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Reasons to start PC Gaming (From Reddit May 2023)

I have been playing PC games for more than thirty years and it is still my favourite hobby. Over that time I have regularly come across questions on forums asking why should someone game on PC rather than console. I have occasionally offered my own opinion on the matter as I did in the reddit comment below. Surprisingly my answer to the question hasn't changed much over they years. If I can find an older answer I gave to a similar question I might post that as well for comparison. 


Top reasons to start PC gaming:

  1. It is at least two hobbies in one. Tinkering with HW and Software and trying to get the most of out of limited HW is a whole game in itself. If you are nerdy enough you may enjooy it more than actually playing games.

  2. PC games are cheaper. AAA gams may start out the same price but prices fall quicker on PC and PC has an enormous back catalogue of free games. You can pick up classics for a few $. PC gamers can quickly amass a library of hundreds of games.

  3. Did I mention the enormous back catalogue of historic games. If you are interested in the history of gaming then PC is by far your best choice.

  4. Certain types of game are only available on PC or are just better on PC. Grand strategy and Simulation are obvious examples but the indie scene is also strong on PC.

Reasons not to get into PC gaming:

  1. PC Gaming hardware is expensive. A graphics card alone will cost you more than an entire console.

  2. If you are not a nerd and don't want to tinker with hardware and software you will probably have a bad time. You can buy decent pre-built machines but PC gaming is not always plug and play. You will hit eventually unexplained incompatibilities and crashes and unless you are least willing to google some answers you will be stuck.

  3. AAA games are often better supported on consoles. There is a long history of flaky PC ports. Sometimes they get fixed. Sometimes not.

  4. Many of the gaps between PC and consoles have shrunk in recent years bit in terms of performance and in terms or availability of games. The PS5 and XBox X are as powerful as a mid-range gaming PC. They both support legacy games after a fashion. They both have plenty of indie titles. There are ways to play older games more cheaply.

  5. If you already have a kickass TV and sound system set up you might want to game on it rather than spending extra cash on a PC monitor and speakers / headphones. Don't be fooled however. PC gaming monitors can be much higher quality than an average TV and even though the PC screen seems smaller you are sitting much closer to it so you actually see more. To put this in perspective console games usually have only a 60 degree field of view while PC games use 90 deg or more (except for lazy PC ports that are are stuck with 60 deg field of view which is a recipe for motion sickness). Also a decent set of headphones plugged into your PC will beat the best TV sound system you can buy.


From my reply to a reddit post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/13khx9v/is_switching_to_pc_gaming_worth_it_nowadays/jkm10ui/
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