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.
this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2025
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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.
So this thread made me look and the cost to build my PC today would be around double what I paid at the time.
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.
Capitalism ruins everything, not humans.
Capitalism is all about maximizing profits no matter what. Human lives, a healthy society, personal freedom, none of that matters in the endless persuit of profits. Capitalism is the root cause of suffering in the world right now, after that, religion.
Well I'm pretty sure you're wrong. First, humans invented capitalism. Second, I'm pretty sure when the white man came to America and committed genocide on the Indians and took their land it wasn't strictly capitalism. Third before someone is stuck in an iron maiden or an oven or is water boarded, someone has to think of that idea. If someone rapes your wife, is that capitalism? Unfortunately I can go on and on. Humans are terrible to each other, capitalism is just a mechanism.
I'm curious what the word "capitalism" means to you.
Leaving Marx aside completely for a moment, I see it as "the use of capital" at the most grossly simplified tip of the iceberg. Which broadly means that capitalism refers to people with a lot of money already, using that money as a means of getting more money, without doing any sort of productive work themselves.
And that is exactly the problem at hand, and what MBech meant by the word.
I think you use it to broadly mean "our Western, non-communist system," which is quite a lot to cram into a word.
That's just ignoring every single good thing humans do. Humans aren't inherently evil (Like, a lot of philosophers would both agree and disagree with that I guess), and thus aren't inherently what is wrong. I can agree that human greed is what ruins everything, but then again, capitalism is just the greatest tool of said greed. But because of the absolutely awesome people out there not ruled by greed, and there are way more than you'll ever know, I'm going to stick with it not being a human trait to ruin everything.
What I will argue though, is that capitalism has a tendency to ruin even the best people. Not because they're greedy scumbags, but because the capitalist system requires good people to become bad people in order to succeed and get the power to do the good they wish to do. In other words, capitalism can corrupt even the best people with the best intentions, because the capitalist system is designed to only reward the worst traits in humans.
So I'm going to continue sticking with my first message "Capitalism ruins everything", by being specifically designed to destroy every good part of people.
I'm not ignoring it. Without the good people do I'd probably just check out. But I think it's weird to say that people aren't bad, just the system they created is.
The system some of them created. It's important to remember that 99% of people have never had any say in how capitalism has been shaped or used. I'm not convinced that capitalism would be the choice of a well informed population that hasn't grown up in it. Like if we say tomorrow morning, everyone has completely forgotten every single part of any economic system ever used, and now the world has to figure out a way to handle the trading of goods and services, I am not convinced capitalism is the go to for people. It is however obvious that some people would prefer it, simply because they see the opporunity the capitalist system has for abuse of the wider population, but that doesn't mean it'd be the chosen system.
What would that system be?
No clue, likely not something we've ever seen, but my point is, capitalism hasn't been chosen by the majority, but has been shaped by the minority into a tool to be abused against the majority. The fact that humans made it, doesn't say something about all of humanity, just the people who have shaped, and I guess in turn has been shaped by, capitalism.
I agree capitalism sucks but I think your arguments are a little off.
I mean you say capitalism probably would not be most people's first choice but then can't name what would be or even another system really.
Because if we assume everyone forgets everything about economical systems, what are the chances whatever they come up with looks anything like what we've seen so far? I'm not convinced that capitalism, socialism, some fucking bartering system, would be what people come up with, it might just as well be something we have never thought of, because those people wouldn't be moulded to think about economic systems the way we are.
Yeah you're right.
Religion
Mostly again as a way to make people worship capitalists.
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
Exactly that. Got a Steamdeck finally last year and am having fun with anything and everything that plays on it. Too bad if you like the latest FPS online shooters, I guess.
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.
The current trend being pushed is cloud gaming like Nvidia Now or whatever.
Just in time for the 100 hour a month cap!
Not just consoles, but phones, tablets, smartwatches, smart televisions, anything "smart" really including things like home automation devices, automobiles of all varieties, e-bikes, network routers and other networking equipment.
This has to get solved somehow or it's really going to cripple a ton of industries.
Stop putting chips into everything?
I never asked for a ''''''smart'''''' future, and I hate that even a fucking toaster asks for a WiFi.
It won't persist. It's just AI hype and massive upscaling of data centres.
Yeah but it could be a few years. That's a long time to wait.
That seems unlikely. The more likely result is game makers targeting machines that have lower hardware specs then they otherwise would've
I could see a return of arcades and pc gaming cafes.
I hate everything about destroying pcgaming and pumping the generative AI bubble. But this I'll allow it. We need more arcades in Europe and NA so we stop being ass at "Versus fighting" games.
We also need more local gaming because playing online sucks ass between Kernel Anti-cheat, cheaters and trash tier netcode, playing online competitive is dumb.
Hear, hear, all I see nowadays are those stupid crane games and maaaybe a basketball dunking machine. I nearly cried with joy when I saw a LOTR pinball machine in a bar the other day.
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.
This problem affects all technology, not just PCs. Phones, consoles, tablets, anything that uses DRAM at all. All consumer hardware is at risk.
Not with Steam doing this well
Whatever. I'll be over here playing indie games on my used Thinkpad forever
Long live Cataclysm DDA!
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 first pc I remember most components costing about £80 for something decent but not amazing. Maybe the graphics card (a Radeon 9500 pro) was £125 or so? So I think it was in the region of £500... Too many years ago to mention. With inflation, that's way over £900, which is more than a $1000.
I built a basic box 2-3 years ago. Everything except the Graphics Card, Monitor, Keyboard, and Mouse cost me $480. I must have pulled the trigger at exactly the right time, because I got a used 3050 for $300, and a monitor for $50. I already had the keyboard and mouse I use. That means I managed to just barely squeak in under $1100. If you compared that to 1990 prices I think I would have managed to make a much worse machine in 1999 for around $1500 then, or about $3000 today.
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.
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!
you can always play xonotic tho
Xonotic is fun for a while. But you must be a hardcore arena shooter fan to give it more than one evening.
It is a game I play often in short intense bursts, but also a lot of Quake engine adjacent singleplayer content works great in Xonotic co-op and there is defrag racing too which is a blast all on its own.
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