Personal computers also became a contender for the gaming market during this time. What made PCs a popular choice for gamers over the typical consoles?

PC’s definitely became a contender and it was because for the most part PC’s were more than just for gaming so that sold it off at the beginning but focusing on the gaming side of it, it broke out with the help of its breakthroughs that let it stand out over the others.

            One of these breakthroughs was soundcards. Having only had a trying level of sound from most PC’s it was an exciting addition and as it became more common it certainly made PC’s a more viable option for gaming. With the introduction of CD-ROMs however, it completely opened the doors for more video games on the PC and allowed for the creation of three games that could be considered the “killer applications” allowing the PC to skyrocket as a viable gaming platform.

            One of the games was Myst and a lot of its popularity came from its surrealistic adventure with elaborate puzzles. It’s sort of interesting as it was first released on gaming consoles through Sunsoft and it didn’t take the scene as they expected but still earned quite a bit of money. Through Broderbund it was released on the Macintosh and it was a great success, later releasing it on the PC as well and that version became a hit as well. It quickly became the firs CD-ROM game to sell over one million units it remains on the computer game’s bestseller list for three years. The next game was The 7^th Guest brought about a similar bit of puzzle solving and exploring but it was nothing like Myst. Showing off the technology though was what made it shine as it had a photo-realistically rendered virtual haunted house with live action video of actors portraying ghosts. The final game was Doom I’m sure a lot of people have heard, played, and enjoyed this game to some degree. It was a game the revolutionized the FPS genre. It was created by id Software where their first hit game was Wolfenstein 3D and it sold really well. It was a game with a bit of gore that players enjoyed, Doom built upon that and added even more gore and increased their shock value. Another thing that Doom did was bring attention to the idea of shareware as a viable way to get software out to people and showed the entertainment capacity of multiplayer games. With all of these things compiled together it opened the floodgates for the PC as players would then be able to see it as another means to getting to play video games.