PC Building Simulator: Building a Computer on my Computer on my PS5
I wanted a Personal Computer(PC), so I bought the videogame PC Building Simulator on my Playstation 5. I started acquiring parts for a PC about a month later. About four or five months went by as I assembled my components together and then, with the help of my friend Daniel, I finally completed building it. And then I bought PC Building Simulator on Steam so I could play it on my PC.
This series of declarations is important because it reveals a tremendous, almost scandalous amount of clarification for how my mind goes about achieving goals. It also explains my cash-flow problems in a nutshell and why my accountant recently started smoking cigarettes.
PC Building Simulator is unlike most of the videogames I play or have played because it’s…well, a simulator.
So, let’s talk about simulators.
Cover provided by Moby Games.
Simulation videogames don’t get a lot of street cred in no small part because they sometimes become memes of themselves. Videogames like Farming Simulator, Powerwasher Simulator, Flight Simulator, or Lawn Mowing Simulator practically write their own snarky criticisms of their genre by being so matter-of-factly what they are. For example the first time I ever found out there were Lawn Mowing simulators I distinctly remember laughing, then cringing painfully, and hanging my head in shame as I had yet another reason to be “ashamed” of playing videogames instead of consuming quote “the right” media like novels, films, or poetry. It’s important to note, after observing how many books, films, and poems have been made that are the qualitative equivalent of toilet paper, I have far more respect for Lawn Mowing Simulator than I used to.
Also, making sharp turns on a riding mower in yards is brutal dude.
The disrespect for Simulator games is largely driven by ignorance and bias, all of which is caused by the misinformed perception that these games are not actually games. The criticism against Simulator videogames is also driven by the sub-cultural shame and elitism that infects every community of human beings, but in this case affects videogame players. There are always going to be players who perceive the videogame that they play is the “best” videogame and other genres are inferior either mechanically, narratively, visually, or philosophically. To put it plainly, the sort of judgemental dweeb who exclusively plays Call or Duty or Stardew Valley because simulator videogames are quote “beneath them” are putting themselves above other people for the purposes of ego.
These sorts of people, fun fact, suck all the butt.
I want to make it clear, Call of Duty is a great game, and so is Stardew Valley. The point remains however, media elitism is stupid dude.
Like really stupid.
Like E.T. the videogame stupid.
I played PC Building Simulator without such bias because I always remind myself that I have an internet browsing history and void my bowels the same as everyone else on this planet. Also life is way too dang short to worry about what other people think about the way I spend my free time.
Plus, I was doing research…kinda.
PC Building Simulator was released for Windows personal computers 27 March 2018, and would later become available on the SONY Playstation store. As of this writing I have no idea if it’s available on Xbox…and I don’t really care if it is or isn’t (Listen(I bought Windows 11 Operating System alright?( I have given Microsoft enough of my money already))). PC Building Simulator is presented entirely in first-person perspective as the player controls an unseen protagonist who inherits their uncle’s PC building and repair workshop which is in dire financial straits. The player can accept jobs over email from potential customers at which point PCs belonging to non-playable characters(npcs) arrive in the hallway of their workshop along with replacement parts they order online. The goal of the game is repairing and replacing parts until the shop becomes profitable and well reviewed enough to begin accepting jobs for custom builds. This is, of course, if you are playing the main game and not just playing the “Free-Build” option which allows players a “sandbox” where they can build any PC they want with unlimited funds and any and all computer parts that were available to the open market the last time the game was updated.
What this means is, for a slight moment I owned (even if it was just digital) and EVGA 3090 GPU.
And it was beautiful.
I noted earlier that PC Building Simulator is unlike most of the videogames that I typically play because it is a simulator, and that point requires further analysis. Looking honestly at the videogames I play, most of them tend to be action adventure games, role-playing games(rpgs), and first person shooters(fps). I keep a spreadsheet on my Google Drive about the essays I publish for this website and I include the genre. Looking through it for the purpose of writing this essay (and not just admiring my own supposed achievements like the loser-dork I am) I can say comfortably that the genre Simulator is barely on the list at all. I’ve written almost nothing about the genre because it’s just not a game-style I normally play. What simulators I have played in the past were typically city building simulators like Pharaoh and Railroad Tycoon 3, and, if I’m being totally honest, those two were the only games I played with any regularity. I did play Roller Coaster Tycoon and Zoo Tycoon, but these games never held my attention the way other PC games like Stronghold Crusader or Rome: Total War did. Real-Time Strategy dominated my PC playing time because I could control armies, some of which had war elephants.
War elephants, fun fact, are flipping rad my dudes.
It was also more entertaining to the teenage dweeb I was than establishing efficient zoning in a game like SimCity.
PC Building Simulator offers me more than just the thrill of seeing an NVIDIA 4090(even if it’s just a digital one) in my PC’s chassis because it provides me with a management and building simulator with an emphasis on building. I noted to my girlfriend shortly after I finished building my PC that I still had “the bug.” I suspect anyone who’s ever built a PC knows what I’m describing. The actual process of assembling the necessary parts, unboxing them one by one, positioning them together, screwing everything into place, and starting the computer up for the first time is incredibly frustrating and overwhelmingly fun. I wanted to build another computer, not because I wanted a new computer but just because I wanted to build another one. PC Building Simulator then provided me with simulated scratch for the psychological itch.
Receiving orders, even if it’s just to dust out an old system, provides the strangest dopamine rush I’ve ever encountered, and when I actually get to replace a GPU(graphic processing unit) I take my time looking through the listings of incredible cards. I start to contemplate the joy that would installing an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 16GB GDDR6X, an Sapphire Pure Radeon RX 7900 GRE, or even an XFX Radeon RX 6750 XT 12GB GDDR6…until I realize the customer just wants a Shean GeForce GTX 970 Gamer card and I sigh and add it to the cart.
As the philosopher Lao Tsu said, “In the game of PC’s, practicality will always supersede desire. Plus that 4080 won’t fit in a Thermaltake Tower 200 Snow Mini Chassis anyway dude.”
Lao Tsu, fun fact, was a pretty smart dude.
PC Building Simulator is a business simulator as much as it is a building one. Players have to manage orders, as well as make sure that orders are completed promptly and this involves coordinating orders around a schedule. I can expect certain parts to take a week or more to arrive and thus it makes sense to not inundate myself with jobs and mistake an R-A-M order with a general dust-out. But, if I decide to just accept any and all jobs the fun begins trying to maintain a consistency with my business to keep those five stars reviews coming. It didn’t take long for me to recognise that one order I accepted required me to purchase an ADATA Premier Series 4GB 2133 MHZ stick as a replacement Random Access Memory(RAM) stick, but by the time the part arrived I realized that I had ordered the wrong part and now the computer was due back the next day. I literally shut the game down realizing my futz-up and have considered completely restarting just because I knew this was going to screw over the business and orders may slow down.
Besides the actual jobs themselves the player is also expected to manage the nitty-gritty details of managing a business which means managing details. Electricity bills and rent for the office space need to be paid, packages need to be properly handled and shipped out on their correct dates, any and all equipment needs to be shut off for the night.
All of these details simulate the experience of day-to-day operations, and I know what genre of nerd I am because managing these tasks is honestly really flipping fun. It borders on a real-time-strategy experience mixed with a bit of edutainment. There’s a joy in managing this slowly growing economy, and I know this intellectual joy well because I’ve written in the past about why I loved playing Railroad Tycoon 3. Just like that game, managing investment capital and profits becomes a fun challenge and soon enough I begin to recognise how important making the right investments can make or break my business.
But, if I’m being honest, the business simulation (while enjoyable) isn’t anywhere near as satisfying as just building the computers.
Often when I’m writing, or playing videogames, I still stop and look at my real PC. Part of this impulse is, honestly, just a maintenance mindset. I live with animals so hair and dust will inevitably find its way inside of the chassis and I want to make sure it doesn’t futz with the hardware. But after this initial concern there’s what I can only describe as a gentle happiness. The happiness comes from knowing that I built this machine. And, on that note I wouldn’t be a good basic PC Bro if I didn’t immediately list my specs so here they are:an MSI MAG B760 TOMAHAWK WIFI DDR4 motherboard, an Intel i7 13700k central processing unit 13th generation, a HYTE Y60 red & black chassis, a Cooler Master Hyper 212 black edition 42 CFM CPU cooler, a corsair RM750e 750 W Fully Modular ATX Power supply, 4 Corsair vengeance LPX DDR4 RAM totaling 48 GB, a Samsung 980 PRO 1 TB M.2-2280 PCLe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive, a Zotac Gaming Twin Edge OC Geforce RTX 3060 12 GB Video Card, and Windows 11 Operating System (Home edition).
I’m proud of this computer, because I built it. It was an incredibly expensive (for my budget) LEGO set with pretty RGB lights that remind me that I had the initiative to build this machine.
And that happiness doesn’t fade, it just endures.
The desire to build an object that facilitates play and expression is at the heart of a videogame like PC Building Simulator. It’s providing players who, like me, want to build computers but don’t have the immediate financial means to do so an opportunity to play in the art of building. It affords me the chance to build a fantasy computer that I’ll likely never get to build either due to hardware limitations or, more accurately, my abysmal financial status. Though easy to mock, the appeal of this simulator is just the fact that it allows me imagination. I can imagine all sorts of computers that I want to build.
And now, thanks to this game, I can actually build one that will have an EVGA 3090.
Joshua “Jammer” Smith
3.17.2025
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