i've recently been picking the bones of the post xmas highstreet credit crunch carcass *takes breath*. what i've noticed is alot of large media shops like HMV and Zavvi plus most specifically game related shops have a very weak stock of PC games, in the case of GAME almost non existant. Zavvi and HMV have acres of floorspace devoted to the gang of three (wii, PS3, Xbox) but one scruffy looking shelf in the corner devoted to PC games...

i admit i havn't been game shopping in a while but i seem to remember there being more on the shelves than dusty crysis boxes, re-releases of old games and a few MMORPGs...

is this due to online games sales? steam? are companies developing for consoles first then porting to PC? is the port process getting to costly? is it all ok and it's just me?

is this something thats happening overseas aswell? i'm in london BTW.

I think it's because more and more people are buying online. There've never been a huge selection of pc games in games shops anyway.

PC games are too cheap nowadays. People would much rather buy the far more expensive 360 and PS3 titles.

I remember when pc gaming used to have a humongous shelf at walmart, now it just has like 1 small shelf. But most people buy online now. What with DTD and amazon nowadays.. who would go to the store to buy it?

I remember when pc gaming used to have a humongous shelf at walmart, now it just has like 1 small shelf.

That's weird, all my local Wal-Marts have a PC gaming section the same size as the console sections, and I live in the middle of nowhere.

well it's probably the size of 2 console sections, but the selection is pretty much limited to like 10 games. and the rest is software and shitty 10 casino games.

There will always be a market for PC games, but I think the rampant pirating is starting to kill off some of it. But can you blame the pirates?

I'm starting to get sick of the instability of PC games. I shouldn't need to spend more time making the damn game work than how long the damn game lasts (mass effect, COD WAW, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.) And it's also kind of really lame how I can only install Spore and Mass Effect like 3 times before I need to buy a new copy (Ive read stories about people calling EA about that and EA telling them to go buy a new copy).

Yet when I buy a game for my xbox 360 (which is used all the time in rooms with no air conditioning since july 2006 and still has not RROD'd on me) it works flawlessly. The only reason I prefer PC games is better graphics and controls, but thats starting to fade.

That's weird, all my local Wal-Marts have a PC gaming section the same size as the console sections, and I live in the middle of nowhere.

Same here. The Wal-Mart near me has a decent selection of PC games....and the same copy of "Prison Tycoon" has been sitting on the shelf for two years now.

Yeah excactly people would rather buy online, yeah that makes me angry how EA has done that you should be able install a game you bought with your money as many times as you like. That's excactly why people pirate PC games cause its bullshit. Yeah i've had mine since january 2007 my 360 did get the RROD but i got it fixed, the 360 does have pretty good graphics, but the PC beats it. For instance Left 4 Dead looks loads better on the PC than it does on the Xbox 360, but you have to constantly update ur PC otherwise it won't be able to keep up with the current games.

Steam took a pretty big chunk of the PC market, and the ease of PC piracy combined with increasingly rediculous copy protection means that anyone who doesn't really care about multiplayer has little incentive to bother with buying them, not to mention that PC ports lately have been disgustingly half-assed.

I've noticed that too. You should take into consideration how many Nintendo Wiis were sold. In some places half the PC Games shelf is taken over by controllers and peripherals for the Wii/360/PS3. Consoles are just 'in' now. Specifically the Wii.

Also, as already stated, buying online [Physical Mail and Direct Download] has become alot more popular recently.

Finally, the cost. In these hard times people just aren't dumping as much cash on their PCs (which is easily the most expensive gaming machine you'll ever own) and the shelves are reflecting as much. Places like Best Buy still have a large stock while Wal-Mart has like 6 games.

Don't expect PC gaming to go anywhere anytime soon. It's a constant..consoles come and go.

Especially in times like now, I think consoles will see a short-term surge in popularity because an entire console costs as much as a high-end video card. I've actually bought a few games for my Xbox recently, after buying exclusively for PC for 2 years.

My stupid PC is bottlenecked too. I have a shitty mobo with an AMD 3800+ that isnt compatible with newer processors, but I have an Nvidia 8800 GTS and two gigs. Don't feel like spending the money on a new mobo and processor. Ugh. So yeah, consoles are starting to gain a little.

Wanna know what happened to PC gaming? Look at GTA 4 and Saint's Row 2. A pair of awesome games that were released for consoles MONTHS before the PC versions, yet both PC versions suffer from unforgivable technical issues resulting from half-assed porting and zero optimization. You literally need 2-3 times the power of a 360 to get decent framerates and detail levels out of these games. Valve is the only developer left that makes properly designed PC games, everybody else has either stopped making them altogether or limited themselves to shitty ports. This is why nobody bothers with PC gaming anymore, because the products just suck.

Valve is the only developer left that makes properly designed PC games, everybody else has either stopped making them altogether or limited themselves to shitty ports.

3D Realms? Blizzard?

I had a few other companies, but as soon as I wrote those 2 my mind just blanked. But they're probably the only ones I really care about, can't say I've liked Valve that much though.

3D Realms? Blizzard?

I had a few other companies, but as soon as I wrote those 2 my mind just blanked. But they're probably the only ones I really care about, can't say I've liked Valve that much though.

I name Valve because they make PC games first and foremost, which means all of their products are designed for PCs and then ported to consoles. This means they're well optimized and run well. I've NEVER had lag with a Valve game, while ported games with inferior graphics run like shit.

This means they're well optimized and run well.

I remember v1.0 of the original half life being extremely buggy, it wouldn't even run until I installed a couple of patch updates, wasn't a problem with my hardware or anything though because I tried it on a few better and worse computers and the same shit happened. And I've got a demo of half life 2 that won't even work on my computer, which meets the sys reqs and then some, but that's probably because it's a demo and few companies provide decent updates to the demos.
But I don't have a major complaint with the actually quality of the content of their games, they aren't too bad. Except half life dragged on for a while.

(I apologise if the above is hard to read, I had a few shots before and as soon as I sat down at the computer I started to feel them hit me)

see: piracy

I've NEVER had lag with a Valve game, while ported games with inferior graphics run like shit.

You never played Half Life 2 on release, huh? It had some issues. Valve is very good at releasing unfinished products, then patching them along the way. It's annoying. The original Half Life also didn't support LAN multiplayer until a few patches down the road.

What Valve needs to do is stomp the shit out of Gabe Newell's fat ass and replace him with a fucking cat or a lemur. I predict an increase of at least 27% in future Valve games if that were to occur.

and I live in the middle of nowhere.

That'd be why...

Over here game retailers tend to have sections for PC games as least as big as those for any individual console, but Australian internet sucks.

Not around my area. You get 2 small bins for the $10-$25 games and 1 small shelf for the new pc games, that's at the Game and EB stores. Only place that seems to have a good pc selection now that's near me is JB HiFi.