as said many times before in this thread, I am annoyed that, as a PC gamer, I am subject to upgrade my PC if I want to play the big titles like Fallout 3. This last upgrade hurt because I had to go SATA and PCIe and ended up building a new system just so I could play The Witcher.
On the side of the road, I found a perfectly good Dell Dimension XPS T700r that had been tricked out as a gaming machine. I slapped in a GeForce FX5200, loaded Windows 98, and from here on out I'll be spending the next 5 or so years catching up on all the games I've missed.
Businesses like GOG are going to get my money for quite some time, and this is 100% a reaction to the hardware vs software issue.

Agreed, but with the emphasis on beating the consoles the PC spec will always drive upwards leaving those who cannot afford to keep up unable to play some of the newer games. Some people have bought strategically; buying best bang per buck and as long as you don't want all the bells and whistles turned on you can get a good gaming experience although I fail to see where a massive increase in Wii and DS sales prove that gaming experience is what drives their sales, have you seen the crap churned out for the DS?
I am in an enviable position where I can buy my PC stuff at cost and can keep up as and where I see fit with upgrades but with every game out that pushes the specs required what they don't tell you is that the older machines can probably run it fine but the gaming press and some forums would have you believe otherwise.
It depends on what you want at the end of the day. Expensive console games where it's plug and play with the same specs and there being no difference to the visual experience or a variable experience that uses different control methods and many different effects that can be upgraded as and when and it can do other stuff and act as your multimedia hub.

At the moment, an overflow of crappy Wii games my siblings are all begging for. I keep trying to steer them towards good games but they keep picking up crap like Decca Sports...Blerg.

Sure PC enables us to keep up with the new game titles with moderate amount of effort. But I really hate it that I have to upgrade and upgrade. Also sometimes games that should run with minimum settings doesn't run well at all.
Ok, it would help a lot if I bought a new graphics card and more memory, but I hate I have to upgrade.
Also usually the newest games use the newest upgrades, and newest stuff cost most. And I don't like that when they release a game I want, I have to go shopping for new hardware too.
Maybe there is no solution to that because business has to go on. One more thing is that I have so much to choose from. There are many graphics card vendors, many types of the cards and so on forever. Should I buy this or that? It takes my time to think up things and settings. I don't have much patience either.
What limits my choices is how much money I have. That way I always feel like I am not getting the best, because I never buy the most expensive things of course, it would be mindless to buy the most expensive hardware of all kinds. In the end I might think that "argh, keep the stuff, I go play Wow".
Yep, it is the same with Wii, XBox, and PS3. There are so called "hard core gamers" who bought PS3, which is the most expensive one. Middle class buys mostly XBox or Wii. The people who want to save money might go for Wii or then XBox, but not PS3. So what do we see here? Wii sells the most, then XBox, and PS3 is in trouble.
What about games? Wow rules, then comes the others.
What about operating systems? Windows rules... Yes I know, the cheaper shouldn't mean the worse either. You can have quality games with standard non hardcore hardware. Then came Vista and what happened? People lolled and stayed with XP. One more example would be Google. Simple but works -> popular, because people can actually use it.

1) DRM
2) Activation Limits
3) Second-Tier DRM (IE: Steam + SecuROM V7)
4) Forced Matchmaking Systems on PC Titles (Left 4 Dead)
5) World War II Games
6) "People complaining about DRM are Pirates" (EA CEO John Riccitiello)
7) Madden Series

Another annoying thing is the hangers-on media that attaches itself to the industry (self-righteous blogs and their "we aren't ever wrong" editors.).

What grinds my gears is how those damn PR people edit the way a review sounds, so they cut out a few words here and few words there, and all of a sudden, it's an entirely different review.
Then there's the thing where devs just port over the PS2 version of a game to the PC, which is notoriously done by EA Sports. I bought NHL 08 for PC last year, and I couldn't believe how unplayable it was. The graphics was poop in every way. Many gaming PCs are way moer powerful that any console in the world (PS3 has 256 MB RAM? Lame.), so why aer we being ripped off with cheap, crappy quality versions of games? The gaming industry can do better. Remember when games were PC exclusives, when they didn't suck?

A couple of things for me:
1. The fact that I'll soonish be in the 30+ category but most things seem to be made for teens/early twenties or younger.
2. The narrow focus of games and the overuse of themes and settings (space marines, war, zombies etc).
3. The fact that 'mature game' often means 'immature game that indulges in gore and violence for it's own sake and you can sleep with prostitutes'.
4. The fact most games seem to be story-driven these days but there are few storytellers or people with anything worth saying making these games.

As a WW2 History buff and strategy gamer, I'm becoming increasingly annoyed with WW2 strategy games from mainstream publishers. How many firggin' times do we have to re-fight the same battles?! Every single game it's D-Day, Midway, Stalingrad, Battle of the Bulge, Operation Market Garden and Iwo Jima over and over and over again. Mix it up already!

yay a QC reader \o/

What has been bugging me lately is feeling out of touch with the industry: game creators, gaming media, and even the players.
I don't understand why Gears of War is so popular. It's not that I doubt people are having fun with it, or that is somehow a bad game, I just don't see any appeal. I felt the same when WoW first came out...here is this game with steller reviews and a huge fan-base, and it's the same gameplay experience I've always been offered from MMOs. When Halo 2 got perfect scores from experienced reviewers.
Meanwhile, I discover all the games I end up loving on services like this..games that I never saw marketing for, or had mixed reviews, or were cult classics.
I enjoy a wide variety of games, and I understand a good portion of it is a matter of personal taste, but sometimes it feels like a sort of energy builds around a game, and come hell or high water that game it is IT when it releases. Previews outnumber reviews in some gaming publications, and I don't understand that. A sequel is a matter of fact with a moderately successful game. Doesn't anyone want resolution when they finish a game?
The fact is, the industry is appealing to gamers, and it is doing so at least partially successfully. The thing that annoys me I consider myself a hardcore gamer, and the industry is ignoring me; consequentially I inadvertently ignore the truly innovative and engaging games.

OH YEAH! I wish I'd thought to mention that first one. I cannot think of a single escort mission in a game that wasn't rendered horrible and frustrating by AI dumber than a sack of hammers.

"Revolution"? "Finally"? I see things differently. Mainly that this is nothing new. A look back at some previous console generations, and whether the most pretty sold the best:
Late 80s: NES won over SMS despite having inferior graphics. "No".
Early 90s: SNES was pretty advanced for its time and its main competition was the Genesis. I think the PC Engine, released with other names outside Japan, may have been prettier than the SNES. However I just don't know enough about that system to say anything for sure about it, so I won't count it and will go with "Yes".
Late 90s: PS1 won against the N64. "No".
Previous: XBOX was prettier, but as usual gamers bought the system that gave them the gameplay/games they wanted. "No".
Current: Wii, a far inferior system graphically. "No".
Portable: Gameboy dominated systems like the Game Gear and others for ages despite having a screen that looked like it was left in a urinal. "No".
5-to-1 in "No"s favor, and that one "Yes" is the most questionable of the lot.
My point is this is nothing new. Overall, gamers have always had a gameplay-first mentality. Or perhaps hype-first? Either way, gameplay at least beats graphics. The indistry has just been rather slow at catching on to that. That is why the Wii is so popular, at least one company seems to finally be catching on. Not to suggest graphics are pointless. I wouldn't want to sell a game that looked like it was made for the Atari 2600 even if it was pure genious, but I don't think they've *ever* been as important as the industry and media seems to have convinced themselves.
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Wew, back on topic. My main beef right now is evil DRM. I have no problem with them protecting themselves within reason, but installing malware on my computer, especially in secret, or seriously interfearing with my ability to play the game 10 years from now really upsets me. Take for example that annoying copy protection stuff old games had that made you look stuff up in the manual. Sure it was a bit annoying and probably not all that effective, but in the end I really didn't mind it much and could at least see reason in it. Lots of modern DRM is the opposite. It is not so much annoying as insidious.
Another one I have is the intense sense of entitlement by many copywrite holders. No-one has a 'right' to make money just because they made a cute character or such, rather this is a privelige given to serve the public good. And yet many nowdays insist that the world should owe their company/family forever, regardless of the public good or how many years go by. This is especially rediculous when they insist the public should have no rights/protection, that the owner should have all the cards. It is true no-one will die if a classic is lockup up forever or held with an iron fist. It is not like food or water. Yet if this stuff is so frivolous that the end consumer's ability to enjoy it is not worth protecting, then the creation of it certainly isn't either.

I thought we were talking about the PC games market - and you use console arguments.