Remember when PC gamers where only composed of the elite-can-afford-parts-that-you-have-to-kill-to-get-parts? Remember when you played a game that can be only played on a PC? Remember when the developers challenged you to their games and not the publishers of the game? Remember when there were no stores/warehouse for PC parts? Remember when you chose to buy a stick of memory and then can't afford a stick of deodorant for the entire year?

If you remember those years, your old like me. Seriously, it seems the PC gamers are loosing a foothold on this gaming industry despite the fact that there are more PC parts available to the general public at a competitive price, that would exclusively allow us to play these PC-exclusive games. Nowadays, we have to share to console players the games with dumb-down feel of it or with scaled down graphics.

Now the developers, which is not at fault, are forced into their cubicles to hunker down and produce games that are no longer for the gamers, but for the publishers and its shareholders. Now if the shares itself are like PC parts, that are competitively priced, maybe we should buy the shares instead. This way we all become shareholders and be able to dictate the direction of our pc-exclusive games and reap its benefits.

I remember playing Doom and Unreal Tournament, and it felt like an arena in the game. Like one big boxing match with more than 2 boxers, depending on the game. The only advertising you see are on the gloves, shorts or shoes, if any. Depending on the map, Quake might have the server's name.

Team Fortress, Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament, majority of the maps were generously devoid of advertisings. It was easier to concentrate on the killing spree.

GhostRecon, Operation Flashpoint, Rainbow Six were so immersible that you sometimes get taken away and forget that your playing in your room and not some hotel, or some war-torn country.

You and your team await in the bush or some blind spot, ready to pounce an ambush, concentrating on the horizon or ridge, further looking down to see the background without a billboard, trying to remind you to buy a Dodge Ram.

Racing games with the likes of NASCAR or Colin McRae are full of advertising on the side of the cars or racing lanes with banners, yes that makes sense, since thats how you view them anyway. Go ahead and post there, but no need to sneak a program that reviews and collects are viewing habits so we can get spammed later. Order a game-dedicated channel from your cable company, and they'll send you junk mails like its running out of style.

So, where do we go from here? Do we continue patronizing gaming publishers, or do we change our gaming preferences? Or do we take a drastic move of becoming stockholders, and start making our opinions truly count and be heard, when companies send out those shareholder's meeting and voting mails. Or do we just take it as it is, weeding out the "have not" who cannot afford the parts upgrades and or the ones who just refuse to share their gaming habits?

Do we succumb to the console genre of gaming? Buy into the Gillette business model: Sell the handle cheap, but make a killing selling the blades. Join the masses play what the Joneses are playing?

Should we learn to not to pay attention to that Dodge Ram billboard? Should we learn to evolve with the gaming industry?

Or should we just step aside and let our sons and daughters play their console games, and go to our local Dodge Dealer and get a senior citizen discount on the new Ram. Vroom, vroom.