[hx8]

Yes. Look at the market research. It's growing specifically fast in Asia, but there is also strong growth with North America.

Having a PC to check your email, order off amazon, and download recipes is dying. Buying a PC and using it for video games is raising. The PC hardware is getting more expensive, but the upgrade cycles are also extending. If you look at the steam hardware survey most gamers are 1-3 GPU generations behind.

If you look at the total cost of ownership PC gaming is not awful compared to consoles. It's higher, but not as high as the initial price tag makes it look. There is no monthly Playstation Plus or Xbox Live subscription. These can run between $80/yr to $240/yr. PC games often have access to deeper discounts. The PC has additional utility, and modern PC components are holding exceptional resell value.

[numpad0]

I think the effect of Twitch/YouTube can't be ignored. PC games are easier content source for streamers, and PC remains better platform for viewers for watching streams. Consoles are still quite focused on single task content consumption.

[keyringlight]

For the kinds of games where DRM free matters, where they don't have a prominent online/multiplayer side or the equivalent of playing the game 'from the disc', is the console subscription really an issue? I don't have a console myself, but from when I've looked into it there's a bunch of mainly free to play games where that subscription isn't needed as both the publisher and Sony/MS get their money from purchases.

[hx8]

1. An Xbox Live/Playstation Plus is required for any online multiplayer functionality.

2. DRM Free still matters with multiplayer games. Minecraft is a perfect example, where you can run your own client/server and play with people, and there really doesn't need to be any other middle man involved.

3. With how good home internet is now, it's not a big deal to host game servers from your home on an old computer. Running big central servers really only matters if you care about matchmaking or games with a lot of simultaneous players.

[sciencejerk]

MS would love to kill off custom Minecraft clients and servers, and have attempted to turn minecraft into a subscription service but they risk losing their entire community if they go too DRM heavy so Minecraft Java edition has remained very open

[MYEUHD]

> 1. An Xbox Live/Playstation Plus is required for any online multiplayer functionality.

This is false. Free-to-Play titles like Fortnite don't require a subscription to play online.

[tayo42]

Hmm I see, that's interesting. Seems like the games industry it self is in a pretty bad state despite that

[Gigachad]

PC hardware companies are struggling. The ones that sell fans, cases, thermal paste etc because no one is building a new PC right now. But everyone still has the PC they had before the last 2 years and can still play and buy games.

Game developers simply have to stop pushing the minimum specs up for releases over the next few years.

[criddell]

If you include mobile gaming, things look a lot better.

[sciencejerk]

Mobile gaming is a mess. Android is still open, but Apple devices are locked down, and bigG keeps trying to close sideloading. Subsciption micropayments ads enshittification has hit mobile gaming HARD. Not sure mobile gaming is in good shape...?