It's not like this is a pc only problem, it's only a matter of time before it hits consoles too. If high costs persist I could see a return of arcades and pc gaming cafes.

Low power gaming is better than ever. AAA graphics games are uncommon and unremarkable. It doesn't take great hardware to play like 99% of great games of the 2020s. Same with pretty much everything before 2020. Steam Deck is a non high end laptop

It's the same thing with pretty much everything I think. I'm a car guy and the hobby is dead. Now you can put a fancy paint job or wheels on a car but that's it. Few people want to dig into the complexity of modern automotive systems.

My wife sews. It used to be cheaper to make your own clothing. More recently, pricing for fabrics and other materials went so high it became an expensive hobby. And now that Joann's has gone out of business she literally can't get fabric "reasonably" anymore.

Humans ruin everything.

I remember begging my parents, at the age of 12, for the cash to put together my first gaming-capable PC.

When I was a teenager in the nineties in France, it was a big deal that there was some PCs under 10000 francs (~1500€). PC parts pricing has been rough for years.

Was there really a time when a decent budget gaming PC could be built so cheap compared to middle class income? I'm not saying it's not getting worse, but I'm wondering if the past is not idealized.

My solution? SBC gaming! A customizeable console with a ton of cool games in the palm of your hand! Don't like the os? Swap the SD card and boot another! Vertical orientation, horizontal, with or without analog sticks, so many models to choose from! Weird factor forms! Half baked software! Fuck up your emulator configuration and spend the rest of the afternoon unfucking it! Realize you spent more time tinkering with the device than playing games on it! A time sink for all ages and genders!

So this thread made me look and the cost to build my PC today would be around double what I paid at the time.

you can always play xonotic tho

Pc parts picker says my computer would be $2835. I paid $1950 just over a year ago at microcenter. That's with a slightly "lower" video card since the one I bought isn't even available anymore.

My guess is that the "next generation" of PC gamers will be getting the next generation of consoles instead. Hopefully that doesn't also mean that we stop getting PC ports of the good console titles.

Steam Deck (or similar, the Legion Go S is nice too) for little games.

PS5 for big games.

Fuck big PC gaming, one scam or another has put the pricing way out of line for a long time now.

We're also way past time that PC gamers stopped accepting that you need the game to be in RAM and VRAM. There has to be a better solution than this wasteful shite.

PC gaming has a specs problem when a mid range gaming PC from only a few years ago can't play the latest games. In 2010 I bought a very basic gaming laptop and it could literally run any game at the time. Old games are just as fun anyway. I'll play the newer games when it's more affordable to.