With Sony being more open to porting their major PlayStation 4 club bangers on PC via Steam and the Epic Game Store, Microsoft’s Game Pass also bringing some decent titles to PC of which I also assumed would be console exclusive, and third-party developers and publishers who’ve apparently realized that PCs can do more than just Excel spreadsheets, social media, and, the hub, I’ve been thinking about what my tolerances and incentives are for buying the same game twice or more, and I’m curious as to how this community feels about it.

Before I begin to reminisce about my various escapades and misadventures during my pilgrimage towards Mordor with the Eye of Sauron being replaced by Nvidia’s glowing green logo, because this is my first attempt at writing a blog in over eleven years, I feel the need to get these disclaimers out of the way first:

• This is not a rant against remasters, remakes and eventual ports. I’m glad that they’re happening overall, even if my wallet is less enthused. If anything, I'm choosing this as an outlet for expressing and organizing my thoughts on the matter.
• This is not a rant against Sony. Just because I’ve voiced my disappointment with buying a PS4 Pro in 2019 in other threads, that doesn’t mean that I have any bile and vitriol for the company.
• And, this is not a masturbatory piece on how great PC gaming is. I’ll still stand by that troubleshooting isn’t as necessary as it was in the 90’s and 2000’s, but I get that some people don’t want their play space to resemble their work space, or spend four digits on something that will only play games when the consoles do the job well enough.

Also, for those who are like me and would rather someone just get to the point, chapter selection:

1. “The Dippening Part 1: Just the Dip”
2. “The Dippening Part 2: Nacho Gaben Cheese”
3. “Dipping Remorse & Waiting to Dip Again”
4. “Fellowship of the Dippening”

And with that out of the way, let’s get into it.

Chapter 1 - The Dippening Part 1: Just the Dip

Before I lost my face and was just a random young adult (as if anyone that I interact with these days is going to get that esoteric reference), my ventures into modern/HD gaming started with the Xbox 360 during the winter of 2007. Halo 3 and Gears of War were my introductory pieces of bread and butter to gaming in the 7th generation of consoles, while my HP Pavilion laptop with some sort of Intel dual-core CPU and 3GBs of RAM was a high school graduation gift for the eventual writing assignments for college and my many misadventures on GameTrailers. It was a simpler time where I was pretty much focused on the 360. Jay’s two cents and Linus’ tech tips weren’t around to teach me how to build or upgrade a PC. And the PS3 was in the price range between “Nope” and “Not happening“ according to, not only my parents, but also to myself since the idea of spending $600 on a thing to just play games on seemed really ludicrous at the time. As much as I lamented Metal Gear Solid 4 and next gen Ratchet & Clank being outside of my price range, fortunately I was able to play (the original) Devil May Cry 4 due to that losing PlayStation exclusivity during its development, and the decision making of me shopping for games was basically the same that it was for when I just had a PlayStation 2: just getting the games for my one console. …which lasted for about three years until having a PS3 become feasible via the Slim models where my stories of buying games more than once begins.

As much as I liked the 360, the PS3 was the console that I truly wanted. I enjoyed Borderlands on 360, even going as far to co-op with people when I got my 360 online with a 50’ Ethernet cable from Radio Shack (feel old yet?). I ended up buying the eventual Game of the Year release on PlayStation and co-op’d with my Sony bros. The original Mass Effect was a pretty important title in my gaming history and was one of my favorite Xbox exclusives (remember folks, PC didn’t exist for me yet). But, I ended up buying the trilogy release for PS3. The game to rival the hype and financial success of the first Iron Man movie, Grand Theft Auto IV: The overindulgence on the Euphoria ragdoll physics annoyed me on both console platforms. And according to PSNProfiles, since my mental checklist of every game I’ve played is starting to fade, I also double dipped on Far Cry 2. …I like Far Cry 2, in either a 21 Grams or a Requiem for a Dream kind of way.

But all was still right with the world as both platforms more or less got an equal amount of attention. The first 600 hours that I’ve ever spent in Skyrim was on the Xbox 360, which was balanced by me opting to get Dragon’s Dogma on PS3. My choice for where to play Burnout Paradise was on the 360, while Criterion’s Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit was on PS3. Bayonetta for team green. Lollipop Chainsaw for team blue. Saturdays were for Halo. Sundays were for Killzone... I think you get the idea.

The times were still simple. Both of my plastic boxes wrapped in circuitry and wires were equal favorites as far as Amazon and Game Stop were concerned. And my laptop was capable of running the CS4 versions of Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign well enough.

…until...

Chapter 2 - The Dippening Part 2: Nacho Gaben Cheese

As implied by my eccentricity, this is the point in the story, early 2015, when another platform change was beginning to happen both for fun and as a necessity. The Lenovo T410 laptop that I upgraded to left a lot of thermal performance to be desired when a video project would come to mind, and my Xbox 360 along with that portion of my games collection was placed on the chopping block in order to afford my first self-built desktop PC for around $500. 4GBs of RAM, a Celeron G1840 and a GTX 750 Ti were far from the most impressive parts on Newegg, but it really opened the floodgates for me transferring my games library to Steam and have them all be mostly playable with a 720p TV as a monitor. This years-long process of re-buying games during various Steam sales and PC upgrades includes but is most likely not limited to (cue the list music):

Bayonetta
Burnout Paradise
Borderlands
Castle Crashers
Crysis
Dark Souls
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Devil May Cry 4
Dissidia Final Fantasy NT
Dragon’s Dogma
Dungeon Defenders
Skyrim
Fallout 3
Far Cry 2
Far Cry 3
Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy XII
Final Fantasy XIII
Gears of War
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Grand Theft Auto IV
Grand Theft Auto V
Horizon: Zero Dawn
The Orange Box
Hitman: Absolution
The Mass Effect Trilogy
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010)
Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012)
Persona 4
Resident Evil 4
Resident Evil 5
The Saboteur
Saints Row 2
Saints Row: The Third
Saints Row IV
Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus
Shank
Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (2005)
Star Wars: Episode 1 Racer
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

I question whether of not this list considered long or short knowing that there are people out there that are crazier than I am. But (approximately) 42 is kind of a lot of games that I’ve re-bought due to my motivation of having most of my games in one place and the various iterations of my desktop being equally capable for work and play; granted that my work involves the Adobe suite and Clip Studio Paint where my work is the farthest thing from being in an office cubicle. Yay me for being one of the kids that made it.

As for the more salient moments from that wave of double, triple, and even quadruple dipping: The PC versions of Fallout 3 and Skyrim led me to Nexus Mods which really showed me how far I can experiment and possibly craft a game to suit nearly exactly what I’m looking for, even though it’s mainly the Bethesda titles where I look for the most useful quality-of-life adjustments and lore friendly additions, while I usually just install ReShade for most other games for my preferred color profile and to add in film grain and sharpening. The various first and third-person shooters showed me the mouse and keyboard controls are way more intuitive than a controller, which makes me hope that I can at some point add the Killzone series to my list of re-purchases. My PC can run Crysis, so, meme fulfilled. The Metal Gear Solid V games releasing on Steam was a very welcomed surprise which allowed me to put off buying a PlayStation 4 for a long as I did because The Phantom Pain was my most anticipated release of the eighth generation of systems. The Senran Kagura series also releasing on Steam was also very surprising due to me not believing that Shinovi Versus would get ported until the Steam page went live and lead to Estival Versus and Peach Beach Splash getting ports as well. And Saints Row 2 showed me that some games can be really weird if not completely broken on modern PCs for one reason or another; granted that my list of busted PC versions based on first-hand experience is very short and every game that I have between Steam, Uplay, Origin and Epic will successfully launch and run.

Chapter 3 - Dipping Remorse & Waiting to Dip Again

As I’ve said earlier in this thought salad, as much as I like the idea of PlayStation’s flagship titles making their way to PC, I think it’s accurate to say that I’m burning out on the notion of being presented with upgrade options since I’ve done that roughly 42 times during previous generations and I’m more reluctant to make repeat purchases of the same games again. To look at it proactively, I’m sitting relatively pretty (as of the release date of this blog) with 32GBs of RAM, an i9 9900K, a 2080 Ti, and a 3440 x 1440 100hz IPS monitor, so I’m sure that I’ll be able to play modern games at the high levels of performance that I desire, give or take ray-tracing, and that games that involve shooting such as The Last of Us Part 1 will be more comfortable for me to play due to how many bindings I can apply to my mouse, which is the Roccat Leadr, as opposed to fumbling with analog sticks. But because I’m trying to put more consideration into my purchasing decisions since, believe it or not, I also have hobbies outside of games that cost money, I feel the need to really contemplate on whether upgrading from the PS4 games I have to their PC’s versions is really worth the investment; particularly in regards to frame rate and frame pacing because of how spoiled I’ve become with a minimum of 60 over the past seven years.

To better illustrate my thought process by using these games as examples: Playing Ratchet & Clank (2016) and the Switch version of God Eater 3 have reminded me that 30 frames with consistent frame pacing does the job well enough. God of War, aka Dad of Boy, will run exceptionally well on my PC and that 21:9 will only add to the overall excellent art and presentation of the game, so grabbing the Steam version would be a significant enhancement over the console version for me. Horizon: Zero Dawn looks fantastic on PC. Shout out to Ashly Burch. Persona 5 Royal on the PS4 looked and ran fine from a technical perspective. I doubt that the Steam and Game Pass versions will support 21:9 and turn based JRPGs don’t really need all of the frames. Dissidia NT was as enjoyable as Dissidia NT can be on both platforms. And, as much as I like the Kingdom Hearts games due to the games coming out when I was old enough to be nostalgic for Disney but young enough to be hooked into a long running shonen anime series like the first few seasons of Naruto and One Piece, I really don’t need a third or fourth version of some of those games since the PS4 versions are good enough, though playing around with mods is very tempting. So, the only other formerly PlayStation exclusives that I see value in upgrading, again, for my intents and purposes, are Final Fantasy VII Remake (preferably on Steam), maybe Spider-Man if 21:9 becomes a thing, The Last of Us, and I’m hoping that the Killzone series and Bloodborne will make the jump to PC. Also, other people’s opinions be damned; I’ll take Halo 5 out of curiosity.

With all of that said, I think it’s safe to say that buying newer/alternate versions of games that I already have gives me mixed feelings. On one hand, the upgrades feel really worth-while, especially for older titles where newer tech can apply fresher coats of paint and can make use of the relatively unique features on PC. But, which may be weird to say since my overall collection of games is probably in the 500 to 600 range, I feel as though it takes away from the opportunity of looking at more low-key indie titles and I’ve certainly overlooked due to playing it safe by sticking only to what I know. I wouldn’t necessarily say that I regret something like having bought and played almost every version of Mass Effect 1, but I’m pretty convinced that I don’t need a PlayStation 5 any time soon (if ever at all), that taking the PC and Switch route works best for me, and that it's worth taking a chance on more niche titles instead of only sticking with what's familiar.

Chapter 4 - Fellowship of the Dippening

This is the part where I ask the community to either confess their sins as preparation for intervention, or do you just own it and brag about how many copies of a single game you’ve bought for multiple platforms? Can you relate to my story of moving from one platform to another, or was your solution to just own everything while still tippin' on four 84’s wrapped in four Vogues? And as for what’s on the horizon for Sony exclusives making their way to PC, what did you buy again, what are you going to buy again, and what would you buy again? Or, is it just simply about altruism where you’re just glad that more people can play more games?

Thanks for reading, and praise the sun.