The Evolution of PC Gaming Enthusiasts: A Personal Perspective

One of the most interesting aspects of PC gaming is how it can bring people together, even among those who may not have been interested in gaming at first. This phenomenon was exemplified by a popular streamer and content creator, who had initially expressed that they were not a gamer, but found themselves drawn into the world of visual novels like Detroit: Become Human and Life is Strange. Despite their initial skepticism, they discovered a deep appreciation for these games, which often feature choice-driven narratives and engaging storylines.

For this individual, playing visual novels became an immersive experience, allowing them to become invested in the stories and characters. They appreciated the pure storytelling aspect of these games, which can be more like reading a book than playing a traditional game with gameplay mechanics. This observation is particularly relevant for someone who may not have been familiar with PC gaming before, as it highlights the unique aspects of visual novels that can make them appealing to new players.

However, when it comes to recommending games to someone new to PC gaming, even if they're interested in getting into the genre, this person would advise against diving straight into something like Dragon Age Origins or Inquisition. While these games are excellent examples of PC gaming, they come with a steep learning curve and can be overwhelming for someone just starting out. Instead, they suggest waiting until someone has had time to get familiar with the basics of PC gaming, perhaps by playing a game like Divinity: Original Sin 2.

This approach is rooted in a desire not to discourage new players from exploring the world of PC gaming, but rather to ensure that they have a positive experience. The person acknowledges that they themselves struggled when first introduced to visual novels, and recognizes that it's essential to ease newcomers into the genre. By suggesting games like Divinity: Original Sin 2, which offer a more accessible entry point, this individual aims to encourage new players to find their own path within PC gaming.

Another significant aspect of this discussion is the role of personal recommendation in shaping someone's experience with PC gaming. The person believes that recommending games based on one's own preferences and tastes can be incredibly valuable for others who are just starting out. By sharing their love of certain games, they hope to inspire others to explore similar titles, which can ultimately lead to a more enjoyable and rewarding gaming experience.

Ultimately, this conversation highlights the importance of considering individual perspectives when discussing PC gaming. What may be an excellent introduction to the genre for one person might not be suitable for another. By acknowledging these differences and offering tailored advice, we can help new players navigate the world of PC gaming in a way that's both fun and engaging.

One final thought on this topic is the significance of community and shared experiences among PC gamers. The person mentions their own mother as someone who has been positively influenced by their love of PC gaming, which underscores the potential for social connections to play a vital role in shaping our enthusiasm for these games. By embracing the diversity of interests within the PC gaming community, we can foster an environment that's welcoming and inclusive for gamers of all backgrounds and skill levels.

The Solitaire Games: A Shared Experience

Interestingly, the person has come across other solitaire-style games that seem to share similarities with their favorite visual novels. One such game stands out as a particularly compelling example, despite sharing many similarities in terms of gameplay mechanics. By exploring these shared experiences, we can gain insight into what draws people to PC gaming and how it might appeal to those who are new to the genre.

The Impact of Grinding: A Cautionary Tale

Another topic that arose during this conversation was the concept of grinding, which can be a challenging aspect of certain games. When discussing their favorite game, Final Fantasy 10, they noted that one of its most significant drawbacks is the amount of time spent on repetitive gameplay tasks. This experience serves as a reminder that not all PC games are created equal, and some may be better suited to new players than others.

Ultimately, this discussion highlights the importance of considering individual perspectives when discussing PC gaming. What may be an excellent introduction to the genre for one person might not be suitable for another. By acknowledging these differences and offering tailored advice, we can help new players navigate the world of PC gaming in a way that's both fun and engaging.

Recommendations and Personal Experiences

In conclusion, this conversation has shed light on the complexities of PC gaming and the importance of personal experiences when recommending games to others. The person suggests waiting until someone has had time to get familiar with the basics of PC gaming before diving into more complex titles like Dragon Age Origins or Inquisition. Instead, they recommend playing a game like Divinity: Original Sin 2, which offers a more accessible entry point.

This approach is rooted in a desire not to discourage new players from exploring the world of PC gaming, but rather to ensure that they have a positive experience. By sharing their personal experiences and recommendations, this individual hopes to inspire others to find their own path within PC gaming.

Ultimately, the key to successfully introducing someone to PC gaming lies in finding games that resonate with their interests and tastes. By doing so, we can create an environment that's welcoming and inclusive for gamers of all backgrounds and skill levels.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey PC Gamers and welcome back to the PC Gamer chat log I'm Lauren Morton and I'm here with Molly Taylor hey everyone and this week it's just gonna be me and Molly and we are talking about how to turn everybody in your life into a PC Gamer with one game recommendation or well not one recommendation for every single person that would be impossible one recommendation for each kind of person in your life we talk about our parents we're going to talk about um your roommates your dates um you want you want everybody to just join you uh in PC gaming right uh just like you know a thought experiment uh can you get your mom into PC gaming I think some people might already have PC gaming moms but for the rest of us whose moms Play Bejeweled and Candy Crush how do you get her on the PC man how do you do it we're wrapping the Candy Crush moms I think I think our our mom is like the same person just existing yes somehow just across the option two sides of the world at once yeah I don't know you uh you said your mom already has like some video game experience and like my childhood was like I'm gonna hand my mom my Xbox controller one time while I'm playing Halo 3 and watch her do the thing where they look immediately down and then spin in a circle because they do not know how to operate in 3D space um yeah yeah not everybody's mom is Shirley Curry right uh the the Skyrim Grandma who just like went off and got into Skyrim right so that's what we're going to be debating today um but before that Molly what did you do last week yeah so uh I did some some slightly secretive stuff yeah last week that I can't quite talk about yeah I went I went on a press trip um that you will be able to hear about very soon probably like a few hours after after you're hearing this this yeah so it was so close yeah so close I got up to some very secret gamer stuff you know because we're uh my hairdresser actually had to explain to one of his other clients that I was like just a games journalist and not like not like part of like like secret services or something because he was like I'm not about it and I was like I can't talk about it and then and then his client was like what like what is this and he was like no she's just a games journalist it's fine it's like it's not that important um but yeah so I did that and then I also I'm still on my fighting game um I went to a street fighter 6 tournament day two day three even the game came out on June 2nd and I went to a street fighter tournament on June 4th um you would think I had that reviewer's buff um but the tournament went as as bout as well as I was expecting which was like not at all I immediately went O2 I didn't win a single game I got knocked out oh no is that your first O2 in a tournament that's my first O2 but I'm okay with it because I was expecting it and the person who knocked me out was one of my best friends so I it was a sacrifice right it was a sacrifice so that he could continue and also get knocked out immediately after me so it was good fun it was good seeing friends uh and then we gave up very fast and went bowling instead nice yeah so it's been like a very light very light gaming week for me but I feel like I've heard bowling from you multiple times but one was Tekken Bowling like bowling inside Tekken wasn't it this is real bowling this was real bowling this is like actually going out and touching grass and this is bowling yeah this isn't this isn't virtual bowling anymore this is real real life bowling can you imagine wow leaving the house activities it's wild I know so yeah that was that was my week very light not a lot going on for me this week what about you uh I did not leave the house and do group activities I uh was on Discord all weekend with my friends playing Diablo because I uh let's see it would have been June 1st the evening of June 1st here was the start of the Early Access for Diablo 4 for like pre-ordered players to jump in and um then the like proper launch wasn't until the night of June 5th it's like midnight your time but it's evening here um that it happened so I had friends that were like eager to jump in got the one of the pre-order stations I was like you can wait you can wait till the fifth to play like I'm gonna be playing Diablo I promise you but Sal Vermont several of them all jumped in um got to hang out with a lot of necromancers and Sorcerers uh I've been leveling a rogue I know everybody wants to be a Caster where's where's the Druid love Druids are casters too why does nobody want to be a druid that's because no one want to be a druid they can I'm gonna have to be a druid I know I should want to be a druid they have a bear form that's like that's like me right but I just I've always played a rogue I like to be the stabby person so uh yeah just been doing a lot of uh so I've done like the First Act multiple times like already from the previous beta weekends but now I've done most of the first act with like two different groups of friends um and uh oh what else was I gonna say about it yeah leveling a rogue oh and then map clearing I'm an obsessive map clearer um yes Guild Wars brain I have to uncover all of the fog of war the like Blurry parts of the map I have to get all the Alters of Lilith and like my friends are just like let's go do the next main quest I'm like hello I and they're running off to scosglen to the next main area out of the fractured Peaks I'm like there are still blurry Parts on my map you have fun I'm not coming with you I am I have things to do here they made fun of me like just last night they were like eventually Lauren has to do literally everything in uh in the fracture of Peaks before she'll leave for the next area and I was like you're not wrong you're not wrong I do have to do everything Guild Wars brain is good brain you know clearing Everything feels everything needs to be tidy I mean everything needs to be cleared I don't need to do all of the side dungeons before I leave I probably won't do all of the side dungeons but I do already have all the altars of the live and all the waypoints and um all of the strongholds cleared because there are alternative and waypoints in some of those um so yeah I've just I've just been tidying tidying up in Diablo just hoovering up enemies and waypoints and making sure I have all of my my T's crossed and eyes dotted that's that's me you're the kind of person I need to play with I haven't actually played uh Diablo since it launched I played the closed beta and loved it but I haven't jumped into the full game yet I've been busy haven't had you know I haven't had time you were away yeah I was away and I'm away again this week as well so it's hard to like squeeze in that gaming time in the minute I got a I gotta prioritize you know you need to focus and get back to your desk and play some video games I need to stop touching grass I need to hunker down and I need to just play some goddamn video games I will do that when all the madness of touching grass is over and hopefully I can come back and be like Diablo 4 was really cool or oh I didn't like Diablo 4 that much who knows who knows what I think yeah I enjoyed the closed beta but beyond that I'm not sure um how I'll Fair after putting in like dozens of hours we'll see and for this week then we're going to talk about how to get everybody else in your life to stop touching grass and focus down and get a PC and play on it forever like we do that's that's what we need the kind of dedication from everybody in our lives right all right so let's get into it oh no that was like what people say on Tick Tock let's get into it let's get into it I've been watching too much Tick Tock oh no okay so before we start talking about how to turn everybody else we know into a PC Gamer I think it's important to start with our own Roots who made you into a PC Gamer Molly yeah so I think I think my answer will be the same as a lot of other people's answers which is my dad um so I think my dad kind of tried with like strategy games at first you know like you're like PC ass like your PC Gamer ass PC games he used to play a ton of Command and Conquer when I was a little kid was not for me it was not in it wait what age were you like two you didn't take to the strategy genre at age two that wasn't for you no it's not very you know it's it's just not the most toddler friendly genre I can understand not enough color a little bit yeah perhaps not enough prettiness right and I I will admit I wasn't the biggest PC Gamer when I was a kid um the first game that really like grabbed me was Killer Instinct gold on the Nintendo 64 which is surprise surprise a fighting game um but I think the first time I was like really into PC gaming for a bit was when my dad let me play Disney's Toontown online oh uh on on the PC in his bedroom I loved I love that game yeah fighting games and MMOs my dad really started me off uh it's all his fault that I am where I am today so thanks Dad how about you Lauren who was the who is the person that got you into into games um my dad is not a gamer um so I had a Super Nintendo he did bring homo Super Nintendo when I was pretty young around like four and I have memories of um one of the early like Star Wars games on the Super Nintendo one of the side scrollers and he certainly put me in front of like the edutainment type stuff on the computer when I was a kid because I remember as a kid like your Nintendo boxes had the video games and the computers had the like Math Blasters and treasure uh mountain and um all of the like Freddy the fish and uh all of the other like classic sort of like learning e puzzle adventure games um so I was playing both of those things pretty young and I don't I I didn't consider myself like a primarily a PC Gamer like I played consoles for a long time me too until like Guild Wars hit so like I was a teenager until I was like mainly PC Gamer but I think my first like real Spirit of PC gaming was when a friend in Elementary School uh introduced me at her house to The Sims the original Sims and I do have memories of waking up before elementary school before getting on the bus and going down to the family computer in the living room and getting on the Sims before I would get on the bus in the morning and I think that is uh that's some PC Gamer ass Behavior I was exhibiting around like age seven or eight or something so it was pretty cool I I think I was the same as you actually I was playing like those weird education games on PC when I was like pretty young we had one in the UK called Learning Land and that was like it was like a subscription if I remember correctly so you got like a magic and you've got like a CD with that and then you could put like the little CD-ROM in there's like maybe five of them and they were all different themes so I I I got started on it pretty young but I would say like when I got a little bit older that was when like PC gaming specifically grabbed me but as a little console baby for a long time shout out to the edutainment era of PC gaming the like the Humongous Entertainment oh man I freaking love Fred of the fish Pajama Sam what was the other one Putt-Putt travels through time and you always got to play a demo of one on the CD of the other that you borrowed from the library that was those were the when I was a kid good life So speaking of parents that's one of the first people that we're gonna talk about what game would you recommend to one of your parents to turn them into a PC Gamer do you want to go first Molly we both struggled with this in very different ways right yeah so I feel like I had to leave my dad out of it right because like I was going I was basing it off my own parents and because my dad was the one that was really into PC games I was like okay he doesn't count he's already a PC Gamer yeah yeah he's already he's already in he's already there so I was like okay my mum what the hell would my mum play so I have like a little bit of an advantage here because my mum has played games in the past uh she used to play The Professor Layton games on oh yeah Nintendo DS so she used to play that um she really liked those little like hidden object games on the DS as well uh those were her and she now she doesn't really do that she plays like Solitaire and Candy Crush the typical like mother like Mommy games yeah the typical mom game experience Candy Crush and Solitaire so I was trying to think a little bit on like playing off her love for like kind of puzzly things and also her love for like card things so I I have three on my on my list I'm desperately trying to pick just one okay I will I will immediately do you have a top pick I have at the top of my list I have a little to the left okay yeah yeah which is this like super wholesome little puzzle game like very minimalistic very cozy um very intuitive as well and I think that is something that she would really like I think she could that's one of those games that she would just like Tinker away at for like a couple hours and she would like enjoy herself so I had that one because I was thinking about unpacking original yeah but I like my mom is an intelligent woman but I was unsure if like that game's narrative were necessarily it's a little opaque right it's not delivered very directly which is not to say that your mom wouldn't get it but if you're not used to playing games and like determining where the story is coming from right yeah exactly so I was like maybe not but a little to the left seems pretty simple and then the second one I had it's it's a solitaire RPG uh called Shadow hand so keep talking sorry I shouldn't have slammed my death wrote a podcast okay you just keep talking yeah so I love Shadow hand uh this is a game that I originally saw and an egx rest back in like 2015 2016 I want to say it was a while ago right and it's like this super it's like kind of Solitaire uh but then sometimes there's like a turn-based kind of thing to it where you have to play it like against a CPU um then there's like the little RPG elements there's like story elements you could dress up the character and like the gear have different stats there's like a lot going on but it's very easily digestible in my brain and I love that game and I feel like she would love it too the fellas you play the hell out of it have you played Shadow hand or is this right up your alley I have not played Shadow hand but I will before I say anything I will just let everyone know that Molly and I on purpose kept all of our picks separate from each other because we wanted to be able to see if either of us were brilliant or exactly had the same idea so keep going if you have more to say about yourself recommendation and then I'll go I'm so excited to see what you had to see what you selected now yeah I think I think she would really dig Shadow hand um it's a nice game there's like a little bit of RNG but I think it's great it's really pretty as well it's a really really pretty game so big up Shadow hand uh and then I also had Phoenix Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Trilogy oh sure yeah but that she's only played Professor Layton so yeah it's the natural progression they had a crossover game on the Nintendo 3DS so yeah why not but yeah that's what that's those are those are my options but I'm those are good picks for your reaction I'm settling on Shadow hand okay so uh we went in really similar territories at every part of this question because I also I skipped over my dad because he's not a PC Gamer but I've already had these thoughts before I was like my I have a history dad who used to paint Miniatures I already decided years ago that his life could be destroyed by civilization he never got into it and so I was like okay you can't use that you've already thought about it you need to challenge yourself so you need to think about your mom who is also a like not really a gamer she did some candy crush some of the pet one uh the whatever the other match three one was she got a little bit into Wordle so like habit-forming puzzly type stuff um but I have to get off the phone right I have to make her a PC Gamer and so many of those things are on the phone and so I started thinking about um puzzle stuff that was on PC and just so many of them are so geared towards mobile um I started thinking about like the different things that she actually likes I mean she likes Sports she really doesn't like fantasy she's like a fiction or historical fiction girly she like any of the goofy fantasy stuff I play or read is just like not her territory so I can't weird her out with like grindstone or something by Cappy games like that one's neat and I hear really good things about it but I'm like no that one's too funky it looks like an Adventure Time cartoon and um I was like what else does my mom like what else does my mom like my mom likes Downton Abbey oh and I started thinking to myself I went into the deep deep ocean depths of my memory Molly and you know what I pulled out Regency Solitaire no no way you know I was thinking I'm so sorry everybody I was thinking I guarantee Lauren has picked Regency Solitaire that was a legit I almost picked it you know when I said it like the shadow hand has a bit of RNG in it I was almost about to say so maybe she could play Regency Solitaire instead Regency Solitaire also by gray alien games um and the reason I went with Regency Solitaire is because it's got that that Downton Vibe right the story behind it is like you're uh you're a lady of high society and I think your brothers like gambled all your family's money and you have to like make a good marriage by playing like not exactly Solitaire like you said it's got some RNG things in it it's not like direct Solitaire there's like weird shapes you're uncovering stuff you're buying things there's a whole story behind it and crucially uh it's on PC and Nintendo switch I don't think it's on mobile so I'm like okay we could get her into it on her laptop turn my mom into a PC Gamer um and I I was also looking at Shadow hand and I thought to myself because it was Pirates I was like no she wouldn't go for shadow hand it needs to be the Regency one and uh I I just happened to notice that like formally of PC Gamer Philip award um yes reviewed Shadow hand and mentioned in the review preferring Regency Solitaire that was a little bit earlier I think shadowhand is also a good game but just from that also I was like it's got it's got to be Regency Solitaire I cannot believe I cannot believe clearly we've solved the puzzle if you're a bomb is not a gamer she needs to be playing one of the the funky gray alien game solitaire games It's gotta be shadowhand or Regency Solitaire the fact that we went away we cracked the code differently and both came back with what is essentially the same answer we either have Downton Abbey Solitaire set I think it's set in bath as well uh it is yeah it's where the UK where the UK PC Gamer offices are based so we either have like Downton Abbey Solitaire in the PC Gamer offices oh well we have pirate solitaire whichever your mum prefers my mum loves like superheroes and stuff she's like really into all of that uh she loves like all she'd be up in the Pirates yeah she loves like the DC TV show she loves fantasy so that I feel like the pirate bit would be super super up her alley I hate this this is why this is why I had us keep our answers a secret because I was hoping I was hoping that's incredible I'm dreading the rest of this now um okay the next one I'm really proud of actually I'm gonna have you go first again but the next person we want to get him he's into PC gaming is your theoretical College room mate who only plays FIFA on his PlayStation and I said his it could be a woman it's but it's probably his PlayStation right um I had friends like this in University who were FIFA guys they just come home hang on the couch and play play some matches right and uh they're very comfortable on their PlayStation uh very comfortable playing their sports games how do you turn that friend into a PC Gamer how do you snatch them away Molly oh God this this one gave me the biggest crisis like yeah I I don't exactly have an answer I have like my train of thought that I when I was like making notes for this I just have like my oh god what the hell so initially my brain automatically defaulted to OverWatch for some reason because in my head I was like like the sort of crossover between like FIFA Bros and like shooter Bros feels like there's like there's like a distinct crossover between the two like in my brain I think a lot of people I know who play FIFA also play like Call of Duty or whatever so my brain was like what OverWatch is cross play and then I was like no first of all I don't really want to recommend OverWatch because you're not feeling that right now you're not feeling like recommending OverWatch at this particular moment no particular reason why I'm done with it you know like just just everything just the last like two years of Blizzard's history has just put me off it you know so I was like No And then I was still on like the shooter train so I was like oh maybe like Borderlands I was like Borderlands might be fun I was like ah but Borderlands 3 is the only cross play one and I know Borderlands 3 didn't go down too well and then I was like damn actually what if it's like a game that is just so much better on PC right because of mods so I was like what because of mods that's a good angle yeah yeah so I was like but then what would my FIFA my hypothetical FIFA college roommate really want to play Minecraft that was like Skyrim or something like that and then my mind went to Yu-Gi-Oh okay sure because I was like what FIFA has you know the the Ultimate Team it has cards um but eventually I settled on Rocket League okay sure because I was like well this is this is uh Sports but with cars and will it convince them to make the jump to PC maybe maybe not but I've really struggled with this one if you couldn't tell I didn't come up with something in the end because my brain was a mess with this one and I could not think of something now I'm really interested to hear your your train of thought it's okay because I went through like that whole journey of the Soul trying to figure out what to recommend my mom that was my struggle this one I this one I like talked over with my partner a little bit I was thinking about some friends that I have who like I have a friend who plays a lot of Madden and who also plays a lot of City skylines and that was my first thought was like maybe sports games are a comfort type of game secretly like it's um you know something that you can kind of do by memory you already don't know all these things you can sit down you can kind of do it without thinking too hard I thought maybe that's the kind of thing that a sports gamer is getting from Sports and wants from other games um and my partner was saying like no there's like the competitive element too there's a challenge like you don't want to miss that and so I thought okay all right need to find something that's really going to get them into PC gaming like you said what is better on PC and I'm actually very proud of this sort of strange pick but I think Desperados 3 by me me me games who did Shadow tactics Blades of the Shogun and Des brought us three and they have an upcoming Pirates uh tactical uh stealth game too these are real time stealth tactics did you ever play one of these no I have not but I've heard of them so they're excellent they're excellent stealth tactics games and crucially they involve a like large map each level is like a big map that's sort of a puzzle that you're solving you're doing it with a team of different characters that have different abilities which is not quite the same as like a sports thing but it's got this real time managing a large area figuring out a solution it's more it's kind of like a puzzle angle and I don't think if you're like playing I I just can't lump all sports players together and be like they're all exactly the same because like I think probably the FIFA players are different from the Madden players or different from the NBA 2K players but I just feel like I think there is really something in the real time stealth challenge uh tactics I'm like I think and it's inarguably better to play those on PC I think uh with a mouse I think you need a mouse to play Real Time for sure and my personal favorite was Shadow tactics um that was fantastic but Desperados 3 is also a very good game and it's it's Cowboys I feel like uh I feel like you could get your FIFA friend in for a little cowboy tactics potentially that's such a good pick right because I think the thing that I just could not it's weird yeah but it's such a good pick because the thing that I was having the most trouble with when I was thinking about this was like what is the specific part of FIFA that keeps people going yeah what do you want from it yeah like is it the gameplay is it the ultimate teams part which is like kind of RNG right it's like you're opening like from my understanding it's like opening packs of cards and getting like certain players right so my understanding of FIFA is like disgustingly like minimal and it that that was the thing that I just could not comprehend it's like what is it exactly about FIFA that FIFA players enjoy I don't mean I like even in a in like you're trying to figure it out yeah it's like because I don't genuinely want to know which part of it is the part that that keeps people like so hooked onto it and I think if I'd have like your parents your FIFA friends may vary but yeah but it's just that was a tough one for me it was really tough because again it's like what do you what do you feed them but I think strategy is like a pretty especially like a real-time sort of like stealth tactic yeah kind of game like I don't know what I would estimate the success rate of that play at like like give your FIFA friend a real-time tactical stealth game or strategy game and see if it hooks them but I just I feel like certain certain Sports friends would would grab that with their brains yeah you know I'm still sticking by Yu-Gi-Oh I'll say that that that baby has cards too and I'm sure they would uh I'm sure they would love that because I was really trying to think about like games that are really fun to mod on PC yeah would would my hypothetical FIFA friend want to play Minecraft with my with my hypothetical FIFA friend want to play like The Witcher 3. would they even I don't really want to play The Witcher 3 that much so it's like why it's so long okay well Fair yeah maybe maybe getting them into a 100 hour RPG is not the play maybe that doesn't work so I I that's brought us three I think that is an incredibly good choice it's either way too out there or it's the most big brain thing I'm gonna say today so other theoretical friends uh different kind of friend this is something that I think plenty of people go through what about the person that you're chatting up on Tinder or your dating app of choice I have not been on one of those in over a decade um your special friend um but like you know you're you're talking to somebody new you are considering putting them into your life right and if you are a big PC Gamer and that's a big part of your life either because you play a lot of MMOs and a lot of your friends are involved in your game so that's an important part of your socialization or just because it's your main Hobby and you want the person that you're dating to either also be involved with your hobby or just be accepting of the amount of time that you spend on your hobby uh you know maybe um maybe Molly you have have you ever had to do this before I think your boyfriend already played fighting games right yeah so I go I was I'm very lucky with uh honestly I've always been quite lucky in that every relationship I've had they've been like just as big if not an even bigger gamer than me uh which has been really helpful I feel like this is perhaps an issue I've not had to run into that much and yeah my current boyfriend we met through like being in the same like fighting game circles so this was actually also kind of a challenge because like not to you know stereotype but I feel like this is definitely perhaps more difficult if you're trying to like raise up a lady but if you're someone who dates women yeah yeah you don't play games yeah like I I find that my friends who date women have the problem of like oh they don't really game and I don't want to be like you know I don't wanna frighten them with how little I touch grass yeah I find that like that's more of an issue for my friends at date women versus sure yeah like my friends at date men right so I thought on this and then I I did remember that uh a guy I met on Tinder like a couple years ago now like a year and a half ago I want to say play through the entirety of Final Fantasy 14. yeah because because I was because of you yeah when I was like deep in like my final fantasy brain rot phase yeah I didn't ask him to I would I just talked about it a lot because it was all I did right I would like work all day I would go to the gym and then I would just play Final Fantasy 14 all night that is not a game I would recommend someone that I was chatting up on on on Tinder I was gonna say Twitter then oh my goodness someone Irish don't chat people up on Twitter yeah do not chat people up on Twitter have you ever picked up a game for somebody that you were interested in or were dating like have you tried a new game so do you already know what you like and you're like don't mess with me I picked up Street Fighter 5 for a little bit when an old boyfriend of mine was like super into Street Fighter so like he was trying to get into Tekken for me and I was trying to get in Street Fighter for him I could not get into Street Fighter 5 at the time so I had to like put that one to bed I also tried to get into CS go for an old boyfriend because I used to watch all like the little CS surfing videos oh yeah yeah yeah I was like oh I love these and then like CS surfing is kind of like hard it's not as easy as they make it look in the videos no it's not no so I I kind of struggled with that a little bit but I've definitely like you know tried to get into a game for the sake of my boyfriend but something that I find works really well is like two things backseat gaming potential okay yeah yeah competitive potential so once again I come to you with two recommendations so my first recommendation if they're like if you're at a stage where they're like coming around to your house right put neon white in front of them put Neil White in front of them because I don't know what it is maybe it's just all the men that I end up like coming across have this just like whack-ass yee yee competitive nature inside them that just makes them wanna be better than me so like you gotta get like the the best the best scores and like a game like neon white that's so digestible right you could just boot that up you can play like for five minutes and you can get some stuff done and jump back out put put your scores in front of them and just watch them crumble as they try so hard to beat you and then next thing you know they'll also be playing neon might and you can stream to each other on Discord as you're trying to and they have to get it on PC because your scores aren't on console oh if they want to compete with you they need to be on PC yeah so that was kind of my fossil was just playing off like that competitive nature right because you've got some great co-op games as well you've got like it takes two a way out um we were here as well I think is like I love the Weaver here series I still need to play it they're so good the only trouble is that like once you've played it once it's hard to do it again with someone new because you already know the answer so yeah but they're still like fantastic first one's free if you've never played we were here Co-op uh split room asynchronous or a uh symmetrical Co-op anyway sorry go on yeah I should play that um and then again backseat it's like a really good on right you can like open Discord and you can stream to them maybe if they like get get Discord on their phone they can get Discord on their phone and you can stream Discord to them ah so I was thinking like kind of like story games you know like life is strange or like LA Noire where I feel like LA Noire I played LA Noire because an old boyfriend of mine played LA Noire and I would like backseat him playing it I'd be like no no like that's the wrong evidence like why are you using that don't use that and then then I went home and I also bought LA Noire so I think you have to play off that yeah just a little bit right and then you've always got like I don't know Call of Duty to fall back on valorant valorant is where like everyone seems to be meeting these days well really yeah Valerian seems to be where it's all happening so I have no idea yeah I always seem to I always hear stories about like e-dating in valorant and then I always see a lot of like Tick Tock Valerian videos so maybe that's where maybe that's where everyone's getting rised up is over on value it's all about you what is your uh what is your selection okay so I have actually done this my partner played games did play games he was an Xbox guy um Halo guy for a long time and when we met I uh Guild Wars 2 had just launched recently um so he got to know what kind of individual I was very quickly and whether or not he was going to be interested in uh the lifestyle I was leaving um and when we were in school he would come over to my place I would be playing Guild Wars 2 and I threw him on my PS4 because Assassin's Creed Black Flag had just come out and he beat all of Black Flag while we were in school oh and you know just hanging out uh together but separate sort of right and existence um yeah he continued being like a console person for a while even after we moved in but the thing that turned him into a PC Gamer he built his first PC to play pubg player unknown's Battlegrounds yeah because it took over I mean it took over uh and of course like he had history with Halo he so he was into FPS stuff and as you said the competitive nature of pubg you could either play solos or you can be on a team so me and him and some of the people who are still our close friends played a lot of Pub G together um that's uh that's what did it for him and now he is the hardware master of this household he picked everything that is in my current rig he is now the true PC Gamer here um so having gone through that and seeing that it took something really pervasive that like everybody was playing his friends were playing he didn't want to miss out on he built he think he spent like 150 to get these like weird Overstock parts to like throw together into his first PC that could bear barely run player knows Battlegrounds it was so bad like he wouldn't be able to load in levels like Bridges would fail to load in so if he was driving a motorcycle while we were playing we would fall underneath the bridge like there are clips of this happening somewhere on my hard drive it was horrific um so anyway thinking of that I was like okay we need something pervasive and I think this might be a basic answer but I think it's got to be valheim for me oh yeah remember how popular valheim was I mean and it's still a fantastic game and it still is popular but when it took over it took over and it's not even out of Early Access yet right so I think it's going to have a Resurgence even when it goes into full launch but it is the Viking crafting game it is the uh I don't want to say new Minecraft it's not new Minecraft but it has the crafting thing it has the co-op thing um as you said it's different for if you're dating women and you're trying to get them into like gaming at all like throw Animal Crossing or stardew Valley or The Sims at her start there not every woman likes those things but if she doesn't play games already just start there and see where it gets you if you're dating men and they don't already play many video games or PC games you've got a different task cut out for you um and yeah and I think I think valheim the the co-op ability of it the like you go off and fight stuff and like I'll be crafting all the resources or like I'll go off and find stuff and like you work on building the house this is whatever speaks to you um my my partner is the go off and fight stuff person like bringing home the resources he's like I fought 10 wolves and like me and our other friend because this is our our core for crafting uh co-op games group at this point we're like we've been working on the house we built a roof so uh yeah I think valheim that's that's my pick for this that's a good answer and you know what you say in pubg I feel like this question would have been so much easier to answer in like 2015 2016 when like rust was all yes I remember the boyfriend that I had at the time the one that I was like trying to play CS surfing for like he was super into rust he would play Rasta until like I would go to bed at like 11 p.m 12 a.m and I would wake up at 4am and he was still playing it like he would just be like smashing into trees with his little with his Little Rock for like hours on end and like he would be like oh look honey you know you you die and you spawn and look your Willy's a different size like you could have like a big dick or a small dick and it's like it's random like a true Joy of rest the true Joy of rust is randomly generated penises so like rust was all the rage like like see us rust did also take over in that way you're right yeah like rust had like such a huge Moment Like CS go is still popular but I feel like it was more like it was definitely more in my like awareness back in like 2015 2016 and again pubg like those three games like dominating on PC it's like a hot is that right so yeah definitely this this question would have been way easier to answer like six seven years ago okay so a slightly more like topical thing we talked about TV show adaptations like a little bit ago on this podcast several episodes ago and I brought up a tick tock I'd seen of a woman who was on um you know involved in the book side of tick tock who read I think probably reads like fantasy and other stuff and was like yo I watched The Last of Us is this what video games are video games have stories like this I had no idea and we joked about at the time we were like we think that conversation is so hard but for some people it's not they don't know they they didn't know the games had stories like the last of us um so how do you get that person that friend of yours who's like yo I thought you were all just playing Super Smash Bros and Call of Duty and our friend who plays FIFA on his PlayStation I thought that was all of video games uh give me something with a story like The Last of Us what do you what do you put that person in front of to turn them into a hopeless PC Gamer yeah so this was also kind of tough in a way right because like this Tick Tock she was saying how like fantastic The Last of Us like the story was but I was like how invested would like a pure book Taco like a pure book reader be in getting through that game with the shooting bit of it right which even I don't even love that's an important part of this question what will they actually enjoy playing that's not gonna be like bam welcome to video games like you gotta you gotta ease them into it right and that's like there's a very uh interesting uh series on YouTube as well and I I the person's name that does it eludes me but he he does a series of videos on YouTube about what gaming is like for a non-gamer and it's like he gets his wife to like play a variety of different games and then sort of just like does little like video essays based off like what he found from that and you know okay like like a serious dissection and not like you know jokes get videos yeah like like a serious dissection of like okay like the the things that she responded like positively to and the things that she responded like more more negatively about and the things that like for her weren't as intuitive as like they might be for someone like me and you who've been playing for a long time um and it's so interesting because I forget what game it was now he like put his his all-time favorite game in front of her and she was bored she was like I'm super bored yeah I know right she just wasn't enjoying it because it just wasn't coming to her like as naturally as it did to him yeah so I kind of had that in in my end when I was thinking about this and I was like well there's for me there's two genres there's turn-based RPGs yeah there's visual novels like visual novels feel like the obvious obvious choice and there are so many good visual novels on PC you have like Clannad which is one of the most gut-wrenching heartbreaking visual novels to ever exist uh you have at the diamond Romper series which I wouldn't recommend to like a newcomer but but that exists um yeah the one that I settled on a visual novel which is not the most PC ass PC game but if you have a laptop or something right I feel like it's a it's a it's a pretty good one so I thought Steins Gate feels like such a good little entry point because it's got drama it's not like overly like Japanese weebie in your face it can be yeah but it's not like overly that but it's got like a really cool sci-fi story it's got like timeline stuff time travel it's got like it's like a roller coaster of a story right and it's like yeah really pretty artwork and it's text Heavy which I think you know book book people will be used to text heavy stuff um so I was thinking like Steins Gate but then I was also thinking like Final Fantasy 10 is one of the best in my opinion one of the best stories out there I love Final Fantasy 10 story and yeah it's got like like simple-ish enough gameplay that I think you could like easily pick it up as well and be like oh okay this is how this works kind of thing so can you put it on an easy enough difficulty that you're not grinding all the time because that's yeah that is a gamer experience is grinding it is that is a gamer experience but I think a visual novel would be a good place to like get someone started like Stein's gate or like uh the the nunnery games like 999 and uh Zero Escape uh zero time dilemma like those games are really good I love visual novels I feel like they were really slapped on for a long time and then they had this like little that's a little uptick in popularity and they were like super cool and super kind of at the Forefront for a while and I think they've kind of gone back into their dormant phase a little but I don't think people should should sleep on them because visual wake up yeah goddamn visual novel Styles gate is my recommendation because that's still one of my favorite stories in any media ever so this is actually one that I've pulled off as well I'm proud of myself actually I'm not the one who pulled it off but my best friend we grew up playing like Pokemon and things like that together so she was exposed to games like she was against video games but she wasn't a PC Gamer and she didn't play a lot of video games um and another one of our friends introduced her to dragon age and she played through Dragon Age origins of Dragon Age 2 on an Xbox 360 was so in love with them that she built her first PC so that she could play Dragon Age Inquisition when it launched um and so like that's my first gut instinct as a person who loves Dragon Age but I know I that was nine years ago that was in the year 2014. that this occurred in the year 2023 I would not sit a person who doesn't play many video games and is looking for a good story in front of Dragon Age Origins I would not do that to somebody that I cared about you need to already know how to play RPGs play a 10 year old uh 10 plus how old is Dragon Age Origins it came out in like 2009 or 10 um that is more than 10 years old so I could not like reasonably suggest that um and even even something that is known to have a really good story like disco Elysium yeah and it's not as demanding as um a like real time with pause RPG the way the Dragon Age Origins is I still think there's a gamey quality to it that if you're not already attuned to how an adventure game works and you just you want a good story and like you are not like engaged in exactly how to interact with game worlds like an adventure game I don't know if that's the right place to start either despite how amazing that story of course is I agree there's so much room yeah in Disco Elysium as well yes oh the failure points for no reason in that game and it's great and we all talk about how amazing that is that you can die for no reason but if you're not like a big like RPG gamer that has got to be an awful feeling and it might make you walk away and not come back so I went with a slightly different tactic and I sort of went to similar territory as you I first grabbed for Telltale Games and I thought that might be too easy um because I feel like you could put somebody in front of Like The Wolf Among Us or um The Telltale Game of Thrones was pretty good as well and those are um they have quick time events in them occasionally uh right but you I think there are options to simplify them and I think that's like relatively grockable um as like a game thing I don't think it's hard to understand it might be hard to pull off the first couple times you're presented with it but it makes sense immediately um and they have good stories they're the original Telltale Games um before Telltale Games became a different Telltale Games um are known for being yeah known for being excellent um and I was like okay maybe that's too easy try a little bit harder so I thought um also super massive horror games yeah are a good pick too um the I think the quarries the most recent one that's super massive isn't it uh I didn't play it myself I've watched Friends Play it like you mentioned back seating can be really fun with that type of stuff and those are um you know they're all horror games so taste may vary whether or not you have a friend that can stomach or or not but I really think that both of those things were like the quick time and the choices that you have to make and the way that they change the story that's taking a friend who enjoys stories and giving them something that's distinctly gamey and like pers like PC gaming of like understanding you're changing the story like it's kind of intense like you want to solve the puzzle you want to do it right and that takes it from just enjoying the fact that stories exist in games and like enjoying the way that stories can work in games so I'd say like the Quarry was really fun I really liked watching my friends play that I personally of the um the dark pictures Anthology only played the first two of those but I really did like man of Medan the first one that's on the like haunted ghost ship yeah I haven't finished that one yet but I enjoyed what I what I played of that yeah uh so those those were my picks for your story friend I do I like the idea of pushing them towards Choice stuff yeah like Choice narrative driven stuff what about like Night in the Woods as well oh sure okay not in the woods feels like feels like a good one as well I'm based in this that there is again a YouTuber that I really love and uh she just does like nail art stuff that's like her main thing uh her name is uh simply nailogical she does like nail things that is her like whole that's what her channel was for like a long time um she doesn't really make videos anymore she streams a lot now but she's never been a gamer she was like self-admitted that she wasn't really a gamer but then she started playing like like Detroit become human she played life for strange she played like all of those again like those sort of choice driven yeah sort of that you're still actively engaging with the game but not in a not in a necessarily challenging way mechanically more so just like dialogue choices right and she loves them like that's that's a lot of what she what she plays and what she streams and it's super interesting to like watch watch this person that always said that she wasn't really a gamer become super invested in all these in all these little stories so I think you have I think you have the right the right line of thinking there because like Steins Gate is such a pure visual novel there's so little like actual gameplay interaction with it then it might be like but why am I sat at a desk staring at a screen I've told you that's why I struggle with visual novels yeah but yeah but I appreciate that they're great but yeah that's always the point at which I struggle with them is like if it's really well written I'm just like I wish it were in a book and I was sitting on it might happen yeah like because it is it is so pure there's so like little gameplay compared to say like Phoenix Wright or Danganronpa yeah the nunnery games where they're sort of like hybrid with other genres and there's like actual dedicated gameplay gameplay segments I can't say gameplay today dedicated gameplay segments in them and so like Steins Gate might on paper seem like the perfect little it's like oh it's like loads of text and a cool story but I I do I do agree with you I think I think like a little Choose Your Own Adventure kind of type deal would be would be the best damn Lauren you're good at this I tried I tried I I am so excited that we both live with the solitaire games same same it's like almost the exact same game save developer for the same reason yeah same reason fantastic you've already alluded to this but would you recommend your favorite game to somebody trying to get into PC gaming yeah just no I don't think so no I know I just kind of said like maybe Final Fantasy 10 but then you mentioned the grinding and I was like oh yeah I had not considered the the grinding aspect of getting through this really cool story um I don't think so like my favorite games are just filled with like so much that if you're into that like great and I am into that so great if you're like coming into this kind of not having really played PC games or not really having gamed much at all if you're coming into that and it's like hey here's like 150 hours of like the stupidest you you will ever witness but if you get through it there's some really cool stuff can I do that to people hell no I can't do that you kind of said the same already with Dragon Age right which is one of your favorite all-time videos yeah yeah I don't know if I don't know what my like all-time favorite is right now anymore but like obviously Dragon Age is certainly up there it holds a special place in my heart and like I said no I would not put somebody in front of Dragon Age Origins or Inquisition even if you think somebody could and should start with Inquisition I wouldn't put somebody in front of that to turn them into a PC Gamer or a gamer either it can work it has worked I'm sure on people but I would not be putting any money or um emotional investment of my pride or anything else into making that play I wouldn't I wouldn't go for it no maybe like a few games in right when when they start to get a feel for them maybe then but like for the first game we we can't be doing we can't be doing that to them I'm gonna drop somebody into Divinity original sin too bam good luck enjoy PC gaming I think even if you did that to me I would just be like a deer in headlight so I'd be like what the am I supposed to do why is everything on fire all of the time no can do it we've cracked the code I think we've done it we've turned uh several people in your life into PC Gamers especially your mom I just think since our brains are in the same place it has to be the only right answer that there is I think we already came together on that one I knew our our minds would converge would be somewhere yes yes and I'm so glad that it was just our moms they're just our moms excellent well done thanks Molly uh and good luck to everybody else trying to turn all the people in your life into PC Gamers yeah bye\n"