Most PC gamers download their games using torrents well before the plastic and cardboard reaches the shops. It is a broken business model.
The industry needs to find ways to ensure that customers pay for the games they play instead of stealing them.

bruce - you really need to change the record. Piracy also effects console games, as these can be downloaded as well. If publishers stopped developing such dumb downed pieces of tat, maybe the PC market will pick up.

There IS a huge market out there, Warcraft has shown that. However, if so called specialist chains such as GAME and Gamestation continue to reduce shelf space, what hope is there for the PC?

The music industry cried wolf over piracy until itunes turned up, proving that people will download music and pay for it - but for the music THEY want, not the tat being shoved down their throats by the publishers.

Torrents are not the delivery system of choice for home consoles. THey are for PC games.
Retailers don't stock PC games much any more because it is a broken business model. If the games sold then they would stock them.
If you mean World of Warcraft then that doesn't support your case at all. As an MMO it can't be pirated.

Mentioning the music industry does you no favours. Recorded music is now effectively free. Very few people still pay for it.

So itunes is a failed business model? I think you talk from your rear end. Warcraft cant be pirated - selling in the millions, Football Manager 05 could be and still managed a huge return.

I didn't say that iTunes is a failed business model. Recorded music in general is. I suggest you go and look at the facts.
The average consumer now "owns" vastly more music than ever before. A 32 Gbyte iPod will store 7,000 tracks. Many kids have hundreds of CDs on theirs. Yet CD sales have been collapsing. And iTunes only represents a miniscule fraction of the recorded music out there. Very few people pay for music any more. Just as very few pay for boxed PC games. Why bother when it is easier to steal them?
I just wrote an article about this here:
http://www.bruceongames.com/2008/02/19/92-piracy/" onclick="window.open ( this.href ); return false;" class="comment_url" >http://www.bruceon...racy/

And, if you want to be taken seriously when discussing something you should lay off the insults. It does your arguments no good.

We stock PC Games in my store, they sell. There is a market. Can't really say it much clearer than that.

I would never argue against the general member of a public (of the newer generations shall we say) being a **** (bet thats censored) and happier to steal stuff but there are some of us who didn't have bad parents are were raised correctly and so don't drive everywhere, do park our cars properly have a bit of repsect for other people and buy things rather than stealing. We may be a dying breed but there are still enough of us to make PC Gaming a large market :)

Then you need to look at the facts Bruce. Music sales have declined simply due to bad acts and new media distribution methods, which the music companys were extrememly slow to take up.

The fact itunes has been a huge success proves that there WAS a market for music, without piracy AND that people WILL pay for it. Thats why people now own 'more music than ever before' and lets not forget that more people have access to a PC/MAC to purchase their music, then ever before. The same goes for gaming. Steam is a huge success and as broadband becomes faster, I suspect that more will download their PC games from such places.

To simply put the decline of the PC format down to piracy is a very blinkered and out dated view and its clear now matter what is said, YOU are ALWAYS right....

I always pay for my PC games and my console games.
considering how difficult it is to actually make copies of games (due to them needing the cd in the drive, registration keys, signin in to their server) there is no valid reason why piracy is still picked on as the reason "PC games are failing".

Steam have now released FOR FREE the software for indie developers to put their games onto steam, complete with the copy protection. If all copies followed the same model, it would not be an issue.

ok firstly it is not difficult at all to play pirated games, a copy of daemon tools or power iso is all you need, i have seen it done many times.

secondly one of the many reasons the pc industry is going into decline is the competition from consoles now is so much more advanced in comparison to the past. consoles just got better. CoD was originally a pc title and look at it now, i'll bet more console copies of call of duty were sold than pc

truth is the pc is always going to have a market, its just how much of the market it wants to keep. some genres such as
rts and the best of fps will always find the pc a more comfortable platform. titles like crysis and spore are perfect examples of a forward thinking industry, but there are just not enough titles that highlight what a great machine the pc can be for gaming. if the devs can grasp that im sure pc gaming will be around for many years to come.

Your right about the PC being a good games machine. I have been a PC gaming addict for 8 years. I used to update my memory, GFX card etc. periodically build a new cutting edge gaming rig every two years . . . . . . Oh hang on, you mean i can buy a fairly good console with a few games thrown in for the price of a decent gfx card? What, developers will stick and optimise that system for at least four years? Theres now a massive online community to play games with, and its easy to connect to? What, you mean they now have games like "Oblivion" on them and not just driving games, beat-em-ups and FPS's? . . . . If it wasn't for Rome:Total War, my defection to the darkside, as are many others that i know would be complete. PC's are the ultimate games machine, just they cost a bloody fortune in hardware to run them significantly better than the current crop of consoles ( i know 3yrs time and the PC will have stretched the gap again . . . .. ). Usually,about now i would be up for a new rig, especially after the release of Crysis, but i honestly cant be arsed to shell-out for the "Quantum physics" based processors,dual gfx cards and elaborate cooling methods that will have to come along with it. Its not the only factor, but piracy is a significant one as to why developers have begrudgingly left the PC. Remember John Carmack at last years QuakeCon? Read between the lines with his presentation and basically he was saying "Yeah the 360 and especially the PS3 suck and are a nightmare to program with these half-baked mulitple processors they have in them, but you lot keep using torrents, and i got staff to pay and mouthes to feed". If PC gamings godfather makes these kind of statements then piracy must be an issue. For me however, its the aggro of having to chase the hardware dragon. Maybe im getting too old, and dont care if my games dont run at whatever fps, or have the new light reflections. Mark my words, all someone has to do now is create some kind of decent MMORPG on the consoles and it'll all be over. For me, PC gaming peaked when HL2 was released. The PC had something significantly different about it (and i dont just mean great graphics) to make it worth all the aggro. Since then, its slowly declined and doesn't have anything that consoles cant replicate or come close to. Not even sure if im gonna buy another desktop, ever again. Like the idea of having a laptop wirelessly connected to a printer and a PS3 or xbox 360 as a games machine. At least i c****e them all in bed . . . . . . Cest la vie PC gaming, at least i can tell my kids i was there when Counterstrike and Halflife were running things . . . .

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