Why you're supposed to like PC gaming isn't why I like it.

[J T]

Many PC gaming enthusiasts point to the graphical power of PCs as their primary selling point. The PC is always at the forefront of technological development for graphics and sound and with the right processor and graphics card, the PC can crush any console easily. Higher resolution, better textures, particle effects, bloom, etc. PC Gamers are known for going back and forth with each other to compare their power house boxes, and deriding console user for holding back the graphical prowess that the PC could be achieving if games didn't have to appeal across platforms.

But I don't care about that. I prefer a lot of games that don't come anywhere close to pushing the capabilities of my graphics card. I play indie games. I play classics. I play modern stuff too. What's great about the PC is really that you have access to so much stuff. There are all these weird indie titles, there is a ton of freeware, there is easy access to classics of old, games can be stored digitally so you aren't subject to limitations of space in your home or apartment. These are the real reasons I love PC gaming.

All this stuff about graphical power and higher resolutions just doesn't matter much. What matters is that the PC is a hot bed of innovation, and a frugal gamer's paradise with the vast amounts of freeware and cheap digital sales available.

I also find that this website always makes a good case for being a PC gamer:
http://www.pcgamingfan.com/

[AznKhmerBoi]

There are alot of nice indie games on the pc, thanks to your list i was able to find and download some cool games. Hope you keep updating your list

[deathsled]

PCs are where all the major development is. It's easy and approachable for anyone to get in, start programming, and churn something out. It's much harder to do on a console due to the closed nature of that environment and often high cost of entry.

[MrNash]

Yeah, indie games are a big draw of the PC for me. High fidelity fancy pants graphics are alright, but they aren't a be all end all for me. The platform is just so easy for small groups to make stuff for that it naturally attracts some interesting projects. Mass Effect 3 just came out, and I'm sure it looks great on a PC, but I'd rather play Pineapple Smash Crew and Vessel.

[emwearz]

Indie Games + Point and Click Adventure games = AWESOME!

[Gamerforlife]

I really don't know why some PC gamers care so much about graphics. Graphics on current consoles are MORE than impressive enough. Even if PCs can push visuals further, there comes a point when it just doesn't matter anymore. Ultimately, it's not the aesthetics that make a great game, only what you do with them. Honestly, the visual capabilities of a powerful, modern PC seem like overkill. Nothing really NEEDS to look THAT amazing. Ultimately, it's the gameplay and the story that make a game stand out, no matter how pretty it is.

[pakopako]

PCs are where all the major development is. It's easy and approachable for anyone to get in, start programming, and churn something out. It's much harder to do on a console due to the closed nature of that environment and often high cost of entry.

This.

Also, PC games are among the first to be skinned, flayed, and modded to hell and back.

[Erik_Twice]

I have never seen anyone refering to the superior graphical capabilities of PCs as main selling points, specially since the games are ported from consoles and thus waste the powerful hardware we have today.


It also makes sense to complain about the terrible limitations imposed on PCs by consoles, Crysis 2 must have a field of vision of less than ten degrees and many ports are so lazy that they don't even remove the picture of the xbox controller from it.

[isiolia]

I really don't know why some PC gamers care so much about graphics. Graphics on current consoles are MORE than impressive enough. Even if PCs can push visuals further, there comes a point when it just doesn't matter anymore. Ultimately, it's not the aesthetics that make a great game, only what you do with them. Honestly, the visual capabilities of a powerful, modern PC seem like overkill. Nothing really NEEDS to look THAT amazing. Ultimately, it's the gameplay and the story that make a game stand out, no matter how pretty it is.

What I have seen, paying attention to PC gaming for the last 20 years or so, is not that it's caring only about graphics.

PC hardware enthusiasts are often the ones who are more focused on that, but even then then it's missing the point somewhat.

To draw a parallel, picture an automotive enthusiast reading about high performance cars, spending their time and money tweaking and upgrading their own car...they'd probably want a road, track, somewhere that they could really push their car and see what it could do.

That's what the occasional title that demonstrates the state of the art does. It's exciting to see what the hardware can really do, and in turn what game creators can do with it.

'course, another way to look at it might be that there's a push to focus on that because it sells hardware. Same as sound cards, CD storage, and so on did in the early 90s.
A game that raises the bar for writing, for example, probably won't prompt hardware upgrades.

[fvgazi]

I've always loved PC gaming for all the reasons mentioned above. The amount of freedom over consoles has always been a main attraction to me, but the hardware stuff is exciting to some extent.

For me, hardware has always been separate from gaming. I enjoy the new technology and the boundaries it pushes. Improving game performance is a side effect. There are a ton of PC enthusiasts who think otherwise, though.

Not to say I don't like consoles (I have quite a bit of em'!), but I just grew up on PC gaming. My family was always using computers and to purchase an expensive console to do the same thing was hard to justify. In the late 80's/early 90's it was viable and a lot of the great games came out on PC never came out on consoles, or had poor conversions. Nowadays the industry is just different.