If you want a more affordable title that’s where you go.” Culprit #3: DLC “Indie Gaming has taken over the ill-fated middle market, as the alternative to triple AAA gaming. It’s difficult to find a gamer these days who doesn’t have at least a handful of indie games in their collection, regardless of whether they’re on PC or Console. It’s become such a large market, that both Microsoft and Sony have now used their support for independent developers as a selling point for their consoles. If you want a more affordable title that’s where you go. Along with the advent of crowd funding sources and cheap/free access to powerful game engines, Indie Gaming has taken over the ill-fated middle market, as the alternative to triple AAA gaming. Indie Games used to be sidescrollers and comedy games powered in Adobe Flash, but it wasn’t long until indie games were rapidly taking over the PC market with titles such as Minecraft, FTL, and Chivalry: Medieval Warfare. “Years ago if a developer or publisher wanted to capitalize on top-of-the-line shooters or driving games, they would make it for PC.” Culprit #2: IndiesĪround the same time that consoles were experimenting with successful games on Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network, Indie Games were rapidly expanding on PC. Halo brought first person shooters to the Xbox Gran Turismo brought realistic driving games to the PlayStation and SOCOM brought tactical online multiplayer games to the PS2. As consoles became more and more powerful though, new franchises began their lives on consoles, and imported ideas, concepts and game mechanics that were once exclusive to PCs. The audience for these products primarily originated in the realm of mice, keyboards and joysticks. Years ago if a developer or publisher wanted to capitalize on top-of-the-line shooters or driving games, they would make it for PC. Typically, when something is innovated on PC, it will become standard practice on consoles within 3-7 years, not counting all of the early attempts that fail. For the large majority of their existence, consoles have been playing catch up to their PC counter parts. If you want to play the best looking or technically demanding games, you buy a PC. PCs have always king of the hill when it came to video game technology. So how is this? How can multi-million dollar productions that essentially print money on consoles become a ghost town within a few months on the personal computer? Well, there are multiple factors in this phenomenon. Yet, on PC, Titanfall struggles to keep a thousand players in Team Deathmatch, and Advanced Warfare has an average player count that is rivalled by Insurgency, a Halflife 2 Mod turned 15 buck shooter with a distinct lack of budget, marketing or Kevin Spacey. Two of the most popular shooters of 2014 were Titanfall and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. One game that has been out for years and another that only just came out last month. Going through the top 25 most played games on Valve’s digital service, the only ones that could be considered AAA are Skyrim and Dying Light. Instead, the games that have eaten up my sleep schedule are Insurgency, Depth and Reflex. When it comes to multiplayer, the three games I’ve played most of over the past two months haven’t been Call of Duty, Far Cry or any other full priced titles. Being a self-admitted nerd, I’ve got a LOT of games on my PC.
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