I don’t know when it happened exactly, but at some point in the last gen I slowly started gravitating towards consoles and away from the PC.  I have a feeling a lot of other old school PC gamers did as well.  Fewer and fewer exclusives were coming out for the PC and when something good did come out it was riddled with bugs or crippling DRM.  Sometimes patches would come out and fix these issues but more often than not publishers would just cut their losses and move on.  And thus the jadedness set in; it’s tough being a PC gamer sometimes, because playing on a console is just plain easier.  Luckily there are a few companies that are still distributing quality goods on the PC and Valve is one of them, especially now that their Steam platform has really matured.

In the past year over Steam alone I have bought The Movies, Savage 2, The Witcher, Left 4 Dead, World of Goo, Titan Quest, X3, Mount and Blade, Dawn of War 2, Empire: Total War, Zeno Clash, and Fary Cry 2.  That’s 12 PC titles in 12 months, which is more PC games that I’ve purchased in a year since the 90s, and again that is just over Steam.  Other companies have started their own gaming services that have also really matured in the past year, probably the biggest of

Fancy Logos!

which is Stardock’s Impulse service.  Right now I’m mainly sticking to Impulse for Stardock published games (since those aren’t available over Steam and since I already have a ton of Steam games) but they have really done digital distribution right.  I tend to always get faster download speeds from Impulse compared to Steam and patching games does not have any of the issues that Steam sometimes seems to have.  So far from Impulse I’ve purchased Galactic Civilization 2 (plus expansions), Sins of a Solar Empire, and just recently Demigod, and every experience with the software has been great.

Now Steam and Impulse are great services for new games (and sometimes older games too) but what if you’re a PC gamer from years ago and you are in the mood for an old classic that you can’t find anymore?  Well luckily CD Projekt (of The Witcher fame) has got you covered.  Launched last year their Good Old Games platform (or GOG for short) is currently carrying over 120 games all for either 6 or 10 bucks, and all are completely DRM free.  So far I’ve only bought Battle Chess, Descent 3, and Frespace 2 through the service, but that is only becuase I’m already buying so many PC Games through Impulse and Steam.

All of a sudden it’s easy to be a PC gamer again; platforms that basically have no DRM, patches that don’t mess up your system, and easy digital distribution have really made me wonder if the glory days of PC gaming are coming back.  Of course, just because it’s easy to distribute PC games doesn’t mean that new games benefiting from these services are any good, but luckily there are a few developers who seem to be stepping up to the plate in that regard as well.  (That’s another article but I’ll give you a taster: Relic, Valve, and Blizzard.)

For the first time in years my console gaming is slowly starting to take a back seat to my PC gaming… hmm, maybe I’m not as jaded as I thought?