It all began on June 13th. Among more than a dozen celebrities invited to EA's booth at E3 2016 to play Battlefield 1 was Terry Crews. The former NFL player turned actor was captivated the moment he began playing the game, where he would gear up in World War 1 era equipment and head into battle on a massive map.
Terry Crews would spend more than 15 minutes competing in a 32 versus 32 match using a keyboard & mouse, which would prove difficult given his inexperience. Camera footage showed him in a serious frame of mind as he tried to compete against other celebrities as well as Battlefield veterans in the lobby. Although he would end up with a 0 – 8 KDR, it wouldn't be the last time he would he would be seen behind a gaming PC.
Four weeks would go by, and on July 13th Terry Crews delivered a live stream on Facebook where he showed off an armada of PC gaming components he had purchased. In the video he explained that he had a great time playing Battlefield 1, and was blown away by the graphics and enjoyment of playing the game on a PC. This, along with his nine year old son Isaiah sharing interest in PC gaming, would propel Terry Crews to purchase some of the best gaming hardware in existence.
Among the components that Terry Crews showed off in his live stream were the Intel Core i7-6800k, Nvidia GTX 1080, and Acer Predator X34 34" Curved Display. PC gaming enthusiasts around the globe were shocked yet enthusiastic about the live stream, especially following his verbatim mention of joining the "PC Master Race". He was immediately welcomed into the community with open arms, with thousands of comments and likes populating his Facebook page, and hundreds of posts discussing the subject matter finding their way onto the PC Master Race sub-Reddit. But the PC wasn't yet assembled, so there was still a challenging journey that awaited Terry Crews.
Several days later he updated the community with a photo of his PC build coming together. A closed water loop and brand new Nvidia graphics card could be seen mounted to a high-end motherboard. Progress was being made.
Then, on July 18th, Terry Crews would live stream two more times as he battled with inevitable technical issues. The challenge could be seen on his face as the smiles of his introduction video had dissipated in favor of a face of problem solving. These issues included figuring out the cabling requirement for a sound card and getting Windows 10 to install. Funny enough, in the case of the latter issue patience was all that was needed as a remedy.
Nonetheless, these two issues, alongside the complexity of figuring out cabling standards and where everything goes in an ATX PC configuration, provided many hours of hands-on labor. Terry Crews admitted it was frustrating, but knew that the journey was worth the result.
With a little help, Terry Crews finished putting together everything on July 19th. Shortly after, he recorded himself and his son in front of the machine as it ran Rocket League at 3440 x 1440. Unlike the previous couple videos, big smiles could be seen on the faces of both Terry and Isaiah Crews. Terry would flex his muscles and shout "PC Master Race" while his son shared his excitement to stream HTC Vive first impressions on Twitch in the future.
While Terry Crews' fame allowed his perspective of adopting PC gaming hardware to accumulate widespread attention, he represents the beginnings of the average PC gamer. He was drawn in by the high-tech power of modern gaming hardware, and sheer number of options when it comes to customizing the experience. Despite being a busy guy, he took the time to purchase parts, put them together, debug them, and as a result is now enjoying the benefits alongside his son.
Terry Crews' feeling of accomplishment and the road to getting there is something every PC gamer is familiar with. Though, it isn't common to see a well-liked celebrity go through the process, let alone share that experience with the internet. And this couldn't have arrived at a better time, with Nvidia's 1060 and 1070 graphics cards as well as AMD's RX 480 having just debuted at affordable price points, further widening the gap between console and PC. His average yet popular story can serve as inspiration for other gamers who may be considering joining the PC gaming community.
