Can I wean myself from consoles to PCs? Do I want to?

"A console monkey joins the PC Master Race.":

I have always been a console gamer, since the days of the 2600. I have had every console for the last 3 generations, and a fair few of the ones prior to that. I still own all of them, in working order. My 360 has been my constant gaming hub this gen, though the others have certainly had enough time spent on them to justify the purchases. I even have half a toe in the next gen, with my early Wii U purchase. I have had every DS iteration, PSP, Vita, a Bandai Wonderswan and a NeoGeo Pocket Colour.

I could never get into PC gaming. Oh, there were things that drew my attention from time to time, like occasional C&C binges and the summer that I spent playing the Dune 2 RTS that was basically C&C in the sand. I remember putting some time into the first GTA on a PC, and of course, my Wing Commander and Freespace 1 & 2 addictions. On the whole, however, these periods in my gaming life were restricted to the days when I lived with parents, and couldn't sit on a comfy sofa to play. I had to lurk in my bedroom, like a barely present troglogdyte.

When I was living in halls at Uni, I had my SNES, N64 and a PC that my loving parents had bought to let me work in peace. It was not a gaming machine, but had the capacity to become so. I started to save, but then discovered the joy of playing games whilst watching TV or a movie. When I had enough for the extra RAM and graphics card, I bought a Playstation instead.

Since then, the PC has been a tool for work, downloading stuff, and, in recent years, managing increasingly unwieldy iTunes installs. When I got my first laptop, it was not capable of gaming. My next one was not a netbook, but not a gaming machine either; I wanted something small and portable, When iPads appeared in my life, the laptop became a fixture on my coffee table.

Desktops have not fared much better. I got a quad core beast a few years ago, when such things were new, with impressive specs to go alongside the processor. I bought some games, installed this "Steam" thing that everyone was on about, but soon got fed up of playing on it. It still runs just fine, but I just can't get comfortable sitting on an office chair in front of a monitor. I do that all day.

Around Christmas, my lil' laptop started to fail on me. I priced up some more RAM and planned a fresh and clean install, but I had a feeling that it was more than just that. Sure enough, I was right. I could not be bothered to spend a lot of time on working out what was wrong with a 4 year old 350 quid laptop, so I started to price up a replacement. Since the desktop is getting a bit long in the tooth as well, I wanted something with some power, for converting video and the like. And while I was at it, why not something with some gaming power too?

After a good dig about, and a question to the GWJ hive mind, I decided to go for a Lenovo Ideapad Y580, which packs an i7 chip, 8 gig of RAM, a terabyte drive, and a GTX 650M, on top of the Intel integrated chipset.

Now, let me tell you, after years of hovering around the periphery of the PC world, I am very happy with this new toy. Everything it does is incredibly fast, and slick. It has HDMI out, so 42" 1080p gaming remains possible.

Being a gamer with a job, in the last week or two, my Steam library has gone from 4 titles to 18. I dusted off my ancient wired 360 controller. I played some Portal 2 to get my K&M skills from "Practically non-existent" to "horribly poor". I got Dragon Age, since I could always see that the 360 version that I put a few hours into was deficient in many ways.

And, inevitably, I hit roadblocks. Many, many roadblocks.

I intend to update this thread with my progress in the coming weeks and months, until I either a) become addicted to PC gaming and see the light and beauty, or b) get so horribly fed up that I just go back to consoles again. I genuinely have no idea which way this is going to go.

Here's your answer. Can a console run any of the following.

Crusader Kings 2
Civ 5
Distant Worlds
FM13
Drox Operative

'Nuff said. Welcome to the PC gaming land.

Well, it's not a dichotomy. If you own all three major consoles and the Wii U, in addition to a gaming-capable PC, cost is obviously not a factor, i.e. only being to afford a single platform. (I believe that's what fuels froth-mouthed "partisan" rhetoric, spewed from the greasy lips of pimply teenagers who can only wring one platform from their parents.)

Can you wean yourself? Sure, if all aspects of PC gaming agree with you (chair & desk, direct downloads, sales, free market), and no aspects of console gaming are beneficial to you (couch & TV, technical hassle-free, online infrastructure). Do you want to? That's up to you. Why do you feel you need to choose? Answering that will tell you which way to go. Otherwise, why not have both?

davet010 wrote:

Here's your answer. Can a console run any of the following.

Crusader Kings 2
Civ 5
Distant Worlds
FM13
Drox Operative

'Nuff said. Welcome to the PC gaming land.

I don't know if that really qualifies as a "'Nuff said" list ;)(I had to look up what FM13 was) but I personally would never give up PC gaming because of RTS and TBS games alone. I don't think I would really give up console gaming either due to the social aspects.

davet010 wrote:

Here's your answer. Can a console run any of the following.

Crusader Kings 2
Civ 5
Distant Worlds
FM13
Drox Operative

'Nuff said. Welcome to the PC gaming land.

Thing is, I *know* my console won't run them. I have no flipping idea if my PC will, and if it doesn't, I have no idea why it won't, or what (if anything) I have to do to make it run them.

This, in a nutshell is why I remain a console gamer. I've had several attempted forays into PC gaming over the years, and every single time, it's not taken long for me to throw my hands up in the air, say "f*** it", and return to a platform where a degree in IT isn't a prerequisite for entry.

And I fully accept that that problem is mine. My IT skills are poor, I've never built my own PC or monkeyed around with it's innards. Configuring a video-card is an eldritch art to me. And that's the problem. The barrier to entry feels high, but once you're over it, it's all downhill. I've never gotten over it, and to be fair, I've never tried that hard to.

That said, I'm dabbling with FTL at the moment, and playing some stupid Win8 game because achievements. I'm not averse to the PC as a gaming platform per se, I'm just very averse to having to jump through hoops to get my game on.

Why are you trying to wean yourself off of consoles you already have? I'm primarily a PC gamer at this point, but there are numerous titles that I would have been so sad to miss out on if I was only a PC gamer.

If you can comfortably have it all, have it all! Enjoy the best of the best from each respective platform you own. Blind dedication to one is just silly.

Steam sales. Still not sure if this is, personally, a good or a bad thing. But 4-5 times a year you get to buy AAA titles, for new, at very low cost. For my money, if I am going to save a buck, it is good to know as much as possible is making its way back to the publisher and developer. Not Gamestop/Best Buy, or some dude on Ebay when I shop used.

Xbox controller integration is wonderful for 3rd person action, platformers and the like.

It is funny though. I am looking at the Ouya, after a full decade of PC dedication largely due to wanting my wife next to me. My gaming PC is in the living room, but I kind of go off into my own world.

But comparing the 2 still, many games just shine brighter on the PC. Assasin'c Creed is the same, regardless. But Elder Scrolls Oblivion or Skyrim is very different with a keyboard/mouse, even before you bring in the mods. The community support reskinning the game, touching up textures for higher resolution graphics is wonderful.
Strategy, no question is best on a PC. The only upgrade I could think of would be a Surface Monitor, laid out like a coffee table so you could really play general.

Buy an HDMI cable and plug your PC to your TV, turn on Steam's "Big Picture" mode, and with a wired Xbox controller you're set

Every now and then go to nvidia.com and download the latest drivers, it's all good.

You can play most of the latest and greatest games since they always get ported (except for a couple of exclusives that never made it).

Dyni wrote:

If you can comfortably have it all, have it all! Enjoy the best of the best from each respective platform you own. Blind dedication to one is just silly.

Yeah, not really understanding why this is being painted as an either/or proposition.

I would add this:

With Steam Big Box you can still enjoy sitting on the couch (as long as you can connect your computer to your TV). The key ingredient to a "gaming" PC is a GPU.

gaming has never been easier. Sure you can tweak your experience but I rarely encounter hardware compatibility issues anymore and I don't spend much time configuring my settings. I usually just click "High", "Medium", or "Low" depending on the age of my hardware.

For a family room, my desktop is on a chest next to my recliner. With a solid wood arm to rest the mouse on, a keyboard on my lap, and a 28" monitor, I only spend time in a desk chair at work anymore. Before the desktop I have know, it was the same setup only I had a lapdesk on my lap and a gaming laptop on top of that. The lapdesk is crucial - it allows the fans underneath to cool the unit while not frying your unit.

I'm on the cusp. I've had specs loaded up to pcpartpicker.com for the better part of a year, always waiting to pull the trigger. And now that we have a roommate, there really isn't any place for me to setup a full on PC, and I'd rather have the modularity of a PC over a laptop.

Curse you Steam sales! I've been in their grasp (and Indie Royal bundles, and Humble bundles) for over a year now. I've been picking up games as they go on sale for "when I have a gaming PC", which has resulted in some accidental double dipping.

Jonman wrote:
davet010 wrote:

Here's your answer. Can a console run any of the following.

Crusader Kings 2
Civ 5
Distant Worlds
FM13
Drox Operative

'Nuff said. Welcome to the PC gaming land.

Thing is, I *know* my console won't run them. I have no flipping idea if my PC will, and if it doesn't, I have no idea why it won't, or what (if anything) I have to do to make it run them.

This, in a nutshell is why I remain a console gamer. I've had several attempted forays into PC gaming over the years, and every single time, it's not taken long for me to throw my hands up in the air, say "f*** it", and return to a platform where a degree in IT isn't a prerequisite for entry.

And I fully accept that that problem is mine. My IT skills are poor, I've never built my own PC or monkeyed around with it's innards. Configuring a video-card is an eldritch art to me. And that's the problem. The barrier to entry feels high, but once you're over it, it's all downhill. I've never gotten over it, and to be fair, I've never tried that hard to.

That said, I'm dabbling with FTL at the moment, and playing some stupid Win8 game because achievements. I'm not averse to the PC as a gaming platform per se, I'm just very averse to having to jump through hoops to get my game on.

The reason I chose that particular list is because I've had them all running on an 3 year old Acer laptop with an Nvidia GT240 graphics card without any issue - most of them just operate through Steam, so even your updating/patching is taken care of. Steam is your friend, it wants to help you.

There's a ton of resources out there, a google away if you go looking. Tons of system builder guides and boilerplate specs at a range of price points from respected sites like Ars and Anand. And then there's communities like reddit's /r/buildapc only too willing to answer questions (there's lots of good information in the sidebar) and the GWJ thread. And then there's lots of information on what to look for in an off-the-shelf box/laptop. The internet thrives on the flow of information, let it work for you.

I think will be interesting to watch what happens to the "should I get a PC?" trend when the new consoles turn up, whether people decide that's for them or not.

Why not play both consoles and pc's? I know, I know, that's crazy-talk. But seriously, it's not an either/or proposition.

If you're exclusive to one platform or the other, you're missing out on some seriously awesome gaming experiences.

Dave, most of your list doesn't appeal, I'm afraid. I've tried Civ games, and could never really get into them. I don't have the patience for the pace of grand strategy stuff, or empire building in the classic sense. Football Manager...man, I've seen what those games to do people. friends don't recommend that friends play Football Manager.

Now, Drox Operative...I had never heard of that one. It sounds very interesting to me.

Gravey, I didn't mean to give the impression that I would never play a console game again if I went to PC as my primary gaming system. I get every system because I think that each has exclusives that make it worthwhile, but certainly at this point in the cycle, everything multi-platform is best on PC, and PC has the best "exclusive" market out there.

Incidentally, money is an object. The PS3 is a launch model, from pre-kids days. The Vita and the Wii U were both gifts. I funded the laptop by selling part of my rare game collections (and believe me, that hurt!) Plavonica is right too, about time. I have a challenging full time job and 2 kids under 5. I get about 2 hours a day to play, so I have to decide whether, at thus time in my life, whether I want to spend that time on generic 360 FPS 135, (which I do love, but feels like the lazy option) or with things that are challenging to my established routine. Yeah, Fez, Braid, and so on are on consoles, but the PC is a much more fertile ground for such things.

I'll still be getting Gears 4, God Of War, Zelda and so on, but I am aware that I was missing out on too many PC titles that interested me.

One of the factors in the laptop that I chose and the decision to spend the extra on a machine capable of some gaming was the fact that I can play on the couch, either with the laptop on my knee, or by hooking it up to my TV via HDMI. One of the things that I want to know is whether it can be the best of both worlds.

Jonman tends to get to the nub of the matter, which is something I'll post a bit about tomorrow. The technical aspect. I am not without skill; I have built PCs in the past, and know my way around a Windows system, but...wow, it can get complicated when you are used to pressing a button and putting a disc in!

Steam makes the process as painless as it can be, in my view, but is not without pain. The sales, even the daily deals, are one of the other things that attracted me to the PC. Looking at the sale threads with great envy as the post counts rises by the thousands...I must be missing something, surely!

I'm talking more about a primary position. To continue the weaning analogy, a child doesn't stop drinking milk entirely when they go onto solids

davet010 wrote:
Jonman wrote:

This, in a nutshell is why I remain a console gamer. I've had several attempted forays into PC gaming over the years, and every single time, it's not taken long for me to throw my hands up in the air, say "f*** it", and return to a platform where a degree in IT isn't a prerequisite for entry.

And I fully accept that that problem is mine. My IT skills are poor, I've never built my own PC or monkeyed around with it's innards. Configuring a video-card is an eldritch art to me. And that's the problem. The barrier to entry feels high, but once you're over it, it's all downhill. I've never gotten over it, and to be fair, I've never tried that hard to.

The reason I chose that particular list is because I've had them all running on an 3 year old Acer laptop with an Nvidia GT240 graphics card without any issue - most of them just operate through Steam, so even your updating/patching is taken care of. Steam is your friend, it wants to help you.

I hear what you're saying, but from my position of limited skills/knowledge/experience, I'm still rolling the dice anytime I purchase a PC game. There's a non-zero chance that I'm paying for something that I'll be unable to use. That simply isn't the case for console games.

The crazy thing is that having heard Crusader Kings talked about on the Conference Call, I'm genuinely interested in it, it sounds fascinating! But I'm not willing to take that risk that it might not work on my brand-new laptop.

Which again, is largely a circular problem of my own making - I opted to get a laptop without a dedicated graphics card because I don't play PC games, because I don't have the ability nor inclination to learn that ability that would make have a graphics-card-equipped laptop worthwhile.

The long-and-short of it is that the precious resource when it comes to gaming is time, and I'm not willing to spend that time faffing about making games work (or learning how to do that faffing around) instead of playing them.

I have become a PC-only gamer over the last year-plus.

I found that (a) console games were filling niches I enjoyed less and less, and (b) Steam sales provide me far more gaming material than I have time to fill.

I built a "Steam box" PC to hook up to my living room TV, and that has basically been it for consoles. The more living room friendly Steam gets, the less I can justify consoles. I have a massive gaming library in my Steam account, and I add to it every summer and winter sale, and that will keep me going year-in and year-out.

I'm really curious to find out what the problems with PC gaming are? Maybe I'm unique but other then a bum power source when I was building it I haven't had a problem with gaming on a PC in the last few years. (Now iTunes, that things been a pain in my side every day) Everything I've bought (and I've mostly limited myself to steam games) has just been hitting the download button, waiting a bit then playing when it's updated.

Don't take this as a critique of you, I just really want to know.

For what it's worth, right now I'm on integrated graphics (intel i5) and while on one hand I'm thinking "I should replace my graphics card" on the other I'm playing all the same games I did before, although at reduced settings (there's a surprisingly high number of games that still work great) I'm quite tempted to keep using the integrated graphics for a while.

The point being, I think it's really hard to screw up a spec now and get something that will mess up your gaming ambitions, because everything plays everything (there will always be outliers, on all platforms). Pick a price point and follow a guide. Start simple, you're not losing anything for it. Nearly all games, or at least PC games with an ounce of care given to them, with a reasonable system *are* plug and play, they pick good settings and just go.

I think people get too wrapped up in the big long spec lists and the vast range of components (and I agree here, it is pretty crazy. the naming/numbering schemes don't help), how some enthusiasts are wanting to get everything out of their systems and ultra settings. There needs to be a filter on the internet to hide the minute detail you can go into, but don't need to.

Norfair wrote:

Don't take this as a critique of you, I just really want to know.

Sure.

Over the years, it's almost invariably been gross cases of "game does not run". Within the last week, with Fallout 3 for instance, where the game crashes to the desktop the second I select "New Game". I have no idea how to fix that problem. Is it because I (like Scratched) have integrated graphics instead of a dedicated card? Win8? To my non-PC-mindedness, a 4 year old game ought to run on a spiffy new machine, right? Not so much.

And that's really my problem - my PC troubleshooting skills are non-existent. The second something stops working, I'm dead in the water. And that is incredibly frustrating, to the extent that it sours me on the entire platform.

To balance my doom-and-gloom, it's not all been horrible. There've been a handful of PC games that I've played that have worked just fine, and those have been good experiences.

spider_j wrote:

I'm talking more about a primary position. To continue the weaning analogy, a child doesn't stop drinking milk entirely when they go onto solids :)

Ah! I see, misunderstood ya.

Norfair wrote:

I'm really curious to find out what the problems with PC gaming are? Maybe I'm unique but other then a bum power source when I was building it I haven't had a problem with gaming on a PC in the last few years. (Now iTunes, that things been a pain in my side every day) Everything I've bought (and I've mostly limited myself to steam games) has just been hitting the download button, waiting a bit then playing when it's updated.

Don't take this as a critique of you, I just really want to know.

OK, I was going to do this tomorrow, but if you insist!

One of the first games I got was Strike Suit Zero. I could not get the hang of shooting accurately with M&K, and my joystick is currently AWOL, so I decided to use the pad I use for my PS3. It's a decent enough 3rd party pad, with a dedicated PC mode, but, for some reason, the game just refused to apply the bindings correctly. I must have wasted 2 hours on that, before I checked the manufacturer's website and discovered that they had released some bespoke drivers at some point since they wrote the manual, which said it was plug and play. I wanted to use that pad as it is wireless, but ended up digging my wired 360 pad from the loft.

I grabbed Hotline Miami from Steam, and spent some time playing it. The next day, I got an error message and a hang when I tried to play it. I had to reboot every single time I wanted to play that game; a second attempt to load it up without a reboot would result in the same crash. I checked various forums and had a shuffle about on google, but didn't get anywhere.

I always meant to pick up Just Cause 2, and it was on sale last week. I couldn't even get it to the start screen. It gave me a DirectX error every single time. This was not a problem limited to me. The devs said that it was a Win 8 problem, and that they did not intend to fix it. This was contradicted by a great many Windows 8 users. I tried every suggestion that I could find, including updating the latest video card drivers, setting different launch options in Steam, changing settings with NVidia Inspector...I spent half of my Friday night and all of my Saturday night, about 6 hours of precious gaming time, trying to get it to work. I checked Steam forums, NVidia forums, here, loads of places. Lots of people with the same problem, very few with a solution.The only one that even vaguely worked was to con the PC into think ing that it had 2 displays, but force it only to use one them. Seriously. The Windows taskbar stayed on screen, and going into the options crashed the game back to desktop.

The whole time, I was keenly aware that I could drive 7 miles to the nearest supermarket, where the 360 version was on sale, new, for £12.

I looked at it again yesterday, and discovered that, though I had used the NVidia tool to install the newest driver, I should have chosen "custom" and elected to perform a "clean" install of the drivers. I had to go to GameFAQs for that info. GameFAQS, damnit! The forums! I haven't really been there since some kind soul (the only one there, I think) posted a link to a little site called Gamerswithjobs.com.

In the end, I had to perform that clean install, set a launch option, and change some arcane setting with NVidia Inspector. Now, it runs just fine. The clean install of the new drivers seems to have fixed Hotline Miami as well.

It turns out that the problem is with NVidia Optimus, which, I gather, is supposed to tell the dedicated card when to switch on. From what I can tell, it doesn't even do that, since everything seems to run with the integrated graphics until I tell it not to. I was a lot more impressed with Portal 2 once I realised what was going on there, I can tell you!

I downloaded the NVidia Experience beta, which I hoped would help, but the only game that it can see when is scans my system is...Portal 2!

As it stands, I think that Dragon Age is running with the integrated chip, since that is all that the launcher seems to be able to see. I just haven't had the will to try and sort that out yet.

On the fair side. Antichamber is running like a dream, as is Super Meat Boy. Once I plugged in the 360 controller and told the graphics card to run Strike Suit Zero, I have had a blast and it has been glorious. I haven't tried many other games yet. I did get my ancient System Shock 2 to run, though it crashed after a few minutes, but that was a vanity project rather than anything else.

I have had to learn an awful lot in a very short time, and lost out on gaming as a result. I hope that I won't have to spend that amount of time on anything else, but The Fear is starting take hold again!

spider_j wrote:

I'm talking more about a primary position. To continue the weaning analogy, a child doesn't stop drinking milk entirely when they go onto solids :)

In that case, it sounds like you've made up your mind (technical ker-splosions notwithstanding). (Edit: Those are substantial ker-splosions, and now I understand your trepidation.)

I'm considering "switching" soon (i.e. when the next gen is released). And I hate to use that term, but I can only afford one platform, so it would really would be switching! It seems to me, on the outside looking in, that there was a time after I got out of PC gaming (2004) up until a couple years ago, that gaming PCs were becoming untenable beasts of alphabet soup specs with multiple video cards each the size of an RV. But lately it seems like it's settled down as the graphical arms race was slowed (hasn't it?), making going in whole hog a lot more appealing. (That said, I can also only afford one computer, and everything other than gaming I do in OS X; fortunately the one bit I need to know—GT 650M (I look at the Alienware M14x as my reference for "affordable and competent gaming PC")—is in the current one-up-from-base iMac (albeit with 512 MB).)

Combine that with the fact that almost every game I love most on 360 has a Win or Mac version; that the PC is an open platform with a wider variety of games and no barrier to entry for developers; and that many genres are underserved or nonexistent on consoles (this cuts both ways, but I'm personally less interested in the other way), and I have a big sign with a flashing neon letters spelling "This is probably the platform you're most interested in".

But consoles still have a lot to recommend themselves, not the least of which being the ease of use, and the price—probably the most important factor if my computer doesn't "need" to be replaced within a year or five (damn reliable Macs). Although if the Xbox 720 really drops the ball on some issue important to me that I don't know yet, I shall be crossing the floor as soon as possible.

And there, I've re-painted things as an either/or. But I'll reiterate that's just me, and my discretionary spending. I play PC games now, and would hate to have say I'm a [platform] gamer.

Gravey wrote:

It seems to me, on the outside looking in, that there was a time after I got out of PC gaming (2004) up until a couple years ago, that gaming PCs were becoming untenable beasts of alphabet soup specs with multiple video cards each the size of an RV. But lately it seems like it's settled down as the graphical arms race was slowed (hasn't it?),

That's the reason why I'm really curious to see what happens with next-gen. There's the possibility for it to go either way, either everyone singing around the campfire in harmony, or to the bad old days of doing weird crap to keep stuff exclusive and incompatible, and companies working for their own agenda rather than the gamer's. I think that's why there's so much buzz around the x86 next-gen rumours, there's a chance of a game changer, but I'm remaining sceptical.

I think one factor that helps thing is that there's less in-fighting between manufacturers in the PC space. It seems a rare thing that a company will do something weird in a driver so something only works on their hardware. The exception to this is PhysX which remains locked to nvidia, but that's fancy eye-candy, which pretty much has to stay optional because nvidia aren't letting anyone else (especially the consoles, which produce the type of games that would be likely to use it) play with their toys, and it's the same story since it started with Ageia in 2002.

Console gamers are nicer.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Console gamers are nicer.

And they'll tell you about how nice they were to your mother at every opportunity.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Console gamers here are nicer.

Fixed.

I too was in the same position. For as long as I can remember I have always been a console kid. For me it goes back to ColecoVision and onto the 360. In 2009 I had put together my first PC for about 1500, which included the monitor and 4 gigs of memory. I felt guilty afterwards because it was seldom used and was shadowed by my laptop and my 360. Going into 2010 while taking a programming course, I noticed someone going to steam powered, downloading a game, and playing it during class. As an avid console gamer I was intrigued. So I jumped on steam and purchased several games including team fortress. Although my machine was getting some use, it wasn't taking over anything. Until I was introduced to Minecraft the infdev version. As soon as it went Alpha I purchased a copy for 12 bucks and I was hooked. Now my attention was on my PC, which now was getting a memory upgrade and CPU cooling unit. Years later, although I still have an xbox and a ps3, they get used more as a blueray player and a media server. Don't get me wrong, I have yet to abandon them as I still have several trilogies to finish. But the PC has totally taken over, not only as a gaming platform but also as a learning portal, as some games are highly customizable. I have learned a sh*t ton about linux and java programming just from simply playing minecraft. As of lately I have become addicted to GW2 as well as playing a lot of older games that I missed such as half life and others that I can't remember.

inthebird wrote:

Going into 2010 while taking a programming course, I noticed someone going to steam powered, downloading a game, and playing it during class. As an avid console gamer I was intrigued.

I think that's a large part of the problem. It's how the platform works that there's no central place to go to find stuff, and that's a strength and weakness. Valve/steam are pretty much the de-facto place to go, but apart from alienware it's not featured and discoverable on a newly bought PC (unlike say, the MS store on win8), you have to be introduced to it 'manually'.

It's a different side to the problem to the hardware, but it's almost as though there needs to be a "so you want to do PC gaming" guide that eases people in without scaring them off by going into minute and mostly irrelevant details.

Blind_Evil wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:

Console gamers here are nicer.

Fixed.

So are the PC gamers.