Again, my post for my Game History class for Full Sail University.
Prompt: Personal Computers also became a contender for the gaming market during this time. What made PCs a popular choice for gamers over the typical consoles?
As a primarily PC gamer, I can easily say the reasons for PC being a choice is because of three factors: One, the low cost entry for hardware; two, the upgradability; and three, the amount of software available. In the beginnings of PC gaming, PCs did have a higher cost associated with it, however, the machine life would more than make up for it. When consoles were being constantly upgraded every two or three years, the PC form factor would stay the same and not change much. This even led it to being a choice for businesses to purchase them. Once businesses took advantage of the PC, the cost would be dramatically reduced, which led to more people being able to purchase them for gaming.
My second reason, upgradability, comes after the PC was purchased. When a new processor (CPU) or chipset was released, one would only have to purchase a one hundred dollar upgrade, while still being able to use the same amount of memory (RAM), same peripherals, and case. The upgradability made PC gaming a more lucrative experience, as the gamer would get more for their money. Also, since they were able to sell the old parts to companies who were on the older form factors, a better investment. Once a console life was over, there was no option but to either junk it, or keep it for hopes that you could use it again.
Third and more important, would be the software availability. Since most of the console manufacturers would have rules in place for the content of games on their systems, you had to deal with an imposed form of censorship by the console manufacturers. PC gamers didn’t (and still don’t) have to deal with this. While you still have censorship at the level of the Publisher/Distributor, a Game Developer can create a game with any sort of content and release it by themselves (either a diskette on a corkboard at a local game store, a CD via mail, or the internet). The famous shareware model, that iD Software used, is a perfect example. The content of Wolfenstein 3D and Doom made it so that the game had to be released by iD, but became one of the foremost first person shooters. Consoles would never have a game like that until Game Publishers proved the sales were there.
