Why pc gaming gets away with it

The rest of the list shows us a smattering of high-end cards and then mostly even older GPUs. The CPU charts tell much the same story, and the bottom line is that most PC gamers are not playing on particularly powerful computers. So why bother with PC gaming at all? They may be older titles and they may need to run at lower detail settings, but that takes nothing away from how much fun you can have with a PC. Console games are sold through a walled-garden store.

Therefore, on the digital side of games, at least, there is no price competition. PC gamers enjoy virtually total freedom of choice when it comes to buying digital games.

There are several independent storefronts to choose from, and they are all in competition with one another. You can see this in how aggressively each seller tries to bring in new customers. Steam is famous for its massive sales events, where video game prices are cut to the bone. The Epic Games Store gives away free games every week with no commitment from the buyer. Good Old Games sells their titles with no copy protection so that you can make your own independent backups. A PC may cost more than a console upfront, but if you look at the opportunities to buy the games you want at the lowest prices, the upfront investment pays for itself quickly.

The latest consoles all offer some form of backward compatibility so players can experience the best games from days gone by. The catch is that you need the cooperation of the console maker or game developer to make older games compatible with new systems.

If you want to create a video game and sell it to PC gamers you can simply code your game, upload it to your own website and then sell it directly to anyone. PC gaming is the home of video game modding. If players want to expand a game or turn it into something completely different, they can.

PCs come in all shapes and sizes and that versatility makes them suitable for a wide variety of gamers. You can build or buy a hulking tower case with water cooling pipes and more lighting than the Vegas Strip, but you can also build a tiny small form factor system packed with powerful parts.

Gaming laptops, even gaming ultrabooks, let you combine your on-the-go work machine with a full-fat gaming system. Even Valve, creators of Steam, is getting in on the action with the Steam Deck. This means you can get the gaming system that you want instead of a single mass-produced design. Just the technology to let you play how you want to. Browse All iPhone Articles Browse All Mac Articles Do I need one?

Browse All Android Articles Browse All Smart Home Articles I think these incremental box upgrades are the new norm. All of those games are exclusive to either the Xbox One or the PlayStation 4. Both Microsoft and Sony seem to consider the PC neutral territory. Point being: Buying a PC rarely means missing out on console games these days.

The entire strategy genre, for one. Both turn-based and real-time strategy games are mostly found on the PC—and there are a ton. There are hundreds of games each year that make a name for themselves on PCs and never make it onto consoles. Oh yeah, and once you own a game on the PC you own it forever. Thanks to the enthusiasm of the PC community, most of that forty years is immediately accessible to you. Text adventures?

The Interactive Fiction Database has you covered. Thanks, DOSBox. The more complicated environments of fifteen or twenty years ago? Not in this article, at least. Buy a PC, and all that history is open to you. Sure, it can be finicky. Our prices fall faster, go lower, and stay that way. You can easily amass a huge library of games on the cheap, more than making up for the cost of your hardware.

Or lower. Team Fortress 2? Path of Exile? Get motion-sick? And before you console enthusiasts say you get free games every month, stop. Speaking of which…. Steam added roughly eight new games per day in the first seven months of , PC Gamer reports. The days of widespread console exclusives are over.

But the reasons extend beyond the ecosystem alone. The inherent advantages of a keyboard and mouse have led strategy games and simulations to carve out a niche on PCs. Which leads me to another beautiful aspect of PC gaming: You can play your games however you want to play them. Sims are another big PC niche for this very reason. Flight Hotas X flight stick pic.