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What is your favourite thing about PC gaming?

Multitasking - checking guides, listening to music, playing another game, etc is so much easier on PC. That and everything is just right there at once, no need to swap channels/consoles/controllers for older games.
 
Have SSD loading times been mentioned? Because OM NOM NOM. I haven't tried on the 360, but it takes about 10 seconds to go from boot to my saved game in the Witcher 2, and level loads in all games are all nearly instant. It is a thing of beauty. In Skyrim, you can't even see the damn tool tips it loads so fast.
 
Have SSD loading times been mentioned? Because OM NOM NOM. I haven't tried on the 360, but it takes about 10 seconds to go from boot to my saved game in the Witcher 2, and level loads in all games are all nearly instant. It is a thing of beauty. In Skyrim, you can't even see the damn tool tips it loads so fast.

Yes, when I say everything for good or bad, this one is on the heavily good side of things.

SSD's have been the best thing to happen in a while on the PC side.
 
Being able to play games however you want (IQ, framerate, mods, etc) with any control system you want (Oculus Rift, KB/M, controllers, motion controls, haptic systems, etc, and actually being able to rebind controls in games to fit your needs and not being restricted to whatever small subset of presets), no silly restrictions on what type games can be released, how much they are released for, how new content for them is released, and how they are patched, and almost every PC game ever released is still playable on PC hardware, games are always "backwards compatible" barring some technical hurdle
 
Honestly I only notice this from fucktards who are new to the scene. I keep seeing these console kids making threads about how they're done with consoles because they just got a gaming system and thinking "well no shit, curly".
I agree. Of course, people will just see this as further elitism (of "old-school" PC gamers).
 
When things work like they should out of the box

Likes too: when things don't work like they should but I can use a little elbow grease to resolve the issue instead of being SOL like on a closed system.

I'm sure this is what you meant, right?!

Having stuff not work is hardly a PC exclusive, the advantage of openness is being able to do something about it.

I agree. Of course, people will just see this as further elitism (of "old-school" PC gamers).

Hah, indeed. I like cool newbies like Snuggles, though, so fuck 'em ;)

Also, good timing. The first part of this post was dedicated to you!
 
Some great points in this thread so far, I don't think I saw this one yet:


COMMUNITY!

I think it's still mostly true, that on PC gamers tend to be older, and more mature. I have had so many great experiences just hopping into a random TF2 server and shooting the shit with people, discussing either strategies or nonsense, but it's often a good experience. I've even gotten along so well with randoms I've encountered on PC that I eventually joined their community forums and have followed / been followed from game to game.

On console, I have a good voice chat experience 0% of the time.
 
The mod scene. It is absolutely amazing. Games like Skyrim should never have been released on the console when it feels like 1/4th of the game that is on and available for the PC.

Plus it is quite the experience to build your gaming machine versus just buying one off of the shelf.
 
Honestly I only notice this from fucktards who are new to the scene. I keep seeing these console kids making threads about how they're done with consoles because they just got a gaming system and thinking "well no shit, curly". Those guys are just in it specifically for the elitism because they lead sad lives full of subjugation and disappointment.

Forgive them father, for they know not what they do.

The worse by far, are the guys that 6-5-4 years ago were on the "pc is dead" consoles are for games pc for office wave.

And now the pc is cool and asking on twitter what setup can i buy for a grand.

Big group on the game journalists community.
 
Post launch support. On consoles; devs send games out, push a few patches if we're lucky, sell some shitty DLC, and usually that's it. On PC's more often than not things just keep getting added either by devs or by the community and I love that!
 
I'm not really a big fan of PC gaming, but for one thing I like I'll say the thriving indie game scene. I think when there's people out there making the types of games that the major publishers aren't going to bother with then that's a good thing for the industry in general.
 
For me it's been being able to tweak gfx how I want and experimenting to find the sweet spot between visuals and fps and of course, mods. Love me some mods. Look at Dark Souls. My game of the forever actually got better thanks to the miracle of DSfix. This after it was set to become a huge technical disappointment on PC.

Special shout to .ini and cfg files, without which my manic micro-managing would have no outlet.
 
Higher framerates, undoubtedly. It's also nice to be able to have your games installed on the HDD without the need of looking for a disc.
 
I like almost everything about pc gaming but this has become super important to me. Framerate should be 60fps as a baseline target and that's one thing I can't stand about console gaming ..and I have only once again become a pc gamer again a year ago.

Framerate is more important to me than IQ...but that's a great thing about PC gaming, as you can tweak it to suit your own needs.
 
Customization, tuning the game to what I want out of it. Both in terms of turning off motion blur because it's terrible and being able to have the Hunter in L4D2 spout lines from the Scout in TF2.

Where else can you get something like the JC2 multiplayer mod?
 
For the most part I can play games from the mid to early 90s. I have options to buy new and older games for pretty cheap from GOG, Steam, GMG, etc. I can take my laptop anywhere and play pretty much anything. Keyboard and mouse > controller for 75% of games imo but I can plug in a 360 controller and use it for pretty much any game. Rts' and Mobas. The freedom of mods.
 
The choices it provides.

I can plug in my PS3 controller to play Dark Souls and 2D platformers. Then plug in my 360 controller to play FPSs. Then go back to Keyboard and mouse for RTSs and other games.

Also emulation. Goddamn I love emulation.
 
Diversity. It feels like something worthwhile comes out every week. I never feel like there's a lack of content and something new always sneaks up on me. That combined with good pricing makes me play way more games than I ever did when I was mostly a console gamer.
I had about 50 games between my 3 consoles over 5 years and in leas than a year my steam library is around 200.
 
That practically everything about PC is better than consoles with maybe the exception of the league of legends community. That might be a tie with xbox live.
 
Cheap games
mouse + keyboard
I would say mods but very few games do this anymore

inventive games. When you have 1 or 2 people working on a title, you don't have to be mainstream.

Better graphics

Retro graphics.
 
Being able to do what I want to my setup for different experiences. Want 3d? You can get it. Want more graphical power? You can get it. Want to play at 2560x1600 or 4k? You can. Wanna use a controller instead of kb and mouse? Go ahead.

The genres, free online play, etc

That's what makes it infinitely better than console. Consoles just have their exclusives but everything else is better on PC.
 
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