My Thoughts on PC Gaming

I find it irritating whenever there is a discussion of console wars and PC is involved, Steam is often treated as the face of PC gaming. With the recent news of Sony’s push towards games as a service, DRM digital games that can easily be taken away from your system, regardless of how much you paid for it, and just the idea of getting rid of physical disks in general, I see a lot of detractors claiming that PC gamers aren’t any better because buying games on Steam isn’t real ownership so therefore, console gamers are superior or algo. While they’re right about Steam being a drm dystopian marketplace responsible for a lot of gaming sins like DRM, always online connectivity requirements, and the loose interpretation of ownership, Steam is not THE only way to game on PC.

On top of that, it’s absurd to assume you only have steam and nothing else when the fact of the reality is that for decades, PC gaming is one of the most versatile and consumer friendly platforms to game on. You don’t need any licensing fees or any proprietary hardware or software to game or even develop on PC. You have options other than Windows. Not only that but backwards compatibility (with the aid of software in some cases) is not restrictive by any means. I have a lot of old PC games that I can run on my DVD drive on my desktop, install, and play them via Wine on Linux. There’s nothing at the hardware or software level preventing me from doing so. I hate to break it down to a third grader level but there’s a reason why you can’t play Nintendo 64 cartridges on a Nintendo Switch. Console by design are generally closed source and hardware locked though some consoles like the Wii can play Gamecube Games or PS3 with PS1 games to name a few. With newer generation of consoles that still have a disk drive, backwards compatibility is not absolute. Take Xbox for example. The Xbone for instance can only play a handful select of titles from the 360 and only a handful of Xbox original games. If you have any games that aren’t on the list, tough shit. This is not the case for PC gaming. While it is true that PC gaming has historically been host to many forms of DRM and anti-piracy protections as long as computer software has been a thing, none of them are particularly invincible to exploit or to work around.

I’m going to make the argument that PC gaming as of right now is the most libre and long term platform for gaming and ownership, much more than consoles. You don’t have to jailbreak or do any hardware modding like soldering or mod chips to get around to playing what you want on PC. The platform is built upon an industry standard that has been established for decades. You pick the parts you want, you pick the operating system, you pick the method of obtaining and playing your games, and so on and so forth. You aren’t locked down to anything the manufacture demands. Even on consumer/office hardware like my HP Elitedesk, you’re not restricted to using Windows, hard drives, or X amount of RAM. You have the option to switch any of those. Don’t like Steam, there’s GOG. Still don’t like digital games, you can take the exes or .sh files from GOG and burn them on a DVD like I did. You can put several games on some DVDs if the installer files are small enough. Now you have physical copies of your game. If you have a Blueray Drive, even better. Wanna watch movies? Use MPV, Baka-Mplayer, or VLC if you’re a scrub. You don’t have to use some shitty OEM media player. You have options. Oh and did I mention how you don’t even have to pay another additional fee to play games online? Do you see what I’m talking about? Does your fancy $1000+ gaymen pc build lack a DVD or Blueray drive? You can buy an external one and you’ll be good to go. Are you afraid of being a luddite and like the all digital future the oligarchs are trying to push onto everyone? You can take out the drive out of your computer and go on with your life without fucking over everyone else. It’s almost as if you have the freedom to do what you like with your property. It’s your PC. YOU own it.

Now to be fair, hardware prices are fucking atrocious these days. They are probably going to get worse. But so are console prices. If you gave me $1,600 and asked me if I wanted to buy a PS6 or build a PC, I’d always go for PC any day of the week. Even if it’s not on par “graphically” with a PS6, I’d rather have a low end PC than a PS6, or the new Xbone, or even a Switch 2 if I’m being blunt. You don’t have to buy new. You can save a lot of money if you buy your hardware used. I do and I’m content enough with what I got. I’m not interested in playing the latest triple A Unreal Engine slop and neither should most people if they really think about it. Most new games don’t look any better than games from 10 or even 20 years ago. Not to mention, they are poorly optimized garbage even if they were somehow good. A lot of indie games tend to be better programmed and optimized so you don’t need 32GB of ram, 500GB of storage, and a 16GB GPU to play them. Nobody is forcing you to get into live service games that take up hundred of GBs of data only for the servers to shut down months later if they are lucky enough to have that much of a player base to support them. Not to mention, you have almost an infinite library of games from the past that you can run on your PC going back to the DOS era and maybe earlier. I haven’t even mentioned emulation of other consoles.

The value proposition for PC gaming even with today’s prices goes far beyond being a platform for gaming. You can do work on a PC, watch slop on YouTube, listen to music, browse the web, blog like I’m doing right now, learn to code, develop your own games, draw, I mean shit the possibilities are endless. The idiots who claim that PC gaming is all closed source, digital DRM dystopian cuckholdry are lying to themselves and to others who frankly are probably more qualified to speak than them. I don’t like Steam myself. I say that as someone who occasionally uses the platform. But to their credit, Steam has been mostly fair in terms of how they treat their customers. That’s more than what I could say for Sony. Not to mention, games being cheaper on there is a reasonable compromise for DRM games though GOG’s prices are competitive and DRM free so I lean towards them more than Steam if I’m buying digital. If Steam goes under when Gabe Newell croaks, PC gaming won’t be dead. Steam could go full “Fuck you! YOU CANT PLAY SHIT” and I’ll be perfectly fine. So will most people to be honest. There are other options for gaming on PC with our without Steam. Even the crappy Steam competitors like Epic Game Store are there if floor licking gamers have to settle with a DRM client when Steam collapses. But again, you have the freedom to choose. You have the freedom to buy physical games or make your own in the case of GOG. I see this being true even long after Sony and Microsoft shit the bed too.