22h ago

PC gamers spend 92% of their time on older games, oh and there are apparently 908 million of us now

www.pcgamer.com PC gamers spend 92% of their time on older games, oh and there are apparently 908 million of us now

Feels like Destiny.

PC gamers spend 92% of their time on older games, oh and there are apparently 908 million of us now

www.pcgamer.com /gaming-industry/pc-gamers-spend-92-percent-of-their-time-on-older-games-oh-and-there-are-apparently-908-million-of-us-now/

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There are just so many good games out there. No time to play them all. Also i think epic free games and this prime free game stuff contributed to it. I just started playing bioshock bc of it. Also on pc it feels so good to play an old game and just crank up every setting to max, 4k, install some mods, no ai upscaling but msaa 8x and not having to worry about performance even on mid range PCs. I genuinely prefer the graphics of older games since for me image clarity is much more important than how many polygons a gun has or how the puddle of water reflects light. Like even the new unreal engine 5 games cannot run maxxed out on a 5090 in 4k without upscaling. They only look good in trailers.
- I genuinely prefer the graphics of older games...
  This is because a lot of older games were going for an artistic style, the graphical fidelity of today's games was too far out of reach. BioShock is a perfect example because of its beautiful art direction.
  AAA games used to have character to them, now every person has to have 1200 individually rendered pores and a remaster every few years to make it look more realistic (cough cough The Last of Us)
- !patientgamers@sh.itjust.works might be of interest, if you don't follow it.
  But yeah...there are a lot of perks to playing older games:
  Due to the ubiquity of Internet access today, a lot of games get post-release patches, and ship in a not-entirely-polished state. You wait a few years, you get a game that's actually finished.
  There have been wikis, guides, and sometimes mods created.
  The games that people are still playing are the ones that have stood the test of time, so it's kinda easy to pick out good ones.
  If a 3D game supports a higher framerate --- and many don't, due to things like physics running at a fixed frequency --- on modern, high-refresh-rate monitors, 3D games can be pleasantly smooth.
  There are some downsides, though:
  With multiplayer-oriented games, the community can have moved on, rendering the game not very playable.
  The game may not leverage your hardware very well. You may have an 86 bazillion core processor, and especially older games are likely to be using one of them. I have a couple of games I like, like Oxygen Not Included, that really don't use multiple cores well...and I'd guess that a similar game released in 2025 likely would.
  
  Due to the ubiquity of Internet access today, a lot of games get post-release patches, and ship in a not-entirely-polished state. You wait a few years, you get a game that’s actually finished.
  And also, 60 EUR for a single game is a price at least I am not willing to pay for the average game, so in addition to getting a better game, I also get a cheaper one.
  There is stuff worth paying that much out there, but it's not Call of Duty Black Ops Eleventeen
  
  Funny enough, black ops 2, a game from 2012, is still listed at full price at $60—or $100 if you want the DLC—online. On the other hand, the current black ops 6 only costs $70 and new content is free. Admittedly, 2 was a far better game in just about every regard from what I know. But the fact that a modern game is $30 cheaper than a 12 year old game is fucking insane. Activision is so bad with this shit.
  
  Black ops 6 is so bad IMHO. It takes forever to boot up the game and then hits you with the "update available, quit & restart". Then waiting another 5 mins to download the update, then another couple mins to reach the main menu again. Oh and what was the actual update? To hit me with an advertisement video of season whatever...with new purchases for dumb costumes etc. Like c'mon just let me play the damn game already! When Im finally in a match the gameplay feels rigged...like I'm playing slots in Vegas than an actual video game. The respawns appearing out of nowhere. I honestly believe what I'm seeing on my screen is not what the other player is seeing. Its like these game designers purposely made this game based on an algorithm rather than setting game rules and allowing the players to compete based on skill. Maybe I'm way off on this (and am just a terrible cod player lol) but would like to hear other people's opinion on this.
  all the advertisements, constantly wanting me to spend more money when the game was already expensive to begin with. The game play as described as above. Also the perks/tiers suck. Makes for a very unenjoyable experience. The game is just not fun.
  
  I will say, the zombies mode is the best version in many years. For the low price of $0 through gamepass (which I get for free through an MS Rewards farming script), I can't complain too much about it. But I wish they would just release a standalone zombies game at some point, it's literally the only thing I like about cod and would gladly actually buy it (assuming it isn't ass, which is like 50/50 with cod lol).
  
  We're at Black Ops 6 already? They made 6 of them? Are there other Call of Duty games as well since? I think the last I played was Infinite Warfare, I think I have WWII in my library unplayed.
  I kinda lost track of the AAA treadmill.
  
  I actually really have enjoyed the game itself but you aren't fucking kidding about the rest of it. It's truly insane how much friction there is between deciding to play and getting into a lobby.

195 comments