rec.autos.simulators

OT. PC games becoming boring .

Olly Greenfiel

OT. PC games becoming boring .

by Olly Greenfiel » Sat, 01 Sep 2001 18:44:11

I was looking over the list of the best selling PC games in america and I am
starting to think that there seems to be less and less in the way of
compelling PC *** software for my general tastes in *** ( preferably
Racing sims\arcade and sports games ). Console games, by contrast , have
racing games(GT3) and sports games (Madden 2002) as mainstays in the top ten
sellers year after year. PC game buyers seem to be stuck on such compelling
fare as Roller coaster theme park sims, Diablo 2, and The Sims in its
various incarnations. Pretty boring stuff from my perspective, and not much
diversity . As a consequence of how PC game buyers are voting with their
wallets, I think that PC racing sims and Sports games will be getting less
and less support from developers unless than feel like making a few extra
bucks porting there mega selling xbox games over to the PC, where such
interesting games as "Deer Hunter" will greatly outsell them. What's up with
the majority of PC game buyers tastes in games. I mean high rez versions of
PC Yahtzee or Scrabble or Monopoly sell about as well as Nascar 4 !!!!  Lots
of programming manhours invested in those games you can bet.
I just spent alot of money on a new 1.4 GHZ PC, which given the paltry flow
of original PC racing sims and sports games of late, compared to a decent
flow of interesting console games, maybe my last PC purchase for quite a
long time.

Top 10 PC Games for W/E August 18th

Diablo 2 Expansion Set: Lord of Destruction, Blizzard Entertainment
The Sims, Electronic Arts
MS Flight Simulator 2000, Microsoft
Max Payne, GodGames
The Sims: House Party Expansion Pack, Electronic Arts
The Sims: Livin Large Expansion Pack, Electronic Arts
Diablo 2, Blizzard Entertainment
MP Roller Coaster Tycoon, Infogrames
Age of Empires II: Age of Kings, Microsoft
King's Quest VIII: Mask of Eternity, Sierra

Top 20 PC Games for July 2001

Diablo 2 Expansion Set: Lord of Destruction, Blizzard Entertainment
The Sims, Electronic Arts
The Sims: House Party Expansion Pack, Electronic Arts
Diablo 2, Blizzard Entertainment
MP Roller Coaster Tycoon, Infogrames
MS Flight Simulator 2000, Microsoft
The Sims Livin Large Expansion Pack, Electronic Arts
Max Payne, GodGames
Age of Empires II: Age of Kings, Microsoft
Half-Life: Blue Shift, Sierra
Black & White, Electronic Arts
MS Train Simulator, Microsoft
Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, Interplay
MP Roller Coaster Tycoon Loopy Landscapes Expansion Pack, Infogrames
Myst III Exile, Ubi Soft
Sim Theme Park, Electronic Arts
Emperor: Battle for Dune, Electronic Arts
Anarchy Online, Funcom
Backyard Baseball 2001, Infogrames
Sim City 3000, Electronic Arts

Haqsa

OT. PC games becoming boring .

by Haqsa » Sun, 02 Sep 2001 07:33:19

Just an opinion, but I think that the problem is that a lot of the
people buying PC's aren't gamers, but after they get their PC and they
can't figure out what to do with it they go out and buy a lightweight,
nondemanding game to entertain themselves with.  With consoles, OTOH,
everybody that gets one is buying them for the games, but here you have
the problem that certain games don't translate well to consoles due to
limited memory and crappy controllers.  So with consoles you end up with
decent games that are nevertheless designed to be easy to play and not
take too much memory (no huge highly detailed levels, nothing that
requires a mouse or lots of different keystrokes) and with PC's you end
up with a mixture of casual games (Deerhunter, etc.) and deeper games
that you can't do any other way (flight sims as opposed to arcade flight
games, shooters with huge levels, RTS games, deep RPG's with huge
worlds, etc.)


David Butte

OT. PC games becoming boring .

by David Butte » Sun, 02 Sep 2001 09:41:25


<snip>
<snip>

Hey, don't knock it - RollerCoaster Tycoon is a fantastic game.

<snip>

Oh well, at least that's one American disease we haven't caught...

Anyhow, for interest's sake, here's the latest UK top 20s for full and
budget-priced CDs (the capitals on the end of the URL are necessary):

Full price: http://www.chart-track.co.uk/html/uk/PCFPALL.HTML

Budget: http://www.chart-track.co.uk/html/uk/PCBPALL.HTML

Not a single driving game in the full-price top 20 :-( On the other
hand, the budget chart contains Driver and Colin McRae Rally, so it's
not all bad.

--
"After all, a mere thousand yards - such a harmless little knoll,
really" - Raymond Mays on Shelsley Walsh.
Nominations for the rest of this sig are currently being accepted...

Simon Brow

OT. PC games becoming boring .

by Simon Brow » Mon, 03 Sep 2001 19:53:31

...also I'm sure if you went back to the top ten from six months ago you'd
see Colin McRae 2 and GP3 in there.  Both these series sell really well in
the UK.


Simon Hayne

OT. PC games becoming boring .

by Simon Hayne » Tue, 04 Sep 2001 22:11:45

My wife and both my daughters are hooked on RCT.  (Daughters are 6 and 3
years old - no kidding)  Would you believe we now have five pc's networked
together in this house?  I now have more hardware than the company I work
for :(

Cheers
Simon

(And yes, I agree that most PC games nowadays are boring.  Either that, or
I'm jaded. Now, back to the Sinclair ZX Speccy with twin microdrives I
picked up for $10 a few months ago...)

David Butte

OT. PC games becoming boring .

by David Butte » Wed, 05 Sep 2001 08:34:41


<snip>

Now, go and shout about that price on comp.sys.sinclair... <vbeg>

--
"After all, a mere thousand yards - such a harmless little knoll,
really" - Raymond Mays on Shelsley Walsh.

Simon Hayne

OT. PC games becoming boring .

by Simon Hayne » Sat, 08 Sep 2001 22:39:00

That was $10 australian, too.  About 3 UKP and change :-)  Oh, I also got 10
microdrive carts, four of them unformatted and in the original box.
Couldn't believe it myself...

Cheers
Simon
---
o  Author of yBook (eText reader) and Freecharts SE (Stock Charting)
        Download FREE from http://www.spacejock.com
o  Author of 'Hal Spacejock' - ISBN 1-877034-00-2  (AUD$15.95)
        Order now from http://www.spacejock.com


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