The season of gift chaos is upon us, with the holidays reminding us to show some appreciation for the people we care about by searching the endless aisles of digital commerce. While the days of roaming the mall to try to find the perfect gift are over for most of us, finding a good present still isn’t easy. For every good idea there are a hundred awful ones, from the yearly flood of boring cookbooks of questionably edible recipes tenuously linked with video games to the awful generic "gaming" shirts. It’s not enough to just be clever with picking your presents, though, because apparently gifts aren’t free.
In a more fun world, we’d all be able to sling new graphics cards and $500 Lego Rivendell sets at our friends, but instead we are shackled to more reasonable choices (note: if you live in the more fun world, I want to be friends, hit me up). So for those of us who need to obey a budget, I’ve got a list together of far more reasonable gifts for the PC gamers in our lives—with one or two entries that bend the budget a bit. There’s plenty of whimsy in between the practical suggestions, so choose your gift weaponry carefully and together we can make it through another season of holiday combat.
The spirit of resistance is alive with this mug, ready for a nice hot cup of your festive beverage of choice while you watch the Junimo solve the JojaMart issue their own way. I just wonder what kind of offering it took to get them to jump to felony arson.
It’s rare that an opportunity for such a phenomenal pun comes along, and turning a shotgun shell into a shot(gun) glass is one for the ages. Whether it gets used to hold a few pens on your desk, or for its intended purpose, it’s going to be just as cool.
Even without a summon, you can get your very own living pot, complete with unearthly glow. While I won’t guarantee it can defeat your enemies, it’s great at living in the uncanny valley between weird and adorable, and it can even store some small knick-knacks, pens, or desktop trinkets.
The most frequent casualty of gaming sessions is beverage temperature. In fact, millions of mugs of tea and coffee are discarded every year when they can’t keep up with Arc Raiders looting or long dungeon runs in Diablo. Thankfully, a proper mugwarmer is the perfect counter-pick, and this one can keep your drink at any of three temperatures with auto-shutoff for when you get distracted.
In the battle against keyboard funk, the right implement is invaluable, and every year this cleaning brush is our pick. It’s inexpensive and effective for fighting against the constant invasion of dust and debris. If you’re thinking of a laptop user, OXO also has this tool designed for laptops that includes a microfiber pad for cleaning your screen.
RGB lighting setups can get as complicated (and expensive) as you can imagine, but sometimes you just want an accent for your desk with a bit of color. That’s where these simple vertical light bars come in to give you some remote controlled mood lighting.
To my eternal shame, my desk has been host to countless plant murders over the years, despite my best intentions and false promises. If you’re anything like me, you’re far better at keeping digital plants alive than real ones, so having them be small, cute, and made of plastic is really ideal.
The Dungeon Crawler Carl series marries The Running Man with a deadly MMORPG run by aliens. It’s dark, funny, and unafraid to be about bigger issues while still just being a story about a guy and his ex-girlfriend’s cat trying to survive and keep their humanity (and felinity).
If you’re anything like me, you’re always looking to eke out a bit more space from limited desk real estate. I have a bunch of cool little things I want to stick on my desk, but very little desk left to work with before my decorations decide to stage a revolution and overthrow me. My solution has been to get just a bit more space with the help of these little shelves that let me give my Yennefer figure a high-rise apartment to avoid the guillotine for another week.
Another great space saver to keep your desk organized, this stand can hold a ton of controllers and even a pair of headphones if you’d like. Plus, it’s got a bunch of RGB modes to make it fit in with the atmosphere you’re going for. If you’re even more strapped for desk space, you can check out this hanging stand instead.
There are endless ways to try to keep your cable spaghetti monster under control, and while classics like velcro zip ties do great work, it’s time to consider the formidable power of magnets. These are especially good for keeping your spare charging cables and audio cables under control and at-hand, so don’t underestimate their versatility.
Dust is the desk-killer. Crumbs are the little-death that bring total disorganization. I will face my vacuum. I will permit it to pass over my desk and through my mousepad. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its charging cord. Where the mess has gone there will be nothing. Only gaming will remain.
Sometimes you want to use a controller, and it’s okay to admit it. Not every game controls best with mouse and keyboard, and sometimes you want to kick back and still play. Based on our testing, the Nova Lite is our pick for best budget controller, so it’s a perfect grab for your next platformer.
Every fall I remember again that my blood is nice and all, but it needs some help doing its job. I’ve gone through several hand warmers over the years, and so far this one is my favorite, since it heats up near-instantly, and I can warm both hands at the same time. So appreciate your blood, and make its job easier when it gets cold.
I don’t pretend to understand the itty-bitty wizardry behind this incredibly tiny 386 replica, I just gawk at how cool it is. Somehow in its smaller-than-dollhouse scale it’s got accurate lighting, a microscopic DOS prompt, and even boot up sounds. What a way to relive the early DOS era of gaming on your desk.
These keycaps are an important statement, one that says: “I am close to the metal. I understand the twisted copper and silicon and whisper secrets to the machine spirits.” Or maybe they’re just really cool looking keycaps made from recycled pieces of circuit boards.
Do you know a budding streamer or content creator, or maybe you are one yourself? Few know that the most important thing about being a streamer isn’t what games you play, your personality, or even your interactions with viewers—it’s actually just how cool the wall behind you is, and nothing is cooler than seeing your name in lights.
There’s always room for some cool stickers, whether it’s on your thermos or laptop, you’ve got to rep stuff from your favorite games. Whether you want to immortalize your favorite spells, bring some trucker hat wisdom to Stardew Valley, or recall the most cinematic ladder climbing scene in game history—there’s something for everyone. You can even pay your respects to the hardest working rooster in games, or remember all those Sims that wouldn’t do what you wanted. Be sure to stick responsibly.
Is there a cooler way to tell the world what your main is? These faux neon signs are a classy look to hang above your gaming setup (or on the wall behind you, if you’re a streamer) and cement your allegiance to your favorite job before you take on another Savage raid or Ultimate encounter.
The next best thing to good typing posture is something that helps to force you into having good typing posture. Even if you’re only using your PC for gaming, those hours compound quickly, so why not try to avoid the pain stage and skip right to the solution part?
DC's alternate-universe Wonder Woman series is a revelation for the 84-year-old character. Instead of being raised in idyllic, sheltered Themyscira, Diana is brought up in hell by the witch Circe, who cultivates her magical side. Still this dark upbringing doesn't change Diana's compassionate spirit, as she battles giant monsters and a shadowy government agency. Absolute Wonder Woman won "Best New Series" and "Best Coloring" at the 2025 Eisner Awards, the most prestigious in the industry.
Even a simple macro keypad can be so handy it’s wondrous to behold. Whether you’re saving your in-game macros in your MMO of choice, setting up simple scene transition buttons for your streaming setup, or just adding some dedicated shortcut keys for the odd bit of photo or video editing—a macro keypad can do a lot of heavy lifting.
The number of things a modern desktop PC wants to have plugged in can be truly staggering, and nobody wants to be plugging and unplugging everything into the back of their PC all the time. Make your setup more accessible and easier to work with by stepping up to a powered USB hub that you can stick wherever you’d like.
Stream Decks are an awesome tool for content creation and live streaming, or even just for digital editing and productivity, but they do tend to live right near the keyboard. In the constant quest to reclaim and protect every square inch of our desk’s real estate, this 3D-printed tray is a clever way to mount your Stream Deck under your desk, ready to pop out and use whenever you need it to play lovable and obnoxious music.
We’re marching towards two decades of Minecraft, but digital blocks continue to be an evergreen source of joy and creative outlet. There are a whole bunch of ways to celebrate that and decorate like your interior designer was a villager in a past life. Maybe you’d like to keep a fuzzy friend nearby to ward off Creepers? You could get somewhere safe to stash your diamonds instead, or just go with a classic touch of nature.
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