PC Gaming is Hard (For Me)

Posted on by Nimgimli

As I’m sure I’ve said many times on this blog, I have primarily been a console gamer for a number of years. That changed a bit lately with the launch of Amazon’s New World and my out-of-the-blue obsession with Black Desert Online (which I STILL haven’t blogged about, have I?) Suddenly I was back to sitting hunched over a desk, my face awash in the blue glow of a monitor, merrily pounding keys.

Was back. Now I’m not sure. I’m actually finding PC gaming difficult. In fact for the past few nights I’ve sat down to boot one of my two current obsessions, stared at the monitor, squirmed in my chair a bit, then I’ve gotten up and went to the couch and watched TV. I didn’t want to disrupt my gaming focus by starting a console game, but I just didn’t want to sit in that chair for another minute, either. It just made me feel mentally exhausted to be sitting there, plus there’s the little nagging tickle in my brain that maybe I should be doing some work instead, just to make the day job a little less stressful.

This is exactly how I got into console gaming in the first place. Once I started working from home full time I found that 8-9 hours at a PC was plenty and I didn’t really want to sit there for another few hours at night even if it was to play games. It’s weird because the same was true when I was going into the office, but somehow the change of location made it feel different. Plus I didn’t have all my work crap on my gaming PC. I don’t now either but I DO have Parsec and can connect to the work machine in an instant.

There’s a physical toll as well. I guess I really hyper-focus while at a PC and after a couple hours playing an MMO, when I finally get up there are so many pops and cracks in my back and neck that I sound like a string of firecrackers going off. My neck and shoulders get sore, though usually everything loosens up after a bit. No lasting damage done.

So I dunno what to do. All day while I’m working I think about how I want to play New World and BDO, but then when I CAN play I just want to be somewhere else. BDO is actually available on console but it seems to lag behind the PC version in a lot of ways, and of course New World is PC only. (Isn’t it strange that we can’t play New World via Amazon Luna?)

Maybe I just need to reserve PC gaming for the weekends, and stick to consoles games during the week. Not sure. Also not sure the point of this post but it’s been a week since my last post so figured I’d better find SOMETHING to talk about!

9 thoughts on “PC Gaming is Hard (For Me)”

  1. You and I are very similar in this sense. I dislike sitting in my computer chair all day only to sit in it all night using the same mouse, keyboard and monitors. Luckily I have a work laptop so on days I know I want to play a game at night I work in a different spot. 🙂

    You might want to look into using a controller with New World. While nothing official there are some others out there working on Steam controller configs.

    https://www.mmorpg.com/editorials/new-world-would-work-well-on-controller-2000123334

    https://youtu.be/CzS3BANe2pM

  2. Me, I’m still mainly a PC gamer. But you know me, I like to tinker. (Which has become impossibly expensive, due to the crypto craze, but I digress.) But there are days that I feel like you do, and I just can’t stare at a monitor, or sit on that chair any longer. And yet, even then, the consoles lie there, mostly unused. I’m playing Farcry 6 on Stadia and Amazon Luna, of all things, or I just watch TV instead. Proof of this is that you guys are like level 30+ on New World, and I’ve barely scratched the surface.

  3. The physical toll of PC gaming gets to me too, but I think it’s great that these games will always be there and are pretty low pressure – working at a desk job and then sitting at a desk for gaming was very unappealing for me when I was doing that (that’s how I got into the Switch and my now unused PS4). It’s a difficult mindset but you ARE entitled to do whatever you want on that not working time! Couch, TV, console, whatever! No work. Easier said than done, of course. Point is, yep. It sucks. You’re right.

    1. I struggle with being patient. I want to do all of everything as soon as I ‘discover’ it, but you’re right.. there’s no hurry. The games aren’t going anywhere any time soon!

  4. As a fellow work-from-homer, I empathize completely. My fix is getting away from the PC for an hour to exercise. When I return to the PC, the change in scenery and activity leaves me feeling refreshed and appreciative of it again. That, or drugs, which provide a “mental” shift rather than physical.

  5. You can play Black Desert on a mobile phone although it’s not really the same game and I certainly wouldn’t recommend it. Belghast often posts about various ways he shunts game from on system to another. I know I could use Splashtop to throw the image from my PC to my ancient laptop and then throw that image from the laptop to the TV – and use the laptop keyboard and mouse to control it. I’m not saying I’d want to or how responsive it would be but it would work. I bet there are more sophisticated ways to get the same result.

    1. I’ve actually gone down that rabbit hole a number of times. The mouse tends to be the sticking point. Like I can use Parsec to play games running on my gaming PC on a laptop, but controlling a game with a trackpad is awful. So then I plug in a mouse but then where do you put the mouse? On the coffee table I guess. So now I’m clearing the coffee table (ours is always a clutter) to throw down the laptop and a mouse then I sit forward on the couch but the table is kind of too low to be very ergonomic

      It is certainly viable if you’re willing to work at it but it just feels like turning on a console is a lot easier. I knew a couple once who had his & hers recliners that they’d rigged tables on so they could recline and play their PC games side by side while relaxing. That’s the way to do it!

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