Yeah yeah not an original idea for a thread but still, as after watching that video, I still got the revelation that it still seems to be "odd" to be a PC gamer.

I guess by now everyone already knows Superman is a gamer, but just to remind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4K6nRpkLFw

I loved it when he told the interviewer he finished The Witcher 3 twice:
Reviewer: "PS4 or Xbox?"
Superman: "PC!" (with an "Uh oh..." face)
Reviewer: "Oh wow... Was that because as a child your evil stepfather forced you to use a PC or etc. etc.?"

I mean, come on! Is it really so unthinkable that someone would play games on PC? And one has to explain why they would choose to play on PCs instead of consoles?

I guess the world would have exploded if he had said he played the GOG version of The Witcher 3, not the Steam version (then again that is quite possible as the retail versions had a GOG/Galaxy code in them; Henry? Are you reading this?).

Partly this seems to have been also on common media when the news about Cyberpunk 2077's problems have been reported there. Those news always seem to talk about only the console versions of the game (and the problems they have), it gives me an impression the game exists only on consoles. Maybe in some sentence the PC version might be mentioned as well. Yet, if the reports are of any indication, most of the preorders and sales have been for the PC version, not the console versions?

=========

Anyway, this does remind me that one of my colleagues always says, when he hears about me thinking of buying a new gaming PC or laptop: "Why don't you just buy a PS4 and be done with it?". Obviously he is not a golfer, but apparently his teenage son plays (console) games, so that's how much he knows about gaming.

I know many will mention that they play both on consoles and PCs. I used to too, but mainly when PC and console games were much more different, in the PSX and PS2 times. Nowadays you mostly end up playing the same or similar games on both PCs and consoles, so I personally see less reason to own both a gaming PC and consoles.

PC gaming is unknown to a lot of people for 2 reasons:
-for them, PC is made for working
-they only know console (and maybe mobile) games because it's what's advertised everywhere, commercials for PC games are much more uncommon than console games commercials.

As for the part about console games not being very different from PC games, I do agree for the most part however there's still Nintendo that makes games very different from PC games while Sony makes basically the same type of games and Microsoft doens't even make them Xbox exclusive anymore.

That's a very good point, and now I see I fell in a similar trap myself, equating console gaming as Sony/MS (just like that interviewer did). What if Henry had said he played The Witcher 3 on Nintendo? :)

Nintendo seems to quite much concentrate on its niche of family and party games, at least in its advertising. I used to have a friend who felt Nintendo gaming is the best, I recall how he said Gamecube has wonderful games etc. He was also showing me some simple iPad games, as if they are the hottest shit around.

I guess Nintendo does still offer that "these are different from PC games (was well as PS/XBox games)" feeling, but they just don't generally seem to be the kind of games I want to play. Plus, I am just generally steering away from gaming consoles as they feel like golden cages where you are not in control, like in PC gaming.

The next time they bring it up, you should point out that x86 consoles are PC's. Take 2x AMD Jaguar 5150 CPU's and super-glue them together over a high latency bus, then throw in a 7790-7870 range GPU with 8GB RAM into a custom ITX case with a Blu-Ray drive. What have you got? If you installed cut-down Windows it's an "XBox One". If you installed FreeBSD 9, it's a "PS4"...

Gaming consoles are odd to me. I've been playing on PC way before any xboxs or playstations even existed so PC gaming is the NORM for me, not an oddity. Still have fond memories of playing Doom from a floppy on a 800x600 monitor attached to Intel 286 based PC lol

Well atm

there are 1 million players around the world playing the top 5 of the steam charts

Counter Strike
Dota 2
Pubg
Cyberpunk 2077 ( yes on place 4 so please cut the dramatics )
GTA V

source : https://steamcharts.com/

I'm sure there maybe around 10 million players going at it with a console ( though probably not in Cyberpunk :p )

Now that you mention it and out of interest I watched some The Witcher 3 Nintendo Switch reviews... I could see it as a possibility that I'd buy a console like Nintendo Switch, mainly so that I could get my kids away from my PCs. :) (nowadays they occupy TWO PCs when they want to play some Team Fortress 2, and I have to use some of my crappier PCs in the meantime that don't have enough power to run even TF2; I play some older games then like Age of Empires 2 right now).

Sometimes I can get them away from the PCs if they go watch some youtube videos on a tablet, but they rarely play anything on the tablet unfortunately. They like Team Fortress 2 on PC so much better.

And who knows, maybe I would end up playing some Nintendo games myself.

Aaah you remind me of the years I spent playing TF2 on a crappy laptop that could barely run it, the not so good ol' days

Exactly what I wanted to say as well.

I got a PS4 last year because people close to me want to play some exclusives (e.g. Last Of Us). I can't say that I regret buying it, we still have lots of fun with it. As a bonus, I got myself the physical multiverse edition of Axiom Verge to play (pssst GOG are you listening?).

Would I buy a console otherwise? No way. Especially at this time, when developers are so lazy to release a complete game and always rely on updates via internet. This kinda beats the purpose of owning a physical edition of a game which wil almost certainly be buggy without an internet connection for updates.

From my experience, though, I have reached to the conclusion that people who equate gaming with consoles today are in 4 categories:

-People who have never used a PC
-People who have never used a PC for anything other than spreadsheets and documents
-People who think installing and running games on a PC is tedious (as opposed to inserting the disc in a console and magically start playing after a while)
-Non-gamers, as in people who play the occasional FIFA or NBA with others but don't see games as a hobby I don't know how old your children are, but I'm certain that the moment you buy a Switch for yourself it will become their favorite toy!

Well actually when my gaming-capable PCs are taken (by my kids), I can play only on PCs that can barely or not at all run even TF2. I tried it on the backup laptop that I usually use then, and it runs very poorly on it even on low settings. I think it is mainly because that laptop has only 3GB of RAM, running TF2 on Linux Mint 20 on it.

So instead if I play on that laptop, I play very old games, like currently replaying Age of Empires 2 on it. My King Kong: The Movie retail game seems to run fine on that laptop though (its Windows XP partition; that game doesn't run on Windows 7 or later due to the copy protection), I must remember to play it at some point.

Anyway, now I am thinking that many PC gamers might buy consoles due to their kids? That would probably make sense in my case. 4 and 6 years old.

They play Team Fortress 2 more like it was Minecraft. They usually don't go play online because they get constantly killed there, so instead they e.g. run their own servers or play offline, just running around alone in empty maps, or maybe "playing" against a couple of bots in easy mode.

Damn, it is Xmas so now I am seriously considering checking the Switch prices... It would be perfect timing so that my wife doesn't question why I bought a gaming console. Duh, for the kids for Christmas!

EDIT: It is little over 300€ here at the moment, it seems. I wouldn't be surprised I buy one today at the supermarket, IF they are still available... But then I'd need to buy some game for it too, I don't think that base model comes with any games? Free ones?

So I guess this is how it goes. I start a thread about why I am a PC gamer, and by the end of the thread possibly end up buying a Nintendo console. I didn't foresee this when starting the thread...

I don't know about you but I have fond memories of running games on crappy hardware.

I was young and didn't care about the cutting edge graphics, it was too expensive for me anyway, but even though I played games in the worst possible conditions, I was so happy that I could play them on my good old family computer.

For me this was part of being a PC Gamer lol

well if you are part of the master race then you are a pc gamer
yep yep spend your money on the "kids" nothing better to help out the economy :P
dont forget to buy some adult games for it

I thought that the switch had absolutely terrible frame rates on PC ports? Or have they fixed that?

I think I did the same, I was looking at the CPU clock speed and RAM because that was the easiest part to figure out.

When I built my very first PC from scratch in early 2013, I didn't have enough money for every part, even though I was aiming for a low-end system. I end up buying a Radeon HD 5450, a low consumption GPU only suitable for multimedia system, it was the worst choice one could make but it was $ 25/30 USD which made it the only affordable choice at the time. I've played games in 800*600 like I was stuck in the 90s until I got my first paycheck 9 months later xD