You see, I love videogames, but I hate... I hate the videogame industry, I guess. That includes the ‘enthusiast press’ – I hate this contrived idea of ‘gamers’ and ‘gaming culture’; I prefer the idea that videogames are a thing, and all sorts of people have individual experiences with this thing, among many other things, and a person’s experience might overlap with many other people’s experiences, and another person’s might not. And thus, videogames are culture; they are a part of culture. I prefer this idea because it is the correct one. When people say ‘gaming culture’, they should be saying ‘gaming cult’. They could also easily say, ‘religious nuts’.

There are denominations and everything!

I don’t know or care what games are coming out, or which consoles they’re coming out on. That’s a generalisation – I heard Braid is coming out on PC soon, which is great, and I’m looking forward to Brütal Legend of course, though I’m not sure how I’m going to play it. You see, I don’t own any of the new consoles – that’s why I don’t care what games are coming out. And yes, I think of the consoles as new. They are new. They only came out a few years ago.

One reason I don’t own any consoles is that they are expensive. They cost hundreds of dollars! And the games are expensive too; obscenely expensive. Feel free to link me to an interview with some cunt in a suit (but no tie) explaining why games cost as much as they do; just know in advance that I don’t care and won’t read it. It’s not my problem. I do not ache for videogame consoles; I do not suffer for want of tedious games about tough guys going BANG BANG at things that take a month to finish and anyway there are too many buttons on the controller.

I might feel like I was missing out, if these expensive games were at all interesting. I seem to be mostly interested in games that have a strong authorial voice...

Actually, a correction: I am interested in fun games. But there seems to be a significant overlap between games I find fun, and games with a strong authorial voice.

Back to what I was saying: It has been a long time since games you buy in shops for too much money – ‘triple-A titles’ for you gamers out there – had a strong authorial voice. There are occasional exceptions, and there are things like Xbox Live Arcade and WiiWare, and I am actually quite interested in those. But there is also the internet, and it has freeware on it, and inexpensive indie games, created by people who simply want to make fun games and are very good at doing so. I would love to buy some Xbox Live Arcade games, but I would have to buy an Xbox 360 first. And I might if I had to, but I already have a thing I can play games on. I’m typing this article on it.

(I know the PS3 has a game downloady thing too, because Noby Noby Boy is on it, but come on. I live in the real world and no-one here is buying a PS3 ever. The only people who still talk about that machine are gamers, and they only talk about it because talking about games is what they do.)

Not that long ago, I preferred consoles to PCs, for playing games on. I had a Gamecube, and eventually I got an Xbox too. They had buttons, you see, and you plugged them into a TV. To play the latest games on a PC, you had to spend more money on your machine than you would pay for a console anyway. Plus, when I did install games on my computer, I’d forget they were there. And then they wouldn’t run properly. And there was all this copy protection bullshit, and then you had to download patches and things. Jesus! Consoles were so much simpler in comparison.

But the new batch of consoles have lost that advantage. You download patches on consoles now. You pay for ‘downloadable content’ that is either too expensive, or should have been on the disc in the first place. You download – or rather, the machine downloads for you – ‘system updates’ that prevent you from using the console in any way that the manufacturer doesn’t approve of; it steals back ownership from you, the owner. Who can be bothered with all that bullshit? The answer is not me. And also – I may have mentioned this – these consoles are expensive.

And big. They’re so big! I travel, these days; I am a vagrant, and an Xbox 360 or PS3 would be a literal weight, pinning me down to one location; one dreadful lifestyle. I’d quite like a Wii – a Wii would fit in my suitcase. Oh, except I’d have to buy two or three of them because the Wii has region protection. Nice to know Nintendo can still have terrible ideas; I was beginning to worry.

The PC, meanwhile, has risen in my esteem, for two reasons. Number one: I now use a laptop, rather than a desktop computer. It is small and portable, and therefore a lot more like a portable console, which is the kind of games machine I prefer over all others. I’m keen on my DS, and I’d love to buy a Pandora if I ever hear from someone reliable that there are games on it. They’re so cozy, portables. Laptops are cozy too, and are big enough for other people to watch you play, if you want. Or play with you, if it’s a two-player game. Maybe laptops will become the kind of games machine I prefer over all others. I have changed my mind about bigger issues. (It is something that people do, when they are not gamers.)

Reason number two: I no longer care about the kind of games that you need a very expensive PC to play. My laptop happens to be pretty fantastic, but if it weren’t it wouldn’t matter, if I could play Spelunky and Mighty Jill Off and run DOSBox and MAME (which I could).

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