track says PC retail sales represent 24 percent of the $13 billion pie, or $3.12 billion. That means NPD's $701 million figure represents approximately 23 percent of the worldwide retail market in 2008.
To recap our estimates for 2009:
* Global retail PC game sales: $2.37 billion (23% decrease)
* Global digital PC game sales: $5.09 billion (78% increase)
* Global in-game PC ad sales: $1.32 billion (26.8% increase)
* Global subscription and microtransactions: >$5.98 billion (unknown % increase)
* Total 2009 global PC game sales: $14.76 billion-plus (minimum 13.5% increase)
Blizzard: PC gaming is not dying out, BlizzCon proves it
In an interview with Gamasutra, Kevin Martens, Blizzard Lead Content Designer, revealed his opinion on the "PC gaming is dead" mentality that has been of much discussion lately. Martens feels that Blizzard counteracts this best by keeping system requirements low while making sure its games are still marketable.
"The death knell of PC has risen and fallen over the years, and we keep releasing PC games, and they keep doing incredibly well," said Martens. "I think that there is a market out there for PC games. The latest consoles are great; it's easy to get the game running and all that. They're useful.
"But everyone has a PC, and we try to keep our system requirements down as low as possible. That's one of the ways that we can make sure to appeal to enough people. Some of the really cutting edge games that come out for PC require a brand new video card and probably more RAM at least, if not a new CPU as well. That's really rare with Blizzard games. I think that's one of the reasons we still keep doing well.
"The best evidence that the PC market is not actually dying is the 20,000 people that showed up this year at Blizzcon, and the fact that those tickets sold out in one minute flat.
"That doesn't seem to me, that it's really good evidence, of a platform with a problem."
Sega: PC sales are stronger than reported
Growing digital sales mean that the charts don't tell the full PC games story
Publishing giant Sega has defended PC gaming, calling it a strong and vital market for the games industry.
Physical retail sales of PC games are continuing to slide in 2010, but Sega's UK MD John Clark says that isn't a fair representation of the market – with digital sales now accounting for a large proportion of revenue.
"The PC market is third in terms of its year-on-year performance with a decline of 26 per cent, but this doesn't really reflect the full picture," said Clark.
"The PC digital download business is now a viable sector but somewhat invisible as it's not yet covered by Chart-Track. The PC market overall is actually performing much better than is currently reported and remains a vital and strong sector to be involved in."
Sega was the second biggest UK PC publisher in 2009, with 12 per cent share of the market.
Meanwhile, year-to-date in 2010 the company has a 12.8 per cent share of the PC games sector. This was boosted by the strong performance last month of Aliens vs Predator, Napoleon: Total War, as well as continued sales of Football Manager 2010.
"Last month's PC chart illustrates Sega's position within this sector," added Clark.
"Napoleon: Total War, Football Manager 2010 and Aliens vs Predator are three different **** of game from three different genres. They can all drive a strong, community fan base with the ability to consistently deliver endless hours of gameplay. Incidentally, they are all developed in the UK.
"For 2009, Sega was ranked the second biggest PC publisher in the market. In 2010 year-to-date, we are once again ranked second. Long may it continue."
PC receives high-profile backing from EA
Whilst High Street sales of PC software can paint a picture of decline, the un-monitored online revenues coming from the format are drastically increasing – a fact that helped EA enjoy a strong performance on the format last year.
VG247 points out that EA released 32 PC games in its last fiscal year – far ahead of Xbox 360 (26), PS3 (23), DS (22), Wii (21), PS2 (14), PSP (8) and Xbox (1).
Revenues from EA's digital services hit $429m – up 27 per cent compared to the same period the year before.
"This is a big year for us [on PC]," said EA CFO Eric Brown. "The online part of our business is growing as much as 60 percent year over year.
"In terms of distribution, the way we look at a lot what's happening in the future is, we've got probably a billion PCs out there in the world. Very rapidly the PC is becoming the largest gaming platform in the world, just not in a packaged-good product."
When a displacement map (left) is applied to a flat surface, the resulting surface (right) expresses the height information encoded in the displacement map.
After a coarse model (left) goes through tessellation, a smooth model is produced (middle). When displacement mapping is applied (right), characters approach film-like realism. © Kenneth Scott, id Software 2008
PN-Triangles enable automatic smoothing of characters without artist input. Both geometry and lighting realism is improved.
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