PC gaming has its perks, but the very advantages that computers have over the current-gen consoles are sadly also their downfall. It has become excruciatingly painful for people to go deeper into their pockets to buy rigs that make today’s games at the least playable. Why? Because publishers do not have the PC in mind when developing games.
The price of a “good” gaming PC by most experts’ standards, say, for example Linus Sebastian, feels less like a premium and more like a penalty. An Nvidia RTX 5090 GPU alone costs almost three times more than a PS5 or Xbox Series X|S, but what do you get for your money? Bugs, bugs, bugs.
PC Games demand powerful and expensive hardware, and I know exactly who to blame for that; game devs. But I’m certainly not pointing fingers at all of them, because some, like Japanese programmer Hideo Kojima, know how important every community is.
Gaming studios need to do better for PC
Kojima, under his 2015-founded Kojima Productions banner, has shown that PC ports don’t have to be second-class citizens.
If you want to know how bad games run today, Metal Gear Solid 5 is almost a decade old, and it still beats several titles released today. A mere Intel Core i7-4600M CPU, 2 cores, 8GB RAM, 2.90GHz clock speed, with an Intel HD 4600 integrated GPU, runs MGSV on medium settings and clocks 35 frames per second (FPS) for its 1% lows. This isn’t magic. It’s just good game optimization.
yeah metal gear solid 5 rocks pic.twitter.com/Q6dKMKLOk0
— max | playing mgsv (@silenthills_exe) February 19, 2025
We could also mention Death Stranding, which is lauded for running smoothly on all current-gen consoles and the PC. All you need is an RTX 3090.
Contrast that to something like the February 28-released Monster Hunter Wilds, where even recommended specs churn out sluggish frame rates and muddy graphics at 30 FPS. Why are developers making such abysmal titles? They simply table the bare minimum for whatever reason and expect hardware to do the rest.
The black tax of high-end rigs
The cost of PC gaming isn’t just about the upfront hit to your wallet, building a tower with an RTX 4080 or Ryzen 9 will always be pricey, but that’s always been the deal, pay more, get more, isn’t it? Apparently not.
Consoles can lock you into fixed hardware for a decade, while PCs let you upgrade, tweak, and play around till you find what fits your expectations.
Yet, gaming on computers somewhat feels duller, and this is why. Console games are built to run on one spec, optimized to squeeze every drop of power and operational capabilities from that box.
PC games are often console ports slapped onto Steam with little regard for when one gamers hardware is different from another’s.
Sure, a $5,000 tower will easily hit 60 FPS, but not everyone has that kind of money to spend on video games. I could also partly blame streamers for this; they show us gameplays rendered on the best of what PCs have to offer, but the average gamer can only afford so much.
It costs $1000-$1500 to get a pc equivalent of a PS5 pic.twitter.com/WQc2SAIdJI
— AstroCyborg (@AstroCyborg) August 25, 2024
Game development 101 is a concept that seems to be lost after 7 decades of video games. It’s not just about what a PS5, Xbox, or PC can do; it’s about making good gameplay, then the visuals come later.
Kojima’s team don’t just port games, they optimize them so well that everyone in the industry can have fun. Love shines on consoles, and PC gets a big piece of the cake too.
Upscaling: What could bring the industry to its knees
I have a message from an oracle, the industry’s got a dirty secret: it’s now hooked on shortcuts in the name of artificial intelligence upscaling. What good is a 4K gaming experience if the groundwork done on the game is half-baked?
Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) and AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) were made to boost frame rates by rendering at lower resolutions and letting algorithms fill the gaps, not to make up what graphical flaws a game has.
DLSS/FSR and Frame generation has been a disaster for the PC community https://t.co/oaVTJdIR2q
— 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕳𝖊𝖗𝖗𝖘𝖈𝖍𝖊𝖗 𝖔𝖋 𝕸𝖊𝖉𝖎𝖈𝖎𝖓𝖊 🩺 (@Papa_Kutz) March 2, 2025
I am not saying fake frames are the problem, 60 FPS is 60 FPS, and it’s generally “good for the soul” if upscaling technology makes our experiences better. But if the base game’s a mess, then upscaling is as good as useless.
Spending $1,999 on a GPU to get pixelated edges, blurry smears, and distortions that make 120 FPS feel like 10 FPS could make anyone’s blood boil.
Devs seem to think “good enough” visuals plus AI magic equals a finished product; it doesn’t have to play well; it just has to look good.
Maybe President Trump needs to sign an executive order banning games that cap at 30 FPS and leave the rest to upscaling. Publishers might listen to everyone for once.
Wilds is peak but BRO I CANNOT SEE
Fix it Capcom please 🙏 😢 😭
This is 7950x3d and 4090 pic.twitter.com/9i4bAsHYAi
— Orsus (@Orsusgaming) March 4, 2025
To quote one gaming community member on X, please, let’s stop pretending like fake frames are the solution to anything.
Take your time and release good games, we’ll wait
Too many devs churn out games to hit quarterly targets, not because they want us to play good titles. They lean so much on upscaling to mask lazy programming and laggy frame rates, banking on your $1,500 GPU to pick up the slack, and if you don’t have one, sorry, I guess?
If PC gaming costs more—considering the hardware and the $70 game price tag—it should definitely deliver more than consoles. Not frustration. Not Patches. Not excuses.
Just watched this, it’s actually a very fair video. I obviously disagree and think that Wilds looks fucking amazing, but NO game should have system requirements that require frame generation and upscaling pic.twitter.com/QcDwnqlxTl
— Lutyrannus (@lutyrannus) February 8, 2025
Call Kojima’s output slow, say two games in a decade under his own studio is unacceptable, but I believe I speak for everyone when I say quality will always trump quantity, even if the price to pay is high.
We need more creators who value every community who see PC gamers not as tech guinea pigs but as players who deserve their money’s worth.
Take all the time you need and come up with a game that will make us not think twice about forgoing sleep on the launch date. Our community is patient; we waited 12 years for Grand Theft Auto VI. I think we’ll survive a few more months for something worthwhile.
