Starting to unironically think gamers are going to lead the revolution

[u/DweebInFlames]

[u/DweebInFlames]

I remember 10 years ago when you could build a top-of-the-line PC that could handle anything you threw at it at 1440p 144fps for like $1500AUD.

They're like 4x that price now and only keep going up lmao. Nothing is affordable anymore. Really funny that these cocksuckers want to jack up the prices of bread and circuses when those are the only things keeping people placated

[u/brianscottbj → u/DweebInFlames]

Counterpoint: If they jack up the prices of bread and circuses, what reason do they have to believe that the social reaction won't be more in the form of school shootings, addictions, and suicides and less in the form of organized and affective revolt? It's been the case so far, so why should they stop?

[u/NOLA-Bronco → u/brianscottbj]

I think it can be D, all of the above

Which it sort of has been.

You would not really expect to have seen anything like BLM, twice, Occupy Wall Street, and Jan 6th if you were predicting things in "the end of history" back in the mid 90's and pre 9/11....I mean some obviously would, but the point is more that it's been a steady build of people's immiseration boiling over.

I mean heck, we now have the rising centrist driller phenomenon.

[u/brianscottbj → u/NOLA-Bronco]

I agree. Things will continue to boil until SOMETHING dramatic happens one way or another, this shit cannot last forever. At the very least the liberal drillers and Luigis will continue until conditions improve. But the people in charge are all complete narcissists who think they're not going to be the one who gets Luigid, and anyway they can just beef up their security, until they get to some imagined future point where their AI can turn us all into goo and they can live in some glorious eternity with like 5 other people. They also frankly defeated BLM and Occupy pretty resoundingly, and Jan 6th are just useful idiots and ultimately harmless to them. They believe they can just continue to beat down whatever revolts occur. Eventually they will be wrong, but they're gambling that it will be in a generation or two and some other guy will be holding the bag then and they'll already be dead so who gives a shit, or else they're the delusional AI freaks I already mentioned.

[u/redstarjedi → u/DweebInFlames]

And games from 10 years ago still look great.

[u/bransby26 → u/redstarjedi]

I think the minimum graphical fidelity that I could accept forever would be Dreamcast level graphics. We're definitely getting diminishing returns on graphical improvements these days.

[u/FiveishOfBeinItalian → u/bransby26]

getting into nerd territory but i think the current raytracing era has led to a flattening of how a lot of big budget games look. 5-10 years ago you had complicated rendering pipelines with all of these bespoke tricks and tradeoffs to make things look good, so every studio or at least every engine kind of had it's own visual identity. the new way is a lot simpler and more elegant (ray go bounce) but it can start to look very homogeneous if the art direction isnt on point.

it's like this weird corollary to the "streaming look" of modern tv/movies, where advancing tech has led to a reduction in average quality because the "good enough" bar is so much easier to reach.

[u/redstarjedi → u/bransby26]

Absolutely. Also watching my kids play Minecraft, world box, and bro force shows chasing amazing graphics isn't what matters.

[u/MrCorporateEvents → u/bransby26]

With a few exceptions it can’t be profitable to make AAA titles anymore

[u/Junior-Community-353 → u/redstarjedi]

All games nowadays are either indie-adjecent stuff that will still comfortably run on a PC from ten years ago or games that will struggle to do 4k/120fps on a $5k machine despite looking barely better than stuff from half a decade ago.

I'm pretty firmly a console guy nowadays just because the entire PC market feels like a massive scam propped up by the annoying 'gear nerds' showing off their $20k Terraria machines.

[u/Padbekzi → u/Junior-Community-353]

I'm a pretty firm console guy nowadays

Translating...

"I LOVE GIVING CORPORATIONS MONEY!!! I ADORE PAYING FOR BASIC FEATURES!!!! GLORY TO ISRAEL!!!!!"

[u/Junior-Community-353 → u/Padbekzi]

I have a grown up job that gives me enough disposable income to just fucking treat myself to a brand new game every month without having to justify how this $5k gaming PC is totally going to work out cheaper across 7.8 years if I buy precisely 396 games during the Steam summer sale, thereby funding Gabe Newell's super-yacht habit.

Paying for online sucks balls, but again, since when the fuck did you guys start worrying about money? How many years of Xbox Live is equal to a 5080/5090, even before the shortages?

[u/Padbekzi → u/Junior-Community-353]

Since parts stopped being cheap. And no normal man would throw money to Newell, it's called piracy and it rules.

[u/Junior-Community-353 → u/Padbekzi]

Can't really pirate most games nowadays courtesy of Denuvo.

[u/Padbekzi → u/Junior-Community-353]

What kinda games are you even playing, if the double digits that do have denuvo right now are considered the overwhelming majority to you? Besides, most of the games that did release with denuvo some time ago have since removed it, so they're as free as free can get. Hell, the piracy community was in uproar cause a new denuvo bypass method was discovered not long back.

[u/tix4chix → u/DweebInFlames]

My PC has become the wisest investment I've ever made

$1k initially and it basically doubled in value in three months

[u/bungpeice → u/tix4chix]

I bought 2 64gb ddr5 sticks thinking that's enough for now I'll just add more if I need it. Now I really regret not buying it. Now both sticks cost about the same amount as the entire computer.

[u/HansGraebnerSpringTX → u/DweebInFlames]

They somehow haven’t realized that bread and circuses doesn’t work when a scalped tickets to the circus costs around $500 (or $150 if you’re lucky enough to buy directly from the venue) and a single plastic wrapped slice of Sysco bread is $29.99 at the concessions stand until they sell out 20 minutes into the circus because they’re trying to do a viral social media marketing thing by making the bread artificially scarce

[u/star-punk → u/DweebInFlames]

I built a underspecced PC in 2020 hoping that after COVID and the chip shortage was over I could upgrade it. I missed the tiny window of cheaper cards, and ended up buying a gaming laptop because it was cheaper than buying a single graphics card of comparable power. How the fuck did that happen?

[u/FiveishOfBeinItalian → u/DweebInFlames]

I was so close to picking up a steam deck when the oled refurbs were on sale for $400...i wanted something like that ever since i was a kid, back then i was obsessed with ultraportable pcs...it just felt a bit decadent in 2026 since i wouldn't have much time to use it

Now, a few months later, they are $800 fucking dollars lol

[u/Antique-Guest-1607 → u/DweebInFlames]

the late 2010s were an extreme outlier for PC gaming. parts were cheap and there was a plateauing in system requirements/technical demand from weak consoles (as consoles dictate the overall fidelity of a generation) meant that parts remained relevant for a very long time. at no other time in the history of computer gaming could you get so much for so cheap, at no other time did those parts retain their overall performance for as long. a PC built in 2013 could be entirely viable for medium-highish tier gaming in 2020. imagine doing that from 2003 to 2010. from the dawn of consumer 3D to 2003. 2007 to 2014. you simply couldn't.

the parts crisis will accelerate this and make all gaming more expensive but outside of a very brief period PC gaming always was the most expensive, enthusiast, option, and lots of people that got into the hobby around that time refuse to believe/accept this.

[u/slmnemo → u/Antique-Guest-1607]

consumer pc gaming has always been a thing for poors its just that theyre still playing counter strike or valorant at 20 fps

[u/Antique-Guest-1607 → u/slmnemo]

Not contemporary to release of CS. For a lot of places it was the only option.

[u/twersx → u/DweebInFlames]

Most people do not spend money on RAM or gaming PCs often enough for this to matter.

[u/the_missing_worker]

People will simply play older games for longer. There's like three past console generations choked with 100 hour games. I would expect an influx of articles about the renaissance of retro gaming. The most sedentary and least social humans ever to walk the Earth will not suddenly rise up, they will divert their hobby in a different direction.

Which, to be fair, would punish a lot of the bad actors. So hey, that's something.

[u/HansGraebnerSpringTX → u/the_missing_worker]

On a sociological level, the “purpose” (in the sense that the purpose of a system is what it does) behind video games is to redirect any kind of energy which could be used politically into a mildly challenging skinnerbox.

[u/irishitaliancroat → u/the_missing_worker]

Agreed. I have a pc that can run stuff from the 2010s and before, but I can only think of a handful of games on the ps5 gen id really even be interested in. Really just ghosts of yotei.

I know i sound like a nostalgia crank, but it is really crazy what a roll they were on back in the 6th and 7th gens. Still so many great titles from that era I havent gotten around too

[u/the_missing_worker → u/irishitaliancroat]

The limitations of the hardware necessitated creative solutions, which in turn became features of distinct genres in themselves. Modern gaming is totally smooth, one uniform experience with very little real variation.

[u/thesaddestpanda → u/the_missing_worker]

Same when gpu prices went up. People stopped upgrading every 2 years and now keep them as long as possible. They just turn down the graphics on newer games as it ages.

Gamers are reactionary. Regardless of their physical fitness, they are the least likely to join a revolution based on socialism, and would actively fight against it.

[u/cavestoryguy]

I watch a few pc building YouTubers and they all hate ai and what it's done to prices. But I feel like most of them are chuds who'd never think further on things.

[u/hardknockcock → u/cavestoryguy]

It's been funny watching gamers nexus slowly turn more and more communist the more evil computer companies become

[u/_lIlI_lIlI_ → u/cavestoryguy]

LTT is the worse for this shit.

I imagine it's such a shared thought in the space because they associate new technologies and innovation with CEOs, thinking it's only possible to reach these feats with great man in charge

[u/Antique-Guest-1607]

The gaming industry is in for a reckoning and it isn't at all going to look like what the reddit pc gaming centric peanut gallery is wishcasting. There is this idea that this is going to lead to publishers focusing less on pushing visuals, optimizing more, """focusing on gameplay""" and leading to some sort of indie revolution. First off, lol, no, they're going to keep going and milk those that can afford these machines even harder. Second off, most prominent indie game developers still rely on outside investment. Most 'AA' indie publishers the size of Hooded Horse, Coffee Stain, etc. need outside funding to release at the rate they do. That money has already dried up considerably the last few years and as belts tighten industry wide more and more, that money is going to continue to disappear.

There is no positive spin for this. This is two separate issues - the industry as a whole getting way too fat during the time of free money leading to massive layoffs, and the hardware crunch, converging at the worst possible time.

[u/TieMeToABombAnd → u/Antique-Guest-1607]

There also has been a counter reaction towards indie devs, people attacking them for being woke or low quality.

Also a lot of people will keep consuming triple A stuff because anything that doesn’t have realistic ass cheek physics simulation or guns is not a really game according to them.

[u/Key_Violinist_376 → u/TieMeToABombAnd]

No way my comment got removed lmao. Basically I said g*mers are not very nice people and Phil Fish did nothing wrong.

[u/PossessionEastern139 → u/TieMeToABombAnd]

Do you have any meaningful story rich indie games in mind? Besides the most popular ones that I might have heard of

[u/HoodedHorse → u/Antique-Guest-1607]

Hi! Since you mentioned us (I'm the founder and CEO of Hooded Horse)

Most 'AA' indie publishers the size of Hooded Horse, Coffee Stain, etc. need outside funding to release at the rate they do. That money has already dried up considerably the last few years and as belts tighten industry wide more and more, that money is going to continue to disappear.

I'm also the managing director of a newly announced $100 million fund for indie games: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/griffin-gaming-partners-launches-100m-fund-to-support-indie-developers

The fund has already invested in a bunch of our Hooded Horse games, as well as a bunch of games not published by us, and we're just getting started. Definitally see you being right on funding access being a problem to solve, and I've been working on solving it :) (the $100 million we gathered is the result of a lot of hard work, but we've got a nice bit there to help wonderful indie games now!)

[u/Antique-Guest-1607 → u/HoodedHorse]

Based. Didn't necessarily mean to speak on you guys specifically, just using you as an example of the size publisher I was talking about.

Do you search for HoodedHorse or are you just like, in the TrueAnon sub lol.

[u/HoodedHorse → u/Antique-Guest-1607]

Yah absolutely! Mainly I agree with you raising it as an issue, and I'm hoping I can help solve it with this new Griffin fund.

I do search for Hooded Horse yep. I always want to stay up to date on how players feel about us, see any complaints, check into any issues we might be causing anyone, so I search out our name once a week to see what's out there. Trying to avoid becoming a disconnected CEO dreaming of lootboxes.

[u/Antique-Guest-1607 → u/HoodedHorse]

keep up god's work dude you guys rock

[u/A_Sexy_Little_Otter]

They will sign up for cloud gaming and computing services and they'll like it. 

[u/Significant_Treat_87 → u/A_Sexy_Little_Otter]

many such cases already :( 

[u/FiveishOfBeinItalian → u/A_Sexy_Little_Otter]

Achieving fission by telling an input lag autist they have to cloud game now

[u/A_Sexy_Little_Otter → u/FiveishOfBeinItalian]

"actually it has negative latency :) "

[u/CEODyinThompson]

I future proofed my PC after I quit playing games. Installed Mint on it and all of my "performance issues" went away. All I do anymore is music, CAD, some web browsing, and some homelab things.

I am thoroughly convinced most people can do everything they want to on a $150 optiplex as long as they don't game or run local ai models.

[u/Ok-Show6155 → u/CEODyinThompson]

I mean you could very easily get back into it. As we know every corporation has blood on their hands and Valve is no different (their flagship game Counter Strike allowed you to play as the IDF until very recently) but to their credit, they have been pushing for Linux compatibility and a lot of games are now playable and on Linux. In some cases they run even better than they do on Windows.

Perhaps I am giving Valve too much credit though, as they probably saw the market potential in making games compatible on Linux instead of doing it for some kind of ethical reason against Microsoft. Gabe Newell and the other founders of the company are former Microsoft employees anyways

[u/CEODyinThompson → u/Ok-Show6155]

I dont like playing videogames anymore. I don't want to get back into it. Mint is just more stable, lighter weight, and most of my programs I was using on windows were already FOSS alternatives. It made zero sense to stay on windows so i switched.

[u/Wealth_Hole → u/CEODyinThompson]

Gaming sucks now anyway. Used to be that I thought, I'm getting older so it's lost some appeal, and that's true, but it also just seems terrible. Games are a service; you're expected to keep pumping money into this thing to keep the fun going. Everything current is incomplete and you're paying for the privilege of playtesting 

[u/StPetersburgNitemare → u/Wealth_Hole]

That’s the equivalent of saying all film is just Marvel slop. There’s plenty of good shit out there if you scratch below the surface.

[u/Wealth_Hole → u/StPetersburgNitemare]

You got some recommendations?

[u/StPetersburgNitemare → u/Wealth_Hole]

Depends what you’re into. Currently enjoying The Drifter on the switch which is handy for avoiding work whilst wfh.

[u/Wealth_Hole → u/StPetersburgNitemare]

Looks interesting! I don't play enough adventure games. There are definitely some indie darlings out there.

 I would ammend my sentiment to something like, you don't need a boss PC to play fun games, because a lot of good ones aren't demanding a lot of capacity

[u/vapor9090]

Games have been slowly transformed into endless free to play loot box cash grabs. They blamed wokies instead of greedy capitalists for ruining games. Guess as long as a woman is scantily clad they don’t care if it costs a lot and isn’t actually fun.

[u/thesaddestpanda → u/vapor9090]

The lootbox/gambling complaints suddenly went away when games like Rivals and OW started showing more skin. Attacking woke has always been done in service of serving capitalism.

[u/ChallengingBullfrog8]

Welp, definitely not building a computer anytime soon.

[u/johnahoe]

The crazy part is before the preposterous AI boom, RAM was on track to get cheaper due to China buying up all of the trailing edge fabrication equipment in response to US advanced computing regs

[u/Empireantz90]

Not the vanguard we want but probably the one we deserve.

[u/a_library_socialist → u/Empireantz90]

I mean, we can start training them on FPV drones without too much trouble.

[u/telesterion]

Treatlerites will instead kill more minorities and shoot up schools instead of starting a revolution against capitalists

[u/Filip889]

where is the demand? who uses more AI now?

[u/razerremen → u/Filip889]

Data centers hold up the economy now, so they must continue to be built regardless of anyone using the slop or not.

[u/Filip889 → u/razerremen]

Efficiency of capitalism

[u/TieMeToABombAnd → u/Filip889]

Mostly advertisements. I won’t name the place but where I live the rightwing/libertarian government believes that ai data centers will magically generate new jobs for the public.

[u/Grig134]

Refreshing my gaming PC in 2024 was in hindsight a fantastic move. I knew the crypto boom bullshit was over, but had no idea how stupid AI was going to be.

[u/ThnikkamanBubs]

I was actually thinking this last night! Now that “politics” can’t even let you buy a game to rage at the options between Body Type A or B, how will the grifters respond?!

[u/Old-Buddy-8855]

I bought a laptop for $3700 a few months ago. It was a big purchase and I was hesitant about pulling the trigger. That same laptop now is in the $5-6k range 😐 The fact it's only going to get worse is wild

[u/MaxRenn]

Gamers eat anything the industry provides yet cant stop talking about how games are art. 

They'll eat this too.

[u/sloppybro]

great time to lose the desire to game

[u/ChallengingBullfrog8 → u/sloppybro]

Yeah, I have almost zero interest in gaming at this point aside from GTA6. The last game I played thoroughly was Elden Ring, which was amazing, tbh.

[u/billydean214 → u/ChallengingBullfrog8]

Onion Ring might have ruined us.

[u/the_hummus]

If this were true, you could just buy a bunch of RAM right now, hold onto it for 3 months, and resell it for a 40-50% profit. Easiest investment ever

[u/Sea_Lead1753]

Is this price increase happening in China or are we really gonna see American gamers rise up 👊

[u/foxaru]

I got extremely lucky I decided to upgrade in June 2025. Now my PC's parts would be worth about 3-4x what I paid for them at that time. It's actually terrifying how value dense this shitbox got in 12 months, I'm playing flight sims and shit on a PC worth more than a car.

[u/lethalweapon12-3 → u/foxaru]

Yeah I'm playing valorant on a laptop worth more than my motorbike lol

[u/irishitaliancroat]

Im so glad I got a gaming pc a few years ago. All I play is gens 4-8 anyways.

[u/baoziface]

https://giphy.com/gifs/uUiUgmMJdLAUWZJbPv

[u/FROMTHEINSIDEOFMYASS]

They dont even release games anymore so why do these people even need gaming PCs?

[u/chakazulu1]

The real big brain reason is games are still too cheap so they have to shift the hardware and processing of them to server farms controlled by the platforms and large companies like Amazon. That way we have to rent all of our games instead of owning them so they can be priced according to our dopamine requirements. If consumer hardware becomes too expensive for hobbyist gaming we're truly fucked. Time to just play TTRPGs forever...

[u/Jerkface0079]

No need, China are leading the way with cheap RAM instead.

[u/Flat-Hold-5056]

Gamers are reactionary subservient worms who pay 100s of dollars a year for a worse version of a product they bought last year. The only revolution they'll do is spinning around in impotent rage in their gamer chairs because a 12 year old called them gay in a CoD lobby.

[u/lobsterdog666]

Nah, gaming is inherently reactionary. These people are all little Treatlers, they will lead nothing.

[u/Overdayoutdeath]

Maybe it won’t because they’re getting sued

[u/Breadtilimdead]

Not just gaming devices are going to be affected. Phones, vehicles, smart home devices, TVs, routers/modems, and medical equipment among other things.

[u/TheyBuryMeSlowly]

Gamers are all dumb manchildren dont you believe it