[General Discussion] Trend Index: What Americans are Playing

You really do have a particular axe to grind there, don't you Shin.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I think, really, a lot of the image problem that PC games have is the insistence from a lot of players that the games are somehow unplayable if they don't crank the graphics way the fuck up. Most newish titles ARE playable on a shitty rig, you just have to make some compromises. I've successfully played Left 4 Dead on a machine with no video card and only 1GB of ram, and Fallout 3 on the same machine, and Spore. Do I have the graphics as high as possible? No. Are the games entirely playable and decent-looking? Absolutely. (Anyone with left 4 dead PC, try it. Turn the graphics all the way down. Game still looks fantastic.) People try to pretend that the PC platform somehow FORCES you to buy a massive video card and a power supply the size of the moon, which isn't true. If you want to do that, it's just a bonus.

The problem with dispelling this myth is that video card manufacturers spend a lot of money to have their names attached to 4-star games and that source of funding dries up in a hurry if you admit they're about as important as spinnin' rims.

I think the problem with these surveys is the massive data skew caused by WoW poopsockers and the PRO GAMER types that lurk around Counterstrike (which is assuredly where HL2's high place is from) and Warcraft. These games are being played a lot, but it's all inside the confines of constrained retard ladder play which effects real human beings not at all.

If you look on Steam's game stats page, the two versions of Counterstike are outscoring everything. But #3 and #4 are both games released in November '08. It's hard to draw direct comparisons here, because the console world doesn't really have such a thing as servers for 9-year-old games. The hardware rotates and they're gone. Possibly we'd see the same thing there if it were possible. Sure, there's backward compatibility with a few A+ titles but it's not guaranteed.

I admit freely I have no idea what kind of idiots are still playing Halo PC, though. There's never any servers up when I reinstall it for a lark so they're all presumably doing the singleplayer campaign. Over and over and over.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

That's fine, if you'd rather have a bicycle over a car because a bike is more reliable and easy to understand that's a valid perspective but it doesn't mean car driving is dead!!!!

PCs are "dying" in the same way Nintendo has been "dying" since the N64: By doing just fine, thanks.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.