Hey the box I built earlier this year cost about that much. I say BAH! to the face punches! Bah! Fie on them!
For some reason PC gaming gets a lot of flack on the frugal sites. I won't name the examples but I've seen them.
While it's true that it's not good to sit in front of a computer for too long, I find it vexing these sites can discuss reasonable levels of alcohol consumption (for example) as being frugal and poop on video games.
The average consumer sucker goes out and throws down $2400 on console hardware AND still has to buy TVs and extra controllers and proprietary adapters and proprietary cables and all sorts of proprietary hardware nonsense, pays outrageous additional sums for what's just a damn hard drive, and belts out $60 for bland games from huge bloated anti-social corporations who are creatively bankrupt.
(Granted the self published online markets have alleviated the latter problem somewhat, I give them credit there and not all AAA titles are shovelware.)
The Mustachian gamer may throw down a princely sum of $1200, but in exchange receives one machine which both duplicates and exceeds the capabilities of those expensive boxes all combined. And he is not feature locked either! Every time a new generation of hardware comes out, he is off to Ebay or the refurbished bins for the next to last generation which works almost exactly as well at a cost less than some new rubbish components.
He has a machine that he can use to track his savings and investments, one that can replace cable TV, one that can call up the library, that can mine bitcoins while he's otherwise occupied, that can do damn near anything, one that is a gateway to a cornucopia of free things. And he enjoys it all in a way that Chromebook user never will.
Consumer suckers have to go buy a box just to put Netflix on their TV, for instance. Not you. Consumer suckers pay out the nose for theaters or Redbox or any other number of products and services this replaces, and does so in style with exceptional performance!
And because the Mustachian made it himself, this wonderful machine is free of all the junky add ons and unlike a consumer sucka, he bought the best and most highly vetted parts.
Soon, with Steam coming out with its own Linux based OS, free open source software may reduce costs even further.
The frugality sites love organic food from small growers, why don't they love DRM free software from independent developers?
The PC itself may cost you $1200 but you can play things like Path of Exile for thousands of hours (please do this over many years) at no additional cost. And if you actually deign to spend any money, well good grief, you won't even live long enough to exhaust all the good stuff you can get from GoG.com for a pittance.
It gets even sillier when you realize that because you built your own instead of buying a locked down corporation box, you can modify and improve games to your heart's content. You can add functionality and content leagues beyond what was ever intended.
Never mind the fact configuring and running your own high end personal computer to perform so well leads to greater skills with modern technology. Suckers pay thousands of dollars just to keep up, you're ahead of 80% of people because you actually know something about hardware and software to make that beast spit out another 10 FPS.
When your family member's mere normal computers break or have problems, no one has to hire an expensive tech to fix it.
It keeps you from buying stupid consumer things, after you realize what you can make with your own two hands, it makes you look at something like an Ipad and assess its true value.
And one more thing. Family history of Alzheimer's and dementia here. Research shows empirically that improving your logic and memory skills as much as possible as long as possible is effective in delaying the onset of the disease. Also reading helps. Nothing in existence does this combination of lots of reading and lots of thinking better than the more cerebreal genres of games, especially when you start making spreadsheets to figure out how to play the game better.
Rocking a silly good computer may not be strictly necessary, but neither is air conditioning or eating anything besides water, vitamin pills and ramen noodles.
The truth is video gaming can be stupid cheap especially on a PC, and the fringe benefits are hard to put a price on because you now have an absolutely beastly multipurpose machine plus a body of skills and knowledge you wouldn't otherwise.
Something that does all this, that amortizes out to a cost less than what most people pay for phone service in the United States, is money well spent. Provided you don't have a debt crisis on your hands and shop for value rather than shop for the bleeding edge because it's the bleeding edge, what's the problem?
I pay cash for my computer stuff and games and have no debt, and it's in my budget at the very bottom because it's my last priority. So Fie! No face punches!