Why 2021 Was The Worst Year For PC Gamers?

Tech Explorers
10 min readJan 7, 2022

https://myelectricsparks.com/why-2021-was-the-worst-year-for-pc-gamers/

WHY 2021 WAS WORST YEAR FOR PC GAMERS

Battle between gamers, crypto miners, and scalpers in 2021:

There’s a global shortage of both old and new GPUs, which is causing a feeling of “sheer fatalism” among gamers discontent about purchasing the latest technology or upgrading an old one, Dejarnette says. “It’s killing us.” It’s also led to criticisms from gamers about the other group of gamers mining cryptocurrency. Gamers and others observing the GPU market say the miners have wreaked havoc on the $20 billion industry, taxing it with unexpected demand while key components for GPUs microchips are scarce. The GPU manufacturers are aware of the issue with miners. As recent on Wednesday night, the company announced it would alter some of the future models of its GPUs to make them less appealing to miners. However, the fix won’t come anytime soon. NVidia and its competition have been producing GPUs for gamers for a large portion of the last three years. According to legend, the three co-founders were said to have the idea of dreaming the entire market over breakfast at a filthy San Jose, California, Denny’s in 1993, knowing there was a market for those looking to upgrade their gaming PCs as video games became more sophisticated. One of those cofounders, Jensen Huang, remains Nvidia’s CEO and owns a personal fortune of $14.2 billion. Nvidia, however, has an estimated market value of $370 billion. AMD is its most competitive competitor, valued at around $100 billion. (Nvidia’s share price has increased by more than 67% in the last year, significantly surpassing Nasdaq’s 43 per cent increase.)
Gaming enthusiasts had GPUs for a large portion of themselves until the end of the decade when the cryptocurrency boom started. GPUs run millions of calculations every second. Their massive computing power can be utilized for crypto mining. A computer can solve complicated equations, resulting in new cryptocurrency exchanging in cash through readily accessible exchanges online like Coinbase.
Despite their advancing size and age, Nvidia and AMD have mostly been left unprepared by the growing demand from crypto miners. They don’t even yet know how much of their revenues originate from miners, thereby exacerbating the problem of supply. In a meeting with Wall Street analysts, Nvidia executives mentioned preliminary figures from third-party sources for determining what percentage of the GPUs currently are used in crypto mining. “They probably don’t know,” says Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon. The number could be as high as 10%, up from the bare minimum in the past decade and close to one-half billion dollars. The situation is likely to be worsening as crypto prices have increased significantly between the past two years, increasing the attraction of crypto mining.

Special about GPUs:

Graphic processing units are a vital element in the construction of a computer. It is the benchmark for better resolution, higher framerates, and frame rates per second. GPUs are scarce, and the ones that are readily accessible are nearly three times the suggested retail price of the manufacturer (MSRP). MSRP varies based on the series of GPU. For instance, the Nvidia 30 Series is priced between $400 and $3500 depending on the memory size, the cooling system, and increased clock speed. Most gamers and editors opt for that RTX 3060 Series, priced at $300 to $400 on MSRP.

Issue while purchasing GPUs:

The problem is with scalpers, crypto miners, and silicon supply shortages. These people are buying up the majority of the inventory using automated bots. Websites like BestBuy, Newegg, and Microcenter are trying to stop this with the one-per-family option. Because there is a huge demand for GPUs, scalpers are also playing the game. The majority of scalpers will sell basic models, such as the RTX 3060, at the MSRP cost that is the RTX 3090. They will then sell the cost for an RTX 3090, which is one thousand dollars higher than the MSRP.
Stephen Smith, a current retailer of designer shoes, discussed the problem. “I know the scalpers. Similar to me selling sneakers. I used to sell sneakers. However, anything that could earn a quick profit has an important distinction between trying to make money and being greedy. That is the reason why the market value for GPUs is the way it is currently.” Smith also expressed that he’d pay more than the price of a GPU but not at a double fee. Many buyers will agree. The RTX 3060 series, which has an MSRP of $300, would not be worth up to $700.

Detail Discussion:

Gaming and the people who play it are not the same. That is what’s extremely enjoyable about gaming and the reason that nothing else could compete with it. On the other hand, there are those with money in the slum and the elitist and new residents of the city, maybe worth a few grand in the future; they put a few great on an upcoming component once it’s released.
I’m convinced! Your enthusiasm increases in the most powerful gaming device. Because of the strength in these titles, it’s unlikely that the top games will be released unless they’re driven to their maximum potential.
But I know that scaling the PC allows me to play unique games. However, the cost of gaming is high and dedicated players will work hard to get the highest value in games.
When a person with a wealth of experience goes through 4K gaming and has smooth frame rates, however, with a tight budget, we’ll be able to do all the research we want while compromising on a few pieces and enhancing the performance of the performance your game and system. It’s an overwhelming task, but it’s gratifying, mainly when you may find yourself with a budget gaming PC that has frame rates that can make the Xbox One blush.
The same was true in the past, and by the close of the 2nd year of a new console generation, you’d anticipate a gaming PC to be built with the same price as a traditional gaming console. As new budgets and mainstream components appear to simplify the computer construction job, prices begin to decrease.
It’s not with this generation, not even with either the Series X or the PS5. If you’re looking for 4K gaming at $500, then the best option is to stick to the PS5.
That means that in this time of darkness, it is not necessary to waste your production capacity on less expensive products.
Following the increase in demand for PCs and components in the year 2020, this trend continued to increase through the year, and it appears that it will become the norm in 2022, possibly even 2023. When a price dropped, a power loss occurred, a supply chain or even the accelerating rise of cryptocurrency caused the companies to abandon crucial components such as graphics cards, but it was quickly deemed inoperable.

It then provides a perfect place for eBay resellers and bots to steal the price tags from our most loved components. That has forced us to face nightmares when constructing or upgrading a brand new PC in the last few years.
You’re probably feeling that suffering as a gamer right now. However, the side effects of the shortage of chips, the considerable demand, the ever-present outbreak are the direct results of their product range and their decision-making process regarding the kind of product they create and what they look like.
If everything you create sells in the marketplace and you have a limited capacity for manufacturing and chips, there’s no incentive to make lower-cost, large-scale products. If you can sell more than 400 GPUs, why would you be less than on the possible performance stack?
The architect of the moment was “one in two,” where just a few nips or Tucks could bring you a grim bargain. But math isn’t working anymore. Nowadays, I own several GPUs that cost $200. So, you’re trying to market much better quality alternatives. But in the event of a dark future, there’s no financial reason to waste the manufacturing capacity of lower-end products if you’re able to produce the same amount of expensive chips to sell the exact amount and make the same amount of profit and at the same expense.
An inability to comprehend economics does not make him sadder. When you think of Capitalism, She is an uncompromising lover.
If you’re looking for a few data to demonstrate it, one few years following the GeForce RTX 2080’s launch, Nvidia released five GPUs for less than $300, with each upgrade to their predecessors. If you took into account the price decrease to 2199 dollars on the RTX 2060 in the first quarter in 2020, then you might even get six.

In addition to the lower price of the flagship model, AMD has been able to sell seven of its own less than $300 GPUs in the year following its 2012 launch of the Radeon RX 5700 XT. It’s based on the number of OEM versions of the first-gen RDNA card included among the numerous OEM versions.
How long has the time passed since the GeForce RX 3080 or Radeon RX 6800 xT? At a very fat zero! Nada. Zilch. It’s rare to find GPUs of this same class.
There’s no other option to it, neither. The mining boom began taking over the idol and the ethereum diggers that were entrapped, which means that the budget-conscious gamer’s final option, eBay, is an extremely risky guardian.
Therefore, it is impossible to construct the kind of budget-friendly equipment that will give an ounce of. Do we have a chance? That’s right, yes. Although I’m not able to let a quiet “potentially” hanging in the space…
Many countries are heading towards an economic renaissance by 2022.
New Nvidia or AMD GPUs may be released shortly with low prices and greater availability. Intel is set to join the game with its extensive assortment of discrete GPUs. That won’t be enough to give us three chances to get affordable graphics cards at competitive prices. Considering the rapid decline in SSD costs, DDR4 being good-priced today, and Intel’s pricey processors offering a fantastic value, there’s more chances of a new bud-casino in 2022.
That could be an excellent way to lower our budget and give us the ability to purchase gaming. However, the lack of supply remains very high. This Steam Deck is delayed from December through February, citing Valve as the primary reason. A portion of the first tinkers are already purchased, so if you aren’t interested in buying tickets for the event or even getting Steamy-themed handhelds at this point.
The primary issue is that AMD is entirely dependent on TSMC to manufacture its products (as is Valve due to an AMD APU within the deck), which means that it’s fighting to secure the Taiwanese manufacturing of chips. Suppose you’re hoping to have an in-part supply. In that case, you’ll need to figure out how to manage the less expensive components paired with the high-end CPUs and GPUs and those more costly chips AMD should have developed to provide Sony or Microsoft with their PS5 or Xbox series consoles.

Scalpers:

Let’s begin by defining who they are. They are the people who have an entire era of targeting ticketing markets for concerts and festivals. Later on, it became commonplace that gaming consoles be the most popular target for scalpers because there’s always a limit to the number of games available for sale. The demand is always more significant than the supply. If you are fortunate enough to obtain one after waiting for hours in a long line, someone there will inevitably purchase it for more than what you paid for it. So this opens the door for any person to earn profit. Sure of the most reputable retailers have safeguards that are in place to combat this, such as ‘one for each customer’.

Then the scalpers ‘ focus turned to graphics cards, like those from the RTX 3000 series from Nvidia that were bound to be in short quantity, which results in an appetite. That desire will drive the scalper to purchase the most amount they can and then sell them at a substantial mark-up. There’s no stopping them from using the card to mine before selling it for an enormous profit, but we’ll get to that later in the article. Together with the shortage and the tremendous hype created by the cards themselves, the cards began appearing on various marketplaces on the internet. The prices were staggering; however, even more, impressive was that computer geeks with deep pockets were still purchasing these cards.
The scalpers have made the equivalent of $61.5 million in revenue and have sold nearly fifty thousand cards on numerous websites like eBay. In the graph, scalpers have added at least 200 dollars to prices. The top prize in this series of 3000 is the 3090, the most sought-after GPU. These cards are priced at around 1200 dollars brand new, and auctions for them range from upwards of 3000 dollars. They are the primary reasons behind the shortages, primarily due to bots finding and purchasing the cards.

Is silicon chips a part of this issue?

In simplest terms, silicon chips are fantastic semiconductors that permit electricity to flow through and regulate the flow with ease. Silicon chips have transformed our world with computers forever. Instead of having an area devoted to computer boxes, we carry laptops with us. Due to the way silicon chips are and how efficient they function, it’s an integral component of CPUs and GPUs.

Covid 19:

The Coronavirus was first discovered, lockdowns were commonplace, and factories were forced to shut and stop production, stopping the growth made. In addition to production and manufacturing, the logistical issues between nations became more challenging due to the lorries becoming stuck and ships getting destroyed. Also, it meant we all began spending more time in our homes and the gaming industry in general.

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