4 ms·

> But it's to late now. Valve missed their chance. Gaming is moving away from desktop. In fact, while gaming is increasing extremely fast overall, desktop is ac

> But it's to late now. Valve missed their chance. Gaming is moving away from desktop. In fact, while gaming is increasing extremely fast overall, desktop is actually setting decrease on revenue. This is strictly wrong. Desktop gaming is growing, not shrinking, has done so for the past 4 years, and is projected to do so for the next 4. http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Nvidia-Game-Sales-Data-640x357.jpg http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Nvidia... Desktop gaming wasn't really ever dying, or even significantly contracting. What did happen, and what sparked those news, was that the sales moved from the physical stores to online. In sales charts that tracked existing established sales channels, that looks like a prodigious drop. For gaben, that looks like the the push that put him in the Forbes list.

vibrunazo 15y ago
You're confusing 2 different things. Native Desktop apps vs Browser apps. (don't blame you, I do a lot of game market research and it's really hard to tell which reports are talking about what) If you sum them both, the industry is growing. (which is what nvidia is showing in the link you posted). But the native desktop game market alone is decreasing: http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_Essential_Facts_2010.PDF http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_Essential_Facts_2010.PD... Which is exactly my point. The industry is moving away from desktop and towards browser and mobile. Both are growing absurdly fast.
- jiggy2011 15y ago
  Native desktop/console could possibly be dropping possibly due to recession and also the fact that we haven't had any new consoles released for a while. I find it difficult to believe that in the future everyone will want to play all of their games on a phone/tablet. There are huge categories of popular games that really don't fit well to a touchscreen.
  - vibrunazo 15y ago
    > There are huge categories of popular games that really don't fit well to a touchscreen. Then why are you not selling bluetooth gamepads yet? :) This presentation [1] that was just posted explains it better than I possibly could. Mobile is replacing console just like console replaced arcades. Which also had much better hardware and controlers, and games that didn't fit the console style. Until consoles' hardware evolved... and arcades died. Likewise, mobile hardware is evolving. There's nothing stopping you from building a android box with 10x the CPU power of an xbox, plug controllers in it, have instant access to many more games in the Play Store that all consoles together ever had. Then develop games with much better graphics than current AAA titles. And I'm personally betting (literally) that both Apple and Android OEMs are already working on this. [1] http://www.slideshare.net/bcousins/when-the-consoles-die-what-comes-next http://www.slideshare.net/bcousins/when-the-consoles-die-wha...
    - jiggy2011 15y ago
      True, but at the point what you've just built is basically a console. In fact you may as well plug it into your HD TV too and you now have your "TV tablet" that you leave next to your TV (in the same way that you have a dedicated HTPC instead of plugging your laptop in every time). Then somebody else comes along and says "hey all of these people are buying tablets just to plug into their TV, I wonder if they would buy a tablet without a screen" and thus the whole cycle starts over. I'm not sure that the console/arcade analogy holds, Arcade games had a bigger barrier to play. You had to physically move yourself to a place that contained arcade machines (whilst dodging teenage drugdealers) and stick money into the machine every time you died because the arcade owner had to cover the rent on this massive building (this meant the games were usually designed so that you died a lot). With a console or PC you can sit in the comfort of your own home and play for free (once you have bought the game).You can also save the game and resume from where you left off last time, a feature critical for longer, more complex games and missing from arcade machines. The real issue here is whether the platform providers store (play store, app store, windows store etc) will do away with the need for Steam altogether and if it only had temporary value because MS did not have a compelling alternative at the time.
      - 15y ago

vibrunazo 15y ago

You're confusing 2 different things. Native Desktop apps vs Browser apps. (don't blame you, I do a lot of game market research and it's really hard to tell which reports are talking about what) If you sum them both, the industry is growing. (which is what nvidia is showing in the link you posted). But the native desktop game market alone is decreasing: http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_Essential_Facts_2010.PDF http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_Essential_Facts_2010.PD... Which is exactly my point. The industry is moving away from desktop and towards browser and mobile. Both are growing absurdly fast.

jiggy2011 15y ago
Native desktop/console could possibly be dropping possibly due to recession and also the fact that we haven't had any new consoles released for a while. I find it difficult to believe that in the future everyone will want to play all of their games on a phone/tablet. There are huge categories of popular games that really don't fit well to a touchscreen.
- vibrunazo 15y ago
  > There are huge categories of popular games that really don't fit well to a touchscreen. Then why are you not selling bluetooth gamepads yet? :) This presentation [1] that was just posted explains it better than I possibly could. Mobile is replacing console just like console replaced arcades. Which also had much better hardware and controlers, and games that didn't fit the console style. Until consoles' hardware evolved... and arcades died. Likewise, mobile hardware is evolving. There's nothing stopping you from building a android box with 10x the CPU power of an xbox, plug controllers in it, have instant access to many more games in the Play Store that all consoles together ever had. Then develop games with much better graphics than current AAA titles. And I'm personally betting (literally) that both Apple and Android OEMs are already working on this. [1] http://www.slideshare.net/bcousins/when-the-consoles-die-what-comes-next http://www.slideshare.net/bcousins/when-the-consoles-die-wha...
  - jiggy2011 15y ago
    True, but at the point what you've just built is basically a console. In fact you may as well plug it into your HD TV too and you now have your "TV tablet" that you leave next to your TV (in the same way that you have a dedicated HTPC instead of plugging your laptop in every time). Then somebody else comes along and says "hey all of these people are buying tablets just to plug into their TV, I wonder if they would buy a tablet without a screen" and thus the whole cycle starts over. I'm not sure that the console/arcade analogy holds, Arcade games had a bigger barrier to play. You had to physically move yourself to a place that contained arcade machines (whilst dodging teenage drugdealers) and stick money into the machine every time you died because the arcade owner had to cover the rent on this massive building (this meant the games were usually designed so that you died a lot). With a console or PC you can sit in the comfort of your own home and play for free (once you have bought the game).You can also save the game and resume from where you left off last time, a feature critical for longer, more complex games and missing from arcade machines. The real issue here is whether the platform providers store (play store, app store, windows store etc) will do away with the need for Steam altogether and if it only had temporary value because MS did not have a compelling alternative at the time.
    - 15y ago