Jimquisition: The Beautiful Irony of PC Gaming

BlueInkAlchemist

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Jun 4, 2008
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bombadilillo said:
Vigormortis said:
bombadilillo said:
You sir are wrong. PS3 plus gamefly = way cheaper then PC gaming. Unless I want to stick with flash games and gog. Then renting throws your whole argument out of the window. Game price goes from 10 more on console to aprox 45 less on console. Unless your the type of person who buys every game console is significantly cheaper in the long run
Well of course "renting" will be cheaper. If you plan to only play a game once. I, and most gamers, prefer to actually OWN our games and play them whenever we wish. This is something even consoles can't do. Most new consoles aren't backwards compatible with their last generational brethren. Yet with my PC, I could go play some Doom, Half-Life, Starcraft, or even the DOS based Zork right now on the same rig I play Crysis, Portal 2, Deus Ex: HR, and Starcraft 2 on. Can you play every Xbox game on your 360 or every PS1 game on your PS3? I thought not.

So, no. My argument is not "thrown out the window". It only appears that way because you only play your games for a short time then move on to the next, popular title. Besides, what if you want to play a game again? Can you just go get the disc and pop it in your console? Oop! No you can't. You have to "buy" it again. Just to be able to play it once more. Seems to me that, in the long run, that'd be more expensive then owning the games on a PC. ;)
So your arguement about price gets blown away and you pretend that wasnt the point at all??

Funny because you post was entirely about price, nice try but changing the subject does not work. You know what I have? I got a n64 and NES all hooked up to a crt in my garage, so yeah, I CAN play all those old games too. So You can argue convenience, but I still don't have to buy SMB 3 again. ;)

The point stands, you pay 50$ a new release that I can rent for dirt cheep. So in the long, short and medium runs, console is cheaper. Try and refute that without wondering off on tangents.
I humbly direct you to the following.

Jennacide said:
I have to agree with just about everything here. Sure, it can nice having the visually superior version, but I favor PC gaming for different reasons. First being glorious indie games. Console gamers only recently got to taste Cave Story and Spelunky, and will likely never try such nice little gems as Desktop Dungeons and VVVVVV. The second, and probably bigger, is user generated content. Having a shitload of fresh maps to play on TF2, new quests to go do in Oblivion or new environments/additions like weather in New Vegas, I just can't get that with consoles. Well, mostly. LBP did an awesome job at this, unfortunately it's about the only one. Infamous 2's UGC isn't bad, but also isn't as striking as anything made for Oblivion. Sure, we get garbage UGC too, but the good pieces always outweigh the bad. For every generic Sephiroth sword+outfit, we get stuff like Nevada Skies in New Vegas.
Can you download new shooter maps on the PS3 easily? Or will you not bother because you need to send the disc back to GameFly? What about mods, or DLC? Are they even worth the trouble since you're simply renting instead of buying? How is that backwards compatibility issue coming along, can you play all of the games you use to play on older versions of the console & still own the discs for, or do you need to pay money to download them onto your console? Sure you have SMB3 and Ocarina of Time to play, but what about Mass Effect or Assassin's Creed or Deus Ex? You may get the urge to play a new release when it's no longer new to get some achievements or try a different way of playing (something not always available on the aforementioned old consoles you have hooked up to a CRT), but now you need to get it back from GameFly in lieu of a new release. Time to dust off the N64 while you wait, I suppose.

It's true, you get the high-end graphics in a sleek little package that looks great in your entertainment center, and you save a little money renting instead of buying. But you have little backwards compatibility, no chance to experience expansions or mods, and the spectre of needing to hock the aforementioned old games and perhaps an internal organ or two to afford the next iteration of your console in a few years. Meanwhile, most PCs that people are assembling or buying these days will have a much longer shelf life due to future part compatibility and the general longevity provided by proper maintenance that is impossible on most consoles without throwing your warranty in the garbage.

Naturally, if you don't care about such things, that's your personal opinion. You'll simply have to forgive some of us for not buying it. In fact, this isn't an opinion I'm even interested in renting.
 

MonkeyPunch

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Feb 20, 2008
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bombadilillo said:
So your arguement about price gets blown away and you pretend that wasnt the point at all??

Funny because you post was entirely about price, nice try but changing the subject does not work. You know what I have? I got a n64 and NES all hooked up to a crt in my garage, so yeah, I CAN play all those old games too. So You can argue convenience, but I still don't have to buy SMB 3 again. ;)

The point stands, you pay 50$ a new release that I can rent for dirt cheep. So in the long, short and medium runs, console is cheaper. Try and refute that without wondering off on tangents.
He wasn't saying it wasn't about price but you're comparing renting to buying. Apples and Oranges.
On that note I can rent PC games at my local library for 1 euro for 5 days. But that's not the point.

But if we compare buying games, then it's usually cheaper to buy on PC.
A great example of this is Super Street Fighter 4 AE.
On PC it costs 30 euro. You get all costumes for 14 euro (a fact that had a lot of console owners up in arms when it was revealed as console owners have to shell out 17$ per costume pack) So in a nutshell buying SSFIV AE for PC plus all the costumes is actually cheaper than buying the game alone for a console.

Further I have 3 words for you: Steam Summer Sale.
BF:BC2 plus all expansion packs for under 15 euro. And that is just a single example of some of the ridiculous prices you could get games at during the sales.
The sales happen all year round too, though admittedly only intermittently. But I just stocked up during the summer sales, personally. And those prices are cheaper than even renting a console game and then you know... you actually own it and can play it when you want.
Plus with Steam you can then play the game where you like too as an added bonus.
In fact if you buy smart during Steam sales you can stock up so many games in the summer sale that you have enough to play until the winter sale and you end up with a pile of games at the cost of a single new AAA game.

I own consoles too and I usually find it cheaper getting the PC versions.
 

Lord_Gremlin

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Apr 10, 2009
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Kakulukia said:
Vigormortis said:
Can you play [...] every PS1 game on your PS3? I thought not.
Yes you can. You should have gone with PS2 in your example... :p

OT: Good points, but I still prefer consoles, more specifically the PS3, because its exclusives are fucking awesome. And my shitty laptop can play most of the games he mentioned in the video, so I'm only missing out on games that do require a massive rig. And they mostly don't interest me.
Just saying - a few PS1 games have issues on PS3.
 

MatsVS

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Nov 9, 2009
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The availability of such glorious graphics on PCs is, if anything, detrimental to my enjoyment of them. You see, by the virtue of their very existence, I find myself annoyed and unable to enjoy new games unless I can experience them as I imagine the developers would want me to; ramped up to fuckin' eleven!

As such, whenever a brand new sparkly title is released, I almost inevitably end up postponing playing them until I can play them properly. This is, of course, completely stupid and ridiculous and probably some sublime statement about the utter vapidity of my soul, but alas, it is the hand I have been dealt. :\

That said, everything Jim said about lesser known and older titles being the true treasures of the PC-gaming experience all rings true, so there's always that.
 

Jennacide

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Dec 6, 2007
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CManator said:
Ok i can understand RTS and P&C, but FPS just baffles me. I don't play fps much anyway but it's beyond me how the left and right sticks are flawed for it of how m&k are better suited. Maybe I just lack imagination.
Simple answer, you have more fingers than thumbs, and your wrist has far higher precision than your thumb. Here's an easy example, how often do you crouch jump in console shooters? How quickly can you aim while switching weapons and chasing a target? It's things like this. Sure, preference helps a bit, but the main reason this is always cited as PC is better for FPS is reasons like this. You don't have to stop aiming at target and moving while swapping weapons and bounding toward them.

Actually, here's an even better example of complexity of movement, that anyone who's played TF2 on both console and PC can attest to. How often do you see rocket jumping in TF2 on consoles? Almost never, because it requires you snap aim down, jump, fire a rocket, and crouch, all within a second. Your hand needs to move like a trained spider to do that with a 360 controller. On PC it's simply moving your arm forward real quick, clicking with one hand and using your thumb and pinky to hit two keys.
 
Feb 9, 2011
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It's funny, I do the same thing too. I replaced my dated laptop and built a new six-core tower, only to end up playing Team Fortress 2 instead of, you know, anything that actually requires the specs I put into it. I guess I should load up something a bit more graphics heavy and get my money's worth. <_<
 

PunkRex

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Feb 19, 2010
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WHA, WHO, HOW, EEH... CHAIN SWOOOOOOOORD!!!

It does suck I can no longer play alot of my old games on Playstation as my old one broke, i'll still whip out the Gamecube every now and then because I looooove it but still... I miss Spyro.
 

Furioso

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Baneat said:
sir.rutthed said:
Error 200 Stream not found. Please fix.
Works just fine.

A: What's that big sword?
B: What's that game that looked like Serious Sam but had a few weapons I haven't seen?
A: The chainsword from Warhammer 40,000
B: Serious Sam 3 which is coming out soonish
 

Jumplion

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bahumat42 said:
Jumplion said:
bahumat42 said:
Jumplion said:
I was expecting the "irony" of PC gaming would be that whenever someone complains about the graphics/visuals of a certain game being muddy or ugly, people will go off and say "Graphics don't make the game! I could play a game that's nothing but mud so long as it's fun!"

And then, whenever the topic of PC vs. Consoles comes up, the PC crowd almost always goes off saying how pathetic the console's are when it comes to hardware, how they all upscale their games, not true 1080p, how their RAM is so pitiful, how their PC games can run 100+ frames per second, etc....

Generally, that's the biggest irony/hypocrisy I find with PC gaming.
thats not ironic or hypocritical. Its two different facts
fact number one is that they can play things on so-so graphics
fact number two is they like the fact pc can have much better graphics.
And they can both be true statements, i have as much fun with magicka as i have with graphics demanding games with brink (perhaps more). But i do still enjoy shinyness, and who wouldn't.
I can understand wanting a fast PC with good performance, but that is not quite my point. I think it can fall into ironic/hypocritical as many of the people who say that "graphics don't matter" go on to reverse that when talking about PC vs. Consoles, something I have seen many times.

I'm talking about those that just scoff at a PC port that doesn't allow for, I dunno, HDR lighting or something means that the developer are "dumbing down" for consoles, and label the fact that the PC version of the game can support 4xAA rather than the console version with 2xAA as the sole reason why it is superior. At the same time, some of them backtrack and say graphics aren't important, yet cite graphical capabilities as a reason for superiority.

I just find it odd, is all.
again thats more an issue of wanting a bare minimum to control the thing we purchased.
And again, if graphics aren't that important then why do those same people tout graphics capability as a selling point for PCs?

I'm all for having control of your rig, I'm just saying that it's inconsistent with other beliefs.
 

SonOfVoorhees

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Aug 3, 2011
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I agree.....for once. lol. Look a Crysis 2, played it and completed it and sold it. It was a fun play but nothing to make you play it again. But pc gamers ***** about it and got there graphical update to make it look better with better shadows and reflections etc. But the graphics dont make the game better, just prettier. Still wouldnt make me play it again. Look at Morrowind....have played the vanilla version on both PC and xbox many times because that games story and gameplay is awesome. I guess those with a £3000 rig need reasons to make it worth while, but an average game is still average, regardless if it looks amazing.
 

Ulquiorra4sama

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Feb 2, 2010
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Still not convinced.

I'm pretty shallow as far as these things go. I love my PS3 and i love gaming. I'm just no sure that there's anything to my taste that's on the PC that i can't get elsewhere.
 

Amalith

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Mar 29, 2009
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This video is not what I was expecting based on the title. It is so much better. I'm gonna have to say I disagree with you though. All of those games you listed looked pretty damn good graphically. Sure, they aren't demanding on hardware, and might not be photo-realistic, but they still look great. Definitely, there's far more to PC gaming than graphics, and modern high end gaming PC's are unnecessary for 95% of it.

People always overestimate the cost of said PC's anyway, and while it's true that there is a fanatic elite that spends way too much money on these things, a good enough to play everything currently out fully maxed is probably $600. Maybe less. $800-$1200 is more the norm, for the sake of having the most current high end hardware out, not because games demand such, and it's unnecessary to pay more than that, or buy computers more than every two years (and really, my current one lasted four years, I added a $200 graphics card, and it's lasted me two more so far. I'm probably gonna replace it soon anyway).

Unrelated to the above, I'm glad to see that someone else loves E.Y.E. I haven't really seen many reviews for it, and the general impression people give is lukewarm, but I found the game a blast.
 

Kapol

Watch the spinning tails...
May 2, 2010
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My main problem with PC gaming is (and this is something I'll likely take a lot of crap for and is entirely personal preference) the mouse and keyboard layout. I hate mouse and keyboard. It drives me insane. Don't get me wrong, I still play some that require it from time to time. Games like Killing Floor get used every so often. But, as I'm getting more into PC gaming thanks to having a decent laptop and a fairly good gaming rig, I normally just end up using my wired 360 controller at this point. But not having controller as an option has caused me to not buy games I otherwise would have bought in a heartbeat.

Other then that, my problem with the main platform of PC gaming, Steam, is that you don't actually own your games and they reserve the right to take access to them away from you for just about any reason they can think of. That, for me, is a major problem. And since a lot of bigger-named games are using Steam as their DRM, it makes it unavoidable.

I do think that it's fairly funny that the same group who says 'graphics don't matter as much as gameplay' to defend their 'system of choice' so quickly go to the fact that PC games can have better graphics as a defense.
 

BoTTeNBReKeR

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Oct 23, 2008
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You want to know the reason why I prefer PC gaming over Consoles?

Frames
Per
Second

Seriously. I've played my fair share of PS2/PS3 and I can honestly say that a lot of games have some pretty shitty FPS. Hell, even the games that don't have framerate issues run at around 30FPS while I really do prefer 40+ fps. It just makes the game run soo smoothly that, to me, it's simply more enjoyable.
 

Goliathvv

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Nov 8, 2009
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Thanks Jim. Finally a reasonable analysis regarding PC gaming. People must understand one simple thing: there are things that CAN and WILL only happen on pcs due to the openess of the platform. Anyone can simply make a game, set up a payment system with paypal and expose that game on a web-page(minecraft style). On consoles this would be impossible, simply because the game would have to go through an approval process and stuff like that.
 
Jun 11, 2008
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I got to be entirely honest I thought the major selling point and the whole point of PC gaming V Console gaming was the freedom through things like mods and insane ideas not graphics cards made from Optimus Prime and the All Spark.
 

Swifteye

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Apr 15, 2010
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Matthew94 said:
Swifteye said:
Matthew94 said:
Swifteye said:
Hm. Well as someone who has tried getting into PC gaming I have some issues with your statements Mr. sterling. For one thing when you say people can play most pc games what kind of games are you referring to? Anyone can play the endless sea of flash games but actual games that you buy welllll. Okay. So I have a new windows 7 computer right? Okay I didn't build it myself it was a gift from my father so it's new and I keep it running well. Okay then lets go and play Spore that game came out a year or so ago and I actually liked it. Won't really run on my windows 7. Okay. Lets play dragon age instead. It works! For a day. After a whole day of playing my computer needs to empty out all the cache and restart just to get rid of the lag the game gives me and this is even with special software just to run video games better.

Ya know that doom game you were talking about? I hate doom and all shooting games especially during that era but ya know what I did play back then? Point and click adventure games like pajama sam and cluefinders. and I can't really play those things on my windows 7 either. Luckily I have an old vista laptop that can play those games but still. New hardware sometimes has some serious roadblocks for old software. That said I can get privateer and some old games to run on my system but it's a shot in the dark to do so.

One of these days i'm going to buy a computer piece by piece and get all the specs checked out and even build it with my own two hands. That computer will get me into PC gaming no problem and pretty much any game new or old would run well and all these problems would go away. But so far that Computer has been estimated to be about 770 dollars. Kind of more expensive than say buying a PS3 getting a littlebig planet combo deal that bundles an extra controller. and then just getting a 50 dollar gift card for psn and going to town. You have some nice points but it still doesn't negate the fact that PCs are a variable system and nothing is quite concrete as it is when you get a console.
Do you even have a dedicated GPU?
Hmm. I might not. I should know this but I can't think of what that is.
GPU aka Graphics Card

If you don't have a dedicated one then that is why it's hard to run any new games.
That's probably it cause I remember trying to play total war shogun 2 and it was just unplayable I mean cut scenes just completely lagged and everything was unmovable. And I find that really annoying. This is a relatively fresh computer and the fact that a game a couple years younger can be unplayable. Well it says alot without saying too much.