Poll: I'm embarased to be called a pc gamer

[ImprovizoR]

First of all, you're not a PC gamer, you're a Mac gamer. You do realize Mac and PC aren't the same thing, right?
Also DRM is ruining PC gaming because it didn't stop the pirates, it only made legitimate customers suffer. So it's kind of a normal thing to be upset about that if you're a PC gamer. I don't know how the majority of Mac gamers feel about it so I wont comment for them.

 

[AVATAR_RAGE]

I'm a console gamer, though I do dabble in PC games (mainly MMO's and RTS games). I would love to be a primary PC gamer but just don't have the money to keep upgrading (or the passion for it).

PC gamers don't really annoy me (no more than anyone else really). In fact probably less than other gaming "cultists" (yay for clever wordplay), seeing as most PC gamers have a legitimate reason for holding their superior performance above console gamers.

Though what really annoys me is when I watch a trailer for a new game and the 1st thing I see in the comment section is "No PC?" or something to that effect. Like the presents of that game will destroy their life, and there is no excuse in the world why that game is not for the PC.

This grinds my gears simply because I rarely watch a trailer for a PC game and see a "Why no (insert console name)", almost as if these ever game company must cater for these PC gamers wim.

(Sorry if I offended anyone there)

 

[Hateren47]

Question tho. Are you proud of your PC you've built or the fact that you play games on a PC? There is a difference, big one too.
I can be proud of work i do on my PC, be it writing, doodling or digital sculpting, none of which i can really do on consoles because they lack the 'horsepower' and peripherals for it, but playing a game?
It's just entertainment, it's like arguing whenever watching a movie on Sony brand TV is somewhat reason to feel better than a person that watched the same film on LG.

Yes i use PC exclusively, mostly because 1 - consoles are waste of money for me due to being limited to games only and 2 - console titles do not interest me but that's all there is to it, 3 - i like to be able to choose whatever is inside my platform and ability to upgrade it whenever i need to do so. That's all there is to it.

I'm proud of my PC because I put it together myself and it works better than pre-builds from the same generation (with a higher price). I enjoy playing my PC more on a 24 inch monitor than I enjoy playing Xbox on a 50 inch TV. Mostly because they have about the same resolution, but one is half the size. The PC platform is also superior for all the thing you mentioned. I guess I'm halfway between proud and superior smugness.

Videophiles would probably tell you that movies should be seen either in a theatre or on a homesystem with a projector, 7.1 HD audio, comfy seats, in a perfectly symmetrical room and with your own popcorn machine to get the theatre-smell right. Flatpanels for TVs are all the same junk(Philips or Samsung, i forget) anyway. Brand doesn't matter.

Games, like movies, should be enjoyed on the best available platform if you are a videogame-ophile.

 

[SuperNashwan]

This all sounds a bit like the fanboy wars we used to have in the Amiga 500 / Atari ST days. When I was 10, it made sense - it really was super important which machine was best, a bit like finding out whose dad was best. When you're 10, that stuff really means something.

 

[Retardinator]

Since you play on a mac, I don't think most of them would consider you one of them anyway so....

That's another thing; you cant just play on a PC, you need to have the RIGHT PC and if it's a Mac or costs less than $1400 you get shunned by the community.

Oh, excuse me!? I paid $700 for my rig 2-3 years ago and it runs Crysis on high pretty solid. Hell, I can even play GTA IV semi-decently. And it was pre-built.
There's this really dumb misconception that PCs cost a heap of money to be able to play anything. It's an outright lie.
I hate all sorts of crusaders, and any kind of gamer is not excluded. The platform you play on is a matter of your own personal preference, it does not make you a better person in a holier-than-thou sort of way; if anything, it only makes you even more obnoxious than you were in the first place. I'm not a proud PC gamer, I prefer playing my games on my computer.

Though I sometimes really want to play console exclusives like MGS4, Heavy Rain or Alan Wake (Sitting in a couch in front of a high inch plasma display, my ass. Fucking Microsoft). I'd rather just play them on the console they were released for. Unfortunately, I lack money for all this so I just stick to PC gaming. The two different computers I've had over the course of the last 7 years have served me pretty well. My PS2 saw a decline in game time much earlier than that and I never really bothered to buy a new console, especially with the amount of dosh you're supposed to shell out.

 

[tahrey]

I -used- to be a PC gamer ... now I seriously can't be bothered to care about it as a platform, particularly given the ludicrous costs and ball-aches involved. And the fact I have been and probably will be massively flamed for my viewpoint makes me strangely happy to no longer be associated. No-one likes a fanboy.

I will still happily play games on my PC, but it's only stuff like Minecraft, Rigs of Rods, etc that you couldn't realistically experience on consoles (yet). (And emulators, but I think making one machine think it's another doesn't really count - you're effectively playing the emulated system, and whatever you're using to do the emulation is irrelevant so long as it does a good job... PC... Mac... Dreamcast (seen it done)... GBA... jailbroken iPhone... etc)

Retardinator: Really? I want the brand and model of your $700, still-good-at-current-games rig, because I'd like to get hold of an example secondhand. With typical electronics depreciation, it should be around the $150 / £100 level now, which nicely fits my budget (and is like 2/3rds the price of an equivalent console) and sounds like it will blow my last desktop and current laptop out of the water.

Also I can point all my colleagues at it and say "THIS is what we should be buying, not the £400 brand-new PoSes from our regular supplier" (~$700 equivalent... and useless at almost anything except office and internet... we have to install add-on graphics cards to play Second Life, ffs).

I'm not convinced, when I even work with people who blow the equivalent of $300+ on a medium-to-high level graphics card. That's one, by the way, not the multiple SLI solutions, and doesn't count the cost of a matching motherboard, decent quantity of fast memory, nice CPU, disk, case, monitor, non-shitty keyboard, non-shitty mouse, etc.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

This all sounds a bit like the fanboy wars we used to have in the Amiga 500 / Atari ST days. When I was 10, it made sense - it really was super important which machine was best

The Amiga 500, of course.

 

[Funkysandwich]

I -used- to be a PC gamer ... now I seriously can't be bothered to care about it as a platform, particularly given the ludicrous costs and ball-aches involved.

Really? I'm a pc gamer because I'm poor. I've managed to cobble together a computer from bits I had lying around that will run most new games on mid-high settings.

I wouldn't mind a console but I can't decide which one, and at this stage I still can't justify the cost.

 

[SuperNashwan]

This all sounds a bit like the fanboy wars we used to have in the Amiga 500 / Atari ST days. When I was 10, it made sense - it really was super important which machine was best

The Amiga 500, of course.

Damn right. And my dad will fight the dad of anyone who says Atari is better Not that he has agreed to this.

 

[barash]

Since you play on a mac, I don't think most of them would consider you one of them anyway so....

That's another thing; you cant just play on a PC, you need to have the RIGHT PC and if it's a Mac or costs less than $1400 you get shunned by the community.

You've got it all ass backwards - which leads me to think that the problem ain't the community but your assumptions about it. Since you're not, you know, a part of it.

Apple geeks, pffft


(kick the mac, build your own system, spend a few hundred hours customising the shit out of it and you'll get it)

 

[tahrey]

Rhombus: HERETIC!
YOU. WILL. BURN!!!!!!!

ST 4 EVAR

 

[tahrey]

funky: Same as Retardinator, I'm still not seeing brands, specs, costs, or games. I would actually be interested, as well as such things actually furthering you guys' arguments.

I've done the "making it in a cave from scraps" thing enough times before, and the outcome has generally been disappointing despite the spec not being too shoddy. It's shoddy *enough* that anything relatively modern either blows, or doesn't run at all (though they're perfectly good for non-gaming purposes). Maybe you have more generous hand-me-downs?

When I can get an entire, slightly used system that plugs into my large TV for the price of a decent CPU or other PC-fragment (builds month-by-month into this delightful partwork computer!), that still plays its latest games and will do for at least another two years (hell, how long did they keep releasing PS2 titles?), and never needs an upgrade until it's replaced entirely by something that still costs less, it's hard to argue the balance of expenditure being in the PC's favour.

 

[Souplex]

I used to be embarrassed to be a PC gamer too. Then I went exclusively to consoles and handhelds. I was never happier.

 

[minarri]

Just be glad you don't live in Japan, where the only PC games around are visual-novel-style porn games and there's a huge stigma around playing games on non-consoles.

 

[Halceon]

I sometimes play games on pc, but i would NEVER want to be called a 'PC gamer'

i just can't stand most of them.

So instead of fixing what is broken, you choose to walk away and pretend it doesn't exist.

I call myself a gamer. I call myself a PC gamer. I call myself a PC laptop gamer. Why, because is spend a notable fraction of my time playing various games on my laptop. It is a descriptive title, not some group affiliation. If you think other people are attaching bad associations to words that describe you, then FIX THAT SHIT! Tell the truth, argue your position, be an example or whatever. Don't avoid the issue.

 

[Deadpewl]

Lol, if anyone is "proud" of the platform they play games on.. well, they are beyond any form of help to begin with.

Is it that bad to be proud of something I worked for months to afford, spend weeks to research and a day to build and set up?

Yeah, pretty much.

So Im curious as to what you think its okay to be proud of?
OT: Im a pc gamer because its easier to pirate games for the pc. *flame shield on*

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

it's hard to argue the balance of expenditure being in the PC's favour.

For me it's easy.

Cost of PC capable of performing non-gaming tasks I require (lots of 3D modelling and rendering) + Gaming console > Cost of PC capable of gaming AND the other shit I use it for. For me it's essentially a question of mid-range gaming rig + console or just the mid-range gaming rig, so the answer is kind of obvious in my position as to which is cheaper.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

OT: Im a pc gamer because its easier to pirate games for the pc. *flame shield on*

It's really, really not. Soft-modded 360 is wayyy easier to pirate game for. No pesky DRM that needs cracking and no crippled multiplayer.