The Death of PC Gaming

[walbourn]

A perennial theme in the computer game industry media has been that PC gaming is dying. Never mind that World of Warcraft is a PC-only title that has a strangle-hold on people's minds, or the hits that came before, or the fact that the declining retail sales numbers have been more than offset by growth in online subscription income not captured by the analysts.

So what offerings does the PC industry have for gamers this year? Here is a list of recently released or soon to be released titles:

Age of Empires III
Anarchy Online: Lost Eden
Auto Assault
Battlefield 2: Special Forces
Black & White 2
Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood
Call of Duty 2
City of Villains
Civilization IV
Commandos Strike Force
Earth 2160
F.E.A.R.
King Kong
Myst V: End of Ages
Neverwinter Nights: Diamond
Quake 4
Rome: Total War - Barbarian Invasion
Serious Sam 2
Star Wars: Battlefront 2
Star Wars: Empire at War
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Movies
The Sims 2: Nightlife
The Suffering: Ties That Bind
Ultima Online: The Eighth Age
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Winter Assault
X3: Reunion
Zoo Tycoon 2: Endangered Species

As usual, the rumors of the PC's death as a gaming platform are exaggerated. Usually these rumors are from people who stand to gain prestige and/or a lot of easy development cash for whoring themselves to the console divisions of Sony, Microsoft, and/or Nintendo.

Of course, there are a lot of barriers for PC gamers created either by the platform itself or common bad practices in the development community. It's just nice to remember that despite the fact that the retailers make shelf space for PC games nearly impossible to find that games still get out there.