PC gaming is on it’s death bed…

… at least for me.

I’ve always invested a tidy sum of money into my computers so I can run the latest greatest games, for at least the first 6 months of it’s life.

But I’m starting to get fed up with having to jump through hoops to install and play a game.  Years ago, it started with having to load the original CD to play games.  The there were games that wouldn’t let you play if you have a virtual optical drive—purely out of spite.  These days having an internet connection is required to activate games.

Spore introduced me to having to install crapware.  I don’t give a shit about online communities, leader boards, trophies, and videos.  I just want to play the goddamn game and not have my system tray spilling over with useless game utility that offer me nothing.

Last night this all got worse for me when I installed Grand Theft Auto IV.  Not only do you have to have the DVD in the drive to play, not only do you have to active it online, not only does it install crapware, you HAVE TO have a Windows Live account to save your game!!!  WTF!?

I was ready to punch something by the time I was forced to wait for patches for the Live client, then patches for the game, then Live kept rejecting my connection.  If you don’t login to Live, you can’t save your game.  If you can’t connect to live, you can’t save your game.  If you can’t save your game there’s no point playing!

I totally resent having to have crapware and a live account to play games.  I bought the game!  I bought it with real money!  And I’m treated like an arsehole when I come to install it.  I so long for the days when you bought a game, you installed just the game, and then you played it, and saved your game to the computers local drive.

I have gaming consoles, but some games I simply prefer to play on a PC… I’m going to have a seriously hard time to justify choosing a PC game in future.