Grown up gamer realizations: Buying a new PC

Ever since I was able to finally afford buying my own gaming PC with my hard-earned money, it was somewhat always an exciting ritual for me. Even before actually buying the PC, I would do research on all of the hardware components, reading and comparing graphic card benchmarks to help me decide which would give me the best bang for my buck. It took me a few weeks to compile everything and go look for the parts and have it built all the while crossing my fingers that I would actually find  said parts here in the Philippines. And after hunting down all the parts and putting it together, I’d sit back and look at my brand new gaming PC like a proud father and I would admire the fruits of my labor. That was 21-year old James. Now fast forward to a 31-year old James who’s a father to a 1-month old baby girl and needs a replacement to his gaming rig.

Instead of scouring and looking at benchmark graphs, I simply went to a store. Thankfully this store that I frequent is trusted and reliable. I told the store owner I needed a new gaming PC and gave him my budget. Mr. Store owner then proceeded to write down some parts and gave me 3 options which just varied with different graphic card models which were obscurely name in random letters and numbers. The only discernible words I can understand were just ATI and NVIDIA. So I said, I just wanted a video card that is NVIDIA and I would allow me to play “Ultra” in Battlefield 4. He sneered a little and told me to get this card and it would cost this much. After a few hours, I came home with a brand new PC with Windows 8 pre installed and everything ready to go. All I needed to do was download my games from Steam and Origin and I could continue from where I left off.

I realized how this process was so detached and meaningless. I didn’t even bother to learn all the individual components of my new gaming rig. All I knew: it was fast and I can finally run all the games at maximum settings with buttery smooth frame rates.

What have I become? Asking someone to build me a new computer? Have I lost some of my geek cred? And suddenly, all the confusion and embarrassment instantly went away when I heard my daughter cry: crying for her daddy to come pick her up and to comfort her for a bit. I looked to my newly bought PC, let go of a shrug and then I say to myself, “Papa’s gotta keep on gaming” as I walked away towards my daughter’s room.