We’ve come a long way from teenagers conning their tech-illiterate parents into buying them a PC so they can, er, do their assignments.

In my day, the only reason anyone had a PC was to play games. Instant messaging programmes, like Windows Live Messenger, was an afterthought.

When puzzled parents queried, “Why do you have to spend RM1,000 on a graphics card?”, the savvy teen would answer “Oh, so I can use Photoshop for my homework.”
Only, at the time, no one actually used Photoshop for their homework (mind you, we’re talking about secondary school students here).
The bottomline of owning a PC back then was so you could play games. It meant scrimping and saving money so at the end of the month you could take a walk down to the nearest PC games store and bring something home.
Ah yes, the PC game shop. Regardless of where you frequented, the experience of walking into a store was nothing short of overwhelming – to a point.
But then, along came the Internet.
A couple of years back, a story was published in the venerable PC Gamer magazine asking the question: “Is PC gaming dying?” Several factors contributed to this, one of which was that PCs, previously the domain of the boys, were fast becoming mainstream tools for everyone, including your mother.
Social networking and surfing the Internet was becoming an acceptable alternative to just gaming, and for the boys, the prime attraction was “there are girls online!”
On another spectrum, console gaming in the form of the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox was taking off, and they were going for pretty cheap. And, let’s be honest, the past decade of PC games do not exactly read like a hall of fame.
But, here’s the pinch. I was browsing through the list of anticipated releases this year and a thought came to my mind – PC gaming is back, in a big way. Perhaps, in a new way, too.
I had long abandoned PC gaming in favour of other kinds of gaming. And there wasn’t anything that stood out that made me want to go back and my PC was getting older – ancient by some standards.
Then, I discovered the joys of Steam on the web. Steam is an online PC games store run by Valve Software – makers of the popular Half Life 2 and Left 4 Dead games.

Steam's website

Launched in 2003, Steam allows users to browse and buy games from publishers who’ve signed up with them, including Electronic Arts, Bioware, id Software, Bethesda and others. I guess that almost every game publisher, except for Blizzard (Warcraft and Starcraft), has signed up with Steam, and that’s the beauty of it.
Logging on to Steam is like walking into that PC game store all over again, except this time, I’m not walking, I’m sitting. In my comfortable chair.
Kudos to Steam in that they’ve not just translated the analogue experience of walking into a store into a digital experience; they’ve done better. They’ve taken the peculiarities of the Internet and changed the game of how people should be buying PC games and interacting with one another.
This is not Farmville. The Net doesn’t have to belong to dumbed-down social games for the masses. It isn’t all about World Of Warcraft either. Not everyone wants to spend their free time mindlessly leveling up.
Steam brings to you Steam Community – it’s like the Facebook of gaming. Here, you can make friends, check out each other’s games and setup multiplayer sessions with people you know.
Picture this, a couple of gamers chilling out in their virtual lounge, just taking a break from killing zombies in their last Left 4 Dead 2 session. That’s what happens with Steam.
The community aspect is just one facet of Steam’s charms. The real charm for me is the massive discount that comes with buying games without a disk.

Who needs those anyway?
Steam gives weekly weekend deals on games. If you’re smart and pace yourself, and don’t buy every game that has just been released, you’ll get the gems at a healthy discount. Bad part is, your library can grow really quickly without you noticing. But with everything being a download, you’ll also never have to worry about cluttering up your desk. Deleted a game on your PC? No worries, just download it again from Steam.
I believe PC gaming is about to make a return to vogue. There are good games being released this year, and a platform like Steam are hitting it big with gamers. Also, when you head to a cybercafé, you’ll no doubt find it packed with teens playing Left 4 Dead 2. Heck, ou could be one of them yourself!

David Lian has 13 years of PC gaming experience. Catch him on twitter.com/davidlian.