PC Gamer is a magazine that started in Britain in 1993. An American version of the magazine started in 1994. A Swedish version of the magazine ran from 1996 to 2021. As the title suggests, all versions of the magazine are completely dedicated to PC games. You can find articles of news and developments in the Video Game industry, previews and reviews of games, reviews of hardware, articles on mods, the old-school games, and much more.
This magazine provides examples of:
- Butt-Monkey: Greg "TheVede" Vederman, one of the US editors, who is sometimes the butt of jokes, doesn't take himself seriously and one photoshoot in the tech corner had a young woman wondering if she'll choose between either two computer components or a cheerful Greg... cue a sad Greg crying "She didn't pick me!".
- Caption Humor: Many pictures will have humorous captions with Black Comedy, Puns, Shout Outs, Take Thats and so on.
- Fictional Video Game: Gravy Trader, developed by the US mascot Coconut Monkey. One CD included a "review" of the game among other older game reviews, rating it a 101% and concluding it with "We have seen the face of God and there is gravy dribbling down his chin".
- Four-Point Scale: Very averted. They have rated several games going as low as 5% (Skydive! and Extreme Watersports) or even 4% (Mad Dog McCree).
- IBM Personal Computer and Microsoft Windows: Games for these platforms are what the title focuses on.
- Mascot:
- The American version has one in the form of Coconut Monkey.
- The Swedish version had three mascots; a rubber duck, a hamster named the PCG Hamster and a Warcraft-style dwarf named Akrovak.
- Running Gag:
- Coconut Monkey mentions frequently that he can't do this or that because he has no hands, and that he's trying to make a game called Gravy Trader. In case you're wondering, this Gravy Trader game will never, ever see the light of day.
- Relatively recently, PC Gamer will take any excuse they can get to use an image from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt of Geralt relaxing in a bathtub as the headline image for any Witcher content. Eventually reached a head with CD Projekt RED sent them their own personal statue of Geralt reading PC Gamer magazines in the same pose.
- For a while, there was a short weird unrelated story paragraph written in the lower right of the last page of the US magazine. When asked about it in mail corner, their reply was basically "we have no idea what you're talkin’ about".
- Shout-Out: Many.
- For the Swedish review of Myth III: The Wolf Age the headline reads: "Could Mumbo and Jumbo be Dumbo's lost siblings?"
- The Swedish review of Praetorians mentions that Asterix is strong without a magic potion and the headline of the review says "These crazy romans!"
- For the Swedish review of Darkstar One the headline reads: "In space, no one can hear you cry."
- Take That, Audience!: When the PCG Hamster answered to letters in the letters column he would frequently make fun of the letter writers.