The gaming experience on computers is special from gaming on console owing to the ability to use keyboard and mouse. Consoles have a limited number of button options because of their controllers and as a result, have a limited number of possible inputs. Adding joysticks and other button options help expand the possible number of inputs (eg. PS2 dual shock controller), but will never defeat the power of keyboard and mouse with its full alphabetical and numerical use.

In addition, computers cover a multipurpose role for home, business, work, and leisure. The importance of an email and word processor in the modern world has made the computer an almost necessity for survival. Thus, most families will usually have access to a personal computer (PC) in their home. Playing around with the shared family computer is often a child’s first experience with the computer industry. The ubiquitous presence of computers makes gaming on them a readily shared experience.

However owing to their multiple roles, computers, unlike consoles, are not standardized to all play the same games. Thus, some computers will be capable of playing even the most graphic intense games while others will struggle to even stream online videos. What determines a computers ability to play games is its hardware and software. The software comes in form of programs such as Adobe Flash Player and Adobe Shockwave. Hardware comes in the form of graphics cards and processors. Without both the adequate software and adequate hardware, games will fail to run.

While I had my first taste of gaming from computers, I was slow to the more modern PC gaming scene of online multiplayer. This setback was due to my poor understanding of hardware limitations. I failed to understand that hardware differences limited what the PCs could optically display. I thought that as long as you downloaded DirectX and Adobe Flash Player a computer should be able to play any computer game out there. If my computer was good enough to play flash games from mofunzone and my old CDrom games why could it not play better games such as Maplestory? A dive into reading PCmags help to dispel my ignorance.