PC Gaming to world: “I’m not dead yet!”

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Welcome to the "Guest Blog", where people from AMD as well as the general industry will stop by from time-to-time to post about gaming and technology.  Today’s post is by Andy Glover, who is a ProjectManager at AMD for GAME.AMD.COM, among many other things. 

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Hi y’all, let me introduce myself. I’m Andy Glover, I work here at AMD, and I play games as often as I can. I own an XBox 360 and one gaming PC. I typically try to save money when buying both games and computer parts and I usually upgrade rather than buy new systems. With new games, I’ll even typically wait a while after they come out unless it’s a game I HAVE to have (Orange Box was one of these and Fallout 3 is a game I’ll buy the day it’s released.) I’ve recently been into Neverwinter Nights 2 and Guild Wars/Guild Wars Factions (I found both of these games at a pretty substantial discount.)

I’ve heard a lot of people predicting the death of PC gaming so I figured I’d do a rundown of why I prefer gaming on the PC. First, after the initial investment in hardware, my belief is you’re looking at some significant cost advantages to PC gaming:

  1. Games: I don’t have any hard data for this, but  my observation is that games for consoles are more expensive.  For example, it appears to me that console games typically cost somewhere around $59 in the US.  Games for PCs typically cost about $49.

  2. Online gaming: Depending on the console, playing non-MMORPGs online can cost you up to $7.99 a month.  On a PC, non-MMORPs are free. You can even run the server yourself.

  3. MMORPs: On a console, they’re practically nonexistent.  On a PC, they’re quite popular.  (I know this isn’t a price/performance argument, but it had to be said.)

  4. Freedom: Freedom is priceless, right? Our founding fathers would certainly have purchased PCs rather than being stuck on one network vs. another!  I’m sure there’s an undiscovered Federalist Paper somewhere talking about Madison’s love for the PC because he loved the mod scene!  Also, you can play free Flash games like Desktop Tower Defence and buy games via Steam.

  5. Future upgrades: Look, let’s just admit right now that a gaming system isn’t going to last forever. However, neither would a console. Eventually some killer game is going to come out that either isn’t written for the console or is simply too rich for your system which has become clunky and slow.
    You’re going to need to eventually give up more cash for the never ending cycle of improvement. If you build smart, you’ll be able to upgrade this system with an additional graphics card or a faster processor. Try that on a console!
    In my house I “pay it forward” too. When I get an upgrade, my wife gets the hand-me-downs, my friends and family get her hand-me-downs, and their broken-down machines go to the Goodwill computer store. There’s no way my grandmother is going to benefit from me buying a PS3 five years from now. But when I buy a new 790FX motherboard I can look forward to giving it to grandma in a few years and telling her that her Internet will be twice as fast.

  6. Backwards compatibility: If I wanted to, I could go snag my old Quake II CD and install it right now. PCs are the masters of backwards compatibility. In fact, I’ve got to be going. I have a quick game of Leisure Suit Larry to play before I write some more COBOL.

Andy Glover is a Project Manager at AMD who manages GAME.AMD.COM as well as other web properties.  His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

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