High-end PC gamers were always about money-is-no-object gaming. None of the tech they use has ever been strictly necessary.
The vast majority of gamers still use 1080p. More people login to Steam on a Mac than login to Steam with a 4K monitor attached.
Maybe the high-end is more expensive now, but you still see forums riddled with people paying $1000+ for cards. If nobody was paying for it the price would go back down. High-end PC gamers are the most price inelastic gamers on the market!
I'd say that integrated graphics are the present of PC gaming. eSports games, Minecraft, Fortnite and similar games dominate sales and play time, and they don't have any serious requirement for discrete graphics.
This is all to say that the high-end isn't going to just go away. The overall gaming market is bigger than ever, so high-end gaming along with other niches like VR are here to stay. These niches on their own are just large enough to support a variety of gaming markets, while in the past they might have been too obscure to warrant investment and development effort.
Depends on what you mean by high-end. If you want to run the latest AAA games then you will need a decent machine. If you want to do >1080p gaming then the requirements are even greater. But it's actually not that expensive, if you play 2 every day for 8/10 days, then you will play 584 hours/year. If your gaming setup costs $3000 every 5 years, that comes out to $1/hour. That's a lot cheaper than most hobbies.
The popularity of eSports is because pretty much anyone can play those games not that high end gaming is becoming a niche. Plus eSports & low-end gaming are super popular in less wealthy, non-western countries where as high-end gaming is going to be limited to developed countries. Within developed countries, high-end gaming is not a niche like VR.
The vast majority of gamers still use 1080p. More people login to Steam on a Mac than login to Steam with a 4K monitor attached.
Maybe the high-end is more expensive now, but you still see forums riddled with people paying $1000+ for cards. If nobody was paying for it the price would go back down. High-end PC gamers are the most price inelastic gamers on the market!
I'd say that integrated graphics are the present of PC gaming. eSports games, Minecraft, Fortnite and similar games dominate sales and play time, and they don't have any serious requirement for discrete graphics.
This is all to say that the high-end isn't going to just go away. The overall gaming market is bigger than ever, so high-end gaming along with other niches like VR are here to stay. These niches on their own are just large enough to support a variety of gaming markets, while in the past they might have been too obscure to warrant investment and development effort.