UK gaming more popular than ever

[[SCUM] OUTLAW]

The UK games industry has raked in more money than ever during the first six months of 2008.

Hardware and software combined to reach GBP 1,452 million, an increase of 42 per cent on last year, according to Chart-Track and ELSPA data.

Game sales earned GBP 738 million of that, although PC software contributed just GBP 48 million - a decline of 29 per cent on last year.

Hardware was boosted most by Wii and DS sales, and jumped 27 per cent up to GBP 513 million.

"Games are now one of the most popular pastimes of the British - hence these remarkable figures. Our gamers are more mature than those of most countries - the average age of a player here is now 33 - and as our core gamers have grown up, so too have the revenues they bring in," said ELSPA boss Paul Jackson.

"Britain leads the way across Europe - and one in three games sold across the EU is also developed here.

"The challenge now is to ensure our success is not taken for granted at home or undervalued in any way - and to ensure we have the home-grown talent to ensure we will still be leading the way five years down the road," he added

Not all good news though.

[[SCUM]-Herbs]

not good at all.

I think more and more people and turning their back on pc's and going for consoles.

[[SCUM] OUTLAW]

This is what i think is needed.

A Pc with 4 gig mem,2*8800gtx,dual core cpu and a Blu Ray drive all for under £300 !

At the moment the pc games industry is ticking over nicely,its not the "Golden Age" it used to be but its doing ok.

The one thing that could put a spanner in the works is if console developers started to market the online sections of their games with the same business model of pc games.

Imagine if you could start to host your own servers on you home pc or you clan dedicated,imagine if you could download the dedicated server for Metal Gear or Battlefield Bad Company and host them yourself.What if Console games had the option to use mouse and keyboard as well as pad.What about being able to go online and check your stats,clan status and setup matches?

This is already starting to happen,while u can host Metal Gear on a pc you can host it on ur ps3 as a listen server or dedicated.all it would take would be for Konami to release the dedicated server software and the amount of servers would increase at a huge rate,which in turn means more players ,more exposure ,more games being sold.

If it was me doing it,I'd do all that plus I'd give away the mod tools for the game so people can build their own mods,Look at the original Half-Life,that was a great game single and online,but look how many mods came out for it,i bet all of you have played a mod based on HL,so to play the mod you had to play the game as you needed a cd key to play on legit servers.

This brings me to Piracy,The money being spend on developing games is increasing all the times,KILLZONE 2 on the PS3,i think is at £10-12 million at the moment,Crysis cost shit loads and was a success but the developer is stopping producing PC only titles as the cost of Piracy is too high.

Just think,you're a developer,you have spent the last 2 years developing your game,then you find it on the net for download 2 weeks before it hits the shops,its pretty damaging to you ,both morally and financially.Then on the other side there is a team Developing for the PS3(i said them as at the moment you cannot copy PS3 titles ,well you can but they wont boot),2 years of hard work later and boom,your disc has gone of to DADC to be mastered,no sign of it on the net and a few days later its in the shops,revenue's coming in and you and your team can have a nice holiday.

That's a perfect scenario but it generally goes along them lines,for a developer and a publisher its about Money in the end so why develop a game for 1 system and reap a few rewards while you can develop for a few and reap huge benefits.

I may seem a bit biased but first and foremost i am a pc gamer but i can see a shift in the balance as the consoles start to understand what made gaming on the pc so attractive and i reckon it would be only a matter of time before they realize how to tap into the resource known as the pc gamer.

[[SCUM] DeathWish]

Right now heres a thing. Outlaw nicly put statments and sentiment.

My view is that you still have the HC gaming communities which for the most part have not really grown or decreased overtime all things considered. But what we have seen a boom in and this is where i think the production houses are waking up to and therefore pushing the developers down the line to produce more of is what i am classing as "Party Gaming".

You know the stuff i mean its all the "Wii" type stuff where you can involve the whole family Granny and all. I was reading something the ther week saying that the Nintendo Wii is becoming a staple part of the retirment homes equipment. Something to get the old codgers moving.

So now that "Games Consoles" are becoming more accepted into the larger audiances the industry is having to respond to this. In my opinion we will see the PC gaming industry in steady decline until it reaches a plato, maybe we are all ready there who knows. But games consoles will grow because primerily they are small easy to produce and more generically accepted as part of day-to-day life and therefore as well as the whole new market that has been opened up.

Gaming in the UK has changed, this means our devlopers will be changing as well. We will never see IMHO games which captured and exploited the PC such as we did in the past bringing those people from around the world as in the old days. The console enviroment is too strong and so well set up on for the most part.

Having said all that im keeping mine for a long time yet, but i can see a day when the need will not be there anymore as I will do all my internet stuff on the Teli and play games on a console just becuase its easier than having a desk full of equipment.