No more PC games at Gamestop or EB?
Tuesday, December 16th, 2003 - 4:35pm
Saw this over at EA...
Interesting and possibly not entirely untrue.. most eb's I walk into have almost zero shelf space for PC games.. They have a handful of the top titles and older blockbuster titles that are now bargainware.. but try and find Gothic 2 or Chaser, or other smaller titles and your out of luck.
When I went to buy DX:IW for PC and Xbox they had probably 10 times the amount of Xbox copies than pc..
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
85's face the truth you're too dumb.
As noted by the Pengy, GameSpot put the kibosh on this particular iteration of this rumor. But I still wouldn''t be surprised if it happened.
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It''s virtually guaranteed that they won''t completely remove PC games from their shelves in the next few years (why kill something they still turn a tidy profit on?!), but I''ll bet that they continue to reduce the range of PC titles available to only the most popular/profitable.
While PCs can do things that the consoles don''t, I think that consoles kick the butt of the PC in terms of overall gaming audience, cost of development, cost of support, etc; thus, game makers (and, therefore, sellers) are continuing to focus more of their efforts on the more profitable console world. Sad, but true.
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yeah but hopefully enough developers learn from getting burned making games for the newest upcoming platforms (ie ngage, jag) that they realize PC games/ports represent relatively safe investments.
i''m one of those who is really reluctant to buy consoles not just because they come and go but also because you are somewhat limited to a list of proprietary games and options.
as a sidenote, the eb''s in chicago are pretty decent, they did have a copy of chaser for pc last week. and if you figure that they are pushing games for 3 or 4 consoles and pc, it seems all platforms occupy equal space in the store. (with the exception of the actual console boxes)
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Oh god, am I gonna have to go back to Best Buy now?
*shudders*
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I don''t think this will happen. If anything, EBX over in the mall here seems to have TONS of PC titles, all in the small form factor box, including Gothic 2, Chaser, Chrome, etc.
Older titles, say planetscape, never get any shelf space, other than the bargin/cut out bin....
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This sounds really bizarre to me. There are two EB''s within about 20min of me and both have almost as many PC titles on the shelves as all the consoles put together. Maybe even more if you could the trade-ins. Then again, I''m in Atlantic Canada (Halifax, to be precise), so maybe it''s a local phenomenon.
On the flip side of evilroy''s point, it doesn''t surprise me that consoles are taking over because, compared to them, PC games aren''t ""relatively safe investments."" With all the PC games being pushed out as patch-ware (although I haven''t seen too many so far this holiday season), it''s no wonder they want to wash their hands of the mess.
While less shelf space should mean better games though competition, it usually means more sound and fury, less significance.
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I haven''t darkened the door of an EB in probably two years. Nothing against them other than they insist on being located in the mall. I keep thinking that if I don''t go there they will take the hint, like Chick-fil-a, and move out of the mall. I noticed a cutback in PC game space at most of the places I buy PC games, but that seems to mostly be because they don''t stock 25 copies of every game on the shelves. It also might be because all the console games are in giant locked cases that take up all the store''s available space.
You see a lot of that. Certain stores will stock more of a particular platform depending on the area. We have a few GameStops in town, one of which sells almost nothing but PC games and accessories while the other two have respectable PC selections. We have other stores in town that sell nothing but console titles.
Frankly, this strikes me as being an utterly ridiculous rumor. Small business share or not, they would still be throwing away business.
referring to all pc games as ""Patchware"" makes no sense. Poorly (and or quickly) developed games need patching. This is not a symptom of the PC. Its a symptom of developers trying to make something compatible to every platform and trying to bring it to market in 3 hours.
I think speculating that the PC Games market is declining is forgetting our very recent history.
How many 2600''s do you see for sale? I think its safe to say that the market for SNES cartridges is definitely declining.
The same will happen to the current consoles long before the PC.
All the old console favorites are now made available on the PC.
So you can look for your current PS2 and XBOX favorites in the 2010 MAME compilation.
A note left at the scene simply read: "Pwn3d" - Hubbinsd
There is a new EB close to our work Gorack.
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I''m not saying that all PC games are patch-ware, only that there are a lot of new releases that clearly were not ready for release. This isn''t a symptom of developers or PCs, only of greedy publishers and the over-anxious fan-boys that feed them. For instance, I''m about half-way through Armed and Dangerous and loving it.
Besides, didn''t Blizzard just release a new patch for Frozen Throne? Not all games are perfect on release, and patching is a great way to tweak gameplay, but patches should be band-aids, not body casts.
Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit. - Oscar Wilde
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur. (Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.) - Roedy Green
I agree with the idea of the patches... thus my new sig ^.^
Anyway, I am of the idea that PC Games pretty well, it''s just a matter of price, just like everything else... it seems to me that most people around here don''t buy many, if any, PC games new. They usually wait till it drops like 15 to 20 dollars, but the console players are freaks who buy right away... unless you''re an ass like my ""devout christian"" (ie. fanatical, hypocrtical bible beater) who just downloads warez all day long instead.
"Just remember that sometimes you need to allow problems to just roll like water off of a duckilama's back." ~Reaper
The big difference with console games is that they normally don''t go down in price. Sure, there are the ""best seller"" titles, and the obscenely crappy ones that end up being discounted down to $2.99, but for the most part the prices are stable due to the fact there is no change in the hardware.
Graphics (to pick one aspect) on a PC game can change drastically, just look at the differences between any game and it''s sequel. But console games remain relatively static. Just look at some of the launch titles for XBox or the Gamecube and you can find some that are on par with the ones released this past month.
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