Without repeating my own BF2 gaming problems, and after reading HUNDREDS of game related issues, it is obvious that a lot of you guys in these forums are very talented. I can only speak for the UK, but can a few of you get together and do some HOME VISITS. Forums are great, and can cure many ailments, but a home visit can CURE the problem I am positive. You can charge what you like , I for one would be happy to pay to get my BF2 working correctly. After spending over £400 just to upgrade to a stage where it still freezes at the point of picking kit. Are there any mobile gamer troubleshooters out there? How about Computing.Net? Fancy starting a new service. Read the forums, there are thousands of frustrated gamers out there. What do you think?

How about a Computing.net remote access service?

ASUS A7N8X-X
Athlon XP 1800+
8.5 x 200MHz
1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7
Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB
WinME/WinXP Pro SP2

"I can only speak for the UK, but can a few of you get together and do some HOME VISITS."

It would be great if I could make good money doing that. Believe me, fixing gaming problems is much more entertaining than fixing servers, or productivity apps.

I do conduct many home visits to fix PC's, but I have yet to be called in to fix gaming issues.

I'm guessing the reasons are:

1. Computer gaming isn't as popular as you'd think.
2. Computer gaming isn't a necessity, so people often don't make it a priority. This is manifested in many ways - not willing to spend money to have it fixed, not willing to spend the money for the needed hardware to play and give up on computer gaming altogether (browse this forum and check out how many people suddenly crop up looking to play Sims 2, and seem to get frustrated by the fact their integrated video card can't handle it. You know what happened; they either gave up on the game, they priced a new video card and then gave up, or they bought that video card, played it, but made up their mind computer gaming sucks, and if they want to game, next time they're buying a playstation instead of anymore PC games.) Some people flat out on principle won't spend money to get a game working in labor or needed hardware, period.
3. More gamers know how to fix their own problems comparatively than other computer users in general, which compounds itself because if you are a computer gamer who doesn't happen to know how to fix your problem, you are more likely to have buddy computer gamers that do.
4. Gamers tend to be younger and therefore have a bit less money. Therefore, they're less likely to hire someone to fix the issues, and more likely to learn how to fix it themselves. (See #3! :-) )
5. Forums and other free avenues of technical assistance. Technically speaking, since I sell my knowledge and skills, I shouldn't be on these forums sharing my knowledge for free. I do it anyway, though because it helps me keep my skills up, and I enjoy helping people.
6. Fixing gaming issues comparatively speaking is easier than fixing other problems, such as complex networking issues, server class app issues, etc. A large amount of issues can be resolved following a basic script of things to do...

A. Patch the game
B. Update drivers
C. Make sure OS is virus/spyware free
D. Check the system requirements of the game, compare them to the system, and upgrade accordingly

Consequently, chains like Best Buy can hire someone for $8/hr, often in high school or college, to get the job done. Granted they often don't resolve the issue, but you should see the look of some initial clients of mine when they hear my rate of $80/hr. I don't care if you've got a Windows problem or a gaming problem, if it takes 2 hours to fix, I want $160 because it's two hours of my time gone. What people often don't understand is paying me $80/hr means the problem WILL get fixed, along with anything else I see wrong with the system, and it usually doesn't take me longer than 2 hours to fix pretty much anything, and I defintitely won't break anything while fixing your problems. But a customer doesn't know that until they hire me, and they got scared away by the $80/hr. Not blaming the customer in this decision because I KNOW I do it in other service related tasks I hire people to do like fix my car, but that's also because I can't seem to find any good mechanics who can fix anything that I trust yet, either.

Please help survivors of Hurricane Katrina...err...Rita. Starting to lose track...

www.redcross.org

Ooooo, you cynical old thing you. And who says that most gamers are younger, most of the lads I know that play are ex forces and late thirties into their forties. Or there are the Oldies like me that will never grow up, and I'm into the higher bracket. Like I have said, I have already laid out £400 plus, so if I , personally found someone that could FIX my gaming freeze with BF2, yes I would pay, it's a matter of principle now, I have to know what the hell is the matter with it. Then I will know a bit more the next time. I can also put the experience online in the forum so that the 'younger' lads with not so much money can benefit if they have the same issues.

The remote access by Computing.net sounds excellent! Is it feasable?

"Ooooo, you cynical old thing you. And who says that most gamers are younger, most of the lads I know that play are ex forces and late thirties into their forties."

I'm speaking on average compared to other computer users.

It is expected that the average gamer age will increase as the generations who grew up with video games (like me for example) age and still game. However, the older you get, you still game less than you did as a kid. I know I do...

"Like I have said, I have already laid out £400 plus, so if I , personally found someone that could FIX my gaming freeze with BF2, yes I would pay, it's a matter of principle now, I have to know what the hell is the matter with it."

I think fixing game related issues is something people should get paid for. It does take skill to know how to fix stuff, and it comes from experience and time spent on it. However, I'm speaking about the potential market and the majority of consumers out there when I made those remarks. You're in the minority of people who would spend money to pay someone to figure out the problem, but you also didn't change your mentality until you ended up spending quite a bit of cash and time figuring it out yourself, either. ;-)

"Then I will know a bit more the next time."

Question for you...if another problem were to arise, are you more or less likely to be able to fix it without paying someone? Admit it - you learned a lot about how to fix stuff. Maybe you learned how to narrow down the causes faster, or which hardware is more likely to be related, or where to get assistance you don't have to pay for, such as posting here. ;-) See?

I know I keep coming back to my car, but it's a great comparison. Most everyone is afraid of doing their own car repairs and maintenance if they've never done it before. Then you learn how easy it is to change your air filter, and you think..."hey, THAT WAS EASY!"

The more steps you take past that, the more likely any repair or maintenance you face in the future will at least be attempted by you first.

For me, it happened a few years back when I was a school teacher, and my wife had some medical problems, and the medical bills soaked a boatload of our money. Our cars needed maintenance, and I was on summer vacation, so I looked into what was involved in some of the things that needed to be done. I started with sparkplugs.

"WOW, THAT WAS EASY!"

That led to the cap and rotor and wires...then fuel filter, then transmission fluid change and filter...along the way I discovered websites and discussion forums that answered questions I had.

The following year, when my wife's car was in for state inspection, she was told her car's emissions were failing and needed to be checked out, and her engine coolant temp sensor was failing, both would cost $200 to do plus whatever was wrong with the emissions to fix. I told my wife not to have them do it, looked online and found that when that sensor fails, it causes the emissions to fail. Sensor only costs $15. BAM, did it myself...

You see where this is headed...

With cars though, people don't like doing the work or don't know how, so there's always gonna be people who will pay for service. As much as I may do on my car myself, I refuse to do my own oil changes because I hate working on cars, and an oil change is cheap. Plus, in the US, a car is a necessity, so most people can't simply not use their car.

With computer gaming, issues crop up all the time, so to game, YOU MUST LEARN how to fix these problems to continue gaming unless you have obscene amounts of money to keep paying guys like me. Most people learn how to patch their games, update their drivers, check the read me files, etc., or they stop playing computer games and get a console.

Please help survivors of Hurricane Katrina...err...Rita. Starting to lose track...

www.redcross.org

hero,

You took a lot of your time to type your responses and you obviously live in the real world. Your tack on gamers in general is very close to the truth...they generally just know more about their machines and are more adept at repairs, choosing the proper gear, and maintenance.

I'd like to own the gear to play all the latest and greatest games too. But, I'm 56 years old; I'm horribly busy with work; older games suit me just fine; I have several incomplete irons in the fire; I can't afford or justify a 7800 just to play a few new games that will add up to another 300 bucks.

So, I suffer along with my 9600AIW and 9600se. Can't play FEAR demo with anything close to nice settings but I can play. I loaded a borrowed BF2 and it worked OK but isn't on my must have list. HL2 was fine and fun for me but I didn't like Steam. Blah...blah...blah.

Anyway geezir, since you didn't give us any real information about your system nor any information on what you spent your money for, we can't be of much help yet.

Like heropsycho, I'd want to know what's going on with your system first...I have to asume (at this point) that you have other issues too or that you're still trying to do too much with too little.

jam's idea of remote access is a good one but, I'd like to see the system up to snuff first and tackle the BF2 problem later.

Skip

If any of you watch or use to watch techTV's the screensavers, you may have seen the episode where they took a survey of the average age of a gamer.

Result?

31

Have the lambs stopped crying Clarice?

Which is up from 10 years ago. Furthermore, I am willing to bet the amount of hours spent on gaming goes down as a person ages. "Life happens" as they say. ;-)

You get married...and I don't know about you guys, but my wife doesn't like video games, and as Julius from Pulp Fiction says, "My girlfriend is a vegetarian, which pretty much makes me a vegetarian, too."

You work increasingly on your career.

When you have a baby, you REALLY lose free time, although you may play video games again as a way of spending quality time with your kids. Still I wonder how much time that is compared to the all night Counter-Strike sessions you may have done when you were in high school and college. ;-)

"So, I suffer along with my 9600AIW and 9600se."

SCREW THAT! My computer is what I take pride in how well it runs, even though I barely game anymore. Hey, it's less expensive than buying a new car every few years and tricking it out. :-)

"But, I'm 56 years old..."

THERE'S THE OLD MAN IN THIS THREAD! Just kidding... :-)

"I can't afford or justify a 7800 just to play a few new games that will add up to another 300 bucks."

Don't. Get a reasonably priced card instead that gets the job done. 6600GT or 6800. :-)

Please help survivors of Hurricane Katrina...err...Rita. Starting to lose track...

www.redcross.org

Hello,

No, I'm not sure a Computing.Net service like that would be feasible :) I don't think I trust sending just anyone to someone's house and putting Computing.Net's name on it. Further, with so many people spread all over the world, the logistics would be impossible to send and track qualified people. A service like that would either be useless to most people (as the "experts" exist only in very limited areas) or dangerous to people (as just anyone could end up at someone's house).

Justin

"A service like that would...be...dangerous to people (as just anyone could end up at someone's house)."

Yeah, I mean you got a guy in this thread alone with a line from Silence of the Lambs in his sig for crying out loud!

P.S. Custom Built, I was only kidding. Please don't kill me. :-)

Help survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Please donate to the American Red Cross.

www.redcross.org

Imma gonna eat yo FACE!!!!!!!!!!

: ) : )

Have the lambs stopped crying Clarice?

That's so not Hannibal...

You should have said you just wanted to have me over for dinner. :-)

Help survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Please donate to the American Red Cross.

www.redcross.org