Is PC gaming a negative experience?

I was ruining my own life; the worst part was I knew it.

After a long day of work, it’s a comforting feeling to sit down in front of a screen and wile away the hours with games. A single button-push and the familiar sound of fans and hard drives whir to life. A computer is a gateway to millions of other people online, or it’s an escape to a fantasy world, far away from mundane life. It sounds idyllic, but something is missing. Real social interaction suffers. Relationships suffer. Bank accounts suffer. Is it worth it?

In 2018 PC gaming is a huge business. In 48 hours, the digital distribution platform Steam can peak at over 16 million active users. And PC gaming as a whole has become more accessible, with consumer machines becoming more than capable of running popular new titles.

We trade real life for virtual worlds and it’s easy to see why. PC games cover all imaginable genres and often offer lower prices than their console counterparts. Players can spend hours wrapped up in more immersive VR than consoles can hope to offer. Or they can hark back to the largest back-catalogue of games available on any platform, with titles from the infancy of the medium still being playable on machines today.

I, like many others I know, got into PC gaming thinking it would be a great social experience. I could spend time with friends in online worlds and even meet new people with similar passions. But it comes at a cost. I live with my girlfriend, but when I engross myself in PC gaming what happens to her?

She sat in the background, by herself. Often, she had something to do, but not always.

‘I don’t think it’s always fair. When you have your headset on it can be quite lonely, especially if you are on it for hours,’ says Ellie Fidler. ‘I enjoy having the evenings as our time, and sometimes it can be quite isolating.’

It seems wrong that a hobby can be damaging to a relationship. Many people would probably say that the best idea would be to just stop altogether. But that’s not the solution we went for.

Instead, we frequently use the PC together, to keep in touch with friends who have moved away, Ellie will join in on conversations as we play together. So, this year I decided that I would build a PC for her to use for herself, a place to enjoy the same tranquillity I do and get away from me when I get on her nerves.

‘It makes it easier if you get involved together and some of my friends had been into PC gaming already,’ said Ellie. ‘After trying it and managing my time well, I find it can be a nice way to enjoy some alone time.’

It would be easy to pass it off that all gaming is antisocial, after all how can you really socialise with others in the room whilst playing a game? But it’s not all the same. You can play a console game together easily, laughing and joking, a healthy experience.

There’s another side to this problem however. I’m an adult, I make my own decisions and I deal with the consequences. But what about children? Gaming crazes can sweep kids up faster than parents know what is happening. In online circles, PC gaming carries some form of covert prestige. PCs are customisable, and people end up competing for the flashiest, most powerful and most expensive rig. Is this kind of environment really a place we want to raise kids? Children can be impressionable and can latch onto ideas easily. Should we be feeding children the idea that they need the newest processor or the best graphics card? I don’t think so.

This is added to the fact that developers are increasingly including microtransactions in their games. In 2017 Belgium took the step of classifying microtransaction ‘loot boxes’ as gambling. These purchases can easily become an unhealthy addiction for young people, spending all available funds on in-game virtual cosmetics.

Connor Murray, Treasurer of The University of Lincoln eSports Society, suggests ‘children playing the PC should be in public space [in the house], for parents to monitor what is happening.’ This is a sentiment I can very much get behind, at a young age video games can be very alluring, and it is all to easy to spend more and more time and money on games. Perhaps parents need to be more informed on the changing nature of PC gaming in order to keep their children safe online.

And are PC games good for us mentally? PC gaming can be highly competitive, especially with eSports having become hugely popular. On the streaming site Twitch, the 2018 Overwatch League Grand Finals pulled in somewhere between 150,000 and 350,000 concurrent viewers over two days. For context, Wembley Stadium has 90,000 seats, and these people aren’t watching a football match or their favourite artist. This is a video game.

Competitive games draw the player in and focus their attention. After an hour or two of highly competitive gaming you come out a completely different person, irritable and frustrated.

‘Like with a game of football where you don’t play as well as you know you can, or your teammates let you down, that can affect your mood and how you treat others,’ says Connor.

For many people video games truly are a great way to unwind, but is it not counterproductive do unwind with a hobby that can leave you more irritated than after a full day of work. Of course I’m playing devil’s advocate here. I enjoy competitive games, often finding them more exciting than slower-paced ones.

Again, should this be something we need to take a more in-depth look at? When a football match is over it’s left there, on the pitch. Bad feelings soon fade when you separate yourself from that environment. But a PC is in the home, drawing you back in to play more to just achieve better and make up for failing. It’s much harder to escape these feelings when computers are everywhere.

‘I think with anything, certain times of the day and on certain days is the best way to do things,’ says Connor, explaining how he handles his time and other responsibilities. And perhaps that is the answer. It’s far too easy to become overly engrossed in the world of PC gaming, far to easy to lose control. It’s a simple answer but an effective one, PC gaming can only ever be worth delving into if you have the self-control to manage it. If not, it will find every avenue to tangle itself into everyday life. The computer itself, becoming a virus.