PCGamer.com Wants To Forbid Gamers From Saying “PC Master Race”

As a man who got his start on console gaming, and who spent most of his life unable to afford a decent computer, I’ve always looked askance at the term “PC Master Race”. This term was invented by Yahtzee Croshaw, who does a series of reviews called “Zero Punctuation” at the Escapist. It’s used to describe the superiority of PC games over consoles: the PC version of a game will often have better graphics, more customization, faster loading times, and better framerates than its console counterpart. Since the advent of Steam sales, it’ll often be a heck of a lot cheaper, too.

So yes, given the choice between playing a game on a console, and playing it on a computer, the latter is almost always the better way to go. But as someone who cut his teeth on the SNES and Playstation, and who still prefers to play on the Vita and PS3 over any other system, the term always kind of irked me. Because I am not, however, a sniveling two-year old, who needs constant reassurance from every single person he sees to avoid collapsing into a sobbing, whimpering, puddle, I can accept that people will occasionally say things that irritate me. I shrug and go about my day. You can play your PC games, and I can play my console games, and we all get along just fine.

You can’t say “Master Race”! You’re not allowed!

Tyler Wilde, a writer for PCGamer.com, of all things, lacks this emotional maturity. In a column yesterday he wrote “Let’s stop calling ourselves the PC Master Race.” He writes that the term needs to be done away with because its being used “without any consideration of the historical context” and “without any consideration of the original context.” (The difference between these two is left unexplained.) He calls it “moldy cardboard” that is “getting uncomfortable” and it “makes him cringe.”

The Nazis, you see, once called themselves the master race. Never mind that there are no Nazi computer gamers. Never mind that computer gamers hate Nazis. Never mind that in the 30 years since Castle Wolfenstein came out, PC gamers have collectively slaughtered millions more Nazis than the American, Russian, and British armies during WW2 combined. The Nazis once used this term, and therefore, no one may ever be allowed to use it again under any context, even as a joke.

Mr. Wilde tells you that the term must be done away with because it’s “making people uncomfortable.” As evidence, he offers two tweets, one from a German named Davin Pavlas, and another from a Mr. Meyer. No other examples are given. The fact that three people, Mr. Tyler, Mr. Meyer, and Mr. Wilde take offense at a term is enough, in his mind, to shut down a 300,000 member subreddit  and stop everyone from using a term that millions have used for seven years.

There’s No Reason To Listen To This Fool

Mr. Wilde is a prime example of what’s called a “Social Justice Warrior”, a term described fairly well by out publisher here.  If you’re not in the mood for a long post, they can summarized like this: prissy do-gooders who gain an almost sexual release by accusing people of being racist, sexist, or, as Mr. Wilde does, accusing them of “merrily talking like fascists.”

What a man like Mr. Wilde lives for is a feeling of control. He wants to tell you what you can and cannot say, because he is your better, and he knows better than you. Note the schoolmarmish tone of his post: “I know there are better ways to express our enthusiasm and creativity,” he writes. He is the teacher, and you are the third-grader who just drew a bunch of penises for your art project.

Once you recognize this type, you’ll see it everywhere. Just last month we wrote about a columnist who used the exact same language to denounce the use of the word “faggot” in heavy metal music .

Thankfully, unlike your art teacher, Mr. Wilde has no actual power over you. You can say what you like, call yourselves what you like, and there’s not a thing he can do to stop you. If his whining really bugs you, write an email to PCGamer telling them so, or contact them on Twitter. Or simply stop reading PC Gamer altogether; their content started sucking around June of last year anyway, so you won’t be missing much. There’s no reason to listen to him, and no reason to change anything.

The PC Master Race can be happy with its 100+ frames per second racing games, ultra settings and 12x shaders, and AAA titles at 90% off during steam sales, and we console peasants can enjoy our Final Fantasy games. (Except you bastards have those now, too.)

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