Are they any less productive than spending hours posting crap on a forum?

Well, considering that the purpose of the forum is to act as a form of social networking, where members can meet up in ‘real life’ and go for rides, swap/sell/buy stuff off each other, not to mention such exciting things as discussing the relative merits of suspension design or tyres, I’d say forum use is quite possibly a good deal more productive. Computer gaming (at least until quite recently) has been a very solitary activity, with no interaction with other people.

I’m not saying that playing games serves no purpose whatsoever, but I believe other activities are more personally and socially rewarding, that’s all.

I see gaming as something I do now and then, and I enjoy it for what it is; a bit of fun. I think if it goes too far beyond that, to the point of obsession, then it’s perhaps a bit worrying. I’ve known folk who’ve spent vast amounts of time playing games, and seen the effect it’s had on their health, and even mental state.

Everything in moderation, you know? Although creative pursuits tend to remain positive even if the participant is involved to the point of ‘obsession’. Hence great artists, musicians, etc.

I see gaming[b]STW[/b] as something I do now and then, and I enjoy it for what it is; a bit of fun. I think if it goes too far beyond that, to the point of obsession, then it’s perhaps a bit worrying. I’ve known folk who’ve spent vast amounts of time playing games[b]posting shite[/b], and seen the effect it’s had on their health, and even mental state.

Everything in moderation, you know? Although creative pursuits tend to remain positive even if the participant is involved to the point of ‘obsession’. Hence great artists, musicians, etc. there’s nothing “great” about your contributions on here..

oh.. and BTW

Computer gaming (at least until quite recently) has been a very solitary activity, with no interaction with other people.

I’ve been playing multi player video games for around 35 years now. (sometimes even outdoors with real people 😉 )

you do talk some shite!

there’s nothing “great” about your contributions on here..

Great enough for you to react, mind…

I’ve been playing multi player video games for around 35 years now. (sometimes even outdoors with real people )

Please explain.

No need to be so antagonistic, is there? Maybe it’s because you play too many computer games and don’t get to exercise social skills often enough.

Computer gaming (at least until quite recently) has been a very solitary activity, with no interaction with other people.

Way to shoot pwn yourself in the foot.

explain what?

do you know the meaning of “antagonise” ? 🙄

(sometimes even outdoors with real people )

GW…this is you isn’t it? 😉

Lightening Bolt!

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_ekugPKqFw[/video]

explain what?

How you’ve been playing multiplayer video games for 35 years. Genuine question.

do you know the meaning of “antagonise” ?

I invented it, sunshine… 8)

remember pong? well it wasn’t actually very much fun one player, that was over 35years ago 😉 a couple of years later space invaders arrived! remember that? I was aged 7 and like most 7yr olds at the time loved it! I prob 2 player way more than one player. as games developed and video arcades popped up everywhere, I like a lot of kids of my generation went onto spend most of the late 70s early 80s in them. Don’t know if you remember that far back but often during summer video games machines were stood outside cafe’s/pubs too. There often weren’t really any better places for kids to socialise than Arcades in many towns during british winters of the late 70s/80s.

every day’s a school day 😉 HTH

jamie – PMSL 😆

My list of consoles is

Atari 2600
Sega Master System
Commodore 64GS
Sega Mega Drive 1 & 2 with Mega CD
Snes
N64
Sega Saturn
Sega Dreamcast
Sony Playstation
Sony Playstation 2
Sony Playstation 3
Nintendo Game Cube
Wii
Xbox
Xbox 360
Atari lynx
Sega game Gear
Gameboy
Psp

I also have my iPhone and a few game and watch things.

At the moment we have the PSP, PS3, Xbox and Xbox 360 and all I play is GT5, F1 or Fallout 3 on my days off. The Xbox is on top of the wardrobe and the PSP gets used for films for the boy in the car. Other than that the boy plays on the consoles more than me BUT he still goes out cycling, plays football for his local football u9’s team and rugby for his local u10’s team.

Its good to get immersed in a game. I can’t go out and beat Lewis Hamilton to the race finish at Monaco, Hoon round the Top Gear test track in a Bugatti Veyron or shoot a mutated ghoul in the head till it explodes any other way can I?

I think the games CAN be addictive and CAN cause people to go on killing rampages but the person who goes on a killing spree because of the game must have had something wrong with them in the first place and as far as addiction goes if its in moderate doses as said earlier then its a bit of fun and harmless.

remember pong?

I do actually.

See, you’ve provided an explanation to support your argument. Fair enough. I was commenting more on the experience of the vast majority of people who play computer games, and the fact that it is mainly a solitary experience. And you know I’ve actually got a point. Instead of engaging in a positive, friendly discussion, you have to resort to getting all worked up and insinuating that I’m somehow ignorant. Suggests that your youth was indeed miss-spent… 😉

And whilst indeed it is true that certain games like Pong, Outrun and a few others were two-player, the actual process is mainly solitary, as most games are one-player. And as for the ‘social’ aspect; this discussion was in fact centred around the ownership of games consoles in the private home I suppose, rather than arcade machines. But thanks for the history lesson.

every day’s a school day

Indeed it is. And if you’d actually read my posts carefully, and had a think about what I wrote, you might be a little more enlightened yourself…

X

it is mainly a solitary experience.

I don’t think it is, you know. The big games of late (the Call of Duty series, for instance) have been pretty much all about the multiplayer experience. The single player campaigns are almost an afterthought. This is hardly a new thing either – I used to play SOCOM online on the PS2, and that was several years ago now.

I play a lot of single player games. But if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say I’m probably in the minority. The Wii’s raison d’etre is pretty much entirely social gaming.

As I said in an earlier post here – gaming’s moved on since I was 14, you seem to still be judging people based on what was true ten years ago. And hell, even in the 80s I spent at least as much time playing games with mates round at each other’s houses as I did on my own.

I don’t think it is, you know

The nature of gaming is changing. I admit I’m generalising about the entire history of gaming on home consoles, and yes I accept that the nature of gaming is changing from quite a solitary experience to a more socially interactive one. I’ve already said this. I’m pretty confident that the majority experience of computer gaming on home consoles is quite a solitary one. And yes, I went to play games round mates’ houses too, as did most of the lads of my generation. And it was clear that whoever had the console spent far more time on it alone, than they ever did playing with their mates. Cos they’d always kick our arses. 🙂

Mrs Grips watches me play (some) games, and I watch her play some games too. It’s social in our house 🙂

Gaming is great, but as other people have said it’s often hard to find the time these days.

Current consoles I’ve got:

XBox360
Dreamcast
PS2
N64
Master System

Used to have:

Snes
Commodore 64
ZX Spectrum 48K (The best)

Sorry, I posted a reply here yesterday but the forum crashed. Let’s try again.

I’m pretty confident that the majority experience of computer gaming on home consoles is quite a solitary one.

The more I think about this, the more I’m equally confident that you’re simply flat out wrong. So I guess we’re just going to have to agree to differ here.

I’m struggling to think of many console games in the last 12 months that wasn’t multiplayer, either locally or over t’Internet. Final Fantasy is the only one I can think of, everything else I’ve played (and I’ve just looked at the games on my shelf to check) has been played either partly or wholly socially.

Eg: Rock Band et al, play with mates, locally and / or online. The Lego games have been great to play co-op with my OH, she loves them. Last thing I bought on XBLA was Lara Croft which is a two-player co-op game by design and doesn’t work as well single player. Currently playing Red Dead Redemption which, ok, has a hefty single player campaign but also has an online multiplayer mode which I was playing only a couple of nights ago with a handful of mates.

And if I’m atypical in any way, I probably play games online considerably less than most other gamers. As I said before, the biggest games at the moment by a country mile are social games, with a single player mode which is practically an afterthought.

if you’d actually read my posts carefully, and had a think about what I wrote, you might be a little more enlightened yourself…

see. the thing is, having read every monotonous post of yours on this thread it’s clear to me that most are full of inaccuracies and are nothing more than foolish narrowminded opinions with little to no real experience or knowledge of the subject. I could easily go back and pick holes in pretty much every one of your posts but simply CBA.

I’m kinda mixed on this, I’ve been gaming since Atari 2600 days and got sucked into Everquest and WoW and burnt an unhealthy amount of time in each.

I don’t think playing something like CoD on-line really counts as social interaction unless you’re doing it as a clan and talking to each other etc., mostly though it’s just a case of jumping onto a server with a bunch of strangers and trying to kill them. I don’t do it because they’re human and I’m getting lots of social interaction from it, I do it because it’s more enjoyable than playing against a computer AI.

I’ve done the whole clan gaming and LAN tournaments thing and that’s a step up socially but still pretty limited.

I only briefly owned a console (PS3) but gave it away in the end so never really got into the having mates around for beers and games thing, most of my mates don’t have consoles either anyway.

MMOs I think are the big change in social computer gaming, done well they are not just incredibly immersive but also very socially interactive (partly due to the level of immersion meaning you’re spending more time with them than you are in real life :p ). I had a lot of good friends through MMOs, I stopped playing 18 months ago but still keep in contact with some of them. I do think they can be scarily addictive though, and not just to the stereotypical bedroom nerd who lives with their parents.