PC Gaming Case trend, too plain now?

By Glenn Vonsquet – November 3, 2016

  This week is a very exciting week in Las Vegas, NV. It’s the week for enthusiastic manufactures or business in general related in the auto industry that wants to trick and pimp out the cars and show it off at the SEMA show held once a year in Las Vegas. Of course you get to see regular cars that get modified. Most popular are the Japanese cars such as the Civic, the Scions, etc. or Sport/Coupe cars models that gets modified a lot. But you already can see some of these types of cars on the streets that are tricked out and “suped” up. For me, it is always fascinating to see a random car that people usually do not modify, for example some regular sedan sized cars, such as the Ford Fusion, Volks Wagon Jetta, or even a Mini Van that gets modified looks very attractive and it’s where mostly the crowd gathers around watching, and you see their fascinated looks on their faces.

  This brings to my attention in PC Gaming industry. Many believe that PC modifying got the idea from car modifications. PC Modding having been around since the early 2000’s, I’ve seen the trend that it’s been going through. At first, it was just a regular boring beige box pc case with a side window. In the beginning, people used that boring beige case, bought a case cutter and applied acrylic window in order to make it a “see thru” case. Then the manufactures made cases with windows, some made it with an “X” window. Then there are different designs on the windows. When they ran out of window designs, they went with the front panel. There were many different front panels and different side windows, and the Raidmax Scorpio was the one that took the cake during that time period. Selling a mid-tower budget friendly case, seems everyone had the Raidmax Scorpio case back then. Then there were a lot of other different kind of designs and looks by many different brands and manufactures, where it got to a point it became a little hideous and the market got flooded with all different sorts of types of cases. Later on, the trend seems to be going for the “plain” & “elegant” feel. Many manufactures have been going toward this route, especially Fractal Designs. They do make nice cases, but I call them the Sub-Zero Refrigerator look in pc cases. I understand you want your PC to look nice, look like a nice electronic device in your home or room. But that’s too much like an aluminum mini-fridge for my taste.

  Sometimes, maybe stay out of the trend. Just because this year is the year of the zombie doesn’t mean everybody have to be a zombie in Halloween. Get the case you like, but make the lights or LED’s different from what the manufactures include. Adding anything different than the original is always a plus. Make some modifications in the appearance of the case to make yours stand out. Just like cars. People buy the brand and model they desire, and they modify it to stand out from all the same models on the road. If you are a car or auto enthusiast, you will modify your car and make it perform better, spend big bucks under that hood. And you’ll definitely modify the appearance of it as well. It should be the same for PC gamers or someone who sits in front of their PC 10+ hours a day. If you are an enthusiast gamer, you would modify internally, overclock, water cool, processors, cards, the list goes on and on. Once you have something crazy internally, you’ll need to also change the appearance as well. Be different & creative. After all, looks are important.