extremetech posts

The troubles at technology media company Ziff Davis are apparently still continuing. This week it was revealed that the company is shutting down its popular ExtremeTech.com web site. The PC hardware site had quite a bit of PC gaming coverage and had a solid list of writer-editors including Loyd Case, Jason Cross, Joel Durham, and others. According to a message post by Case at QuartertoThree.com all of those writers will soon be out of work as of June 26 as Ziff Davis will turn the site into a blog under their PCMag.com site. We know that the talented crew behind the site will land on its feet.

This is just the latest in the many cost-cutting efforts by the struggling Ziff Davis who sold off its 1Up.com gaming web network to UGO and sold off the FileFront.com site to its original creators. It also shut down its Electronic Gaming Monthly print magazine but its original owner recently announced plans to revive EGM in some capacity.

PC gaming isn't dead. Far from it. Especially if you look at the amount of money being made by Blizzard and others. But that doesn't mean it can't use a few tweaks under the hood. Extremetech has five things that would "fix" PC gaming once and for all. While all five are dead-on, two of those fixes are vitally important and have gained a tremendous amount of traction in the last year.

Computer builders need to stop using Intel's onboard graphics chip. They suck. Unless of course you don't want to play anything more graphically intense then Free Cell or Solitaire. If you want to play any of today's near-cinematic looking games -- you can't. Oh sure those chips are cheap, but the old adage that you get what you pay for couldn't be more accurate in this case. Consumers need to be able to walk in and buy a gaming rig straight off the shelf already equipped to handle games like Unreal Tournament III without doing anything to it. That's the simplistic beauty of consoles -- they're so easy to use a monkey can operate them.