Steam survey shows increase in lower-end PC usage
By Jess Colwill on July 26, 2012 at 12:45 pm
The results of the latest Steam Hardware and Software Survey are in, with some surprising results. During June 2012, trends suggested that there was an increase in older dual-core and single core processor usage, as well as an increase in the use of DirectX 9. Over at PCGamesN (which appears to be down at the time of this writing), it is suggested that this unusual trend is probably due to the rise in popularity of indie games that have lower graphics requirements, and also to more users playing Steam games through their laptops.
Source: VG247
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Guilty, I haven’t built a new PC since 2007 and really haven’t had the need to.
Of course things would be different if I had some disposable income lol.
I play more indie games on pc than AAA titles these days. For the big titles, I usually go the console route where possible, because then I don’t have to worry about PC bottlenecks.
I have the disposable income, but I choose not to spend it upgrading my pc as much these days.
This makes me 6% angrier than I already was. BUY A NEW COMPUTER, PEOPLE! Not only is it good for you but it is good for the economy (but mostly you)
Hmph…
pinothyj,
people need money to do so first. haha
For me, there’s only a minimal difference gained by a upgrade of a significant price. Whilst I’m sitting on a Q9550 Quad Core @ 3.83Ghz and that is considerably better than practically any single/dual core machine, I can see why people aren’t needing to upgrade. There’s just such little incentive these days. Some of the AAA games certainly do look pretty on a top of the line machine, but of these I only have Skyrim which looks pretty enough on my system as is without having to fork out at least $1,000 to make my render distance slightly further and have all the HD textures running smoothly. Games just haven’t got that much more taxing in the last 5 years unless you want to run them with everything set to Ultra.
I’m just thankful Pinothyj can’t type in blue on news pages.
Probably the best thing about the GON upgrade.
Yeah sounds like people are getting in to some games and are playing on their crappy underpowered overpriced dell, sony etc pcs.
Agreed.
Indie games have really come into a league of their own, creating a great game experience without the need for huge expensive computers. I play my AAA titles on my desktop, and my indies on my laptop. Perfect set up. And some of my mates have just gotten steam to play indie games (and low spec titles), since they aren’t big AAA gamers like most the community. The article is spot on :D
Point is, a huge powerful box isn’t required to get some fun gaming experiences. Sure, its a bit restricting on choices, but there are plenty of good games that don’t need powerful computers.
I built a new PC in February this year top of the line to avoid upgrading again for a while, but I would be interested to know exactly what Steam class as “lower-end” beyond just “older dual-core and single core processor usage”
Also a need. People keep citing indie games not needing beefy PC’s but neither do “AAA” games these days. My GTX260 is still running very strong. Very few games have troubles but those that do I feel are more bottlenecked by what I believe to be a sh!t motherboard in my computer, maybe the Q6600 as well.
I built a new computer a few months back because I knew I wouldn’t be able to after starting Uni. Austudy doesn’t provide quite enough to build a PC…hell, it doesn’t even provide enough to replace a single part in my machine in the event that it breaks. In any case, I’m originally from the US, and it’s been much easier for me to afford a computer here than it ever was there. The average person there makes around $7-$8 bucks an hour, and computer components costs are not much different in stores. There probably a much larger gaming community in the US from sheer population numbers, and the majority of those people are in worse situations than we are here in Australia. Naturally, Steam’s survey on hardware is going to be considerably lower…..
hadokenx,
don’t want to get too far off track but its interesting you mention the $7-$8 an hour thing. I always try to tell people that when they complain about the “price-gouging” that goes on but really, before I quit I was getting $24 an hour to stack apples in a fruit and veg shop.
diamondd,
Hell, I was getting paid $24 an hour here to clean toilets. After getting paid $6 to do the exact same job in America, I felt rich. My complaint about the price gouging deals with the fact that they are working with international trades and the global market, not local economics. In particular, with Steam, the rules frequently change…Why do we get price gouging “normally”, but the moment the big sales start happening, the costs are the same across the board? Because it is just that….price gouging. It has nothing to do with the differing local and international economics.
For price-gouging how do you explain when games were $100 when the exchange rate was about 50c?
The last two times I have let the Steam program do a survey on my hardware it always under reports my hardware specs by a lot, I think this may have something to do with more lower spec machines being reported. Buggy software to blame…
they can charge whatever they think we can afford/are prepared to pay and its obvious that we can afford it and are prepared to pay whatever they want otherwise they wouldn’t have gotten away with it for so long.
I’m not saying that I think its fair or I enjoy being price-gouged, but all I can do is make the choice not to buy those games despite the fact that I could afford them anyway.
I think they’ve only gotten away with it because for the average person the price hasn’t actually changed much if at all. Vast majority of people don’t know of the exchange rate and would see $100 as the ‘standard’ price for a new game regardless of anything else.