The Direct Benefit Effect in the Classic ?PC Gaming v. Console ...

http://technicallyeasy.net/2011/02/is-pc-gaming-dying/

In the article, the idea of PC gaming dying out due to rises in the console gaming market is discussed. The notion is ruled out as something that will not likely take place because of the versatility and?upgrade-ability?of PC systems; however the author addresses that the notion does gain a foothold every so often and begin to be accepted as truth. How does this notion get popular from time to time?
In general, it all begins with a small spike in the console gaming market. This initial spike is often due to people trying to get away from negatives of PC gaming mentioned in the article (e.g. it is more expensive, it is more difficult to maintain, it has a greater density of bugs and glitches) or alternatively, a very popular game is released that is exclusive to a certain console. Then the rumour that PC gaming is going to die out begins to circulate in gaming communities. This is a?self-fulfilling?prophecy in a way: the more people hear that PC gaming is dying out, the more they switch away from PC gaming and to a console because of the direct benefit effect, and the more people that switch to consoles, the more believable the spreading notion becomes. But how does the direct benefit effect begin to come into play here? When a game is released it is often initially released on one system. It is then ?ported? or made into different, slightly altered, versions to work on the other popular systems. Unfortunately, many times multiple ports of the same game are not compatible for online multiplayer, which is currently one of the most popular form of interaction between gamers. For instance, suppose gamer A is playing game A on system A and gamer B is playing game A on system B. Now suppose the two would like to play the game together via an internet connection across their systems. This is often not possible as two ports of the same game are sometimes not compatible. Therefore people will want to be using the console that the most people are using so that there will be more gamers and friends to play with without having to worry about cross-platform compatibility issues. In this way the direct benefit effect takes hold and fuels the self fulfilling prophecy because a gaming platform becomes more desirable if it has more people using it just because it has more people using it. The cascade begins but stops because there is always a devoted core of hardware-loving PC gamers who cling to the PC platform for it?s customisation and?upgrade-ability?in a market of stagnant consoles, as described in the article. This core group of gamers stops the cascade and prevent console gaming from completely taking over the market. ?Yours truly tries to keep things interesting by playing a mix of console games and pc games, something many gamers do, because we gamers like to have our cake and eat it too. ?That is, as long as said cake is not a lie. -S.J.H.

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Source: http://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2012/11/16/the-direct-benefit-effect-in-the-classic-pc-gaming-v-console-gaming-debacle/

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