Dear PC Gaming

We've had a lot of good times, haven't we? When I got my first PC in 1997, it was exciting. Apart from the thrill of dialup internet, email (my first Hotmail account that Jimbob set up for me) and instant messaging (ICQ, anyone?) there was a huge library of games out there. I brought my first PC home along with Baldur's Gate and Magic the Gathering. There were growing pains, of course. I remember Jimbob explaining IDE cables to me over AIM and Couch having my PC strewn all over the floor of my parents' dining room, but overall it's been great.

I have fond memories of LAN parties and all-day gaming sessions at Jimbob's place. We'd fire up Age of Empires II, Starcraft or Warlords: Battlecry II, run network cables all over the house (sorry Pam) and we'd drink Mountain Dew and game all day. There were a great many late night sessions of Diablo II over Battlenet as well. Then I found the Sims, which ate up a huge chunk of my free time. The last huge time consuming mess was World of Warcraft, but since then I've been gaming on consoles almost exclusively (mostly the Xbox 360 lately.) This is due, at least in part, to the fact that I don't game with my freinds anymore, which means realtime strategy games are pretty much no fun. I bought Rise of Nations which was great, but single player RTS games don't really do it for me.

Warlords II: multiplayer goodness.

Between the great titles available on consoles and the lack of compelling PC titles (Spore is the only one on my radar) it's time for us to take a break, PC gaming. Well, that's not the only reason. You see, you're a big pain in the ass. When I buy a game for a console, I take it home, open and put it in and it works. Now, I recently bought Heroes of Might and Magic V for the PC. It was finally available for super cheap, so I picked it up. I opened it (4 discs) and installed it. It got to 100% complete, then sat there and did nothing. I closed it with task manager, then the game wouldn't play correctly. Nor would it uninstall correctly. I had to go into the registry, delete all the Heroes V entries, then go into Program Files and delete the folder. After reinstalling the game, it still wouldn't run. It would load and then just sit there. After downloading and running the patches (6 of them) still nothing. I updated my video card drivers, reinstalled and still no dice.

Installation? Patches? Crashes? Compatibility problems? I don't need you.

I'll always love you, PC gaming. We have a lot of great memories and I'll never forget you. But it can't go on like this. We just need some time apart. When I'm with you, I just think about how my 360 doesn't give me headaches the way you do. I'm sure one day we'll be together again, but until that day comes you need to go fuck yourself.