I find the article bizarre. Nearly every single guy I know has or had a gaming PC. Some lucky bastards got them when they were 10 years old or younger, while I got mine way in my teens (poor family). As a comp-sci grad it was nigh 100% who had one, and working in tech there were definitely lots of them (and board games + DnD were quite popular).
Either I lived in a bubble or the article is uniquely describing the North American experience. Nobody ever told me to my face they found it weird to leave a party to watch eSports or play a few rounds of whatever MMO was around at the time.
Reading that it’s now “mainstream” just doesn’t fit my experience. It was already popular before my time.
You are definetly in a bubble, even if its a pretty big one. Owning a pc is pretty much a prerequisite for going into comp-science or working in IT.
Out of all the 30 odd people I know of at my workplace, one other apart from me has a gaming pc, and two others have consoles. The rest doesn’t play any games at all.
I am 39. I have lived in California my whole life and I barely know anyone with their own PC other than myself. Gaming in general wasn’t even as mainstream as it is now, let alone PC gaming.
When I read about the PC scene I Europe during the 90’s, it makes me jealous I was born American because yeah; it wasn’t very common here. I’m not even sure how common it is now. Most people I meet who even play games are 15-20 years younger than me.
I find the article bizarre. Nearly every single guy I know has or had a gaming PC. Some lucky bastards got them when they were 10 years old or younger, while I got mine way in my teens (poor family). As a comp-sci grad it was nigh 100% who had one, and working in tech there were definitely lots of them (and board games + DnD were quite popular).
Either I lived in a bubble or the article is uniquely describing the North American experience. Nobody ever told me to my face they found it weird to leave a party to watch eSports or play a few rounds of whatever MMO was around at the time.
Reading that it’s now “mainstream” just doesn’t fit my experience. It was already popular before my time.
Anti Commercial-AI license
You are definetly in a bubble, even if its a pretty big one. Owning a pc is pretty much a prerequisite for going into comp-science or working in IT.
Out of all the 30 odd people I know of at my workplace, one other apart from me has a gaming pc, and two others have consoles. The rest doesn’t play any games at all.
I am 39. I have lived in California my whole life and I barely know anyone with their own PC other than myself. Gaming in general wasn’t even as mainstream as it is now, let alone PC gaming.
When I read about the PC scene I Europe during the 90’s, it makes me jealous I was born American because yeah; it wasn’t very common here. I’m not even sure how common it is now. Most people I meet who even play games are 15-20 years younger than me.