When it comes to PC vs console debates, I don't often see people say that the PC is not only a games machine but a powerful multimedia tool. Long before the Xbox One claimed to be "the hub of entertainment", a PC could play music, videos, games, browse the internet, run applications,
make games...
That's why I believe the PC is better than consoles. Not because of greater hardware but because I regard my desktop as a toolbox, or indeed a desktop where I can use my tools to go about everyday life and craft my own experiences. The keyboard and mouse are also what I'd regard as the best controller input, as anyone who knows how to touch-type can effortlessly and precisely control the play experience (as long as the game is competently programmed).
PC games just seem a lot more involved whereas console games have a barrier for me. I'm sitting on a sofa, a few metres away from a TV, controlling my character with a relatively imprecise controller. It can be fun but if I could play the same game on my PC I'd enjoy it so much more. Maybe it's because many people treat video games like interactive films, whereas I treat them like I would a book. A book won't read itself, you have to pay close attention and preferably get rid of distractions. This is just how I feel, I'm not preaching gospel.
The main thing that prevents console gamers from migrating to PC is the fact that not everyone has a PC these days. A decade ago many more people used PCs regularly but now the casual consumer will most likely do their web browsing and media experiencing on a phone, tablet or Macbook, none of which lend themselves particularly well to non-mobile gaming.
Vault101 said:
I get the impression he's clearly dismissing either the idea of discussion or the issues themselves as "hysterical moralising" and then of coarse feeds into what people want to hear about the nature of language and freedom of speech and going up against the establishment blah blah blah because people LOVE that, it absolves them of considering anything that runs counter to their views while giving them the moral "shield"
but my problem here is not that he disagrees with my viewpoint but he's feeding into that idea that sticking to a perceived "middle ground" or "neutrality" regardless of the actual facts as an easy way of being "right" or "above it" or "le logical"
except not everything is a perfect Yin Yang Balance of eaqual oposites, some sides are just not effing equal
it promotes the mentality that unless an issue completely and totally obvious *ism* then it doesn't bear thinking about and an attempt to do so is silly and an affront to free speech/edginess/whatever
Yahtzee can think whatever he wants but I don't belive he's as "neutral" as he claims
Yahtzee has displayed concern with issues regarding representation of gender and race in his reviews before, often mocking "token" characters and unironic sexism. The difference between that and "hysterical moralising" is that he isn't claiming that games encourage misogyny or racism or homophobia or whatever. It's the difference between finding Call of Duty to be an uncomfortable glamorisation of warfare and believing that it'll directly cause the next Columbine.
There is indeed a middle ground. One where issues are considered but not used to rally troops against oppressive forces like "the sexist video game industry" or "social justice warriors". Yahtzee is firmly in this middle ground and he's placed himself there not out of believing that his viewpoint is superior to everyone else's, but because he finds merit in arguments both "sides" raise and probably is concerned with many problems neither "side" addresses. Of course, that implies that there are definitive "sides" in the first place, and that is merely an illusion.
