I grew up in the nineties and PC gaming certainly felt like a niche hobby then, at least where I grew up. “Normal” kids were doing sports, maybe some families had a Playstation, Dreamcast or Nintendo console in the living room. But there weren’t many others who played PC games and us who did were the nerds who got more or less bullied.
Not really. I’d say it’s gotten more mainstream in the last decade but most people will still look at you funny if you tell them you game most nights instead of veg out in front of the tv. Doubly so if it’s a “nerdy game” like rpgs.
Huh, my friends played a ton of PC games. Pretty much anyone into gaming had played Age of Empires, and most had at least heard of the other great RTS games (Command and Conquer, Warcraft 2, etc). Even games like Diablo II were quite popular. And then there was RuneScape that everyone played on the school/library computers, plus the abundance of flash games.
Consoles were also quite popular, and there was a lot fewer cross platform games. Pretty much everyone had a computer in the 90s and early 00s for homework and whatnot. PC was the common denominator, so it’s more likely that two people would have played the same game on PC than console.
The only thing niche about PC gaming was dedicated GPUs, since those were an added cost, and parents would prefer the console to the GPU (and consoles were multiplayer).
I grew up in the nineties and PC gaming certainly felt like a niche hobby then, at least where I grew up. “Normal” kids were doing sports, maybe some families had a Playstation, Dreamcast or Nintendo console in the living room. But there weren’t many others who played PC games and us who did were the nerds who got more or less bullied.
Okay but it’s been pretty mainstream for like the last 15 years at least, if not 20.
Not really. I’d say it’s gotten more mainstream in the last decade but most people will still look at you funny if you tell them you game most nights instead of veg out in front of the tv. Doubly so if it’s a “nerdy game” like rpgs.
We’re talking about PC gaming specifically, not gaming in general.
Yes. So am i.
Vegging out playing PC games on your TV is a niche of a niche. I’m already a member though.
Huh, my friends played a ton of PC games. Pretty much anyone into gaming had played Age of Empires, and most had at least heard of the other great RTS games (Command and Conquer, Warcraft 2, etc). Even games like Diablo II were quite popular. And then there was RuneScape that everyone played on the school/library computers, plus the abundance of flash games.
Consoles were also quite popular, and there was a lot fewer cross platform games. Pretty much everyone had a computer in the 90s and early 00s for homework and whatnot. PC was the common denominator, so it’s more likely that two people would have played the same game on PC than console.
The only thing niche about PC gaming was dedicated GPUs, since those were an added cost, and parents would prefer the console to the GPU (and consoles were multiplayer).
Consoles dwarfed PC gaming back then, so your experience is pretty atypical.