Thoughts on PC gaming?

[Prowler]

As a kid/teenager, I never had a lot of games for the PC since the specs requirement always were a hassle and my mother never looked into those when buying a new computer, since she was not a gamer. Plus, good gaming PCs are rather expensive.

I missed out on most 90s and early-mid 2000s classic PC games. I've played The 7th Guest, Gorillas and Ultimate Soccer Manager 98 back in the 90s. In the 2000s I played Championship Manager 00/01 and Football Manager 2009.

I did not get the chance to first play Doom and Wolfenstein 3D until I was a young adult. Ditto for Civ 4.

Around 2012 I joined Steam and discovered a whole new world. Granted most games you find for PC are multiplatform titles, but as someone who did not have a a 360 or a PS3, it was a good way for me to play a lot of games I would have been deprived off from being a Nintendo console owner. Since then, I've been a Nintendo + PC kinda guy. No need for Sony and Microsoft consoles.

However, I no longer have the time or patience for huge time sinking games like Civilization, Europa Universalis and Hearts of Iron. And Civ has stopped being a PC exclusive a while ago already, anyway. You can play Civ VI and VII on the Switch if you want to. Football Manager? 2026 bombed, so I just stuck with 2024. Won't be getting another game of the series unless SI get their act together.

So my decision to get the PC version of a game boils down to:

1. Can my rig run it?
2. Is the PC version good while the Switch port is rather lousy?
3. Is it on sale for much cheaper than on the Nintendo eShop?

[neatoman]

Because of the death of the used market, it's been pretty hard for me to justify buying console games. The first party Switch games has had this absurd thing going on where the price never drops, I saw a copy of Mario Odyssey still being sold at the release price seven years or later. Even if I look up used copies online, it's not much better. The Switch also lacks the necessary internal storage to buy most games digitally, so that makes no sense either. Third party games do drop in price but the lack of a proper used market still means they're more expensive than I am comfortable with. I also remember when I bought the PS4 and got annoyed when I found out you needed to install the games, and then still needed the disc to boot them, so pointless.

Because of these factors I have largely been pushed towards PC gaming because the pricing on consoles have gotten ridiculous without the used market and collecting has largely become pointless. Prices often get very low and storage is very easy to upgrade.

I do however prioritise GOG over Steam, because the guarantee of DRM-free games and offline installers are about as close to the good old used market that I miss. Because of this, I rarely buy brand new games because publishers seem reluctant to release them on GOG right away. Though I should mention here that GOG usually get fairly new games like 2-3 years after release, so I still barely bother with Steam.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by neatoman

Because of the death of the used market, it's been pretty hard for me to justify buying console games. The first party Switch games has had this absurd thing going on where the price never drops, I saw a copy of Mario Odyssey still being sold at the release price seven years or later. Even if I look up used copies online, it's not much better. The Switch also lacks the necessary internal storage to buy most games digitally, so that makes no sense either. Third party games do drop in price but the lack of a proper used market still means they're more expensive than I am comfortable with. I also remember when I bought the PS4 and got annoyed when I found out you needed to install the games, and then still needed the disc to boot them, so pointless.

Because of these factors I have largely been pushed towards PC gaming because the pricing on consoles have gotten ridiculous without the used market and collecting has largely become pointless. Prices often get very low and storage is very easy to upgrade.

I do however prioritise GOG over Steam, because the guarantee of DRM-free games and offline installers are about as close to the good old used market that I miss. Because of this, I rarely buy brand new games because publishers seem reluctant to release them on GOG right away. Though I should mention here that GOG usually get fairly new games like 2-3 years after release, so I still barely bother with Steam.

I actually have been rather lucky with buying used physical copies of DS, 3DS and Switch games lately. I paid €6.50 only for a used copy of the Switch version of Triangle Strategy last week. Also bought Yo-Kai Watch for the 3DS for under €10 a couple of weeks ago.

There's a couple of copies of Pokémon Sword for sale in this shop that sells used games in my city that have been there for a while. Each selling for €25 only. Since I'm not particularly interested in gen 8 Pokémon games, I haven't bought them. But if I was, I'd have bought one of those by now, certainly.

Try looking at shops in your city that sell used games rather frequently. You might find a sweet deal or two occasionally. But you have to be fast, or else someone will buy it later that day.

THe Switch comes with a microSD card with rather small memory space, sadly. You have to buy a microSD card with much more space. They can be a bit pricey, but well worth it. Get a 128GB or 258GB one.

[sdp]

I played some PC games as a kid back when PC games were different than console games in the 90s. I stopped playing PC games for the most part in the 2000s until I started to realize all the PS3/360 games were just getting ported to PC and they ran better, were dirt cheap if you waited. So instead of buying a PS3/360 that gen I just bought a 360 PC controller and started playing games on PC.

What I love most about PC games is there's always patches, fan mods and basically your library goes with you, you don't need to worry about the next console being backwards compatible. Now that most Xbox/Playstation exclusives also release on PC, there's literally no reason to own a console. I do kinda miss the days when PC had their own feel like say Warcraft II etc.

[Prowler]

Lots of great sales for PC titles, yes. But nowadays with every console having their own digital shop, is the difference that big anymore? Like OK, I know Nintendo 1st party titles never sell for dirt cheap, but what about the Playstation and Xbox online shops?

I remember buying Deus Ex Human Revolution on Steam back in Christmas 2012 for like €1.99. The game was barely a year old at that point. Could you even imagine buying a game like Zelda BOTW or even Super Mario Galaxy used for that price?!

If I wasn't a big Nintendo fan, I wouldn't bother with console gaming anymore. And Nintendo will never release their IPs on PC, obviously.