Are PC games harder to find?

[Valkyrie-Favor]

I find a lot of classic PC games at the thrift shop. All the games I ever got below $3 were Windows games...well, except for Ikari Warriors. But that doesn't count.

There's a rare Wing Commander game in my BST that no one seems to want. A pity. I come across a ridiculous amount of Star Wars games this way.

[J T]

I find a lot of old PC games at Half Price Books, but only if they are on CD-Rom or later. I never see floppy discs anywhere anymore.

[Erik_Twice]

I think most retail shops don't want to bother selling them fearing the stigma that they won't run or have some sort of old DRM on them anyway.

I think this is spot on. With a console they understand it either works or doesn't, there's no middle point.

I was thinking many PC games had lower runs but that wouldn't explain why I don't see Myst or Command and Conquer around while this does.

Even games that arent that old can be quite hard to find CIB, like Deus Ex or System Shock 2 (maybe not the best possible examples). The original big boxes and manuals, not just the jewel cases.

I disagree, PC games are the easiest games to get complete, even easier than Megadrive games and pretty cheap. If I can find the game, it will always be boxed, complete and in a pretty good shape, finding loose discs is the rare case.

This is explained by computer gamers being older than console gamers.


BTW, fixed title

[WallCrusher]

I've never looked for Commodore games, but I find that with PC games downloading has become the ideal way to go. I like to go on Good Old Games to search for older PC games that are dirt cheap. Better yet, it's all DRM-free.

Of course, if you are talking about purchasing a physical copy of older PC games... can't really help there.

[isiolia]

I think most retail shops don't want to bother selling them fearing the stigma that they won't run or have some sort of old DRM on them anyway.

I think this is spot on. With a console they understand it either works or doesn't, there's no middle point.

I was thinking many PC games had lower runs but that wouldn't explain why I don't see Myst or Command and Conquer around while this does.

To a point, probably true, as an extension PC games don't tend to have as clear cut division to stock them by, which can work both ways.
I'd wonder about how supply/distribution differs between them. My impression would be that console titles would be more centralized, with a set "greatest hits" library and so on. A lot of older PC titles seem more like they just get cycled out because whatever distributor makes a business of selling bulk jewel case budget titles wants to offer a changing stock for Wal Mart or OfficeMax's $9.99 rack.