I do wonder if that ratio applies to people other than Ubisoft.

If it does, I think - and I know people say this every few years - that we really are in the death throes of PC gaming.

Not that it'll ever die, but we're already at the point where games are made for consoles and then ported to PC (often badly); it wasn't very long ago it was the other way around.

And it wasn't very long before that they didn't bother with the port. If the progression continues, PC gaming is going to be pretty damn niche before too long.

In Reply To #106

It must have been for some specific publisher, because everything I am looking at online now appears to totally contradict it on every level when looking at the industry as a whole. PC gaming is actually pretty resurgent right now. Maybe it was an article I was reading about Epic? I can't remember.

I find it odd that the only comparisons I am finding list either consoles or PC revenue though. They mention nothing of iOS or Android - and we all know game revenue from those platforms is pretty significant. I wonder if they've lumped them under PC, since they're not dedicated gaming machines, and can be a computer replacement of sorts. If that's true then all the mobile games, Facebook games, and Steam's success would combine to give the PC a fairly solid set of stats that it wouldn't have had a short time ago.

In Reply To #106

I'm ok with that. I don't mind if I never play another AAA title on the PC. I'm fine with smaller games like Minecraft, and Minecraft... And when I get my PC fixed, I will give Planetside 2 a try.

In Reply To #107

There's a Rock Paper Shotgun interview with Ubisoft, in which RPS actually act like fucking journalists (unlike most of the gaming press, who spend far too much time seeing how far up the arse of each individual publisher they can climb), and call Ubisoft on their atrocious DRM and how badly its implementation has affected their company.

In this interview, Ubisoft mention off-handedly that PC gaming only accounts for 10% of their market share anyway, and that they believe (or it is perhaps inferred that they believe) this proportion is basically the same for their competitors.

I could always just google the interview rather than doing it from memory, couldn't I? Yes, that would make sense Dave, seeing as you're sat in front of the sum total of all human knowledge.

Here we go

(one of the last questions)

But then you wouldn't be like me, prattling off rubbish statistics from a dying memory. It's not worth it!

And yes, that is the article, I remember reading it now. I think I may have deep-seated prejudices against Epic.

In Reply To #107

I believe digital delivery has helped PC gaming to regain/keep some momentum. I remember that I used to go to Computing stores to get my games, later to gaming stores. Here in Mexico, however, stores carry a very poor selection of PC games. I did manage to pick up Blizzard and EA games on stores. But Steam makes things so much easier... and Origin, as ugly as it can be.

So last night there was a memorial in town for Kristallnacht. While Göttingen mostly avoided being bombed in the war, the local Jews still had their synagogue burned down that night, and most were sent off to camps over the following years.

While I didn't understand too many words of the service, the music was nice - in an errie kind of way. The memorial also looks pretty cool. Essentially lots of metal stars sitting atop one another, it gets lit up at night to pretty good effect.

It's pretty different, standing where it happened, as opposed to just reading about it from my comfy couch on the other side of the world.

I'll be drinking some Hangar 24 Orange Wheat on this fine Friday Night. Anyone else partaking?

I went to a Christmas party tonight, the uni put it on for all the international researchers here in town. Free food which was good, as was more gluhwein.

They held it at the historical observatory here, which is where Gauss did a lot of his work. Pretty cool. I didn't get a chance to look around much though.

In Reply To #114

I will be going to my kung fu Christmas party on Thursday. Should be fun even without drinking.

I've been working my arse off, just not at work.

My wife and I sell baked goods around the holidays. We've sold over a thousand USD so far. Not bad for a crappy home oven. I've also cooked a 12 pax wine dinner last week and I have two this week, one for 12 pax and one for 122 pax...

Funny tho, I left the cooking jobs and I'm working more than before, except when I was at a restaurant.

In Reply To #116

With Christmas now over, how did you end up with the baking moolah? Do you keep going until New Years?

Yesterday I bought potatoes and leek (or, Kartoffeln und Lauch) with a view to making my first soup from scratch. First obstacle: need to buy a potato masher tomorrow. We have awesome bread to go with it, it's so dense here.

i ma thinking baout going to the bar to watch the UFC on Saturday. But that would all depend on if I were out of the house or not when it was starting. I probably won't be, and will end up watching it at home again...

In Reply To #117

We stopped taking orders just before Christmas. Last we delivered was on the 22nd. Left for the Beach that same day.

It's tiring but worth it.

P.S. You can also blend soups.

The soup worked out well. Just needs a bit less stock powder next time, as it was a tad too salty.

Next culinary project is one of the most basic of all: gingerbread men.

I spent three times as long as usual in the grocery store today, searching, translating, and searching again for bicarb soda, golden syrup, crushed ginger and cinnamon. Everything is now in place... except I have no rolling pin. I figure I should be able to improvise though. A pot should suffice as the mixing bowl.