this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2023
8 points (100.0% liked)
Gaming
31851 readers
107 users here now
From video gaming to card games and stuff in between, if it's gaming you can probably discuss it here!
Please Note: Gaming memes are permitted to be posted on Meme Mondays, but will otherwise be removed in an effort to allow other discussions to take place.
See also Gaming's sister community Tabletop Gaming.
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I'm more surprised how evenly it's split between PC (43%) and console (41%), with 19% playing on both. With the price of hardware on PC and price of games on console it's quite an expensive hobby to maintain both.
I almost wanted to get a copy of the report, as something doesn't seem totally right. 73% of the "online population" plays games, and 43% of that is people gaming on PC?
I'm curious about how people are actually polled. If only because I'm curious how someone who was only gaming on consoles would be polled? According to the website, they use an online computer survey, which would seem to self-select towards people gaming on a PC.
I would expect a higher percentage on PC, because casuals play low end indie games and older games on PC, and there are bound to be a lot more of them than hardcore gamers.
I personally think it's the other way around.
PC players are (from my personal experience) the most dedicated gamers. Where as Console players tend more towards the casual approach to gaming.
Consoles typically being the cheaper solution and it plugs into peoples already existing 'media centers.' PC's "needs" extra gear and facilities, from monitors, keyboard & mouse, desktop, maybe an extra controller and an OS (if you didn't buy it pre-made) and such.
Few casual 'anythings' would opt for the PC option to begin with, just because of the set-up requirements alone.
I never needed to get all those extras to play an MMO or most indie games. Not every game is a system hog.
These days I am less inclined to believe casual players would be bothering with gaming on a PC over their phone as much as the survey indicates.
I was going to say, I wonder how many are like me and do pc and switch. But now that the steam deck is out, and emulation is getting good, my switch is going bye bye.
You don't need the latest and greatest in either case. If you were to slap any recent budget GPU into a Dell Optiplex or similar that can be found for cheap, then pick up an Xbox Series S for $300 or less, you'd have a PC for eSports titles, older games, checking out free game giveaways like on Epic and GOG, plenty of Prime Gaming games if a Prime member, and anything with lower system requirements, then a box that'll get games for the next ~7 years, can do game emulation when in the $20 developer mode, and has a $15/mo gaming Netflix subscription that is regularly updated and hundreds of titles strong.
That's a lot of value, and with the prices I've seen it'd come out to about $700 or less before any subscriptions come into play, which have also gotten way less necessary recently thanks to the rise of F2P titles.
Yeah, a lot of my kids friends are PC gamers with $600-1000 systems, tops. They might not be the greatest, but they work. Even my kids systems were only ~$1500 and they're both at least a year or two old now, and still running just about everything.
You can also scour the used market for a Switch Lite in the $100 range, and boom, 3 platforms.
Thing is, generally everyone has a PC. You can get a higher end laptop and play a lot of games on it. That way, you can choose a specific console but still have access to games not on that console, and old games.
I've always been a Playstation gamer but I use PC to play Sims 4, Alan Wake and Quantum Break, and Star Trek Online when in a trekkie mood.
Star Trek had a game?
Star trek has many games. I enjoyed watching the VR bridge simulator one with a few popular internet personalities joining together to attempt and figure out the hilariously obtuse switch board on the original Enterprise.