It must be getting pretty desperate in the games industry when your local software shop has decided to no longer stock PC Games. And were not talking about the small software store on a back street somewhere, ohhhhhhh no. This was a huge national company with 100's of high street stores.

Picture the scene, you walk into the store, and admire all the games stands along the walls. They hold about 8 games to a shelf, and there are 10 shelf's. For the not to quick, thats 80 games per shelf unit. It's nice to see the store use them so well too, using no less than 9 of these shelf units for PS2 games, about 6 for the Xbox, 2 for the 360, 3 for the GameCube and 2 and a bit for the PSP usits and games. That leaves about 6 of these shelf units at the back of the store where all the PC games once lived...

Guess what it was replaced with?

Empty boxes depicting the PS3 console, and posters with "Place your pre-order now". What's the world coming to? The PC started with games many years ago, before the annoying consoles show up. It's pathetic. PC gaming is slowing down, and it shows with the type of games released on the PC these days, but stores like this make matters worse. And if every store decided to do it, then your left to just intenet purchases only.

I asked the rather dumb looking guy behind the till where the PC games had been moved to, his response was:

"The latest PC games can be purchased from our website, we dont have the space in the store display any of them" <-- What about the 6 shelf units you placed the PS3 on then?

He then pointed to a crate style thing in the middle of the store and said:

"There are a few PC games in that clearance bin" <-- Thats comforting

I had a quick glance on the way past and saw RCT:1 for a fiver. Shame, I bought it years ago.

Feeling pretty discusted, I left the store. Hoping that other stores would not follow the same trend.

Whats everyone else think?

Well, as much as I want the PS3, I don't see the need to replace the PC games with empty boxes. Surely a big sign in the window saying to preorder the PS3 would do?

I think the whole reasoning behind it is that the console companies pay more money to the stores than they are making by selling pc games, that never sell. I'm sure this will only be temperary, until the console is out. Its always about money

i remember a day which PC games where very very popular. Theses days people just think that consoles are used for gaming so thats might be why people play less on the computer.

In our Game shop there is only one shelf with PC games on it and in Gamestation there is no longer PC games there just PSP, PS3, Wii etc..

The wii and PS3 will be the death of PC gaming

Well I hate to say it but I feel that the PC games era is over. PC games have never been "cool" though, they've always been played by the minority mainly as kids are more likely to have an XBox 360 then a 2gigs of ram, 160 gig hard drive super dooper £900 computer that will play games as well on a computer as they will on a PS2.

That's not to say that the RCT3 community are the minority, like most computer game fanbases, we're huge (a huge community that is) and we're always striving to have the next game.

I think that with the demise of computer games there's going to be more and more game series ending, for example RCT, we haven't had news of a new game in what 8-10 months? for me that just show that the computer game is over.

Even Thrillville shows it, the people behind Thrillville are going to get a bigger audience than a new expansion pack for RCT for instance.

I do hope I'm not the only one that when they walk into for example PC world they see this........



But it's becoming all to common, I hate to say this but I think that computer games are becoming exctinct, like the dinosaurs of yesterday.

So it's time to ship RCT3 off to Pac-Man Island, an island where computer games go when thye've become uncool or out of fashion, sit it down on a Lilo and let it enjoy retirement!

Good bye RCT3!

Well Drayton, whereas many of us know RCT4 will probably never happen, there are still those who were gullible enough to believe this thread on the Atari Forums last night:

http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/sho...p?t=534163

Obviously it was a hoax (which I enjoyed being a part of), but when I posted saying I have the link to the RCT4 website and you'd have to PM me to get it, there were still three people who did...

That hoax sounds pritty funny. Nice one.

Dont worry guys, thats why there are COMPUTER Stores......plus the xBox, xBox 360, and PS3 all run on Linux, Memory, Hard Dirves, CD Drives, and Graphics Cards (for PS3 grapics made by NVidida). So they're basically computers :P. LOL, Nice Hoax Jag......