A Question arose with me recently about the gaming community when I made a negative comment to a work colleague about her recent purchase of an Xbox One; why do we call ourselves a community when we have such diverse and conflicting opinion?

The first clear-cut difference within our community is the constant battle between PC gamers and console gamers. So before I dive into this, I must confess, I am a PC gamer so any testaments I make towards consoles will be relevant to my own preferences and how I see them.

Looking at PC gaming as it stands today we have built a titanic global presence. Since technology is so quickly innovated the PC itself is the interface for modern day creations such as social networking, business networking and much more. With the vast connectivity we possess at our fingertips we have reached on of our highest feats to date; the creations and globally recognised sport of PC gaming. A sport where intelligence and mastering of the keyboard is rewarded with community respect and admiration. (Go Nerds!)

Now let’s look at the console gamers, to begin with they outnumber PC gamers. This is because the console was built to play games in the household; before internet connectivity, before cloud storage… who remembers the old PlayStation 1 memory cards? The console is less custom orientated than the PC, it does become dead technology very fast. But lest we forget if it wasn’t for the console we could not have helped Super Mario save the princess (over and over and over and…)  We would not have spent our entire lives to this date arguing over which Pokémon starter is the best. The console has given us some of the most memorable titles throughout our lives and we should be proud of that.

So where does this hatred for each other come from? Surely the love of games we have is what keeps us together?

Firstly the technology innovation in gaming is a double-edged sword. PC will be able to play new technology games before a console will. This is a fact, not a remark about how some Xbox One games are restricted to be played on 720p. But the time it will take to mass produce a sustainable console as well as keep the consumer happy with a decent price range is a difficult task, whereas with the PC users you get out as much as you get in a PC when you spend money, and nowadays the availability of PC parts for faster speeds, lower fps is on a much bigger scale with a wider variety of products to customise. But again, both will suffer from tech innovation at different paces, if you went out and bought a PC now, it would be dead technology within 6 months.

Another particular issue I have noticed is the mass array of superiority complexes there are in gamers. Because the games we play test our mental skills and not our physical ones we are constantly challenging our mind to try and be the best mind. To put it simply the barrier between PC and console gamers is one of mental integrity. PC gamers and console gamers believe that each other is the ‘wrong’ side and that their side is best. It even exists within our very own divides; the countless times people will abuse you on the PC and console for doing something wrong is obscene. Although I will say we all have a learning curve, but even when we took that abuse from others we inevitably did it to those who were less capable than ourselves once we were at a higher level.

I think I’ve said all I need to say on the matter. We, as a community, definitely need some work on out inter-community social skills. We do have the exceptions of course, there are those who play both PC and console and only enjoy gaming for the sake of gaming, not because of which is better. Definitely an example for us to learn from in my opinion, however I wouldn’t like to see the arguments go completely, only through debate can we push change to happen. We’ll see, but the gaming industry is at an all time high, anything could happen in the future.