E3: The End of PC Gaming?

Probably the biggest annual video game industry conference E3 has ended with the strong focus on console games. Does that mean that the age of PC gaming is coming to its end?

Three biggest names in the console game industry: Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo obviously think so.
Even Intel didn’t hold any press conferences or presentations at the conference, held from 15 to 17 July in LA Convention Center. Although being moved to LA again, the conference didn’t attract desired attention, both from companies and visitors.

What was the cause for such dropout?
Kevin Unangst, senior global director of Windows gaming at Microsoft, said that his team decided to show off PC games to avoid being ‘overshadowed’ at the conference. He added that E3 has fundamentally become a console show.
“We didn’t want to just squeeze out some time at a console show” were his words.

Producers of the Wii, Revolution, Xbox and PlayStation, the most popular consoles, can be satisfied with the results of the conference. It served its purpose – promoting the console gaming and installing it on the throne instead so far inviolable PC gaming.
As Rahul Sood, from the HP’s VoodooPC game computer division said, this conference is ‘Mecca of gaming’.

The absence of PC games however isn’t unnatural. It goes along with the absence of a lot of other things at the show. For those who remember, E3 drew 70,000 people a couple of years ago, but that was not enough for big companies that balked at the costs and downsized the show to a gaming press event.
Certain number of big game developers has pulled out of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) that sponsors the conference, including LucasArts, Activision, ID Software, Crave Entertainment and Vivendi.
Maybe they were afraid of the upcoming console adversaries.
Or maybe that was the goal of ESA - to make small nostalgic event, with a barbecues between two rounds of gaming.


An Argument


Console game developers however have an argument whay PC gaming is in regression and that’s Piracy.
That’s right. Problems such as piracy have hurt the PC gaming and related industry, prompting many game developers to move to console development.
But, piracy was a problem from the days of the ancient personal computers like Spectrum, Commodore or Atari. How come that suddenly it became a problem?

Other argument of console developers is that some categories that were once exclusive domain of the PC, like FPS and RTS games, have been conquered and now are available on the consoles as well.
But what consoles still cannot reach is popularity of online games, which will remain exclusive domain of PC at least for some period of time.

It’s notable, according to the references from the conference that in the US, console games have been growing at a faster rate than PC game sales at stores.
But PC game numbers don’t include game advertising, purchases of downloadable games, and online game subscription revenues. This means that PC games sales are at the same rate or even bigger than console games.


So, is PC gaming dead?


It’s time to say magic words and reveal the mystery.
So, is it?
In your dreams maybe (for those who said Yes).
PC gaming isn't near the end, isn’t dying and especially it’s not dead. It’s just not applying for an E3 conference anymore.

Although being buried by console developers in the last couple of years, PC gaming is still standing proud, breathing and offering a great share of joy to all devoted gamers, who still like the sound of overheated fans, smell of burning processors and video cards above the pleasure of playing on fancy consoles.

What console developers often forgot is that no one should build own success on others’ destiny, yet on own craft and ability.
Their motto is “We will succeed because some other will fail” and that won’t get them far. Instead of building own path and forgetting PC games for at least a second, they keep poking, fencing and expecting PC games failure.

But, that won’t happen. Not yet. There is still an army of games that cannot be (or won’t be) easily transferred to console environment. Games that still eat a bigger piece of popularity cake.

That’s the reason why PC games are still alive and the once popular events like E3 are slowly fading, if not dying.

Or poetically speaking, that’s the reason why well planned gravedigging for those who are away, often turns into small nostalgic events with annoying distant relatives.