When was this supposed golden age of PC gaming?

[J T]

I think it's fair to say I am a PC gamer. I love the PC as a platform. I play PC more than any of my consoles and I own more PC games than all my console games combined. I have a subscription to PC Gamer magazine that I read cover to cover each month. But there's something that bothers me about PC gamers. They are always bemoaning how PC games have been dumbed down for consoles and how they don't make PC games like they used to. They claim controls are gimped, graphics are performing way under capacity, and that PC games lack a certain complexity they once supposedly had. And they blame this all on consoles.

I, personally, don't see it. So my question is, when was this magical time period in PC gaming history that games were superior in all regards on PC? As much as I love PC games from the 80s until now, I just don't see what makes people think PC games are all that much different from console games with the exception of simulators, strategy, and RTS games. But when people complain about PC games being "held back" by consoles, they are usually talking about other genres than these. So what is it that I'm missing, or are these PC gamers just imagining a golden era of PC superiority that never existed?

[Hobie-wan]

I'd say the 90s. Resolution and color depth surpassed arcade games. Overall there were more genres being made on PCs at the time too.

[JordanPlayer]

I think that the PC golden age was through the 90s up until the early 2000s (at least from what I was playing). It seems that around 2005 when Xbox 360 came out is when consoles fully took over. The FPS genre had been slowly shifting from PC based to console based thanks to the popularity of Halo... and we all know PC FPS players don't like console.

To give you an example when people claim that games have been dumbed down for consoles; compare the movement abilities of UT 2004 to UT 3. UT 2004 had dodging, wall jumps, dodgejumps, etc; obviously if you are playing on a console this is going to be nearly impossible to replicate and was scrapped when UT 3 went multiplatform... complex gametypes such as Bombing Run and Assault were removed with vehicular combat being more of a focus (controllers usually have superior driving ability). This is just one example, there are many other examples like this floating around; the main reason for this is to make games more accessible to a mainstream audience.

The last big stalwart for PC gaming that I can think of was Crysis. It had really cutting edge graphics which consoles (and most PCs lol) couldn't handle at the time and was PC exclusive. There is no doubt in my mind at this time that consoles are graphically holding back video games and PC users are getting the short stick. I know the XBox 360 can't run Direct X 10 games, much less Direct X 11. I don't believe PS3 can either, it uses a different system. Neither of these consoles can run games that support these advanced systems, PC can but due to piracy concerns and a focus on consoles graphics aren't advancing. Crysis 2 was supposed to ship with Direct X 11 on PC; however in order to get the game out ASAP Direct X 11 support/functionality was not included and will be added through a patch at a later, undetermined time.

At the very least graphics are being held back, in other games things have been changed a bit to accomodate controllers (that have less buttons than keyboard/mouse) and ease of access for more mainstream players. The difficulty in nearly all video games has also become less as companies try and entice more people in... that's why many retro gamers rejoice when a difficult game is released

[emwearz]

It started with Maniac Mansion and ended with Monkey Island 3, that simple.

[RXRob]

I think it's a psychological thing.

In the console world, every era has a definitive start and end. Nintendo fans, for example, can easily compare the NES era to the SNES era to the N64 era. There's no ambiguity whatsoever about which era any game or accessory belongs too.

PC gaming has no such distinct lines. Indeed, most PC gamers well upgrade their system at least 4 or 5 times before shelling out for a new one. It may not be intentional, but without the physical memory of buying a new system, the lines between DOS era Vs Win95 era Vs Win98 era get blurred.

My conclusion is that if console players didn't have to purchase a new system every time a new era began, then they'd mentally combine NES/SNES/N64 eras into one, which (IMO) would be no match for PC gaming. Also, tricks such as overclocking or backwards compatibility blur these lines even further for PC gamers.

[ZeroAX]

90s and early 2000s. Because:

1) Technology was evolving much faster than today. Not only graphically, but sound wise, AI wise, gameplay wise (more units supported), online play, persistent worlds ect. Since 2005 the AAA games that have come out....are kind of stale.

2) Much cheaper development costs, meant more unique games. You'd find that PC gamers had very different childhood memories, from console players. Console gamers would all play the same killer up (super mario bros, sonic, streets of rage, final fantasy, metal gear solid, zelda, ect), while most pc gamers, would find this one strange game, no one else played as a kid, which they would have loved.

Mind you, I believe thanks to it being the most open platform out there, and the rise of indie gaming, that number 2 will become true again, and the reason PC gaming will thrive in the next 5 years.

[dsheinem]

But there's something that bothers me about PC gamers. They are always bemoaning how PC games have been dumbed down for consoles and how they don't make PC games like they used to. They claim controls are gimped, graphics are performing way under capacity, and that PC games lack a certain complexity they once supposedly had. And they blame this all on consoles.

Why do I think you're talking about me? I assume you've seen the discussion between Mr. Healthy and I in the games beaten 2011 thread?

I agree with most of the above posters about the late 80s until probably 2001 or so being the "golden age" of PC gaming, for most of the reasons listed.

Another important consideration, however, is that there was a large number of AAA developers who clearly thought about the PC as the lead platform and consoles as secondary machines for porting. That is increasingly less the case, with companies like Valve, LucasArts, Epic, and iD now focusing on consoles first and foremost. It has made them more money, so I can't blame them, but something like Quake II or Half-Life or Unreal Tournament came to consoles well after the PC version and always in gimped form.

So it was a "golden age" in large part because PC gamers got a lot of big budget exclusives and/or cross-platform titles that were developed and released for PC well ahead of their console counterparts. That incentivized people to upgrade their tech regularly, and there was an "understanding" of sorts that if the developers pushed the tech the PC gamers would reciprocate with hardware upgrades. The fact that my current PC will run Crysis or Portal almost equally as well as it runs Crysis 2 or Portal 2 with the same hardware would have been insane a decade ago...Quake III basically required an upgrade from a computer designed to run Quake II, for example.

[Hatta]

It started with Maniac Mansion and ended with Monkey Island 3, that simple.

1987 through 1998. Good call.

[dsheinem]

It started with Maniac Mansion and ended with Monkey Island 3, that simple.

1987 through 1998. Good call.

Yeah, I would extend it just a little past that - up until the release of the Original Xbox probably. 2001 saw stuff like Serious Sam, Tribes 2, Black and White, AVP2, Civ 3, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein. After that, the PC hit a general dry spot of only 1-2 solid platform exclusives until maybe 2004 (Half Life 2, Doom 3, Far Cry, Dawn of War, Wow, etc.). After that, it has been slim pickings...

[Ivo]

I think that (if it existed, and I would say it did) it started around the 486 to Pentium processors with VGA or Super VGA graphics.

At that stage the processing power and graphics of PCs were technically superior to consoles (particularly in terms of definition). There was also the issue of mouse and keyboard whereas consoles had gamepads with a smaller number of buttons and without analog inputs for the most part.

As others mentioned, the PCs evolve more continuously so it is often the case (even now) that the most powerful PCs are quite more powerful than the most powerful consoles. Conversely that can also "backfire" as games on the PC won't even try to use all that power as only some of the user base can benefit from it.

Ivo.