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I was unsure what subforum to put this in due to the topic being gaming in General. Mods feel free to move me if needed. This question is thrown around a lot by people who are not that enveloped in the PR Media aspect of Video Games. And the question comes up because as a certain point in any "Gamer's" life they come to the realization during one of their gaming sessions where they realize they are no longer having fun, or rather as much fun as they used to with this game, or gaming as a whole. Whether that’s because they have lost interest in a specific title or gaming as a whole. Maybe they not find themselves with other things in their lives that take priority so their gaming sessions no longer are the same immersive experience that the gamer is looking for. So is Gaming Dead? Some people think so, but it depends on how you look at it honestly. An Article written by Cyrus Sanati on Fortune.com claimed that gaming is dead as an industry. The article does mention how “The Video Game industry is maturing - fast.” but then goes on to explain how the “Gamer” themself is a “Blessing and a curse for the industry” It continues “It is a blessing in that as they age, their pockets get deeper, so they potentially have more money to spend on their hobby… But it is also a curse, because the industry it stuck in a time warp.” Well what does this mean exactly? Cyrus goes on to tell us that these “Content makers, who are [aging] gamers themselves, have become lazy.... They have failed to innovate on both the hardware and content side of the business, alienating potential young consumers while angering older gamers who crave something newer than just another Call of Duty.” Now I would have to agree with Cyrus on this. As a gamer myself I know that I am not going to be interested in something that doesn’t speak to me. And by the 5th, 6th, or even in some cases 7th iteration of a game. It is no longer speaking to me. The “International Podcast” over on ACG had a very interest conversation on Video Game Identity on one of their episodes.They were speaking specifically of Dead rising 4 and how certain Core Gameplay Elements and Story Elements that made the first few titles such a memorable experience, are nowhere to be found. Once a game is at that point it is no longer interesting to the player. Thus the Content Creator just cannibalize their own game, and drove off the existing playerbase. But that’s the industry side. To get a better look at how the actual Consumer market is for these games we will turn to the “Entertainment Software Association’s” “Sales, Demographic and Usage Data” about the computer and video game industry. In their 2015 information They show 51% of U.S households own a dedicated game console. Meanwhile in 2016 they report only 48%. So why the drop in Console Owners? We can’t say that this indicated a shift to PC gaming or that it means that they have just given up on gaming because they also indicated 63% of U.S households as having at least one person who plays video games at least 3 or more hours per week. But the interesting statistic if that the 2016 information shows 65% of U.S households own a device used to play video games. So this could show us a shift to PC gaming or Even Mobile gaming as a primary platform.But they do show a slight drop in "Gamers" overall. Last year they indicated at least 2 "Gamers" in the U.S Game playing household, and this year that dropped down to 1.7. Now granted this number could be skewed by the Gaming populace growing up and possible adding another household to the equation.Granted the “aging gamer” stereotype is not supported in the ESA’s information as we saw in the Fortune.com article. Between 2015 and 2016 the Average age of a gamer did not change. It remained at 35 through the year. Meanwhile Cyrus’s Fortune.com article shows the average age of a gamer as being 37 in the year 2015. So take that with a grain of salt if you will. But with that information how can we now look at the question, “Are video games dying?” Well looking at games published in 2015 according to Game.Co.Uk there are over 30 NEW titles released. And that’s not including sequels or annual games either. So I would definitely say no on that front. In Jane McGonigal’s book “Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change The World’ she explains: “The Truth is this: in today’s society, computer and video games are fulfilling genuine human needs that the real is currently unable to satisfy. Games are providing rewards that reality is not. They us bringing is together in ways that reality is not” I agree One-Hundred percent with this statement. If you read her book she goes on to explain many more benefits of gaming, but also how to improve IRL (In Real Life). I would recommend giving it a few moments of your time. Real benefits aside though I think Fortune.coms article sums it up quite nicely when it said. “It would be nice to see some real innovation in the core gaming product, as well as some fresh content aimed at a young subset of the population. Any feedback on the writing of this article would be appreciated. Thank you for reading if you made it this far.

On March 19th, Google unveiled Stadia. This, is interesting. In lamens terms, this is Netflix for games. By Google. "The Future Of Gaming Is Not A Box" -Stadia Website They boast that you can game where you want, when you want. Very much the WYSIWYG of gaming. The keynote showed a google employee (I assume) on YouTube, and watches a Assasins Creed trailer for the next iteration of Assasins Creed and while the trailer had just ended and you would normally have to wait for the game to be relased on the console that you want so you can play it. The idea with Stadia is that you will have a clickable link much like a annotation in the ending of the video that says "Play on Stadia" clicking on this will bring you instantly into the game. This isnt just a emulator where you play it but not a fill spec. You play in 4k! with the option even to go to 8k in the future. Crazy? I think so. Now, are you not on a laptop anymore? You can move to a phone, in real time, and without losing quality. Then you can move to your tablet, and even to your television on a Chromecast. SAme quality, no loss in fram rate (allegedly) and no lost in progress in the game. Google already does this with the Chome TAbe. You can be on a website on your phone and then you can pick up where you left off at the computer. Google Chrome shows what you had open on your phone and you can just click on it and go. Stadia, does this. The team at Google has though of everything. Including the game stramers. With Stadia, while playing a game, you can simultaneously stream your content in the native framerate and quality DIRECTLY to YouTube. That's awesome. Now the quality? Stadia claims on their website that you can game at a 4K quality with HDR at 60 FPS! No need to get your graphics card updated, and/ore getting a whole new computer. Once again, AWESOME! The best part about all of this, is the games all "live " in th cloud so you save your space on your computer, or phone and that's how you can play it on Chromecast since the Chromecast has no memory on it. I know that there is a lot of talk here about software, and cloud based gaming but you can say "Hey! I want to use a controller. I like the feeling of pressing the buttons and using the sticks" to which I would reply with. "Use your sticks with protection" But in seriousness, Google is releasing something called The Stadia Controller. What exactly is that? The controller looks like a hybrid XBOX and Androuid TV controller. White in color cause Google is about that Asthetich. There is a D-Pad and a pair of joysticks. There is also trigger buttons, and a A,B,X and Y button on the right. Much like a XBOX Controller. There is two buttons on this controller. One called "Capture" and the other for the Google Assistant. Just in case you need to know the weather while gaming. Let's say that you have a controller that you love too much to move away from. Stadia, will have support for USB Controllers and Keyboards and Mice. Lets go back to that Capture Button. This is what you will press to stream to YouTube, No need to fiddle with any web streaming service to show what you are doing. Just press, and go. Theoretically. Now the hardware. Is there any? Google as we know has server farms all over the world. What this allows them to do is tap into each of these for rendering capabilities. So if you are in Dallas, the server farm nearest you renders more of what you are doing and the people around you are doing as well within Stadia. Same goes for if you are in Los Angeles, or New York. Not just in the USs too! Canada, U.K, Japan. All over. With this farm technolohy that Google alrady has, they partnered with AMD for their graphics processors. This gives each GPU 10.7 Teraflops of graphics power in EACH INSTANCE. Partners. As mentioned before, Google has partnered with AMD for GPU Technology, but they have also partnered with Unreal Engine and Unity for Stadia, as well as Vulkan because the bulk of Stadia runs in Linux. A curious point of interest is that some games that require more power. The user can request more nodes at more farms to render their games fastr and make sure that there is no loss in fPS and quality. State Share. With State Share, you can take a moment that is "special" or "awesome" and share it to social media for people to see, it populates a link and you can sent to Facebook or whatever Social site you have. Google also wants down the line to bring production of Cross Platform Play. Theoretically this will allow STadia users to play against people on XBOX or PS4 or PC. Allowing for a broader playing ecosystem. So the final question; Is this the end of console gaming? My answer probably not, because there will always be people who prefer console gaming or PC gaming over this "cloud based gaming" that Stadia is creating. However, Stadia brings forth many questions of, does the console you have at home really need the HArd Drive to save the games? Could we just game off the cloud streamed to the console you already have? That's just a question for when it comes to market. You can learn more about Stadia at their website. As well as sign up for more updates. GO HERE TO CHECK IT OUT

PCPartpicker list I finished my build approximately 4-5 months ago. I am very well getting over 60 frames on the newer titles, but I play a lot of older titles and well, I feel like my PC was underperforming on them. For example, CSGO is running on the lowest settings on 1080p at around 100-150 frames. Is that fault of the game(/games) itself, or should I look into some of the parts of my pc? To clear up the driver situation; I flashed the latest BIOS version (after I got windows running because I forgot about it like an idiot) and my GPU has the latest drivers installed. My question about the drivers is just if I am missing one or more for the other parts. Also I have these installed AMD all in 1 with VGA driver ver:18.10.20_NHDA , not sure how they help / hurt my performance? Never noticed a diffrence between having them installed and not. If I forgot anything, this is my second time ever posting on here. Please, tell me and I will add details. ?

Every time I try to play some of my many (about 100) games on steam, I am faced with my worst fear. Any of these games I try to play, after a little bit of playing, the game will black screen. After this black screen, I can get the game to close out of its window, but the process will still run for up to 4 hours after the game crashed. No matter what I do I cant find a fix for this problem. Ive tried using the "pskill" command, and ive tried just normally ending the process in the task manager. Every time a game will black screen, I have two solutions: 1. Turn my pc off then back on (least preferable) 2. Wait it out and hope the process just kills itself or something (still pretty non-preferable) The list of games that this mainly occurs on is (alphabetically): Borderlands 2 The Bureau: Declassified Skyrim (but that is most likely running out of RAM) Fallout 3 (same as Skyrim) Far Cry 3 Grand Theft Auto IV Grand Theft Auto IV Episodes from Liberty City *Hitman: Absolution Insurgency Metro 2033 Redux Metro Last Light Payday 2 (the worst of them all) Planetside 2 Portal 2 S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl Civilization V Sleeping Dogs Sniper Elite V2 Sniper Elite Nazi Zombie Army Spec Ops The Line Tomb Raider Wargame European Escalation Wargame Red Dragon Watch_Dogs (obviously) *Games edited in after original post Thats my list. The only idea I have as to what the problem is may be my graphics card. I looked into the crashes on Borderlands 2 and The Bureau, and apparently my GPU, the EVGA GTX 660 Superclocked 3gb model specifically has problems with these games. As for all the other games, I've tried other graphics drivers, but nothing works. If I dont find a solution, I may have to live with no games until I can afford a 900 series card for a much need upgrade. Any help is appreciated.