Consoles have their advantages but, from cheap games to flexible hardware, PC gaming has won my heart
1. Cheap games
Not to be
that guy, but I’m a family man on a budget. The less cash I have to
shell out for games, the better. And PC games are far cheaper than
console games, for a fine reason: Consoles are walled gardens, while
game stores on the PC have to compete for your money
The result? Origin’s wonderful “On the House” freebie program, and delectable Humble Bundles, and Green Man Gaming’s perpetual 20 percent off vouchers, and those glorious, glorious Steam sales. On the PC, publishers regularly give away superb older games to drum up interest in imminent sequels, as we saw Need for Speed, SOMA, Dragon Age, and Sniper Elite’s developers do recently. It’s great!
And before you console enthusiasts say you
get free games every month, stop. You don’t. You get games with your
monthly PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live subscriptions, which isn’t the
same thing at all. Speaking of which…
2. You don’t have to pay to play multiplayer games on PCs
Yep, that about sums it up. Yay for competition!
3. More types of games
You’ll also find a wider variety of
game types on PCs compared to consoles. Not to keep beating the same
drum, but the PC’s open nature helps here, as the comparative ease with
which developers can whip up a game has led to an absolute explosion of
indie titles on the platform. (Steam added roughly eight new games per day in the first seven months of 2015, PC Gamer reports.)
Don’t worry about missing out on big games, either. The days of widespread console exclusives are over. Very
few of the triple-A games released lock themselves to consoles now that
development costs are so high and all three big consoles pack AMD
hardware similar to what you’d find in a (budget) gaming PC. Not
releasing a PC version of a triple-A game simply doesn’t make sense for
third-party game publishers, who don’t have a stake in a particular
platform’s dominance.
4. Play how you want to play
Which leads me to another beautiful
aspect of PC gaming: You can play your games however you want to play
them. Many PC gamers swear by the keyboard and mouse, but you can just
as easily play many games with a gamepad if you’d like—sacrilege, I
know, but I often do just that after typing for work all day. Or you can
go really nuts and embrace dedicated peripherals like racing
wheels and HOTAS setups. (Sims are another big PC niche for this very
reason.)
But between
the cheaper games, hardware flexibility, and mods, the choice is a
no-brainer for me. I can’t quit you, PC gaming, and I’d never want
to—even if you do frustrate me from time to time. I love you for better
and for worse.
Not to be
that guy, but I’m a family man on a budget. The less cash I have to
shell out for games, the better. And PC games are far cheaper than
console games, for a fine reason: Consoles are walled gardens, while
game stores on the PC have to compete for your money
The result? Origin’s wonderful “On the House” freebie program, and delectable Humble Bundles, and Green Man Gaming’s perpetual 20 percent off vouchers, and those glorious, glorious Steam sales. On the PC, publishers regularly give away superb older games to drum up interest in imminent sequels, as we saw Need for Speed, SOMA, Dragon Age, and Sniper Elite’s developers do recently. It’s great!
And before you console enthusiasts say you
get free games every month, stop. You don’t. You get games with your
monthly PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live subscriptions, which isn’t the
same thing at all. Speaking of which…
2. You don’t have to pay to play multiplayer games on PCs
Yep, that about sums it up. Yay for competition!
3. More types of games
You’ll also find a wider variety of
game types on PCs compared to consoles. Not to keep beating the same
drum, but the PC’s open nature helps here, as the comparative ease with
which developers can whip up a game has led to an absolute explosion of
indie titles on the platform. (Steam added roughly eight new games per day in the first seven months of 2015, PC Gamer reports.)
Don’t worry about missing out on big games, either. The days of widespread console exclusives are over. Very
few of the triple-A games released lock themselves to consoles now that
development costs are so high and all three big consoles pack AMD
hardware similar to what you’d find in a (budget) gaming PC. Not
releasing a PC version of a triple-A game simply doesn’t make sense for
third-party game publishers, who don’t have a stake in a particular
platform’s dominance.
4. Play how you want to play
Which leads me to another beautiful
aspect of PC gaming: You can play your games however you want to play
them. Many PC gamers swear by the keyboard and mouse, but you can just
as easily play many games with a gamepad if you’d like—sacrilege, I
know, but I often do just that after typing for work all day. Or you can
go really nuts and embrace dedicated peripherals like racing
wheels and HOTAS setups. (Sims are another big PC niche for this very
reason.)
But between
the cheaper games, hardware flexibility, and mods, the choice is a
no-brainer for me. I can’t quit you, PC gaming, and I’d never want
to—even if you do frustrate me from time to time. I love you for better
and for worse.
Don’t worry about missing out on big games, either. The days of widespread console exclusives are over. Very few of the triple-A games released lock themselves to consoles now that development costs are so high and all three big consoles pack AMD hardware similar to what you’d find in a (budget) gaming PC. Not releasing a PC version of a triple-A game simply doesn’t make sense for third-party game publishers, who don’t have a stake in a particular platform’s dominance.
4. Play how you want to play
Which leads me to another beautiful
aspect of PC gaming: You can play your games however you want to play
them. Many PC gamers swear by the keyboard and mouse, but you can just
as easily play many games with a gamepad if you’d like—sacrilege, I
know, but I often do just that after typing for work all day. Or you can
go really nuts and embrace dedicated peripherals like racing
wheels and HOTAS setups. (Sims are another big PC niche for this very
reason.)
But between
the cheaper games, hardware flexibility, and mods, the choice is a
no-brainer for me. I can’t quit you, PC gaming, and I’d never want
to—even if you do frustrate me from time to time. I love you for better
and for worse.
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