The Appeal of Standardization

For a while now, I've been planning to buy a new personal computer, because the one I have is getting rather old. The problem is that I just don't know very much about building one. I'm not a gaming PC expert, despite the fact that the PC has been my platform of choice ever since I learned that shooters are fun and that playing them with anything but a keyboard and a mouse is like eating tomato soup with a fork. It's wrong.

So when I set out to build a good computer, I didn't really know where to start. I'd like to think I'm not a complete idiot when it comes to computers; I'm quite good at using them once they're assembled and turned on. I even know what a central processing unit is. What I don't know, however, is exactly which one I should buy, given my (arbitrarily chosen) price range.

The same goes for the graphics card. Being a clever guy doesn't allow me automatically to know how good a given graphics card is (in terms of manufacturing quality and qualitative performance) just by looking at the name. I could look it up and read some reviews — and I've been doing that, actually — but there are hundreds of any given computer part from which to choose, and with any source of information I might come across in researching the topic, there are always the questions of accuracy and bias. I'm not inclined to blindly believe everything I read or watch on the internet, especially when there's money involved.

And there is money involved. Since I'm looking to get a computer that's actually up-to-date (i.e., current games playable at reasonably high settings), I'm expecting to spend between $700 and $900 on the whole package. To put it bluntly, a "gaming PC" is not the cheapest toy you can buy. It's several times more than what you'd currently pay for an Xbox 360, for example... but, of course, we do have to keep in mind that the Xbox 360 is a seven-and-a-half-year-old console — yeah, it's that old now — and we can safely assume that my (hypothetical) new PC would be useful for things other than playing games. If I wanted seven-and-a-half-year-old PC hardware, I'm quite sure I could pay around the current price of an Xbox 360 to get it.

In other words, you get what you pay for, so I won't make some blanket statement about PC gaming being more or less cost effective than the console alternatives. (It wouldn't even mean much, since most so-called "PC gamers" play on computers that weren't built or purchased with video games in mind.) The most legitimate reason to prefer consoles over the all-mighty personal computer is to avoid a problem that I'm discovering first-hand: buying a PC is harder than buying a console. Even if you're buying a (potentially overpriced) pre-built computer rather than customizing the perfect rig one piece at a time, it's not like choosing between an Xbox and a PlayStation. There are more choices and more decisions to make.

Consoles are pretty standardized. Everyone with a given console has the same experience, and each of them know that any games they buy for that console are going to work out of the box, exactly as well as they're supposed to work, with no effort. Meanwhile, PC owners tend to prefer the PC exactly because that standardization does not exist. Everything is customizable, everything is personalized, and you can spend as much or as little as you want depending on your needs. Getting games to work can sometimes be more of a hassle, but it's nothing a computer-literate person can't handle.

This is why some PC enthusiasts are dismayed at the announcement that Valve, the company in charge of the popular and influential digital distribution (and digital rights management) platform known as Steam, is making it's own "console." At first, it was just a rumor, which was quickly denied, but now it's been confirmed. (Also read this because Forbes is pretty great.)

This so-called "Steam Box" isn't really going to be a console in the traditional sense; presumably, it's going to play PC games. Then again, I'm betting it will only play PC games purchased from Steam, and Valve boss Gabe Newell has already said the hardware will be a "very controlled environment" (and that anyone who doesn't like it can stick to regular old computers), so what's the real difference between this and a console? I mean, aside from the fact that its library of games will have existed for far longer than the console itself, and the fact that people who want to play Steam games can continue to do so on a regular PC if they so choose.

The PC gaming community is split right now between those who can't wait to buy a "Steam Box" and those who simply don't see the point in owning one. After all, just about everyone who uses Steam already plays games on a PC. (The community is also divided over the issue of whether this kind of PC/console hybrid is good or bad for the future of PC games, which might be designed specifically for specialized console-like computers like this one, if other companies follow Valve's example.) Truth be told, we don't know what kinds of features the "Steam Box" will have. All we know for sure is that it will plug into a TV and that it will work with some sort of gamepad... but a PC can do both of those things, too. Just buy an HDMI cable and a USB gamepad; wired Xbox 360 controllers seem to work well. Even the PC version of Steam is gamepad-compatible now that Big Picture is out of beta.

The idea of a Steam console is still appealing for a lot of reasons. Perhaps some of its support is coming out of ignorance, as not everyone seems to be aware that if you drag your PC out of your bedroom and over to the widescreen TV in the living room, take the HDMI cable out of the cable box and stick it into the PC, and then pull the wired Xbox 360 controller out of the console and stick it into a free USB port, you've effectively turned your PC into a console. (The only downside is that it can't easily be operated with the controller outside of a game or Steam's Big Picture mode, but a wireless keyboard and mouse fixes that right up.) But moving PC gaming to the living room isn't the only benefit. Remember what I wrote about standardization?

People like it. It's why they pay so much for Apple products.

I don't mean to compare Valve to Apple, but if the "Steam Box" is filled with half-decent hardware that can run most of the games on Steam without melting, then buying the so-called console is going to be an easy choice for those who don't want to bother with the difficulties of buying a normal PC — whether that means finding decently priced and compatible parts for a custom-built gaming rig, or narrowing down a million choices of pre-built computers to just one and wondering if it will be able to run that new game without a hiccup. The assumption is that, if you're buying a "console," the games for that console are guaranteed to work.

Buying the "Steam Box" might even be cheaper overall than going out and buying a pre-built computer of equivalent power, since you won't be paying for Windows and all the other things that the "Steam Box" won't have. Getting a Valve-built, Valve-approved console on which to play Steam games is a no-brainer for those in need of an easy solution. The only thing we're left to wonder is why the people who want to buy the Steam Box became "PC gamers" in the first place. Wouldn't they have been happier all along with an Xbox or a PlayStation? Perhaps they only joined the PC side of gaming because Steam itself is already so simple to use.

Unfortunately, simplicity and standardization often go hand-in-hand with restriction, and this isn't something that PC gamers tend to like. (At least half of them don't even like paying for their games.) But regardless of what happens with Valve's upcoming pseudo-console, it's unlikely to damage PC gaming as hardcore PC gamers know it. I think it will, though, give traditional consoles a run for their money. More competition is usually a good thing, and I'm hoping this isn't an exception to that rule.