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I keep hearing about PC gaming dying, and the main cause being cited is always piracy (yeah, as if piracy doesn't exist on other platforms).

As someone who is enjoying games on PC, I am here to offer a different point of view. Here are my five reasons why PC gaming is not doing quite well:

  1. If a game developer's primary target is console hardware which is approximately six generations behind the current PC hardware, then PC version is bound to be crap. PC gamers, especially those who own the consoles as well, lose the incenitive to buy the PC version — after all, it doesn't offer more than the console version.
  2. There are those artificially created "exclusives" (yes Microsoft, I am looking at you) like Halo and now Alan Wake. Those games are made "exclusively" for the consoles in a bid to boost console sales. It is pretty obvious who gets the profit from such deals — console makers, not game developers. After this sellout with Alan Wake, Remedy Entertainment will have a hard time selling PC games in the future.
  3. In a bid to cater to the certain type of audience (newbie PC gamers with a console background), PC games get dumbed down. Position saving, inventory, advanced controls (who needs a mouse to play Resident Evil 4, right Capcom?), character development, etc — it all gets thrown out to "simplify" gaming. That's pushing away experienced PC gamers.
  4. Next, we have way too restrictive game protection schemes. Those protection schemes increase the game cost for developers, publishers and gamers alike, and they mostly hurt legitimate buyers while "pirates" do away with a no-cd executable. Punishing legitimate buyers is not good for business, those people have no choice other than to stop buying overly protected game titles, and turn to piracy. I wish that developers and publishers would finally realize that they are being scammed by those who produce those game protection systems.
  5. Lastly, there is this worryingly increasing trend of having to be online to play the game. You need to sign in to some online service (or even two!) in order to play, or even worse — you need to have an online account to be able to save game progress for single-player games. If there was a centralized system for this I wouldn't mind, but having to register with EA, Bioware, Ubisoft, Games For Windows Live (I hate that one!), etc, in order to be able to play all the different games makes PC gaming harder not just because you need to be online, but also because you need to create, remember, and maintain all those credentials for said online services. If your computer security gets compromised, you can lose access to all your games at once — good luck in trying to get your accounts back or to install and play those games again.

You might have noticed that I haven't mentioned Steam. That is because I like it. It is non-intrusive, it offers more value with downloadable content and updates, and I would really prefer having only that one instead of several digital distribution systems.

Finally, it seems that those who are complaining the most about PC gaming dying are actually those who are doing the most to make it happen. Hypocrisy anyone?