PC Games - Where have they gone??

[Rookie1986]

Hey Guys,

Today I took Mrs Rookie in to town for a coffee and to get her a new iPhone 4s (I know, I know the iPhone 5 is due in June but she wanted the 4s and women can't be told). Anyway, I thought I would treat myself to a new game or two just to give me something else aside from Diablo III to play on my new rig. So in to HMV we go, she goes to look at some Blu-rays and I wander off towards the gaming section, I walk around and around through the small selection of games that HMV offer and can I balls find any PC games. I stop and ask one of the members of staff who takes me back to the games section and points to possibly the smallest stand I have ever seen bracketed to one of the walls with eight..... EIGHT! PC games on it, to make matters worse one of them was the Pre-order of Diablo III and four of them were The Sims so that left me with slim pickings.... no BF3, Crysis or The Witcher 2 to give my system a real workout

Next we nip in to Game, can't miss the PC section here they have a full back section of the shop dedicated to it... or should I say two shelves of old games, one of new or pre-orders and then about 9 with the 50+ different offerings of The Sims (Mrs Rookie likes The Sims), so no luck in Game and I'm now £20 lighter because Mrs Rookie decided that she is going to have another minimal update for The Sims at a premium price

Next stop, Grainger Games. Again they have the smallest offering of PC games (only a few more then HMV). They have SWTOR (which I've already got), a Pre-order box for Diablo III, Skyrim, Football Manager 2012 and you've guessed it THE SIMS plus about four expansions!!!

Has the PC gaming market got that small that we are now stuck to ordering our games online or having to use a download service? I remember "back in the day" when PC games had a full wall of the games stores dedicated to all of their offerings. There used to be loads of different PC games and my brother and I use to be able to spend hours (ok maybe an exaggeration) looking through the games on offer to try and just pick one to spend our pocket money//paper round money on. It’s been a long time since I've really looked for PC games on the high-street but this was a sad day for me, so sad in fact that I had to get a Starbucks just to cheer me up!

Anyway that’s my rant over, if anyone would like to join me in a public burning of The Sims then please contact me here or via PM

Regards,
Rookie

[Iron Sights]

Sure I'll join you:

[jim]

I bemoan it, but then the last PC game I bought on the high street... was probably 5 or more years ago.

Am I allowed to suggest that us PC gamers are too intelligent to pay way over the odds on the high street compared to those console gamers?

[Mama Sumae]

Intelligence? no piracy.

Call it the little illegal incentive to a working free market.

Say all you want about it but there is really only one difference between both markets, one has its customers locked in a bubble and can afford to dictate terms the other simply cannot.

Obviously sensible people make sensible choices but you need to have one to begin with, waiting for prices to drop on the console market only takes you so far when compared to the PC market.

[jim]

Intelligence? no piracy.

If that was true, online PC game retailers would be shutting up shop as well - they aren't. Steam is making an absolute fortune.

I take your point, but unless you think there's a higher effect of piracy on the high street than on the online retailers, it doesn't really explain the situation.

[kalniel]

Most store customers are looking for console games, so it makes sense for stores to concentrate on selling them. Simple demand led stocking.

Plenty of PC games at online retailers though, and it's not like the old days where you could check the manuals and maps before buying.. they rarely exist now (some publishers aside - I <3 CD Projekt )

[MadduckUK]

last game i got brick and mortar was BF3, prior to that it was COD:MW2, both from supermarkets - the last game I got from a game/gamestation/HMV etc is too long ago to remember.

[Pob255]

I think the last I bought from bricks and mortar was Spore and that was supermarket, because of no near by game shop know of and the brainless oxygen wasting tits that work at my local pc world just gorped at me (but that's a totally different rant)

Steam, Play and amazon take most of my money for pc game sales. Although for indi games I prefer to go direct to the developers if they have that option, so they get maximum return.

[=assassin=]

I'll happily check in a proper store if they actually had more PC Games in stock, and also a few more offers. But most of the time, there is barely anything to look at, and what is there is often way over priced. Although I did pick up Stalker: Clear Sky recently for about £2.99 from a Gamestation store that had stock transferred to it after our local Game was shut down.

[OilSheikh]

rookie, none of us actually buy any PC or console games from High street game shops. The prices are way too high compared to online prices, sometimes about £15 extra! So, why in this age of smart shopping will anyone want to get ripped off?

Now, speaking specifically about PC games, when a multi-platform game is released, the PC version is always cheaper.
BUT... the PC version has a CD Key. You also need to create a EA or Ubi account. This account gets tied with the CD key. So, if you sell your PC game, you have to give away your account details to the buyer, otherwise with the buyer's own account, there is no way the game can be installed on a different machine. Sometimes you will even see that anyone else who logs in as a different user onto the same PC where the game was originally installed can't play the game even if they try to login with your account.
Let's also not forget the max. no. of times a game can be reinstalled. With Crysis 1, you could only reinstall the game 5 times before the game became a paperweight.
Then, there's DRM, starforce or soemthing which some people don't like. And, some developers require you to have permanent internet conenction while you play the game. so, if you are at an airport in Botswana, good luck playing your game!

All these restrictions have led to piracy of PC games. If I can't sell it or have so much problems selling my PC game after I have finished it, what's the point of buying it in the first place? Might as well go and download it. So, a kind/rich person buys the game and makes it available for the rest of us.
Developers keep complaining these days that they are losing money cos of piracy. Duh! You lot screwed us up pretty bad!

Let's look at some sale stats for a recent Multi-platform title which has been out in the market for a bit, MASS EFFECT 3
NEW PC - £20
NEW PS3/X360 - £25

eBay sale stats :
USED PC - 8 results - recent sale for £11
USED PS3/X360 - hundreds of results - avg sale price £18

These are all the reasons you don't find PC games in high street shops.

[kalniel]

Sorry OilSheikh, but I disagree with almost every point there. Most PC games don't have CD-key tied to accounts, only some online ones. And it's a bit daft to suggest that people were led to pirating as a result of anti-piracy methods If there wasn't piracy then the financiers wouldn't feel the need to put in anti-piracy methods!

Sadly piracy is at least as prevalent in games that have absolutely no DRM as it is for those that have DRM, possibly more so. Pirating games only hurts your own self-interest so you'd have to be pretty stupid to do it really.

But that has nothing to do with why the high street stores don't sell PC games, but online retailers do.

[OilSheikh]

Sorry, kalniel. But piracy wasn't skyhigh before all these steps were taken by the developers.

Crysis 2, Splinter cell Conviction and many more games are where CD keys are tied to their accounts.

WHY is there a max reinstall limit?
WHY are accounts perma-linked to CD keys?
WHY can't multiple users on a PC play the same game ( speaking of games which are designed like that ) , you can on a console!
HOW difficult it is to have a system where your CD key is registered on a studio's server when you first install it, and then when you uninstall , record gets updated on the server?

It is rumored that PS4 and X720 wont let you play USED games. ahahahaha

[HalloweenJack]

ofc if EA have there way - you wont be able to play second hand games anymore either on console!

[kalniel]

Sorry, kalniel. But piracy wasn't skyhigh before all these steps were taken by the developers.

It was, and remains so on games that don't take any steps as well, so I can't see the correlation.

WHY is there a max reinstall limit?
WHY are accounts perma-linked to CD keys?
WHY can't multiple users on a PC play the same game ( speaking of games which are designed like that ) , you can on a console!
HOW difficult it is to have a system where your CD key is registered on a studio's server when you first install it, and then when you uninstall , record gets updated on the server?

1) What games have max reinstall limits? There was a period a while back when games had a rolling limit of concurrent installs - say a maximum of 5 machines simultaneously playing the game on the same key, but that was not a problem for most people because they only had one or two machines and uninstalling freed up a license for you to install on another computer. Same sort of thing applies to things like Windows.
2) Most games I play don't perma link CD-keys to accounts. I don't like the practice as it kills second hand sales, but you just need to choose what you play and vote with your feet.
3) You can on games designed like that - f1 2012 for example. But for the most part, PC gaming habits are quite different from console - we only have one mouse and keyboard per machine, which says something about the way they are normally used. Typically, people don't stick a gaming PC in the living room and then invite friends round to play it.
4) Isn't that what happens in most cases? Last game I played that had that system was TDU which did exactly that. Otherwise yes, if you're against CD-tying to accounts then don't play those games.

It is rumored that PS4 and X720 wont let you play USED games. ahahahaha

*shrugs* I think people are intelligent enough to value their time correctly. If a game isn't worth getting unless they are getting back some of the initial cost then they won't waste their time playing it.

As I've already mentioned, I think games should cost a lot more up front and then have a decent second hand market for recouping initial outlay, like you do for cars etc. And in *that* situation, we'd be able to support brick and mortar stores much better with footfall for PC games for a change.

[Zak33]

My last physical purchase.. because I like DVD's in boxes.. was CoD Black Ops, requested by me for me as a present from my parents.

Know what happened?

I got it into my machine.. and it wasn't on the disk anyway.. it was on Steam.. the disc just held some shell software to get it booted up and install Steam.

that's why game shops are empty.... and why Steam.. now I grasp it... is actually pretty good.

[KeyboardDemon]

1) What games have max reinstall limits? There was a period a while back when games had a rolling limit of concurrent installs - say a maximum of 5 machines simultaneously playing the game on the same key, but that was not a problem for most people because they only had one or two machines and uninstalling freed up a license for you to install on another computer. Same sort of thing applies to things like Windows.

Two spring to mind, Crysis 2 and Batman: Arkham City. On both these games you have a five install limit, however if you uninstall the game it should revoke one of the activations so you can install it again on another PC. I don't know if it is possible to then use that activation on another Origin or Steam account though, I'm guessing you can't have two occurances of the game running concurrently as the server will see that a certain key is already in use the second copy of that game would be refused until the first incident is terminated.