Perhaps my title is somewhat misleading in that the PC gaming culture is not something that has eluded me completely. A bit of background is necessary perhaps. I grew up cutting my teeth in the bloody arenas of Quake 3 and Starcraft on the family computer until my parents belted at me to go do something productive with my day so that they could check their emails and do their boring grown-up things.

 

Ah, the nostalgia.

 

Anyway, I dropped out of the PC gaming loop when I hit college and found the Xbox to be cheaper and more community friendly. In that time, I had heard a few things about the PC gaming world. Crysis had ridiculously good graphics, Team Fortress 2 on PC had become a much more full-featured game than the rather bare-bones offering in the console versions of The Orange Box and there was some indie title called Minecraft that was supposed to be about… something. Nobody could ever really answer that one for me.

 

I walked into the PC gaming world in 2011 to find a rather different playing field. Not a bad one, just… different. One thing specifically is that digital distribution has become a key way to buy PC games. We don't have to leave our desks to buy our games? No more searching through Gamestop's terrible selection with fingers crossed? No more dealing with Best Buy's condescending “you don't know computers” crap? It sounded too good to be true: and then I opened Steam for the first time in years and found an amazing marketplace for PC games from all eras, available at my fingertips. My wallet was going to take one hell of a punishing over the next week.

 

Not only is Steam incredible, but there are competing platforms now! My childish naivety was rather quickly crushed. Impulse wasn't bad, Games for Windows Live was… Games for Windows Live, but what about this EA thing called Origin? A quick Google search provided me with two differing opinions.

 

From EA's perspective, it was a way for the publisher to rejuvenate their share in the PC market. There's no denying that publishers have shyed a bit from releasing PC exclusives or even games that push PCs to the max. They cite piracy, the abundance of console users, et cetera. My childish (stupid) “PC gaming is new again” high told me to check it out. It told me that there's no way that EA would do something stupid or intrusive.

 

Please stop laughing at me. I didn't know better.

 

The second opinion from Google was that Origin was poorly designed, had an intrusive Eula, and could lock you out of your games because reasons. On opening the program and looking at the game descriptions, I was surprised to see things like this:

 

“ACCEPTANCE OF EA END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT AND PUNKBUSTER END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT REQUIRED TO PLAY. ACCESS TO ONLINE FEATURES AND/OR SERVICES REQUIRES AN EA ACCOUNT AND REGISTRATION WITH SINGLE-USE SERIAL CODE ENCLOSED WITH NEW, FULL RETAIL PURCHASE. REGISTRATION FOR ONLINE FEATURES IS LIMITED TO ONE EA ACCOUNT PER SERIAL CODE, WHICH IS NON-TRANSFERABLE ONCE USED. EA’S ONLINE PRIVACY POLICY AND TERMS OF SERVICE ARE AT www.ea.com. YOU MUST BE 13+ TO REGISTER FOR AN EA ACCOUNT. SOFTWARE INCORPORATES PUNKBUSTER ANTI-CHEAT TECHNOLOGY. FOR MORE INFORMATION ON PUNKBUSTER, VISIT EVENBALANCE.COM. EA MAY RETIRE ONLINE FEATURES AFTER 30 DAYS NOTICE POSTED ON www.ea.com/2/service-updates.”

 

So I tried looking at another game… and the same thing was there. It was on the next one too. Also the one after that. Was EA really yelling at me through the computer for considering buying games through their service? (And yes, they are yelling. Why would they put it in all caps if they were speaking calmly and politely like civilized merchants?) I'll pass, thanks.

 

Then I got an idea for an experiment. Checking the games that EA had listed on Steam showed the same thing.

 

Here's the issue I have with all of these complications: how is this supposed to get me to play EA's games on my shiny new computer? EA shows off games like Battlefield 3 (which looks considerably better on PC than Xbox) that seem to say “PC gamers! We care about you!” and then wrap it in legal double-speak and poorly coded distribution clients.

 

I'm getting mixed messages here.

 

From what I've seen, the PC market (which now includes me! Yay!) seems to want games that don't bother you about the fact that you bought them. I want to buy that new PC game, push the settings up to max, and go. I don't want to sign a contract written in all caps. If I have to use a client like Steam, I want there to be an advantage to using the client, for example, crazy sales and excellent customer support when things don't quite work out. Maybe this is why I'm seeing a ton of indie games on the PC scene, which is a really amazing thing that I didn't even know that I was missing. Maybe this is why Steam is doing so well.

 

Maybe that's why, when I play Mass Effect 3, instead of doing so in my room isolated from the rest of the world for a week, I'll have to do it while my room mate listen to dubstep and tries to get me to explain the entire Mass Effect universe to him as soon as a really pivotal conversation starts to happen.

 

Damn it, EA. Of all the great things I've discovered and rediscovered about PC gaming over the past few months, you are my greatest disappointment.