A rant on PC fanboyism

[Chibz]

I'd like to take this moment to point out that the number of buttons available doesn't necessarily change the complexity of a game's game play. And... as a (former) PC gamer it's just PC supremacists belly aching that they don't like a sequel/etc...

 

[zehydra]

"console gamers were constantly blaming PC gamers for more complicated games or the PCification of console games "

This doesn't happen. It doesn't make sense for it to happen.

I don't blame Console gamers for the dumbing down of PC games. I blame the developer.

HOWEVER.

It is, after all, the Console gamers who are funding it, and Devs will do whatever gets them funding. If half of all the console gamers switched over to PC gaming, the so-called "dumbing down" of PC games would not be taking place.

To tell the truth though, this is not a recent development. It has been happening for a looong time. The PC game market always appears to be dying, and people are looking for a scapegoat.

I just think "console gamers" is a little bit too broad of a term, as there are millions. Maybe if you were to blame "frat boy gamers" or "dumb gamers" or even "Instant gratification gamers", the argument would make more sense, because the target is more narrow. I, for one, have never bought a call of duty game and never will. But I still feel like someone is pointing a finger at me. See where i'm coming from?

pointing the finger at "frat boy gamers" or "dumb gamers" would make even less sense. Saying frat boy gamers or dumb gamers are senseless generalizations. I'm talking about Console Gamers because Console Gamers are the only ones who pay Devs money for Console games. It's obviously not the gamers' fault for what a Dev chooses to do, but don't be surprised when you find angry PC fanboys feeling the effects from what was essentially, a console-gamer funded thing.

But still, it really isn't an issue. I mean, I'd be annoyed if PC gaming ended up like Sega Dreamcast gaming (it isn't, and it won't).

I think those who are genuinely angry at Console gamers for this sort of thing need to get different games.

ATTENTION ALL FELLOW PC GAMERS: If you do not like the dumbing down of PC games, do not play the ones the get dumbed down.

 

[suitepee7]

You would undoubtedly hate it if console gamers were constantly blaming PC gamers for more complicated games or the PCification of console games.

As if they don't already do that. I don't know about these forums, but generally PC gamers are usually the victims, not the other way around.

And what is this "PCification" thing you speak of? I have never heard of such thing. Can you name a recent game that has been PCificated, please?

yeah, i have never seen this. also, the reason a lot of the elitism is held, is because PC gamers are declining in numbers. not hugely, but enough to effect developers choices when making games. see, it's not so much that there is hate for console gamers, there is hate for lazy ass developers who don't bother to make a proper PC version of the game, they literally just port it onto the PC with a lack of customisable controls, or enough settings that PC gamers like to use to get a decent experience out of the game.

also, this thread is made every week. right now i'm more pissed off with the fact that it is made every week.

HYPOTHETICAL. SITUATION. Please read more than 5 posts before you comment. This was nothing more than a hypothetical situation. And wouldn't you hate it if we did that?

i did. see there is this mystical thing called time, and its always moving forwards. and strangely, it takes time to do things, like write stuff. and in that time, other stuff can happen. like you could post something too, but i won't see it till afterwards. see, i can be a douche too.

and no, i wouldn't hate that, because good games were still being made for my preferred choice of platform. if there are pc elitists, and you don't have to be around them/talk to them, then why care? leave them be, and if they say something on a thread, keep your hypothetical mouth shut

 

[Racecarlock]

/sigh. This. Again. Really, Racecarlock, this isn't helping anyway. Just makes both sides look bad.

Can't I just game in peace?

Yeah. You can. By ignoring the elitist assholes. It's not like this is even exclusive to PC vs. Console. I worked at an electronics store, and I saw in-fighting of sorts between even the console gamers trying to one-up each other over which console is actually better.

Or, alternately, if ignoring it is too difficult, you could try getting a thicker skin and realizing that video games, contrary to what you may believe, aren't serious business (with regard to the gamers, anyway).

Frankly, everyone just needs to grow the hell up, stop waving around their e-peens and/or crying about people waving around their e-peens, and enjoy the freakin' games. That's kinda the whole point of games as an entertainment media. Sooner we as a community of gamers, because regardless of your platform preference, we are all still gamers, the better off we'll all be.

And for the record, I've been both a PC and console gamer, simultaneously, going on twenty years now.

*sigh*. Yep, you're right. The problem is that i've tried to ignore it, but it's been popping up everywhere. I know this is yet another topic on it, but I am merely trying to combat fanboyism in the form it has taken on this site. Nobody misunderstand me here, I hate console fanboys too. I just don't see them on here as often as I do the PC fanboy. PC gamers and gamers in general that are like you, I respect. In fact I respect everyone that has commented so far. You people rule. The only thing that I don't quite like is that you seem to have skipped the disclaimer that says "Not all PC gamers do this, and I respect the ones that don't". If anyone of the responders so far had bothered to read that, they'd realize I was only talking about the PC gamers who actually do do that elitist crap.

 

[Booze Zombie]

I do. Every day. The unfortunate truth is that i'll never stop all fanboyism. But by god, I can stop it from happening on specific forums and by god I will.

As someone taking psychology, I can explain to you how I understand social change (and in relation, changes in groups, such as forum groups) to take place:

A minority gives it's viewpoint to a majority, a majority will not change straight away but instead consider the points raised, eventually taking on a snowball effect that causes a massive change. But there are some important factors!

1. The minority must be consistent, which is to say if you're preaching something you can't just change it to something else as people will view this as you yourself not believing it what you preach and not take your beliefs on board.
2. The minority must be organised, a few loud people get little done on their own and if the people seen as leading the whole thing argue with each other, then you can forget about it.
3. Being relatable is important, if a person can relate to people in a minority group then they can relate to the minority group its self.

So, if you wish to enact real change, you need to make people feel there is a problem and you need an organised group of people saying this in a calm, coherent manner, as a unified whole.
But personally, I don't believe there to be an issue. There's groups of very loud, ununified people moaning about things in a nonsensical manner... it doesn't feel like a real issue.

 

[Shinigami Fire]

Good game, no. Terrible game, Brutal Legend. Halo Wars. RTS on console doesn't work. Period.

 

[Smooth Operator]

*queue apocalyptic rage*

The problem I have is not with console gamers, but with console developers, that problem only extends when console gamers come to the rescue calling dumb and crippled games the pinnacle of innovation.

 

[Merkavar]

i dont hate consoles but i do think pcs are better in every way. more options. more flexibility. can use a console controller to play alot of games. keyboard and mouse is just tops.

the main selling points of a console too me were you didnt have to install games and didnt have to upgrade parts. well now most ps3 games i play need to be installed. and i know enough about pcs that upgrading parts isnt a major issue.

i cant think of any advantage a console has over a pc.

 

[Racecarlock]

You would undoubtedly hate it if console gamers were constantly blaming PC gamers for more complicated games or the PCification of console games.

As if they don't already do that. I don't know about these forums, but generally PC gamers are usually the victims, not the other way around.

And what is this "PCification" thing you speak of? I have never heard of such thing. Can you name a recent game that has been PCificated, please?

yeah, i have never seen this. also, the reason a lot of the elitism is held, is because PC gamers are declining in numbers. not hugely, but enough to effect developers choices when making games. see, it's not so much that there is hate for console gamers, there is hate for lazy ass developers who don't bother to make a proper PC version of the game, they literally just port it onto the PC with a lack of customisable controls, or enough settings that PC gamers like to use to get a decent experience out of the game.

also, this thread is made every week. right now i'm more pissed off with the fact that it is made every week.

HYPOTHETICAL. SITUATION. Please read more than 5 posts before you comment. This was nothing more than a hypothetical situation. And wouldn't you hate it if we did that?

i did. see there is this mystical thing called time, and its always moving forwards. and strangely, it takes time to do things, like write stuff. and in that time, other stuff can happen. like you could post something too, but i won't see it till afterwards. see, i can be a douche too.

and no, i wouldn't hate that, because good games were still being made for my preferred choice of platform. if there are pc elitists, and you don't have to be around them/talk to them, then why care? leave them be, and if they say something on a thread, keep your hypothetical mouth shut

Ok then. But just to be clear, I had posted that hypothetical situation thing long (we're talking a whole minute!) before you started posting in this thread. To each his own though, and again you're another one of those PC gamers I do like.

 

[FirMothoth]

But console players should take note: long time gamers will feel a sense of entitlement and priviledge. We stuck with the hobby, some of us were derided for it. And the next time some testosterone overdosing jock joins my Counter-Strike game straight out of Call of Duty and Halo and calls me a nerd I will be annoyed. Show respect. Of course PC gamers are pissed off. So let them be, and be quiet, whatever you say will be disregarded.

The rest of your post is very well put, but this part seems to have a little too much characterization of console and PC players in it ie; PC players as longtime enthusiasts and console players as repugnant upstarts, and I do not doubt that often when online gaming that is absolutely the case. But those ones which annoy you; the jocks who show no respect, are not here. When you're here you're talking to other enthusiasts who, while may play consoles, have quite possibly been gaming for as long as you have. Indeed many of us are those who have left PC gaming, usually due to price and time-investment if I recall my impression of past posts correctly.

Although one thing that would be nice for console games to have that is (as I see it) a PC trope is customizable controls. But that's neither here nor there.

 

[Racecarlock]

Good game, no. Terrible game, Brutal Legend. Halo Wars. RTS on console doesn't work. Period.

I don't know, I for one have gotten so good at halo wars that I have to play on heroic difficulty in skirmish mode just so I don't get bored.

i dont hate consoles but i do think pcs are better in every way. more options. more flexibility. can use a console controller to play alot of games. keyboard and mouse is just tops.

the main selling points of a console too me were you didnt have to install games and didnt have to upgrade parts. well now most ps3 games i play need to be installed. and i know enough about pcs that upgrading parts isnt a major issue.

i cant think of any advantage a console has over a pc.

And that's fine, just don't go around saying constantly in every thread. If you don't do this, great, sorry I yelled. If you do do this, stop.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

The only thing that I don't quite like is that you seem to have skipped the disclaimer that says "Not all PC gamers do this, and I respect the ones that don't".

Trust me, I didn't skip the disclaimer. I read posts in their entirety before replying. I was merely adding my own two cents, so to speak. Unless by "you", you are actually referring to the lot of us that replied, instead of specifically me, the person quoted.

The problem isn't PC fanboys or console fanboys. The problem is fanboyism in general.

Like it or not, the original post was an example of fanboyism, if only by association. By standing up for console fanboys, you're in essence reinforcing their fanboyism - even if unintentionally. And by doing that, you invite the PC fanboys to start crawling out of the woodwork to gnaw away at your patience and start another big argument about what's better.

Fanboyism, on either side, isn't a good thing. We're all gamers in the end. It shouldn't matter whatsoever what platform we prefer.

When I was working at that electronics store, Modern Warfare 2 had just come out. I bought it for the PC, one of my coworkers bought it for the X-Box, and another coworker bought it for the PS3. The next time all three of us were scheduled to work together, instead of talking about what we liked and didn't like about the game, it devolved into an argument between my two coworkers. "The X-Box version's better because X-Box Live has more players for matchmaking!" "Yeah, well the PS3 version is better because we get our online play for free, and we get better graphics potential!" Meanwhile I'm facepalming, because we're all playing the same goddamn game, but the fanboyism blinded them to that fact.

This is a drastic oversimplification, I know. But fanboyism is like racism. The sooner people stop labeling each other, the sooner the '-ism' can die out.

 

[Pearwood]

Fact: the broadening of the vast majority of game platforms to including both PC and consoles has resulted in an excessive dumbing down of games in various ways. Some of these include: control schemes, difficulty, complexity in all areas, content, graphics, and so on.

The problem with games being dumbed down is with developers not because of consoles. I have no idea why some pc gamers say otherwise but I think we can all agree that those pc gamers are entitled fuckwits. Almost all of Bioware's games made recently have been on consoles and their games have the best writing around. Hard games are going out of fashion because not everyone likes a challenge, or they want to get single player out of the way and play multiplayer.

Graphics... I don't really get that complaint, unless you've spent over a thousand pounds on an absolute top of the range computer it won't be much better than a console and if you did then you knew when you bought it it'd be overkill for any current game. Really the only game I can think of that had to have its graphics toned down is Crysis 2 and those were just fucking absurd.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

i cant think of any advantage a console has over a pc.

Lower entry cost... although it remains to be seen if that can remain the case into the next console generation.

 

[Merkavar]

snip

And that's fine, just don't go around saying constantly in every thread. If you don't do this, great, sorry I yelled. If you do do this, stop.

yeah i dont go around saying it. if someone ask ill tell them what i think. but its a bit silly to get obsessed over which platform you prefer.

i just thought of another advantage for console gaming. mobility. just about everyone has a tv. so say you want to play halo at a friends house you can just grab the console and controllers. moving a pc to a lan party is too much effort especially with giant tower

Spoiler

i cant think of any advantage a console has over a pc.

Lower entry cost... although it remains to be seen if that can remain the case into the next console generation.

i dont see that. for me i can get a pc that runs games on high for like 4-5 years for less than 2000. thats including monitor and keyboards, windows etc. for the same price i would get a ps3 console (when they first came out) and 40-50 inch lcd tv and a 2nd controller. so i dont see much of a price difference. any smaller tv and you might as well be playing on a pc cause you going to have to sit just as close

also in my expirence console games are between 10-30 dolalrs more expensive so the price difference wil lget eaten up by this over time.

 

[Racecarlock]

The only thing that I don't quite like is that you seem to have skipped the disclaimer that says "Not all PC gamers do this, and I respect the ones that don't".

Trust me, I didn't skip the disclaimer. I read posts in their entirety before replying. I was merely adding my own two cents, so to speak. Unless by "you", you are actually referring to the lot of us that replied, instead of specifically me, the person quoted.

The problem isn't PC fanboys or console fanboys. The problem is fanboyism in general.

Like it or not, the original post was an example of fanboyism, if only by association. By standing up for console fanboys, you're in essence reinforcing their fanboyism - even if unintentionally. And by doing that, you invite the PC fanboys to start crawling out of the woodwork to gnaw away at your patience and start another big argument about what's better.

Fanboyism, on either side, isn't a good thing. We're all gamers in the end. It shouldn't matter whatsoever what platform we prefer.

When I was working at that electronics store, Modern Warfare 2 had just come out. I bought it for the PC, one of my coworkers bought it for the X-Box, and another coworker bought it for the PS3. The next time all three of us were scheduled to work together, instead of talking about what we liked and didn't like about the game, it devolved into an argument between my two coworkers. "The X-Box version's better because X-Box Live has more players for matchmaking!" "Yeah, well the PS3 version is better because we get our online play for free, and we get better graphics potential!" Meanwhile I'm facepalming, because we're all playing the same goddamn game, but the fanboyism blinded them to that fact.

This is a drastic oversimplification, I know. But fanboyism is like racism. The sooner people stop labeling each other, the sooner the '-ism' can die out.

I agree. And I probably did reinforce console fanboys, though only by accident. Make no mistake, even though I have a 360 and not a PS3, I hated every one of the fuckwits that responded to the PSN hack news with "Hmm? Hmm? Bet you wish you bought a 360 now, huh dumbass?" or something else along those lines. PS3 gamers did not deserve losing multiplayer services and having their personal details hacked and probably plastered on the web for all to see. It's just that I see alot more PC fanboyism here than in any other forum, and I've seen so much of it now that I snapped. I have tried to ignore it. Oh believe me i've tried. But i've seen so much that I snapped. It's kind of like when yahtzee gives in to reviewing a game when 2 million people recommend it simultaneously.

 

[Waaghpowa]

i cant think of any advantage a console has over a pc.

Lower entry cost... although it remains to be seen if that can remain the case into the next console generation.

The lower entry cost really only applies to now, when the tech is ancient by comparison. Even then it's kinda iffy. (Note: Although the 360 was 450 in the states on release, it was 600 in Canada, just sayin')

The push/demand for higher quality visuals will force the console manufacturers to sell at a loss again. Speaking of which, if the Xbox was sold at a loss 6 years ago, what did it really cost?

 

[DaHero]

I once again drag this post out, because it needs to be said.

Rivarlies, both between companies and their fans, have always been there.

Nintendo and Sega had a friendly competition, mostly in good fun ("Nintendon't" is hilarious) and Nintendo won in the end.

N64 vs PSX was so interesting, it practically spawned two distinct gaming directions. Everybody, especially the gamers, won.

The PS2 won its generation by the sheer number of great games, even if most of them also came out on GCN or the PC or whathaveyou. Sony won so hard, Nintendo made a waggle-platform next, to avoid the tough fight altogether.

Then the XBox came along, and the Console Wars were born. "My cheap assortment of near-identical hardware running 98% of the same games is much better than yours, you dirty fanboy!" Every gamer lost.

The PC was only dragged into this because for the first time since the Commodore64, their plastic boxes full of fans could compare to some of our mid-range machines, so naturally everybody made sure we would lose some, too. Misery loves company?

It's not very admirable of PC Gamers to let themselves be dragged into these ego-measuring contests (especially since it's kindergartners inviting full-grown men...), but there you go.

And all that just because the guys who make the most money in PCs decided to give everyone cheap and easy access to online trash-talking. Good job, Bill Gates.

The problem is that PC gamers love to play a game that feels natural on the PC (using a mouse in inventories, not just scrolling through list) and this simple idea, that takes modders that can only work an hour or so a day months, is overlooked and ignored by AAA developers when it would take them a day or two to impliment.

It's not that hard, it's not even that big a deal to PC elitists when the graphics have to be toned down, it's when something very simple gets overlooked and ignored. Another way to think about it is that developers will change controls between Xbox and PS3 (press A/X to start) but they rarely, if ever, do so for PC gamers (Just Cause 2 said press start to start, the default key mapping was for Xbox 360 controllers on the PC)

9/10 times it's never the fact that a game looks different graphically, it's just that developers don't care. They use a quick-port system and never bother to test it or even use it. They stopped caring because they figured most PC gamers can just mod bugs out and they won't complain.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Hi there. I'm a PC gamer and I don't hate console gamers.

Actually, most of us don't, just so happends that the ones who do are usually pretty loud about it.

Then this rant didn't apply to you. Read the disclaimer.

So you're only ranting against the people who don't consider you anyway?

Isn't that sort of like walking into the centre of Dublin and say "Feck everyone, if they're English"?

You're preaching to the choir, re-underlining their bad behaviour and bringing yourself down by responding to it.

Not only are you feeding the trolls, you're setting a table for them.

 

[Racecarlock]

i dont hate consoles but i do think pcs are better in every way. more options. more flexibility. can use a console controller to play alot of games. keyboard and mouse is just tops.

the main selling points of a console too me were you didnt have to install games and didnt have to upgrade parts. well now most ps3 games i play need to be installed. and i know enough about pcs that upgrading parts isnt a major issue.

i cant think of any advantage a console has over a pc.

And that's fine, just don't go around saying constantly in every thread. If you don't do this, great, sorry I yelled. If you do do this, stop.

yeah i dont go around saying it. if someone ask ill tell them what i think. but its a bit silly to get obsessed over which platform you prefer.

i just thought of another advantage for console gaming. mobility. just about everyone has a tv. so say you want to play halo at a friends house you can just grab the console and controllers. moving a pc to a lan party is too much effort especially with giant tower

Spoiler

Well then that's solved isn't it? You have your awesome gaming experience, and I have mine. That PC looks bulky as hell though, and it appears that it has to be cooled with a tower fan. I PC game too, but on this laptop. Sure, I won't be able to play the latest and greatest games on here, but that's why I have a 360.