Gaming is a popular hobby, so it’s not surprising that some people might be thinking about how they can best get into it. The problem that some might encounter is that it could be overwhelming to think about all the different purchases you would need to make in order to have a gaming setup capable of playing what you want. The difficult factor here is that everyone wants different things out of a gaming hobby.
Understanding what you personally want is the first step. After that, though, you’re in a good position to explore the variety of options that you have at your disposal.
Mobile Gaming
Perhaps you might look to the option that doesn’t require you to make any additional purchases at all. Mobile gaming is convenient for any number of reasons, but for many people, that might be the biggest draw – the ability to allow them to sample gaming without needing to make any other financial commitments. However, it’s not as though this platform is simply a trial version of the real deal – mobile gaming has a lot to offer, and some people even find it preferable to what’s available on PC or other consoles. With this in mind, it’s worth knowing what to expect, as well as what differences you can expect to encounter.
When it comes to exclusive mobile experiences, you might quickly encounter the freemium model of games – games that are free to download but then make their money through in-game purchases that either come in the form of stalls to the gameplay or something like cosmetics. Alternatively, you have the games that you might find at a big win casino, which can be a familiar point of entry if you’ve already played games like these in the physical world. You’re not restricted to mobile-exclusive experiences, though, and there are several ports of games from console and PC that can allow you to experience a larger range of what the industry has to offer.
Gaming Laptops
For those craving a more traditional gaming experience, you might find that you’re leaning towards PC gaming due to the (general) lack of exclusivity surrounding the platform. That being said, the idea of building your own gaming PC can be a difficult one to come to terms with – especially if you don’t have time or an interest in that field. There are several guides online that can walk you through it, but you might find that the truly high-end examples might require components that set you back more than you’d like.
With those drawbacks in mind, you might instead research gaming laptops that come ready to play a wide variety of games but without the need to set them up in quite the same way. In addition to this, gaming laptops are physically much smaller than desktops, and you can take them wherever you need to go, which allows them to be a continuously convenient option.
Cloud Gaming
It could be that you already have a laptop, though, and if you are used to how it works, then the idea of getting another one just to sample a hobby might seem like an unrealistic or unnecessary financial decision. There might be a wide variety of games that you can still play on this laptop as it is, though you might find that the more demanding titles put too much strain on your laptop for them to be enjoyable. Fortunately, even here you have options. Cloud gaming is a relatively new development in the gaming landscape, but it allows you to essentially stream the games that you’re playing from any device, meaning that the hardware limitations of your laptop don’t have to stop you from enjoying the games that you had your sights set on. There are multiple services that offer this, and some of them offer free trials or versions that can allow you to get started, though you might have to own the game yourself before they can be put to use.
Eighth Generation Consoles
The downside with cloud gaming, though, is that it does rely on a strong internet connection. In fact, you might find this to be a problem that comes up again and again in the modern gaming sphere due to how physical games are becoming less common, instead being replaced with download codes. While it’s difficult to escape this problem entirely, you do have another purchase option at your disposal – one that could be similarly effective to a gaming laptop but without the steep cost involved. The eighth generation of consoles – the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One – are still powerful machines, capable of playing a swathe of modern titles. You don’t need the latest and greatest in order to see what gaming is capable of as a medium, and these consoles could cover all of the bases that you want to see.
A Shared System
If you have multiple people living in your household, you might also have an opportunity to split this cost in various ways. Of course, this isn’t something you should force on people who aren’t interested, but it could lead to a shared living space becoming an area where everyone is capable of enjoying the console – whether that’s for gaming or for the home entertainment services that are also provided. If not everyone will use it equally, the way that the cost is split doesn’t have to be equal either. If you have friends who are also interested in breaking into the medium of gaming, this could be a way of both cutting down the cost and having it implemented in such a way that occupies communal space over your own personal space. It’s worth bearing in mind, however, that this might limit how much time you get with the console yourself, which could end up being problematic if you or anyone else you shared the console with end up especially enjoying a game to the point where they want to play it for hours on end.