Back in November and December of last year I bought a metric buttload of PC titles on Steam. Lots of sales, lots of bundles. I mean, we’re talking going from at least 100 games to 150 games on my Steam account. So, yeah, today I was just poking around on Steam, looking for some new demos to try out, and ran into a few games that looked interesting. One of which was Far Cry 2. Just as I’m thinking, “Hmmm, how much does it cost” I notice a button that normally isn’t there. ”You already own Far Cry 2: Fortune’s Edition. Play Now”. Wait the whu-huh, WHA!? When did that get there? Jump over to my Library page and slap install to get the download going. Then what do I see? Crysis, Crysis Warhead, Crysis Wars. Errrr, whu now?!
The joy of Steam sales, finding out what titles you actually got several months later. Tellin’ ya, this is going to be Christmas year round.
As a life long gamer I have constantly been in the out group. Heck, pick a letter in my blog’s title, they all represent out groups. Even my preferred pet, ferrets, places me in the out group. But you know what, I’ve really, truly been ok with that. People have different views on things, different likes and dislike. Any time people have really tried to insult me based on any of the out groups I am a part of I recognize it for what it is. An expression of their ignorance and incomprehension as to what they believe my views and opinions are.
But then there was this video which is reportedly a leaked internal video of where Microsoft wants to take PC Gaming.
I found it disturbing. Why? Because while I can understand and deal with people who oppose me and are trying to insult me I am just left stunned that anyone could be so wildly off the mark in what is, ostensibly, a video in which they show how they want to gain my business.
Really, Microsoft? Really? References to FarmVille, trying to tie it together with the abysmal avatar system you have on XBL and with a heavy smattering of spend, spend, spend sprinkled throughout? This is the best you can do for a platform which, not 2 days ago, AMD described as stifled by console gaming?
Let’s be brutally honest. If this is your forward looking vision you have missed the boat by years. If people want to play Farmville they will do so now, across multiple platforms and browsers. That ship has already sailed. If people want to tinker with the avatar system on XBL, they’d have an XB360 and be doing so now. You’ve got that market already. PC Gamers are PC Gamers precisely because they aren’t Farmville playing, XBL Avatar twiddling people.
I am a PC Gamer. I play PC games because they have far more depth than the casual offerings on Facebook and the stifling consoles. I play PC games because it is in the PC where true long-term, large scalecommunities can thrive in a way that simply cannot happen on consoles nor in the small scale of casual gaming. I am not dismissing those as viable and valuable venues into which gaming has expanded. I just find it offensive that you feel that the unique flavor, the strengths, of PC Gaming should be so utterly ignored while somehow trying to promote that niche of Gaming.
If this is truly what you wish, please, do PC Gamers a favor and just give up on the platform. Go play with the XB360 and leave the PC to people who have the passion to push the platform to the heights it deserves. Heights well above anything you have apparently thought to imagine.
At the beginning of Valve’s Holiday sales I figured I easily had broken the 100 game mark in my Steam list. Little did I know that I had broken that amount a tad before the holiday sales. As of right now (12/31) I have 156 games in my Steam list. I started the Christmas sale with under 116. So 50 games added in the past two or so weeks.
My XBox360 library pales in comparison. GTAIV, 3 Tomb Raider games, Rock Band 1 & 2 (soon to have 3), Batman: Arkham Asylum, Bayonetta, Mirror’s Edge, The Force Unleased (bleck), DMC4 (ungh), DAO (ungh), Mass Effect (ew), and a couple of games I borrowed from a friend. About 15 games total with a good 4-5 of them games that I wish I had never wasted my time playing. Another 4-5 games I could just as easily purchased on the PC.
There’s a lot of newer games in there. Games I would not otherwise have purchased. Fallout 3 + New Vegas or Just Cause 2.
Obviously there’s a lot of older games in there, too. Most of them were purchased in a bundle. For example the X-Com series was bundled up. Not a bad deal for a gamer like me nor the company. I get a fresh copy of a beloved game (I cut my PC Gaming teeth on Railroad Tycoon and X-Com) and the companies that put these older games up for sale get additional revenue from them.
It is these older games where the PC market shines. It is a common argument against PC gamers by console gamers that we stick with the older games. But look at it from the developer and publisher’s perspective. In console gaming Game Stop has a lock on the used console gaming market. Consoles games make their money solely on initial sales. After that used sales take over. No so on the PC. I just purchased, or was gifted, 50+ games and XPacks in the past few weeks. Games from 10 years old to released just last month. Every game purchase is money that goes to the publisher and developer. Sure, we PC gamers might hold tight to our older games but they sure love us for it. ;)
