What Makes PC Gaming Unique? Part 3 – The Vocal Are Not the Majority

Without talking about frame rate, resolution, power, price, or the amount/quality of games, I want to talk about what makes the PC platform unique. PC isn’t just Windows, it encompasses all operating systems and hardware. Even ARM CPUs, which are mostly found in mobile devices, are starting to make their way into cheaper Laptops.

This is the third part of a mini-column about what makes PC unique; this part will tackle the dark side of the PC community.

Part 1 – What Makes PC Gaming Unique? Part 1 – Mods Make the Games you Love Better

Part 2 – What Makes PC Unique? Part 2 – Swap, Refit, Improve, Personalize, Customize

PC Master Race!

As almost everyone is aware many — well seemingly many — PC users say “PC Master Race“. This is a hashtag on Twitter, and it’s all over YouTube comments. But the people who comment are almost certainly the minority. We know this due to a rule called 90-9-1, which deals with participation in social media or online communities (in YouTube comments, comments sections on reviews, etc.)

The 90-9-1 Rule

• 90 – The percentage of passive users, sometimes called lurkers. These are people who take in the content, but don’t comment. So they may read a review, or watch a YouTube video, but nothing more. So 90% of people reading this are likely to not comment.
• 9 – The percentage of users who occasionally participate. These people may comment 10% to 20% of the time, but when they do, it’s often because they feel passionate about something. So 9% of people reading this will think bout commenting.
• 1 – The percentage of users who have the highest participation, these often account for upwards of 95% of comments on a page. These are the people who are likely to cause flame wars, or use “PC Master Race” as their arguments. But not all of them will comment to get a reaction. If 1 million watch a video, you are not likely to get more than 10,000 comments. So only 1% of people reading this will comment.

The minority always brings down the majority

If only 1% of people comment, this makes them the vocal minority, meaning that your perception of how a community behaves is heavily skewed towards the vocal. Who mostly consist of the people who say ‘PC Master Race.’ And the vocal are often the most radical. But not all PC gamers are like this. Most of them, at some point, do play on a console.

Also, many PC gamers don’t even have the ability to play games at 1080p and 60FPS. The Steam hardware survey gives the average GPU to an onboard laptop chipset, the Intel HD Graphics 4000. This is not even close to being able to run most games at 1080p and 60FPS. This begs the question, why are there so many PC Master Race comments? The only explanation is that the minority, those who have the high-end stuff, are the ones who comment the most. They are the 1%.

For the 90-9-1 rule, what percentage do you think you are in? You don’t need to comment, just think.