Actual impact of Video Games

[Ed Oscuro]

I spend a lot more time writing and reading about games (or listening to game soundtracks!) than I do playing them. It's been that way for quite a long time now.

[Rox]

I play too much video games, but I know MANY people who don't touch them. But most of those guys watch TV as much as I play...

I dunno, me and games is funny. It comes and goes, in waves. For the past week or so I haven't played a lot at all. Mostly been sitting here diong other non-gamey stuff. But the week before that I spent probably 3+ hours every day with Guitar Hero 2. And the week before that, 6+ hours every day with Oblivion. I mean, I got my 360 this spring and I've played Oblivion for almost 200 hours...

I'm a casual hardcore gamer or something... When I start playing, I don't stop, and I want to get as much out of every game as possible, but it's not like I ALWAYS play games. And I never become superhumany good... Some claim I reached that stage when I used to play DDR, but that's a long time ago now...

Still, I have teachers who play games, I know people who play games with their parents, and kids surely play as much as I used to when I was little. Games do take up a huge amount of space and money. A really good game will outsell a blockbuster movie. But it's also true that people are pretty casual about games. Like the next-gen console thing. A small percentage actually bother to stay that updated with games. That's why I got a 360 this spring, instead of a year and a half ago...

[robalan]

Rox: I like your description of a "casual hardcore" gamer.  The only game that I've been playing for the past several weeks has been Kingdom of Loathing, which I play during lunch at work.  But earlier in the summer I was playing Oblivion for several hours every evening.  The whole console market updating regularly and noncompatibility is why I'm a PC gamer.  My laptop is good enough to run just about everything, despite being two years old.  I'll probably get a new one next year when the warranty on this one runs out, but I'll likely be using it for work as well as gaming and stuff.  Some console games are fun, but I never really got into them, since the only console I ever owned was an SNES, many years ago.

[Xion]

videogames, still in their infancy compared to both movies and especially music (which is like two thousand years old to movies' eyeblink of an existence)...

That's kind of a tetchy statement. Video games are just the currently-most-popular iteration of gaming, which is ancient. Video games are to games what pop is to music; what cinema is to drama. Gaming, like drama and music, has always been vastly popular. It's just technology, direction, and globalisation that makes them seem so different to their predecessors.

I never thought of it like that.

[Darien]

I play increasingly play video games less and less as I get older and realize that most of them are a waste of my time.  Sure, there are plenty that are entertaining for while you play them, but in this aspect they are like action movies to me... fun to watch, but ultimately doesn't matter.  Only a few games have affected me emotionally enough for me to consider them worthwhile (and these are the only games that I am glad I spent the time to play), but the large cluster of them that mainly involve saving the world just gets tiring.

[.TakaM]

I'm gonna post as if this were an interview..

How long do I spend gaming each week?
 - I'd estimate around 8 hours, I do an all nighter once every week with my friends, playing halo2, street fighter, mario kart, smash brothers, guitar hero etc, that accounts for about 6 hours, then I probably knock out about 2 hours by myself.

What do I play by myself?
 - Rarely anything new, I still play Super Metroid, Super Mario 64 DS, Street Fighter and some others atleast once every single week, I test out a game or two each week on DS, but they're almost always pretty meh.
I also clock up about an hour each week through Twinsen, but that's bug testing etc..

It's safe to say I spend more time reading about,talking about, and working on games than I do actually playing them.

edit-
Oh, and I'm pretty much the guru to all my friends, they always ask me what I think about certain games, if I can recommend one for X console/genre etc

[crab2selout.png]

I feel the same way, Darien. I wish it wasn't so, but I lost the special feeling or emotional attachment a good video game used to give me.

I still like to keep an eye on sites like gamespot to see what's being done and what's popular, but I may be finished with them[for the immediate future] as a pastime. I feel like I need to complete one final act before I can say goodbye to video games. Mainly I want to make my own game, hopefully something decent. I had a bunch of different plans for many different genres of games, but that's not a possibility anymore.

I find it funny how mockups are still appealing to me, though.

[ndchristie]

a good storyline or addictive gameplay can still draw me in, as well as nostalgia.  Final Fantasy Tactics can do this, as can Rome: Total War, or every once in a while a really fun old game like starcraft or conquest of the new world.  Still, i'd say it's only a few hours every other week.

I also put a bit of work into Partisan (although i've let the blog go to pot I'm still working) and Zantarni, but that's not really gaming.

[philipptr]

I lost almost all intrest in singleplayer games. I, as someone who spends alot of time infront of the pc, like to combine this time with at least a bit of social interaction so the only thing I've played much in the last year was warcraft 3 while talking to friends in teamspeak. Only problem about games like warcraft is they get boring more or less fast since there are only a hanfull of strategies, which lead to a win. Also the more you play such RTS games online, the more serious you take it, the more stressfull and less fun it gets (atleast imo). So after playing it for a year I don't play it much any more and I don't seem to play any other games.
I am waiting for starcraft 2 now. Wont play much till then

By the way: The last solo game I finished was sonic and knuckles 3 (genesis), which I liked gameplay grafics and soundwise. Grafics weren't all so intresting from a pixel art point of view, but they were still very good compared to most genesis games.

[Turbo]

In the last few months, i've (finally) finished Day of the Tentacle, played System Shock 2, playing my way through XCom Apocalypse, and Soul Reaver: Legacy of Kain. Gaming is a kind of seasonal thing for me (as is my dedication to pixel-art), sometimes i have the time and want to do it frequently, others i don't (or care) to do it as frequently. Winter tends to be a low spot for me in pixel art, high in gaming Sometimes i'll go 3-4 months without either gaming or doing art, others i do it every day.

Also, i can't upgrade to a high-end machine yet, so i'm stuck with oldies (but goodies). If i had a newer machine, i'd probably play more.