What Happened to PC Sports Gaming?

[EnigmaNemesis]

I was mainly PC for sports gaming back when it was prevalent.

High Heat, MVP, Madden, Microsoft Baseball, etc.

Mainly due to the better versions graphically, and ONLINE, which the consoles at the time did not have.

But in the sad world of piracy, etc, and the fact that The Show is PS3 anyhow ... the PC gaming for sports no longer gets love for me. But I still use it heavily for RTS, RPG, and FPS games.

[DolphinDave]

I got a quad-core processor, 9800gt, and 4gigs of ram and it only cost me $250.00. And it destroys the PS3 and Xbox 360. So the price for a high-end computer is about the same as a console. And my pc doesn't burn up the consoles do.

Also, with OnLive coming out, EA could put there sport games exclusively on there. And with OnLive, you can have a 10 year old computer and still play games like crysis of FC2 on ultra settings with NO LAG at all.

Peter Moore is just a douche bag and should be fired.

[ComfortablyLomb]

Re: What Happened to PC Sports Gaming?

After buying a few older PC games recently and having to jump through hoops to get them to function properly on my PC (which is more powerful than it needs to be for 3-4 year old games) I've remembered why I started to shy away from PC games in the first place.

PC gamers love to tell you that they love the customization and tweakability but really they're the biggest graphics whores on the planet and to satiate them new games constantly push the limits of what hardware can do. And since there are so many different types of configurations a lot of stuff goes wrong along the way. I've been pounding this drum for a while but the question for every more realistic and details graphics leads to more bad games than good games.

[dbchang]

This is a shameless plug, but our game, MLB Dugout Heroes is a full-featured PC baseball game that was given a good review on this site:

http://www.operationsports.com/feature.php?id=852

So far we have had good success in getting former UBO players - I'd like to invite anyone that wants a PC baseball game to download it and try it out. It is an item based game, so you don't need to spend anything if you don't want to.

[EnigmaNemesis]

Re: What Happened to PC Sports Gaming?

This is a shameless plug, but our game, MLB Dugout Heroes is a full-featured PC baseball game that was given a good review on this site:

http://www.operationsports.com/feature.php?id=852

So far we have had good success in getting former UBO players - I'd like to invite anyone that wants a PC baseball game to download it and try it out. It is an item based game, so you don't need to spend anything if you don't want to.

Cool, will give it a look, thanks.

[demencia_total]

There are several key things that I think have affected PC sports titles as a whole:

The first is, the price point of software. Developers know that they can make more money charging $60+ over a longer period of time, while a PC title enters the market at a lower price and drops faster, as ChampN252 noted. Also, the PC community demands more out of developers than console gamers, such as steady patches with detailed explanations of what has been fixed and added content for no extra charge, unless it's a full expansion.

The second thing in my opinion is pure unadultered misinformation. As some of the previous posters have noted, they believe that they must upgrade their systems constantly to be able to run the latest games. Now, this might hold true if you bought your PC a few years ago, but as processor speeds have basically capped out and high speed dual/quad core setups with more than 2 Gigs of ram have become commonplace, it is not hard to find a cheap system that can basically run anything. Video cards you say? You can find a GeForce 8800 GT for basically a $100 bucks more or less, and that will run anything currently out there, even Crysis. ATI has it's own line of cheap cards that run almost every game at over 60 frames per second. These cards will last you quite a few years, unless you insist to max out settings on every game in the future, which is a highly unrealistic given that usually developers make these options available for the people who have the most up to date, ridiculously expensive systems. If you want to run NBA 2k9 (and probably 10) at 200 frames per second, then perhaps these are for you.

My point is that PC gaming is not as expensive as people make it out to be nowadays, unless you want the latest thing constantly. FYI, unless you have a lot of money available to you at all times, this is impossible. PC hardware is constantly evolving, and games usually are not up to date with the latest hardware. Hell, there are still very few games that take advantage of multicore processors, and those have been around for a while now. With the cheap, more common setups currently available, the games still run beautifully and look way better than their console counterparts. That is, if the developers actually put any effort and don't actually make a crappier version just to make a quick buck (example, the PC FIFA series).

Also, there is a HUGE market out there for these games, as the PC community is more world wide than consoles by a mile. When powerful developers (such as EA) try to localize their games all around the world, people will purchase them. That is, if they are worth a lick, which they're not. At least as PC sports gaming goes, that is.

[DHoos]

Re: What Happened to PC Sports Gaming?

Actually, publishers can make more money off of PC games since they don't have to pay royalties like they do to MS/Sony/Nintendo.

The simplest explanation for what has happened to PC sports gaming is this:

PC sales slow while console sales increase
Resources allocated away from PC
Retailers begin reducing the # of PC titles carried
Sales slow even more
More resources taken from PC
Retailers reduce again
Sales slow again
Titles canceled

[mva5580]

Sigh...........

Any article that is ever written about PC gaming on a "main stream" website always brings out the people who are just completely ignorant to PC gaming, and I just wish they would shut their mouths. But obviously it'll never happen.

1) PC's cost nowhere CLOSE to as much as so many of you make it out to be. Add in the fact that ALL OF YOU already own a PC, where as you have to buy a console separately, and hey what do you know. That extra money you put into the console you could've put into your PC instead and had a solid gaming PC.

2) I play my PC in my living room, on my 46" LCD HDTV at 1920 x 1080 resolution from the comfort of my couch. And I can use a controller in any damn game I please. The "comfort" level with PC's for me is equal to consoles. It's not my, or the genre's fault if you're all stuck in the 80's/90's huddled up on a computer desk leaning into a monitor. Evolve already.

But I know I know, there's way too much rational thought here for people to acknowledge it, so go ahead and continue with your uneducated, ancient opinions of PC gaming. I'll leave you to it.

[demencia_total]

Actually, publishers can make more money off of PC games since they don't have to pay royalties like they do to MS/Sony/Nintendo.

Good point. On the plus also, PC games usually take less money to develop since all programmers are familiar with the hardware, whereas with consoles, they encounter unknowns and obstacles which end up costing them more.

[Hendrick4life]

Re: What Happened to PC Sports Gaming?

Good point. On the plus also, PC games usually take less money to develop since all programmers are familiar with the hardware, whereas with consoles, they encounter unknowns and obstacles which end up costing them more.

Also you can upgrade the PC Games alot easier. And the Mods and things....PC Gaming is Amazing.

[Boozers]

Re: What Happened to PC Sports Gaming?

I loved PC Gamiing and would love all the sports titles to make a comeback I know playing the NHL Series when PS and N64 sucked was awesome because u could basicly mod your game by adding actual advertising and exact scoreboard advertising for all the rinks, (impossible due to licensing) add exact faces of players, change equipment, change name of arena's you name it probably same for MVP as well. I loved that consoles you cant change anything to that same level

[mgoblue]

Re: What Happened to PC Sports Gaming?

Sigh...........

Any article that is ever written about PC gaming on a "main stream" website always brings out the people who are just completely ignorant to PC gaming, and I just wish they would shut their mouths. But obviously it'll never happen.

1) PC's cost nowhere CLOSE to as much as so many of you make it out to be. Add in the fact that ALL OF YOU already own a PC, where as you have to buy a console separately, and hey what do you know. That extra money you put into the console you could've put into your PC instead and had a solid gaming PC.

2) I play my PC in my living room, on my 46" LCD HDTV at 1920 x 1080 resolution from the comfort of my couch. And I can use a controller in any damn game I please. The "comfort" level with PC's for me is equal to consoles. It's not my, or the genre's fault if you're all stuck in the 80's/90's huddled up on a computer desk leaning into a monitor. Evolve already.

But I know I know, there's way too much rational thought here for people to acknowledge it, so go ahead and continue with your uneducated, ancient opinions of PC gaming. I'll leave you to it.

I can hook up my PC to my tv, but it's a real pain...I don't normally use it on that tv, just would be when gaming, and I don't want to have to always move it over there, plug it in again, hook up all the cables. I'm also not fully wireless for keyboard/mouse, so I'd have to get that too.

I could have a dedicated gaming PC that is solely hooked up to my HDTV, but if I'm doing that why not just have a console with the larger catalog of games?

I'm not hating on PC gaming (I love Empire: Total War!), but for me I'm able to play my friends online or in person more easily on a console. Not saying it's not possible on a pc (like you say, it is), but I don't really get the benefits of going PC over consoles.

More friends (and OS'ers) are on Live (Look at Left4Dead, the few PC guys here had trouble finding fellow OS'ers to play with, whereas we had a 360 gaming night going strong for a few months). Also nice to be able to play the console exclusives (Fable, Halo, Killzone, others).

PC gaming is a totally viable platform, I just don't personally see what would compel me to go that route vs. consoles. The perceived "pros" don't really apply to me (I'm past the "oooh, i want to build my own PC" phase, and upgrading doesn't hold that much appeal anymore). Building/upgrading end up being much more of a pain. Empire has a forum full of people with PC issues due to graphics cards and whatnot.

[dbrandon]

Lack of support.

[LucianoJJ]

Re: What Happened to PC Sports Gaming?

I echo all the comments about the expense of the PC compared to the console. I got tired of all of the upgrades, and updating the drivers. While desktop PCs and their components have gone down in price, I think too many people were burned in the past, and think of consoles as being the easy/cheap way to play. The other aspect that holds the PC back is running an OS in the background.

In spite of all of that, I still play my favorite text-based sports gaming sim, Strat-O-Matic Baseball, on my PC fairly regularly. That game has a retro look and feel, and does not require the latest graphics card, a ton of RAM, or a cutting edge CPU to run.

[nehasen]

Re: What Happened to PC Sports Gaming?

thanks for presenting the awesome info