PC gaming. Yeah, definitely dead. Console gamers, and indeed the entire videogame industry have been telling you this for years now.
Only nothing could be further from the truth – as Steam’s stats testify.
No doubt fuelled by another of its ridiculous sales, Steam passed the 5 million concurrent users mark late last month, and again yesterday. For reference, Xbox Live saw its highest concurrent numbers last November (thanks to Modern Warfare 3) of just a shade under 3 million users. Now, you might be quick to point out that Microsoft’s Xbox isn’t the only console and that combined with concurrent online PS3 gamers consoles are definitely kicking ass, right? Possibly, but it’s also worth pointing out that Steam isn’t the only metric for PC games; there’s EA’s recently launched Origin (which is full of SWTOR and Battlefield 3 players right now), Gamersgate, Direct2Drive, Gamestop’s Impulse and a host of other services that cater for PC gamers.
Of course, things change once you factor in the Wii – but it’s not like that has any games, right? Right?
The game that’s been keeping people most busy on Steam? Skyrim, of course; proving two things the industry just completely wrong about. PC gaming is far from dead – and single player games are still viable in this connected, digital age.
Last Updated: January 4, 2012