Editorial: E3 doesn’t care about the PC

A PC-exclusive game hasn’t won Best Original Game since 2006 or Best of Show since 2005. Both winners were Spore. But hey, let’s not dwell on that bleak and multi-appendaged past. 2012 was a decent year for PC exclusives at E3. There were plenty to pick from, and absolutely none were officially recognized: Neverwinter, SimCity, The Elder Scrolls Online, Hawken, Otherland, End of Nations, Shootmania Storm, MechWarrior Online, Natural Selection 2, World of Warplanes, Arma 3, Company of Heroes 2.

[Garethvk]

Actually, we just posted a video on this. While they may not care, I saw two pending games of profile that were presented with a PC.

[Voxelman]

List of games confirmed to be PC footage

Watch Dogs
Star Wars 1313
Metro: Last Light
Far Cry 3 (Ubi conference only the co-op footage was PS3 at the Sony conf as that is a Sony mandate, which is why it looked so much worse)
Crysis 3
Hitman: Absolution
Medal of Honour: Warfighter
Dead Space 3
Dishonored
XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Then there were the PC exclusives
SimCity
ARMA III
Planetside 2
TES Online
Firefall
Warface
Shootmania
Guild Wars 2
Company of Heroes 2
Hawken

[geth1gh]

splinter cell as well

[papashango]

This approach to presenting games on pc isn't new but was more than likely a result of how much Battlefield 3 stole the show last year. After they were showered with awards this will continue until the next-gen consoles start making appearances. By then it'll be "look at what this console is capable of" buzz.

[Pain_Killer]

Crysis 3 was shown on the consoles, Controls were from Xbox as seen in the gameplay vid when Prophet fired that arrow towards the heli.

MOHA:WF was running on the PC, Saw the HAF X (NVIDIA version) laying near the booth myself. It was a awesome sight to see PC there. :)

[Voxelman]

@pain_killer 360 controllers work fine on PC, in fact most of the games demoed on PC used a controller, it makes for smoother camera movements as you can't look around as fast as you can using a mouse.

[taquito]

nearly every game on display at e3 was running on pc.....

[Army_of_Darkness]

sure, anything non ps3 related maybe;-) lol!

[DivineAssault]

not as many PC gamers as console gamers.. they want to reach the larger audience.. All the games shown on PC were far superior too.. lets hope nx gen consoles can at least match decent PC specs right now

[ufo8mycat]

The graphics were only better - thats it. The game itself wasen't better at all (same game).

So that argument fails.

You just have to face it. PC has nothing except Diablo 3, which is the last game I played on my PC in a very very long time.

What can I play on my PC that I can't already play on my PS3 or 360?.

The fact that the last 2 games I played on PC were THw Witcher 2 (at the time exclusive) and Diablo3, proves - not much else.

[DivineAssault]

The graphics were better, they ran smoother, & i didnt see medal of honor with the updated frostbite 2.0 demoed on consoles.. Maybe i missed it... What about star wars the old republic? what about star craft 2? theres lots of games that can only run on PCs.. I own the consoles too but PCs run the games with minimal compromise.. Consoles have framerate issues, & so many glitches all the time.. If i could afford it, i would upgrade the hell out of mine & play on there but its too expensive to keep it up to date.. I still love my ps3 tho but i dont need an xbox with a PC handy

[Pizza]

Wrong, if you live in China you will be very hard to find gamer gaming on 360 and PS3.

[TitanUp]

you could have brought in valid points instead you bring in false information.

witcher 2 and diablo 3 thats all pc has?

Planetside 2
Dishonored
Dead State
Diablo III
Starcraft II: Heart Of The Swarm
Guild Wars 2
Quantum Conundrum
The Secret World
Torchlight II
Arma 3
Hawken
Cartel
Grim Dawn
Wildstar
Firefall
End Of Nations
Tera
Dragon Commander
Natural Selection 2
X: Rebirth
DOTA 2
War Of The Roses
Line Of Defense
Age Of Decadence
Lucius
Carmageddon: Reincarnation
Botanicula
Stacking
Project CARS
BlackLight Retribution
WarFace
Iron Front
Krater
Auto Club Revolution
Phantasy Star Online 2
WarHammer 40,000 Dark Millenium
Fortune Summoners
Umbra
World of Darkness
Cobalt
Gettysburg: Armored Warfare
King Arthur II
Neverwinter
Path of Exile
Scrolls
Smite
Total War: Shogun 2 – Fall of the Samurai
Wakfu
World of Warplanes
RFACTOR 2
Elder Scrolls Online
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
Carrier Command: Gaea Mission
Super Monday Night Combat
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Elemental: Fallen Enchantress
Avernum: Escape from the Pit
Prison Architect
Wargame: European Escalation
Warlock: Master Of The Arcane

think you should use google more often most of these are pc exclusives or timed exclusives.

heck a lot of these games are unreleased but we have so many games to play the list would kinda be big for an n4g comment.

[BrutallyBlunt]

There are tens of millions of PC gamers. A game like World of Warcraft for example has millions of subscribers, even now. Steam has tens of millions of customers too. Some of thei biggest sellers the last decade have been Angry Birds and Minecraft, both of which didn't start out on consoles.

The PC doesn't get the marketing. They don't have big companies like Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo backing it. Valve backs Steam but they don't have hardware they are trying to sell.

I'd like to see more investment into PC gaming since it's the most capable platform to start with.

@ufo8mycat

It's not just the graphics. A game like Battlefield can support far more gamers for multiplayer on the PC. Another franchise like Civilization (and most RTS games) just play better on the PC. The hardware is able to withstand the landscape and the amount of objects going on without the framerate going to a crawl. There are also a lot of games on Steam that never make it to consoles. Granted many of them are not AAA games but a lot of them are a lot of fun and most of all, unique.

The biggest problems the PC faces are investment and piracy.

[Zha1tan]

Id only slightly disagree levelhead as a decent mid range PC can be bought for the proce of a new release console if you build it yourself which is pretty simple with thousands of guides online.

Even the lowest settings on PC gives you access to all the best features of the system like mod tools etc.

The biggest problem id say it faces is Hackers because they are ever present and realistically cant be stopped by punkbuster as its an arms race, nothing kills a MP when your getting one shot killed by pistols on BF3.

[BrutallyBlunt]

I was actually referring to the investments from publishers, not consumers. The Starcrafts, the Diablos, and the high end graphic games are few and far between. MMO's are still thriving though. A lot of games now that do get designed for the PC also consider the console.

You're right, you don't have to spend much on a PC to play games of equal stature to how they play on consoles.

[Ravenor]

Guys, that's to show the game looking and running at its absolute best. Or in the case of Watch Dogs and Star Wars 1313 running at a detail level that cant be met on the current crop of consoles.

EA and Ubisoft using a PC at ever possible chance they had, had nothing to do with the PC. It's all about the console crowd at the Press conference.

[ufo8mycat]

I've only played 2 games on my PC - The Witcher 2 (at the time exclusive) & Diablo 3.

Yeah not surprised no one cares about PC, it has hardly any games anymore.

The Witcher 3 will most likely be on PS3/360. So that leaves me with what? Diablo 4? LOL

[givemeshelter]

Almost every single pc multi platform games plays and looks better then it's console counterpart.
Considering the majority of games released in a calendar year are multi platform games out numbering exclusive games for each console at least 3-1, there are plenty of games on the pc.
I for one like playing my games at above 1080p @60 fps. Something none of these consoles can do.

[Ducky]

Dota2, GuildWars2, Torchlight2, PlanetSide2... a whole lot of '2's are coming up.

Not to mention mods that lead to unique experiences like DayZ, or the DLC content to existing games like TF2.

Tribes has been quite an enjoyable and refreshing FPS so far, and I'm excited for the upcoming ShootMania as well.

There's a whole lot more mentioned in the article itself.

It's fine if you don't find any of those games interesting, but to say that PC has hardly any games is just plain ignorance.

[taquito]

pc gaming makes more money than ps3 and 360 combined, just in software, in hardware it utterly decapitates them.

[Pain_Killer]

Hell Yeah! Look at the charts for yourself:

http://www.blogcdn.com/www....

$23.6 Billion worth PC hardware sold in 2012, It was $22 Billion in 2011. Total sales would reach beyond $150 Billion by this years end and look at the declining console market which isn't gonna turn up until next gen is released.

[Somebody]

It's funny that they (the major publishers, developers event organizers ) shun the PC and yet when the time comes for them to show off their spanking brand new engines...they turn to the PC to show their engine at the highest resolution and fullest effect in real time and hope no one would ask what that's GTX680-powered PC doing under their booth's table. This year's E3 is full of that example and yet not many dared to say a thing about it.

I remembered how id and Epic first announced that they've shifted from PC to the consoles. So much talk about piracy and easier coding but every year they showed the latest build of their engines with the latest PC hardware only to release console exclusives as the end results.

Look at the recent Microsoft announcement about its new tablet, Surface. One of the first thing they promoted to wow the audience is that it can play PC games. A couple of days later...Microsoft gave a statement stating that PC sales will drop in the coming years thanks to tablet. No wonder MS didn't announce any empty promises for PC gaming at this year's E3. They've arrived at the final phase of their anti-PC campaign.

[BitbyDeath]

PC has a lot of casuals hooked through Facebook so it'll be fine.

[Zha1tan]

Dont know about you brah but id loose my mind playing those games lol

[Voxelman]

don't worry there are also more people playing League of Legends than there are XBL Gold subs.

[StreetsofRage]

After seeing Watchdogs and Star Wars 1313, we should care.