Valve and the PC Master Race

Azelma · **Posted:** Fri Sep 27, 2013 9:33 am

Valve is getting into the gaming market even further with their new OS. This article's pretty good...though written from someone who games on consoles as well as PCs (I know, what a moron, right

?).

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense ... btful.html

Quote:

So, let's see: Valve's bold plan to save PC gaming is a box that connects to your TV, runs its own operating system, and is played with a controller. The future of computer gaming, apparently, is console gaming. Console gaming, that is, for rich people, because you'll have to get a new console more often, or at least update it more often, if you want the latest games to look their best. In short, Valve is bringing one of the worst aspects of computer gaming—the relentless graphical arms race— to the living room, while leaving behind, or at least de-emphasizing, the best aspect of computer gaming: the mouse and keyboard.

One good argument for consoles (rebuttals from the Master Race welcome):

Quote:

The traditional argument in favor of PC gaming is scalability: You can upgrade your computer at any time, with things like extra RAM or a new video card, whereas with consoles you're stuck with the same, rapidly aging hardware for five years or more. Ironically, this is the exact reason I do most of my gaming on consoles. The rebuttal to scalability is stability: Stable hardware makes for a stable software experience. Every Xbox is functionally identical, so games can be tailored to the Xbox's exact specifications. But there are infinite combinations of interchangeable parts that can make up a computer, and a game's incompatibility with any one of those parts can cause mysterious problems, the gaming equivalent of the unidentifiable clanging coming from your from under your hood. Even the recent indie gem Gone Home, far from a graphical showpiece, ran like blackstrap molasses on my new laptop, giving me flashbacks to Betrayal at Krondor constantly crashing and to the low-level air raid siren that inexplicably wailed every second that I played Diablo. (I thought it was part of the game, till I played the game on a friend’s computer.) An operating system optimized for gaming, like SteamOS, might iron out some of the wrinkles of the platform, but not all of them.

Euphonic · **Posted:** Fri Sep 27, 2013 11:36 am

It's kind of like driving... the road being the game. Even though there are speed limits and such (stability), and there are affordable cars for everyone (consoles), I still would rather drive my Lamborghini to work (PC). :/

Yuratuhl · **Posted:** Fri Sep 27, 2013 1:58 pm

The point is to let people play PC games in their living room. This is all already doable with a well placed tower + HDMI cable, but some (most) people are morons, especially the target demographic of a computer-in-a-box designed to feel like it's a console.

Grimmgor · **Posted:** Fri Sep 27, 2013 2:31 pm

what a complete waste of time. i can't wait to hear how valve is the saviors of video games once again though.

Yuratuhl wrote:

This is all already doable with a well placed tower + HDMI cable, but some (most) people are morons, especially the target demographic of a computer-in-a-box designed to feel like it's a console.

this pretty much. or you can just use an actual huge TV for your monitor like i do. hell, i even use a living room chair as a computer chair because fuck doing anything that aint comfy. as for the OS, call me skeptical but why should i trust a company who, after 10 years or however long its been, can't get the browser for their store or in game web browser to not be a laggy piece of shit, with an OS?

also for that second quote, it's his fault for playing video games on a laptop. aside from that, the only "stability" issues you have almost all the time are when drivers don't get released/updated because people forget to do it, or the dev completely fucks everything up. see: rome 2. aside from that, some games run worse than they should because they're abysmal ports, but even at this point my card is 2 years old and my CPU is about the same and i run pretty much everything at 60 FPS with no issues.

he's also a fag for calling gone home a gem.

Meowth · **Posted:** Fri Sep 27, 2013 7:48 pm

dat mad

SteamOS is just going to be yet another GNU or Debian based OS with certain and/or select dedicated updates. Not something entirely new from scratch. No, I haven't read anything about it because it doesn't mean anything to me. I'm far more excited about AMD releasing Mantle than this.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7371/unde ... pi-for-gcn

Spacehunter · **Posted:** Fri Sep 27, 2013 10:05 pm

i have no interest in this whatsoever

pc gaming for me is being locked in my cave talking to my friends on the internet on a superior machine

i don't want to be on the couch where the tv is

i like my cave

Usdk · **Posted:** Sat Sep 28, 2013 1:21 am

I already don't like wireless mice and keyboards.

Yuratuhl · **Posted:** Mon Sep 30, 2013 12:32 am

Also what is this shit about console gaming being more affordable? It's fucking $60 for every new release. It has never been about the price of the hardware, and everyone who thinks otherwise is a complete fucking moron.

Jushiro · **Posted:** Mon Sep 30, 2013 12:33 am

Spacehunter wrote:

i have no interest in this whatsoever

pc gaming for me is being locked in my cave talking to my friends on the internet on a superior machine

i don't want to be on the couch where the tv is

i like my cave

I think we can be friends.

Necrachilles · **Posted:** Thu Oct 03, 2013 2:41 am

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Valve and the PC Master Race

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