The PC is voted greatest piece of hardware of all time; Gabe Newell accepts award

[midian182]

What just happened? The Golden Joystick Awards took place yesterday, where some of this year's best games were honored. We also saw the winners of two very interesting categories revealed: the greatest ever piece of hardware and game of all time. It should come as little surprise to learn that the former was won by the PC, and none other than Gabe Newell himself accepted the award. In the case of the latter, Dark Souls was declared the Ultimate Game of All Time.

This year's Golden Joystick Awards—the world's longest-running game awards ceremony, having started in 1983—celebrated '50 years of gaming' with two greatest-of-all-time categories. Voters for the hardware section had to pick from a list that included the best-selling home computer of all time, the Commodore 64, and the most popular console in history, the PlayStation 2. But, as predicted, it was the PC that walked away with the prize after taking 17% of the vote. And who better to accept the award than Valve boss Gabe Newell.

"Gamers and developers have benefited enormously from the relentless innovation in PC gaming hardware," Newell said. "On behalf of all of those who've made the PC the greatest gaming hardware of all time, I am honored to accept this award."

A somewhat less expected result was the Ultimate Game of All Time winner. Again, the public had to vote from a list of 20 titles that included classic (Pac-Man, Tetris) and more modern (GTA V) entries. This writer voted for Half-Life 2, seeing as The Witcher 3 wasn't an option, but it was Dark Souls that took the award with 12% of the vote, though it was good to see 1993's Doom in a very close second place with an 11% share.

Elsewhere, Resident Evil Village, one of our Best PC Games (You Should Be Playing), won game of the year, as well as Best Audio and Best Performer for Maggie Robertson's portrayal of Lady Dimitrescu. The critics' choice went to Deathloop (another of our favorites), which is also up for eight Game Award Nominations.

Full list of Golden Joystick winners:

• Best Storytelling — Life is Strange: True Colors
• Best Multiplayer Game — It Takes Two
• Best Audio — Resident Evil: Village
• Best Visual Design — Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart
• Best Game Expansion — Ghost of Tsushima: Iki Island Expansion
• Mobile Game of the Year — League of Legends: Wild Rift
• Best Gaming Hardware — PS5
• Best Indie Game — Death's Door
• Studio of the Year — Capcom
• Best Performer — Maggie Robertson (Lady Dimitrescu)
• Breakthrough Award — Housemarque
• Best Game Community — Final Fantasy 14
• Still Playing Award — Final Fantasy 14
• PC Game of the Year — Hitman 3
• Nintendo Game of the Year — Metroid Dread
• Xbox Game of the Year — Psychonauts 2
• PlayStation Game of the Year — Resident Evil Village
• Most Wanted Game — Elden Ring
• Critics Choice Award — Deathloop
• Ultimate Game of the Year — Resident Evil Village
• Ultimate Hardware of All Time — PC
• Ultimate Game of All Time — Dark Souls

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https://www.techspot.com/news/92365-pc-voted-greatest-piece-hardware-all-time-gabe.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

The PC is a life changing device. I rank it right up there with the toothbrush.

 

[VaRmeNsI]

You can't be in the master race without a PC.

 

[Dimitriid]

No re: on the PC winning, but Dark Souls is incredibly overrated and this doesn't helps it's case for me.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Well, I did guess correctly out of the group of games presented but I still don't agree. To me, the original Starflight (or Staflight II) is the ultimate game of all-time.

 

[pildorman321]

This elitist clown ( vr bs) does not represent the true spirit of PC

 

[UdyrL]

PC is a no brainer, but Darks Souls, regardless of how good it is, is not an "ultimate game of all time", especially when there are, in my opinion, better contenders on that list.

 

[Avro Arrow]

No re: on the PC winning, but Dark Souls is incredibly overrated and this doesn't helps it's case for me.

Yeah, with the exception of the PC this list is completely arbitrary. No explanations given at all.

PC is a no brainer, but Darks Souls, regardless of how good it is, is not an "ultimate game of all time", especially when there are, in my opinion, better contenders on that list.

Absolutely. The reason why I consider the original Starflight to be the ultimate game is because it was more technologically revolutionary in its time than any other game before or since in addition to being an incredible gaming experience. There was an objective reason I chose it because what constitutes a "great game" is 100% subjective and Dark Souls has no technical or objective reason to be referred to as the "Ultimate Game of All-Time".

 

[pildorman321]

Dark souls is the worst game ever

 

[Dimitriid]

This elitist clown ( vr bs) does not represent the true spirit of PC

Well outside of maybe Jensen or Lisa, he's probably the richest person directly tied to PC gaming (And you could argue that both Nvidia and AMD are probably making more than half their money or more on enterprise stuff, so not PC at all) and that's basically all the qualifications you need in this modern world.

 

[konondrum]

I see the Dark Souls haters are out . I was thrilled to see it honored in this way.
It's all subjective, but it was easily the most impactful gaming experience in my lifetime. A history that goes all the way back to 8 bit computers and MS-DOS.
Congratulations to From Soft and Hidetaka Miyazaki.

 

[EdmondRC]

Without the PC, would there be game consoles?

 

[Mr Majestyk]

Well one of these awards is plain stupid and it begins with Dark and ends in Souls.

 

[ziffel66]

Without the PC, would there be game consoles?

Uh, game consoles pre-date PC's, and most certainly pre-date gaming PC's. And it's not even close.

 

[dangh]

Without the PC, would there be game consoles?

Sure, console games existed before pc and you can easily use workstations to get job done.

 

[Tantor]

The Transistor was the real breakthrough, not the PC. The transistor is the basis for a huge range of developments, of which the PC is only one.

It's ironic that most people have no idea who invented the transistor. That was William Shockley, who shared the 1956 Nobel prize with John Bardeen and Walter Brattain.

Another invention that's way more important than the PC was Thomas Edison's light bulb. People think he just developed the bulb, but it included the infrastructure, theory, engineering, lelectrical transmission and control hardware, manufacturing methods and much more.

Edison had over 1200 patents. His laboratories invested heavily into developing better batteries for electric cars, which resulted in the alkaline battery. He said it was the single most difficult project he ever tackled.

 

[Adhmuz]

The Transistor was the real breakthrough, not the PC. The transistor is the basis for a huge range of developments, of which the PC is only one.

It's ironic that most people have no idea who invented the transistor. That was William Shockley, who shared the 1956 Nobel prize with John Bardeen and Walter Brattain.

Another invention that's way more important than the PC was Thomas Edison's light bulb. People think he just developed the bulb, but it included the infrastructure, theory, engineering, lelectrical transmission and control hardware, manufacturing methods and much more.

Edison had over 1200 patents. His laboratories invested heavily into developing better batteries for electric cars, which resulted in the alkaline battery. He said it was the single most difficult project he ever tackled.

So what you're saying is the greatest gaming hardware of all time is a toss up between the transistor and a light bulb in your books?

 

[Adhmuz]

Never would have expected Dark Souls to have this kind of following and that they could sway the vote this far. The entire series has just over 8 million copies sold (2015 article), which compared to some of the other games on this list isn't all that impressive. I own Dark Souls 2 and never could enjoy playing it, not sure how it compares to the first game, if it was better or worse, definitely not best game of all time material in my opinion.

 

[theruck]

There is no gaming human on the planet that would not have played tetris so the voting is just a dissapointment

 

[amghwk]

When I saw Dark Souls as the "Ultimate Game of All-time", the award must have been a joke. In fact, it's ROTFL-able.

Who were all those voters? Millennial teens?

 

[JamesBlond]

I mean seriously....the Engine is by far the greatest of all

 

[Mugsy]

WTF is the head of a *software* company doing accepting the award for the invention of the PC?

Seriously.

And greatest game in history? Of that list, "Pac Man" is the obvious winner. It basically MADE the video arcade industry. And more than 40 years later, kids who have probably never even *played* Pac Man know the name.

...and sorry "Dark Souls", but until someone writes a pop song called "Dark Souls Fever" and makes a "Dark Souls" breakfast serial, you'll always be #2.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I see the Dark Souls haters are out . I was thrilled to see it honored in this way.
It's all subjective, but it was easily the most impactful gaming experience in my lifetime. A history that goes all the way back to 8 bit computers and MS-DOS.
Congratulations to From Soft and Hidetaka Miyazaki.

Just because I don't think that Dark Souls is the "ULTIMATE GAME OF ALL-TIME" doesn't make me a hater. I happen to think that it's an incredible game, but I've been around in PC gaming since the early 80s and I've seen a TONNE more game releases than most. You claim to also have been around that long and you may very well have been but if you never experienced Starflight, well, you missed out on something incredible.

It has been called one of the first open-world sandbox games ever made, and man, here we are, 35 years later and I STILL haven't forgotten what an incredible game that was. Just try to imagine that, in 1986, Starflight, with its 270 unique systems, 800 unique planets, unique constellations, nebulae, continuum fluxes (wormholes), numerous alien races, war, diplomacy, an economy and a very customisable ship, was ONLY 720k in size! That's a level of data efficiency that has never been matched by any other game in history, perhaps any program in general.

That's not just a gaming achievement, that's a technical achievement. One that I have never seen before or since. If the game itself sucked, or was just "good" then, sure, it's not that ultimate game but it was absolutely incredible and to this day, I've never found a game that I enjoyed playing MORE than I enjoyed playing Starflight. The historical impact of Starflight cannot be understated because, well, I'll let this video explain it:

Dark Souls is an incredible game but it is by no means ground-breaking. It definitely wasn't the first of its genre (and clearly borrowed heavily from The Elder Scrolls series). It could definitely be ranked up there with Skyrim, Witcher III or Assassin's Creed: Odyssey and those are three of my all-time favourites. If I put Dark Souls at that level, calling me a hater because I don't think that it's the ULTIMATE GAME OF ALL-TIME is just completely insane.

Every game is limited by the technology of its time period so identifying an "ULTIMATE GAME OF ALL TIME" is a fool's errand to begin with. The only way to differentiate games over many points in time is to look at how good the game was AT THE TIME. Assuming that the game is considered one of the masterpieces (and Starflight DEFINITELY is), the only criteria that can be used are "How revolutionary was the game when it was released?" and "How much of an impact did it have upon future generations of game developers?" because those are the objective ways of measuring a game's merit. I suppose the fact that the game worked perfectly from day one (there was no internet back then, so no patches) would also be considered a monumental achievement today.

The other thing that shows Dark Souls to not be the "ULTIMATE GAME OF ALL TIME" is the fact that when it was released, it wasn't the game that everyone and their mother were talking about. Even with the 50-Day head start, it was completely overshadowed by Skyrim (although it must be said that they both had universally positive reviews that were similar to each other). However, something that is the "ULTIMATE GAME OF ALL-TIME" wouldn't have been overshadowed by Skyrim. The "ULTIMATE GAME OF ALL-TIME" would have stood in its day as something that was completely new. It would be not only be unmatched, it would be unrivalled. It would overshadow everything else not only in its year of release but for many years afterward. Starflight meets that criterion The only other game that I can think of that stayed relevant that long was the first Knights of the Old Republic.

Objectively, Starflight fits that description because 5 years after it came out on PC, it was re-released on the Sega Genesis and was universally adored by Genesis players. Dark Souls however, does not. That doesn't mean that Dark Souls is a terrible game, far from it. Dark Souls is absolutely amazing! However, there are a crap-tonne of amazing games that aren't THE ULTIMATE GAME OF ALL-TIME and Dark Souls falls into that category. To be fair, I also think that Starflight fits that category because I don't really believe that there is an "ULTIMATE GAME OF ALL-TIME". Having said that, if I had to pick one it would be Starflight, for the reasons that I mentioned.

It's a stupid category that could never be definitively answered so all I could do was use facts as arguments for Starflight.

 

[amghwk]

I remember Starflight. It was a truly groundbreaking game. I remember I had fun surveying planets for minerals and bringing them back home, and getting blasted by other ships. And this is just one aspect of the numerous parts of the game.

Yes, I too find it hard to believe for someone claiming has been there since the 80's choosing Dark Souls as the "ultimate game of all time". (Still rotfl-ing)

 

[Dimitrios]

Shocked TRESPASSER OR HALF-LIFE wasn't the winner!?!