The Return of PC Games

Ever since the Atari meet it's demise I've been for the most part a PC Gamer. I did drool at friend's consoles thru the Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Playstation, Game Cube, and XBox years but other than briefly owning a Dreamcast I primarily stuck to my PC for my gaming needs. This was the result of being a University Student with a young family and not having a lot of Cash Flow. As a Computer Science Major I was able to rationalize the purchase of a PC but just couldn't afford a gaming console. However, in the last few years my Cash Flow has improved dramatically and I own a Wii and XBox 360 yet I still do 99% of my gaming on the PC. Why?

Anyone reading this blog can tell we play a lot of World of Warcraft (WoW) which is a PC/Mac only game but lately I've been getting a little tired of WoW and still find myself gaming on the PC. This is purely a result of console game price gouging. I am a big promoter and user of Valve's Steam service which is basically a online PC game store with some good online community features. On Steam I can buy most newly released games for 40 to 50 bucks and if I'm willing to wait a few months they usually offer amazing limited time offers where I can get relatively new games way cheaper. Switch over to the console world. Any newly released game has a 60 to 80 dollar price tag and 9 times out of 10 I get the game home to only be disappointed with it or the DVD gets scratched or lost. That is a lot of money to burn.

I'll admit a good gaming PC costs a lot more than a console but I'm going to have a good PC regardless so really bending over so the Console Game stores can screw me just seems self abusive.