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It's heartbreaking to reach an age where you have a decent income and can finally afford that tricked-out PC you've always wanted, only to find that developers have given you the cold shoulder. Let's hear it for shoddy support and ridiculous workarounds!
Here are 10 reasons why PC gaming is an ongoing source of depression and frustration:
10. Piracy
Ah, pirates: They're the flag-waving software crackers of the free market. Love them or hate them, they aren't goin' anywhere. Whiny developers blame them for the downfall of PC gaming. But honestly, bootleggers have been around since mankind could walk. It's time to quit complaining and start innovating.
9. Console ports
Nowadays, developers rarely design with the PC in mind. It's much more cost effective to port a console build by adding mouse and keyboard support and tossing quality assurance out the window like your ex-girlfriend's cat. What's the result? We get hilarious stuff like Bulletstorm's locked framerates, Dead Space 2's missing-suit glitch, textures that look like they're from 1997, innumerable bugs, and DRM that only Hitler could have dreamed up.
8. Digital rights management
Remember the Assassin's Creed 2 fiasco? Ubisoft required you to have a constant Internet connection in order to play the single-player mode. The company has since loosened its death grip with Brotherhood, but DRM will continue to annoy customers until developers man up and accept that everything is crackable. No game is safe, so stop putting some much effort into invasive DRM, and craft an experience that will make honest PC gamers proud to buy your product.
7. Workarounds
When companies throw out QA like a minor at a strip club, PC users suffer. Forget inserting the disc and jumping in. Do you think you're playing on an Xbox? It's much more fun to get a mysterious error, spend 30 minutes searching message boards for a solution, overwrite the .ini file with Notepad, and relaunch the game. Problem solved! For now….
6. Hit or miss DLC
Did you buy Dead Space 2 on an impulse from Steam? Good for you. Do you want to play the upcoming Severed DLC that features characters from Dead Space: Extraction? No dice. Visceral doesn't care about your business. The best thing you can do is sign a petition for equality like its 1913.
5. Games for Windows Live
Thanks, Microsoft. I only have Steam, and I was worried I wouldn't have the opportunity to work around two embedded interfaces. Someone should shoot your Director of User Experience in the foot and force him to walk to work. When he gets to the building, I'll dump a bucket of ice on his head. That should give him some idea what GFWL's interface feels like.
4. Non-PC reviews labeled as PC reviews
This is a cardinal sin. Deadlines are looming, and one of the bigger sites needs to push out a multiplatform review. So what do they do? They copy and paste the text three times — once for each system. It's an ingenious solution — at least until you go out and buy the PC copy on their good word, only to discover it's really a hideous beast named Groll whose main food source is your hard drive. Groll says he'll return the hard drive in due time, but until then, he demands you watch a marathon of Desperate Housewives with him.
3. PC Gamers
Say what you will about Xbox Live users; at least you can write them off as juvenile racists. PC gamers will haunt your shit. They'll emasculate you and your system specs, flame you across obscure message boards, paste your IP address publicly for others to see, and threaten to hack you. (Note: Some may actually succeed at hacking you.)
2. Ubisoft
Kudos to Ubisoft for bringing us into the Dark Ages of PC gaming. Not only do their titles come out months after the initial console release, they also have the audacity to kick you in the balls for supporting their products. A quick search will often prove that the pirates have already cracked their DRM before a game even hits store shelves. This means they'll be enjoying the new Assassin's Creed hassle free on day one. Meanwhile, legitimate customers eventually crack their legitimate copy just to avoid Ubisoft's stellar anti-piracy software.
1. EA
See number two, only worse. 'Nuff said.
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