A few days ago, someone asked me in what way console gaming is seen as more regarded than PC gaming—and, in my view, undeservedly so. 

Here’s an example. Do a search for a book about PC gaming, you won’t find much on Amazon. Sure, you’ll find lots of books on how to build a PC for gaming, but not a whole lot about actual PC gaming. You know, the games made for PC. 

Theres lots of books about the history of Nintendo and PlayStation. But in terms of the history of PC gaming, not much is written. 

And when it comes to a history of gaming in general, PC gaming gets a few mentions but not really a whole lot. 

Because of this, an errant mythology is now believed about gaming as a whole. It goes something like this: Atari made video games popular. Then there was a video game crash. And then Nintendo “saved” gaming. 

But that’s not exactly what happened. 

In reality, there may have been a crash in the arcade and console gaming space, but not for PC. In the early 80s, the Apple II, Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit, and IBM exploded in popularity. And with it, interest in gaming too. 

It wasn’t word processors and drawing apps that caused this explosion in growth. It was gaming. We all begged our parents to get a PC so we could do our homework. But in reality, we were using those machines to play Donkey Kong, King’s Quest, and Lode Runner. 

Here’s what a lot of people don’t realize. In the early 80s, the console/PC divide wasn’t so cut and dry. A Colecovision was meant to morph into an Adam computer. A Commodore 64 could connect to your TV and could play cartridges. Even an NES had PC aspirations—in Japan “Famicom” was short for “family computer”. 

It’s sad to say but the history of PC gaming is being forgotten. This is a damn shame because the majority of games have not been released for consoles. So many of them are still PC exclusive.

(Nowadays mobile gaming is becoming even more important.)

But this isn’t just about games. It’s about people. Yes, Shigeru Miyamoto is important to gaming history. But you know who is just as important?

Roberta Williams, the mother of PC gaming. She was the designer of King’s Quest, Laura Bow, and Phantasmagoria. You know what else she did? She co-founded Sierra. 

And until the 90s, Sierra was the most important company in PC gaming. Its effects can still be felt today in the fact they published a little known game known as Half-Life—which gave Valve their own foothold in the industry, and subsequently, Steam.

More people need to know about folks like Roberta Williams. They made art that impacts nearly every person living on the planet today. 

 @Chris Trottier Also, if you want to know of a great book about John Romero's life and how he got into making PC games, check out his memoir Doom Guy: A Life in First Person. It's just as interesting (if not more so) than the games he creates! 

 @Chris Trottier 

One guy who's been putting in the work:
https://www.filfre.net/sitemap/

I originally found him when I started getting interested in interactive fiction (i.e. "text adventures") about 13 years ago, but he has written about a LOT over the years. 

 @Chris Trottier 

> "A few days ago, someone asked me in what way console gaming is seen as more regarded than PC gaming—and, in my view, undeservedly so."
> "Here’s an example. Do a search for a book about PC gaming, you won’t find much on Amazon. Sure, you’ll find lots of books on how to build a PC for gaming, but not a whole lot about actual PC gaming. You know, the games made for PC."


My hypothesis: game consoles are locked-down platforms owned by the corporations that also publish games. Because they are locked down, they are easier to control, which makes it easier to exploit their customers (e.g. profiling for ad sales, games as a service, forbidding the transfer of games they purchased to other people, etc.). Therefore consoles are probably considerably more profitable for the game publishers than PCs which are not as strictly locked-down, (or not at all locked down, such as on Linux PCs).
So the profit motive is to emphasize console gaming over PC gaming, to get more people interested in buying locked-down games and making themselves more easily exploited by the game publishing corporations. 

 @Chris Trottier What, np reference to The Great Rivalry Of Atari ST and Amiga 500 around late 80s / early 90s?

Interestingly, both fit the "computer for work and gaming" description. 

 @Chris Trottier I have to agree, for me give me a game for pc any day over a consoul. Thanks for the post. I like my pc better than a consoul even though I own both.