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Gaming Gear Showdown, Simplicity vs. Hype
Slack3r78 writes "Gizmodo is running a feature putting the gaming marketing hype to the test and seeing whether it really makes your playing any more 1337. They match up the latest products from Razer and SteelSeries along with some five-year-old Logitech products and come to the conclusion that ... it doesn't seem to matter that much. It looks like maybe you can't buy your way into finally beating that annoying 13-year-old at your favorite FPS after all."
It's about the social status.
Gotta be honest though. Having the 'leetest rig' just makes you top of a very small pile.
Deleted
Exactly.
As stated at the end of TFA, just buy what feels comfortable - the rest will, or should, come naturally. If you have to contort your fingers to fit the mouse/kbd, it's only natural your game will take a hit.
it is in how you use it.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
That 13 year old is gonna own ya because he has become exhalted with the Scryers, has a sweet Tier 5 armor set, and spends all day dueling his homies because he doesn't have a job and can play WOW 13 hours a day. It's not the computer harware.
Cogito Ergo Sum
I disagree. Sure "fancy" stuff won't make you game better, but functionality DEFINITELY has a huge effect on gameplay.
The functionality of your mouse makes the greatest difference in a FPS: binding the extra buttons to prevent keyboard movement allowing you to continuously move/jump/crouch etc. to dodge instead of "press whatever key to throw grenade/use good gun". This assumes you have 2-3 fingers for movement, 1-2 for movement actions, you only have at best 1-2 random fingers lingering for a select few keys.
My personal example would be playing spy in TF2, before I had my 8 button mouse I had issues stabbing engies while placing sappers immediately. Now, I can do it with 90% success - meaning I don't die. Why? Cause all I have to do is press left click, thumb click, left click, while maneuvering with keyboard effectively.
Disclaimer: I am not god.
We may not be created equal
But we can be treated equal.
Comfortable or not, it'll be a cold day in hell before I drop $150 on a keyboard, and another $90 for the mouse. The article really doesn't dwell on the cost factor, which for me is the major deterrent to buying "gaming gear."
You have more faith in humanity than I do.
You could just as easily say that no one really believes their Monster cables make their stereos sound better. And yet, that company is still in business.
I think for most people there is a psychological relationship between how expensive something is and how good it is. If these things cost $20, no one would even consider the idea that they would make anyone play better, even if they were built exactly the same. At $300, though, people are more likely to believe it.
I'm 41 and at most games I've play online, and they are many, I totally own the 13 year olds. They don't like it much either. Then again I've been playing various games in arcades on on PC's since I was...hmmm about 13. Maybe experience and natural dexterity is better than good gear or having too much time on one's hands?
It is about buying a product that is comfortable to use for 18 hours straight. I mean in hour 1, I have the same skill with a $5 optical mouse on a piece of cardboard as I do with a reasonable mouse on a reasonable surface, but come see me in 18 hours with the crap setup and I will not be as sharp as with the comfortable one.
Which still doesn't warrant a gaming mouse. You just need a mouse with multiple buttons. The only factor that gaming equipment offers is comfort, basically you can play longer without wearing yourself out. Then again, maybe you have bigger problems if you're getting to the point where you can wear youreslf out.
You could just as easily say that no one really believes their Monster cables make their stereos sound better.
;)
Knowledgeable people don't believe it.
And yet, that company is still in business.
The world is full of stupid people.
I think for most people there is a psychological relationship between how expensive something is and how good it is.
Yep, see above.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
an optical mouse is better than a ball,
And a laser mouse is better than an optical mouse.
a silent and/or small motion motion keyboard helps
I tend to say, "go with what is most comfortable". Quality keyboards tend to have 2 crucial gaming features:
1) more simultaneous key presses. Nothing sucks worse than side strafe moving while crouching and flicking the reload button and having nothing happen.
2) quality = durability/consistency. the only thing that sucks worse than 1) above is playing on a keyboard where one of the w-a-s-d has gone 'squishy' or 'sticky' or otherwise doesn't have the same feel or travel as the other 3, for example. Any keyboard can fail, but cheap ones fail sooner and more often.
most of these 15 button mice are useless because only the standard 5 buttons can normally be mapped without having to run some special software in the background which impeeds the performance
Trading 0.1 fps to be able to run a useful mouse macro is nearly always worth it. The trick is coming up with useful macros -- some games have them... some don't.
Games have gotten more and more sucky over the years. Everything is "realistic", slow and boring. Nobody plays the twitch games like Quake where it actually mattered how good your equipment was. This may be why the specialized gamer hardware does nothing.
I have personally found that it's not hard at all to play games like COD, Crysis, Battlefield, etc. on a poor refresh rate LCD and piece of shit optical mouse. It just doesn't matter. There is no way I could kick ass in Quake3 with that stuff though because just moving the mouse fast enough makes it lose tracking. This is where better equipment could show its worth.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
I'm always interested in "better" keyboards for large volumes of text entry. It does get minus points for putting the Ctrl key in the wrong spot - who uses capslock anyway?
What is spending $150 on a Keyboard and $90 on a mouse when your talking about spending countless hours using them. Your getting a lot more bang for your buck then you would for darn near anything else you'd spend the money on.
I dunno, your mom is going to want you to EVENTUALLY kick in for food and use of basement.....
Monstar L
You do realize that mouse sensitivity is COMPLETELY dependent on software, right? The "DPI" rating of your mouse hardware is totally irrelevant.
Think about it. What's the smallest distance you can move your mouse pointer on screen? One pixel. No matter WHAT the DPI rating of your mouse is, this will never change. It's the sensitivity settings in software that are determining how far you have to move your mouse in order to move the pointer one pixel on the actual screen.
DPI ratings are a scam on mice.
Honestly, I've never really cared about beating that 13 year-old kid.
I always take the stance that I'm an adult who works 40+ hours a week and has other responsibilities that take my time. The kid likely plays every waking moment. The fact I can come close to beating him with significantly less practice says something about my skill at the game. Or the kid's.
Then again, ignorance is bliss.
So, if that's what it all boils down to, than why bother calling this stuff "gaming" equipment?
/.er will take. You should have something better than a dollar-store wrist-rapist for that.
Its marketing. They've identified a target demographic with:
a) interest in the product
b) disposable income
Your average enterprise manager isn't interested in equiping his team with higher quality peripherals, and is even less interested in shelling out for them. To a phb, they only reason you got an optical mouse was that they were the same price as wheel.
Why can't you get the same features and comfort on something that doesn't have that doesn't make you look like a status-whore to own?
You can actually. Razer for example has a 'pro' series of its mice that are white. And the product name is 'Click v1.6' or something instead of 'Death Adder in Biohazard Green', specifically to be more palatable to getting your PO approved at the 'office'.
Logitech and Microsoft also make decent quality mice that aren't overly garish.
But at the end of the day the big market for this stuff are teens. And they buy it as much for the status as the performance. And there is plenty of 'gaming hardware' that is ALL flash and no substance. The same 'Razer' that makes extremely good quality mice also has a 'cord manager' (to keep your mouse cord from getting out of control, pulling, tangling, etc. That little dohickey is little more than steel bolt and screw that that they charge $20 bucks for. You could improvise somethign equivalent from the hardware store for maybe $2.
Other products, like gamers computer cases are often poorly designed cheap plastic monstrosities -- while others are genuinely high end product.
Mousing around for eight hours a day is a significant part of many jobs the average
You should. Do you? If not, why not?
High cost keyboards CAN make a difference in the long run, but not for gamers.
For a typist the feel of the keys and layout of the keyboard really can cut down on wear and tear to the hands. An investment in a good keyboard can save you a payout for medical care later.
Still in the world of ergonomics there are a lot of quacks so you really do have to do your research on what is truly a good keyboard.
Next you're going to say that Brilliant Pebbles don't reduce comb filter effects in the corners of your listening room.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Stop talking about Razer.
I both mocked and applauded them in the same post.
Why does anybody care about them?
They make very good quality mice in general.
They make very good quality AMBIDEXTROUS mice in particular.
I hate ergonomic mice. As a left hander I find most of them, being designed for right handed people, extremely uncomfortable. Logitech, for example, doesn't make any of their worthwhile products in a left handed configuration, hell they don't make anything really good that's ambidextrous.
Their mice only have two buttons,
Mine (copperhead) has 6 'buttons', two of which are hard to reach. Plus a clickable scrollwheel, so 7 if you count that. Being that its ambidextrous I can forgive 2 buttons being hard to reach because its symmetrial. The buttons I can't reach are the right hand thumb buttons. I'm sure a right hander would find it equally awkward to press the two left hand buttons. But all the buttons are discrete and can be mapped independantly.
and half of them have the laser in the ass for some bizarre reason.
A lot of gamers hold the mouse with their fingers instead of resting their hand on it. And they make fine left/right mouse movements by swivelling the mouse with their thumb and ring finger, instead of actually pushing the whole mouse because you can make much more precise movements with minimal effort - e.g. for sniping. (imagine it was bolted to the table through the scrollwheel; that's the rough axis its swivelled on). Locating the laser in the 'ass' gives you better control and range doing this.
Razer's not for everyone. I like their mice, not much else. Their cable management system and 'mouse surfaces' are a scam on par with Monster, I prefer the saitek eclipseII to their keyboards, and their headsets? Nothing wrong with them, but I use plantronics . And honestly evem with mice I recommend logitech to most people. They make some very well regarded mice. But if you are a left handed mouser logitech sucks complete and total ass.
Like I said in my original post... you have to separate the quality products from the hype.