What's up with gamers?

Hello fellow teamphotoshopers i just had one question, what is up with people who play online games? I seemed to have stumbeled onto a crowd of them in my html class. It' s hard enough for me to catch on to html since I have such a visual/artistic learning curve without them jumping into the world of gaming. I tend to go on the side of who really cares, I have a life away from gaming.

I was just wondering if anybody could explain to me why on earth would you spend your free time night and day playing a game all the time? Any gamers like to shed some light on the subject?

Kristy

As a former addict who's reformed, I'd have to say....





I don't remember. It's all a fuzzy haze.

Why do people like to waste all night in dark bars getting "wasted" and and trying to "score"? Why do people like to watch other people play sports on TV? Why do people like to read gossip magazines that talk about other people's "interesting" lives? Why do people spend thousands of dollars to make their cars go really fast when they can't go over 70mph without getting a ticket anyway? Why do people collect stamps? Why do people go to movies? Why do people chat with strangers on internet forums?

Those questions are about as silly as the one you asked.

But, online gaming actually combines many of those interests into one.

1. It's entertaining, like going to a movie or watching TV.

2. It's challenging.

3. It's a social activity, like going to a bar or chatting on a forum.

4. It's competitive like sports.

5. Online RPG's have a rank and reward system that makes competing with friends or even strangers very addictive. Who can get to lvl xx first? Who has the better sword?

6. It's fun to explore a large, well thought-out world. You can find new lands, meet new people/characters/enemies, and be rewarded with better weapons or armor for your trouble.

7. It's easy to see who is "the best", and easy to be respected within that particular gaming community either for your skills or your accomplishments/experience/gear.

And the list goes on. Basically my point is, why would you ask what the appeal of that particular hobby is, as if it were somehow beneath you or not a valid way for someone to spend their own time?

How do you spend YOUR time? What makes it so much better and more important than the way a gamer spends their time? Do you watch TV? Go to movies? Wouldn't that be considered even more a waste of time since you're just sitting there, not even interacting at all? At least you can chat with friends while you play a game. Can't do that in a movie theater unless you want to be an ass and piss everyone else off.

I don't mean to rant too much, I just can't stand it when people act all high and mighty like you don't "have a life" if you enjoy playing games, or any other hobby that you yourself don't find interesting. What is "having a life" anyway? Who gets to decide what that actually means? Most people that tell others to get a life seem to think it's going out and partying and drinking and doing drugs and getting laid every night. Right.

Bravo Derek, bravo. *goes back to his little corner of Guild Wars*

It's not like everything I ever do is play games, I go out with friends, work, read, but sometimes I like to play games just to relax, get my mind going, or just with a lot of friends it is fun as anything to get an intense party game going. I don't care how old you are, it's fun.

But yea, Derek said it best and I'm not going to say it as well as he did, so read that.

Guess their hobbies. :p



This arguement is ridiculous when everyone here keeps writing like the hobby is excessive. Some people play games too much, some people party too much, some people ____ too much. Whatever. That's not everyone. Enjoy your games, enjoy your parties, enjoy whatever, just some moderation at times is needed.

I do think though, that the difference between hardcore gamers/people that isolate themselves to their computers/game consoles and the people that do whatever "outside" is that the people not outside are missing a lot of social interaction. That's where they "need to get a life". I'm sorry, but no amount of debate will tell me that chatting online, talking on some online game, or instant messaging is the same as good old fashioned face to face interaction. Social skills are important. It's a small percentage I know, but the more and more people don't socially interact, the more bullying & Columbine Shooting scenarios are going to creep up.

It's a type of segregation that will only grow more and more.

Oh yeah, I don't play games really at all, but man, Fight Night 2 is like the greatest game ever.

What about talking on the phone? Do you consider that a "valid" way to socially interact? I'd guess you would. I'm sure in the early 1900's when it was still new, it wasn't considered a valid way to socialize either. They thought you had to have a sit-down in your parlor and drink tea for it to be "proper".

I chat with my "real life" friends more than I talk to them in person. I chat with them online while we're both at work, or even while we're both at home and just don't want to go out. I have more deep and interesting conversations chatting online than I ever would face to face. It's easier to actually think about what you're saying, and I am more comfortable talking about some things that I probably wouldn't in person.

But I won't waste time arguing since you're already completely closed-minded about it.

Believe me I not trying to offend anybody who plays games, I'm just trying to understand it. Games are not beneath me, I just have never found interest in it other than watching a couple of my friends play them a couple of years back. It just makes me feel like I don't belong and I am an outsider looking in on them dicussing all this wonderful stuff they are intently excited about. I don't think it's a waste of time by at all, there are many challenges and different things you may learn from it, drinking and doing drugs is a waste of time. The difference is between all the things you mentioned earlier for example sports is that we can watch from our TV and if we don't like it we can just turn the channel, I at least know how the sport is played even though I may not play it. But i don't exactly admire them by any means because of what they do outside the playing field. I would probably admire someone more for producing a really cool character that they can use in a game because that takes thought and time. I think you have ran into a lot of people in the past who have verbally vomited on it, but I am not one of those, but just a person trying to understand. People might percieve it as a not cool thing to do like playing sports, getting drunk, playing poker and if they did boy would we have a craze on us.
Thanks for your comments it helps me better understand the love of the gaming world.
Kristy

Well it's not for everyone, just like anything else. Maybe you should try playing some games with friends if you want to better understand it. Online RPGs are especially dependent on the "quality" of the people you play with, so if you have some friends that play, maybe you could try playing too and see if you enjoy it. Chances are, if you play with friends you will enjoy it whereas if you just play with all of the 13 year old brats you'll probably hate it pretty quickly. It can be tough for even dedicated gamers to stomach sometimes if you aren't in a "guild" or other group of people that you play with regularly. Chances are the average person you run into will be a complete ass. Unfortunately.

But anyway, glad to see you are just interested in learning more. And yes, most people do "vomit" on it, if they don't understand it or aren't into it themselves.

For a good example of that, you can read this article talking about how a talk show deceived a game journalist and got him on the show, only to twist his words and edit the interview to promote their agenda that all games are violent and are causing kids to kill each other. Of course that really just shows how messed up the show is, but also how the mainstream media treats games as a scapegoat for just about everything.

Who said any interaction wasn't valid? I'm talking about social skills. How can you develop people skills when there is no face to face interaction with them? People tend to have different personae's online. There's also no physical interaction online. Picking up body language etc...I'm not close minded at all. I am sold on the fact though that online communication is different then face to face communication and I feel that we all still need to keep this "antiquated" line of communication alive. I use MSN and all that jazz a lot. My whole "business" life is based on my computer. It's just at the end of the day, I want to step away from it.

Maybe we hit a nerve here Deker. It sounds like maybe you have/are picked on for your computer usage. Unless you speak for everybody and you're just right.

[QUOTE=Kristywatson]Hello fellow teamphotoshopers i just had one question, what is up with people who play online games? I seemed to have stumbeled onto a crowd of them in my html class. It' s hard enough for me to catch on to html since I have such a visual/artistic learning curve without them jumping into the world of gaming. I tend to go on the side of who really cares, I have a life away from gaming.

I was just wondering if anybody could explain to me why on earth would you spend your free time night and day playing a game all the time? Any gamers like to shed some light on the subject?

Kristy[/QUOTE]

I played a little known MMO called Neocron for over 3 years. Lot of time, money and energy invested in the game. Looking back, was foolish to spend that much of my waking hours playing. When I took vacation for 2 weeks, I left the house twice. Once the day my vacation started to buy food. Once, a week later to buy smokes. Why though? Cause the worlds are immersive and it's an escape from the day to day drone of real life.

I can do something in those games that I can't do in real life, when sometimes, i really want to. I can kill anything that moves or I can be a nice as a kitten. I prefer the axe murderer in MMO's though. I haven't played an FPS game in almost 4 years, since I stopped playing TFC. Now, I play anarchy online. It's an older game with a dated engine, but it's alot of fun when things are going smoothly.