PC Game Fun Time

Word has reached me from my sources that World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King has has become the all time record holder for one day PC game sales, with 2.8 million copies sold.  At $40 per copy, this comes out to about $112 million in sales.

For comparison purposes, the one day sales record for consoles is currently held by Halo 3 with a figure of $170 million.  At the higher price point of $60 per copy, this again comes out to 2.8 million copies sold in one day.

While one day sales figures are hardly a measure of the health of the industry as a whole, it is interesting to note that even with the “decline” of PC gaming, sales records are still being made.   In fact, the records are even quite competitive with console sales records!

The truth is that PC gaming sales figures are still strong, they have just been shifted online and away from the traditional genres like first person shooters.  While the death of traditional genres may be disturbing to the more traditional crowd, the platform itself lives on.

TechRadar’s list of twelve reasons PC gaming is better than console gaming is a fun little read. I’ll admit, I was thinking of doing something similar on this site for awhile (although better fleshed out), but in the end thought better of it, because I don’t think gloating is particularly helpful. PC gaming faces some severe challenges over the coming years. Series that used to be PC-exclusive are now regularly being released on consoles as well for profitability rationales that are impossible to refute. Now while that isn’t bad on its face, the amount of dumbing down that too often goes along with it is.

The only genre that I would really say that is thriving on the PC above and beyond consoles is the MMORPG, which doesn’t exactly help me much. I have an MMORPG post still in the works, but the gist of it is that, following experience with The Realm Online, EverQuest, and then World of Warcraft, I no longer allow myself to play MMORPGs as a concession towards ensuring my own wellbeing. Other genres that are still doing well on PC over the console include strategy games, both the real-time and turn-based varieties. Regrettably, we seem to have lost the first-person shooter.

So yes, while it is mindless fun to point and gloat at consoles’ problems, including red rings of death, their “discovery” of high-def roughly a decade after the PC, and proprietary lock-in, I think it’d be more constructive to make a list of the the areas where PC gaming suffers in comparison to console games, and then make all efforts to rectify them. My number one complaint is how console games “just work”, while the Digital Restrictions Management software included in nearly all new PC games introduces a flummoxing plethora of potential pitfalls that turns many potential PC gamers to consoles in search of a less frustrating gaming experience. What’s your biggest complaint?