It's interesting to read an article like this. As a PC gamer, for most of my life I'm accustomed to seeing articles telling me that my hobby is dead and I might as well buy a console. It's different to see one that claims the console as we know it is dead. I see it as the console is finally catching up with the PC in terms of functionality. But I admit that could just be me.

But I find parts of the article confusing or maybe I just outright disagree.

I don't understand this common comparison of mobile games with console games. They are not the same thing and not the same market. The mobile game market is in serious growth (except for Zynga, one example of the article) because, as the article points out, it is a new market and there's a vacuum to fill. This has happened before and not just in the gaming sector. Once things have settled let's see how that market holds up. But to constantly compare these two markets just feels wrong. To me it would be like saying since the Honda Accord has such strong sales then clearly Ferrari is destined to fail and die.

Consoles used to do everything best? In what dimension did this happen? Most PC games didn't require messing with "finicky settings" since Win95, yes indeed they just "worked". Well, maybe not Games for Windows Live games. Especially with the release of Steam, which the article points out but doesn't seem to make the connection. High end games that push the hardware may require some love and care but there's not many of those. Braid, Super Meatboy and others like them, that do make money for their developers, just work.

How is Ubisoft going to squeeze money from their customers by offering a $120 collectors edition with a $30 season pass? Is that the only option or maybe most people will get the regular $60 version and maybe buy the DLC later? What about people like me who are willing to wait for those wonderful Steam sales?

It's funny to me that article says that AAA games are getting more and more expensive to produce, which is true, and then just a few paragraphs later it describes EA's massive campus. So, does most of EA's budget go towards game development or nice expensive, unneeded office space? Do the large salaries of managers who are not involved in development nor know the first thing about development involved in that equation? Assassin's Creed III involves five Ubisoft offices around the world and just costs too much? How much of its budget is actually for development?

What is an AAA game title anyway? Who defines that? Maybe the publishers should rethink what they think a AAA title is and the market think it is. If AAA refers to quality then Super Meatboy is a AAAA title and was primarily made by two guys with contractors.

Everything they mention about the dark days of PC gaming is pretty much true. But they fail to mention that the big publishers attempted to treat the PC game market the same as the console market, which you cannot do and the market reacted. Once they failed in the PC game market they then started a campaign of blaming their customers. Don't get me started on the stupid DRM schemes that punished paying customers more than pirates. Maybe DRM is what's responsible for those finicky PC games that don't "just work"? That's one reason why the indie market and alternatives like Steam work, they understand their market. Which is really funny is that the big publishers were hesitant to adopt to the market and now all of the sudden indie developers and Valve are just geniuses. The market was screaming years ago what we wanted and we were ignored.

Firefall is a PC first-person shooter that is attempting to get hardcore gamers to accept free? WTF? There are already numerous games that follow this model accepted by hardcore gamers. Tribes and TeamFortress2 are two easy ones right off the bat. Firefall is a gorgeous game that's on graphical par with the best console shooters? WTF is this guy going on about? Did he even bother to do research on PC games before writing this?

Nice to know that the apps on the iTunes app store that make the most money are the free ones, although I'm not sure if that's true. That was one of the largest complaints about the Android market, they didn't want to pay for anything.

After talking about how much all these AAA games cost to make, we're left with a quote of why buy a $60 game when the $1 game on my phone is just more of the same. What? Is this saying that the $1 is the same thing as the $60? Which doesn't make sense. Or is it saying that the $60 is not worth buying because it's the same as the last $60 game? Because that's been the console strategy for years and another example of the big publishers not listening to the market.

I love the references to Zynga and EA, since they are commonly the most disliked game companies in the community and industry.