Tag Archives: pc gaming

Rediscovering the passion of video gaming when AAA has lost it’s way.

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Video gaming has lost its way. There was a time not too long ago, when gaming was about the simple things. Getting from point A to point B, solving a puzzle to get to the next level, or winning or losing a match. This was true from the 1970s to the early 2000s. From arcades, to consoles, and PC, games tested dexterity, problem solving skills, and more. Playing video games was a great way to pass the time, or compete with your friends for fun. Back in 2019 I felt a disturbance in the force, but I could not put my finger on it. Unfortunately now I have a better picture of what’s going on.

Classic gaming

Over the years gaming has gained more popularity than the movie and music industry combined. Unfortunately this grabbed the attention of soulless corporations. Game design went from a handful of passionate guys who focused on making the next great thing, to bloated corporate development teams whose focus is to please investors and not the consumer. Large financial institutions are pushing their progressive social agenda in exchange for funding. New developers have replaced the legendary ones who had a passion for making games. Activists and narrative consultants are the new creatives, all pushing “their message” into games. I’ll get more into that in another post, but the rot in the industry runs deep and the only way out of this mess is for a total collapse of the modern AAA gaming industry.

Bad games

It’s no secret modern games are failing, people do not want this garbage. Changing a game’s essence and expecting people to blindly consume it, just doesn’t fly anymore. People recognize that the current trend of gaming narratives and representation feels forced. It stems not from genuine passion, but from imposed ideologies. Games are no longer about getting from point A to point B, they are now about social narratives and checking boxes. Corporations obsessed with the new modern audience, turn their backs on the existing one. But in their effort to court this new audience they have alienated everyone..

What we’re up against

Progressive consultant grifters such as Sweet Baby Inc have convinced corporations there is this whole other audience of consumers out there. They convinced them this customer base exists, and that they are missing out on that untapped revenue. This aligns with the agendas laid out by banking investors like Black Rock. But this new modern audience has not shown up yet. AAA releases are losing massive amounts of money. Tens of thousands of developers have been losing their jobs. Several major releases flopped this year and that trend doesn’t look like it’s going to end, unless there is a huge shake up. I fear these companies are too far gone to be helped.

Good games

How can we make it better

But it’s not all gloom and doom. There are a lot of great games in this sea of soulless corporate cash grabs. Around 10,000 to 12,000 video games are published every year, offering plenty of mainstream choices. The same way the indie scene has saved movies and music, it is also saving gaming. A lot of gamers have extensive backlogs of games they can use to ride out this mess. There are also game developers who haven’t sold there soul and have made hits like Space Marines 2, Black Myth Wukong, and The First Descendant. These titles have been delivering the experiences gamers want, and coincidentally are selling very well.

I on the other hand have been exploring some real obscure indie games. They may be rough around the edges but they make up for it in other ways with heart, passion, and originality, but most of all fun. So I’m going back to 1984 with some Retrowave Racing.

Retro wave racing

Gaming should spark your imagination and be the escape it was meant to be. Video games should be timeless and fun, not a representation of current year politics or propaganda. And don’t let this trend of corpo-gaming get you down, gaming will find it’s way back to its roots. There are plenty of fun and exciting alternatives out there. Explore indie developers on twitter. See what they are creating and get excited again. Until next time, keep having fun and reject corpo-gaming!

PC Gaming is DEAD, Long Live PC Gaming!

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It’s been a fun week for me regarding PC Gaming. First was a text from my daughters friend. She helped my daughter a lot in school and would come over the house a lot to play Overwatch together. She would play on my back up PC. The one in my previous post where I took some unemployed components and put them together and gave them a second life. The kid had it tough regarding having nice things. So I gave the PC to her and she very appreciative. It’s nice to give happiness to someone who deserves it. When I got the text it made me smile. Not only was she still using it, she upgraded it herself! New motherboard, ram, processor, cooler, and graphics card! I’m really proud of her.

The second was upgrading my friend’s son’s computer with components he got for Christmas. We tried to upgrade it on Christmas Eve but we ran into a snag with a bad motherboard. I felt so bad bad this kid was not going to have a working PC for Christmas day. To make matters worse I was going to be out of state for the next week and wouldn’t be able to get to it until I got back.

So when I returned I went to helping them right away. With the new motherboard it was a breeze. Everything went together without a hitch. Hit the power button loaded the drivers and we were ready to go. They came over to pick up the unit and I showed them what to do when it came to driver updates and care for the machine. His son was so happy he gave me a huge hug. The next day when I saw my friend at work he said his son loved it and was playing games all night.

Building PCs is fun and rewarding. Not only for yourself but when you do it for others as well. Sometimes the PC hobby feels like this solitary thing. Like you are the only one into it irl. Sure I’m involved with many groups online and have many friends there. But as much as I like to play the character of the basement dwelling tech recluse, it is fun to interact irl with people who are into the hobby. Knowing I made some ones day a little bit brighter is a reward in itself.

Laptop Upgrades

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I recently went on vacation and had the opportunity to bring my gaming laptop. I got his as a present from my wife for my 50th birthday during the height of the pandemic. I don’t use it much but this was an opportunity that forced me into a situation where I had to if I wanted to game. I thought about getting a Steam Deck but I’m still on the fence about getting one. But being I already had the Laptop I decided to stick with it. It is a MSI GE75 Raider, one of those you always see pallets of at Costco. Nothing Ground breaking but very capable with some obvious caveats. The 16 gigs of ram and mechanical hard disk would prove to be the things that were frustrating. Playing Cyberpunk 77 at medium settings gave me a solid 70fps and it actually looked really good. Games like Forza looked great on high with about the same FPS. But loading times for games were horrendous. Click the icon, walk away boil some water, and make some coffee kind of bad. Now that I look back I think this was a reason I didn’t use this machine as much as I should have. I was use to such a snappy response on my desktop it was more of a pleasure to use.

So I bit the bullet and ordered 32 gigs of ram, a 2 terabyte NVME, and a one gig SATA SSD. The brands I picked were for nothing else other than the convenience of getting the same day delivery off of Amazon. But TEAMGROUP, Crucial, and PNY are solid brands so I had confidence in ordering them.

Out with the old and in with the new.

I usually hate working on laptops, but taking the back cover off the MSI was quick and easy. For the most part it used the same screws all around with the exception of 2 of them, and the back cover easily snapped off. I knew there was an empty NVME slot and planned to one day to fill it. But being that I was going to take it apart I figured I might as well upgrade everything while I was there. Replacing all the old components with the new ones turned out to be a breeze. I then put everything back together, turned on the machine, and formatted the new drives.

Now I don’t do any science based testing. My perceived experience is worth more than numbers on a spread sheet. I want to click on an icon and have the program open instantaneously. I didn’t have that feeling before the upgrades, now I do. It doesn’t even feel like the same machine, it feels like something new. Programs load fast and stutter in games is gone. It really is a pleasure to use now.

I wish this is something I could have done sooner but to be honest would have been out of my price range at the time. The total cost of the upgrades was just over $200.00 Three years ago a 2 Terabyte NVME would have been well over $300.00 on it’s own. The initial cost of the laptop was $1,500.00, as it is now would been over $2,200.00 with the upgrades. Like I mentioned before not only do I like gaming but building and upgrading computers is also part of the fun. This turned out to be a project in which not only was it fun, it also brought a capable machine into a great gaming machine.

With a little inspiration, I updated my gaming setup.

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For me, the one thing which makes PC gaming so fun there is always something new. New tech, games, and peripherals are always exciting. When I first got a PC back in 1992, I didn’t know what to expect. I wanted to play games but I also wanted productivity like making art. And once I connected to the internet, it seemed like I entered a world that was a living and breathing entity. It was an exciting time.

The inspiration.

In Cyberpunk 2077, V’s Northside apartment inspired me to change things up. For the longest time I rocked the color red, now I embraced the full RGB spectrum of color. I’ve been going through this eighties renaissance, such as synthwave music and art. We had some really rad arcades back in the day and I wanted to capture that feeling. This arcade called Spaceplex was peak eighties performance. There was nothing else like it. To get in you to walk through a neon lit tunnel. It felt like getting transported to this futuristic place, an ultimate escape. Lights and sounds caused a sensory overload. No matter which direction you turned or looked you could not get away from the fun and excitement.

It’s nice to have a place where I can unplug from the world and relax. I love basking in the neon glow of a reality I created and surrounded by things I like. I don’t think of myself as a gamer. I’m just a guy who likes to play games. But I do embrace the idea of game or computer culture. Such as Playing games online, streaming games and watching streams for instance. Sharing memes and trolling relatives on social media is also a lot of fun.

Final words.

Pc gaming in my opinion allows creative individuality while uniting like minded people. In a time where it seems like division is stronger than ever, gaming and computer culture unites us. Stay true to yourself and have fun. Trolling is ok too, such as in the case of fake gamer site Kotaku, but try to be excellent to each other.