Slashdot Mirror
Up, Up, Down, Down: Part Four
A new report by PC Data says that 35% of Net users are going to buy console or PC console games this Christmas, and that PC and console gaming is no longer a male-dominated activity. The study found that while men make up 55% of gamers overall, for the first time women comprise a a majority of online gamers -- 50.4%. Women, according to the study, favor online gambling, card gones and quiz and trivia contests.
PC Data says men prefer war - and sports-themed games, and that men are three times as likely as women to participate in first-person shooter games (38% vs. 10%). "Solitaire," "Free Cell" and similiar bundled games are the most frequently played of all online and offline games. The top PC game categories are strategy real-time/turn-based, world building, and flight simulation.
Christmas is perhaps the best indicator of what mainstream America is buying and thinking about. The PC Data survey greatly underscores the idea that gaming has become a mainstream form of culture, if not the single most pervasive form of culture, in America.
Up up down down left right left right B A select start
And here is the problem with the .net. Why doesn't your mom just go over to see granny?
I understand the power to bring people physically far apart close together through communication, and this is a wonderful thing. But I also think there's a danger of destroying community IRL. I have similar problems with folks stuck in "Gaming culture," "Hacker culture" and "Literary culture," just to name a few.
--
Is it possible that you are mistaken? If you are not mistaken, if neither community media access or mandated government censorship are so significant to a generation as communal game tweaks and shared game experiences- is this not a pretty scathing indictment?
If so, what do you propose to do about it, and where do you wish to try and draw people's attention in your capacity as a journalist?
It's clear that the online multiplayer games are the most addictive -- but that's usually not because they're good games, but rather because they're fun communities.
;-), Rogue itself, and so on. Civilization is at least a close second (it's an easier habit to break).
It's clear to me that the most addictive games are the Roguelikes: Nethack, Angband, ADOM, Omega (my game
It's amazing how the Roguelikes keep drawing me (and many others) back; they're not well designed, their UI sucks, and they have zero graphics. But they have a depth of gameplay which is just astounding, and INCREDIBLE replayability. Oh, and a very large amount of challenge.
And no, they're not changing America, nor any of the other countries (yes, Mr. Katz, there are other countries). What a blowhard.
-Billy
Just remember, monks rule! :)
--
At first glance, Nethack appears to be quite primitive. But, it's superbly "Gamed." Addictive in the extreme, it has amazing replay value, and has much depth of immersion. One of
the few games that will make you think the AI
of your computer is mocking you. What nethack
lacks in UI (arguable, since the UI is elegant if
not pretty), it makes up for in gameplay.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
For days after that point, if I even closed my eyes for a second, I would be in another Doom level, lobbing all sorts of artillery at various heinous creatures coming after me. It wouldn't stop.
:) Realising what I'd just done was pretty disturbing, too. :)
:)
Yeah, this reminds me of one time I'd been playing 1-1 deathmatch (over modem) until about 3 or 4 in the morning. I turned off the light to go to bed, but as I lay down into bed, a blurry red LED caught my eyes (which were having trouble focusing after the 6 or so hours of staring at the screen). I instantly recognised it as a rocket, hurtling directly towards me. I physically strafed out of its way, nearly falling out of bed!
The best thing is that I can still usually convince people to play an hour or two of DoomGL at LAN parties, which is a nice refreshing retro hit.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
Its I believe a refernce to the most famous of all cheat codes, the Contra code for the 8bit nintento.
It was up up down down left right left right b a select start.
After that the same code was used on a whole load of nintendo games.. (in contra it gave you a bunch o' lives..)
At least it gives Slashdot something fun to read this morning.
People don't read Slashdot, Slashdot reads Slashdot.
-- By pressing down a special key it plays a little melody
I don't really know. Most addictive sorta implies that you can't stop playing 'em even thought they kinda suck graphically or whatever, so I'll just list my childhood favorites instead:
- Star Control II (my first RPG!)
- Wing Commander Privateer
- the original Duke Nukem
- Commander Keen 4-6
- Monkey Island
I also remember playing Wing Commander 1 a lot. I remember the first time I saw a dralthi, and just going "whoa.." : )
/nod
/agree
/smile
/ponder
/boggle
/shrug
/grin
der dee der.
Without doubt the most addictive game of all time would have to be: Tetris, in all its incarnations. I have yet to find a game that continually enthralls me, no other games has made me forget all other things like tetris. 'nuff said.
---
if you can't figure out how to email me, tough.
---
>>Sig under construction
My favorites were:
nethack, hack, rogue played over a 1200 baud modem link to the local community access SCO system
Ultima V
the DOS version of Spacewar on a Victor 9000
Old school Apple ][ educational games like Rocky's Boots and Snooper Troopers.
However, in terms of total addictiveness and true timewasting, Civilization wins, hands-down. I could get stuck for hours with that game. There was a time during the summer of 1994 when there was always (and I stress always, it was indeed 24/7) somebody in the house I hung out at playing Civilization or DOOM, but Civ was just a bit more interesting for other people to sit around and watch, too. Someone learned the buy-as-building-switch-to-military-unit trick, we all learned the trick. Someone decided it'd be cool to use the Great Wall (and later the UN) to mercilessly spank the computer and still make peace every other turn, we all tried it. It was pretty interesting, to say the least. Civ 2 had the same tenacious addictiveness, but somehow it just didn't feel the same as the VGA graphics of Civ 1. Even just building your castle was more fun than watching your 'throne room' go up.
I wonder why Katz is requesting "such archives be created" when there are probably quite a bit of web sites and Usenet groups and BBSes with at least one portion of their gaming content devoted to older games or, at the very least, sporadic nostalgia threads. Shrug. At least it gives Slashdot something fun to read this morning.
Tetris. Not only the most addictive, but the most pervasive game ever.
Agreed. I would bet that more people identify deer hunting as far more a mainstream cultural activity than gaming.
I think this navel-gazing has gone on long enough. Gamers are fun people who enjoy their activities, and the rise of gaming may be part of a neat cultural shift in America, but it certainly isn't the most prominent representative of that shift, nor is it the cause.
-schussat
The hour of noon has passed. Let us go and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken.
I'd like to see some sources for that? I find it hard to believe that computer/console game sales are higher than that of the movie industry. When you take into consideration the multiple venues that a movie makes money in, I don't think your statement could possibly be accurate.
It's got to be Civilization... I lost MONTHS of my life to that game.. God games 0wn simple namby pamby shooters ;)
So when you say that its all about 'a few pimply-faced geeks' you are either a troll or off your rocker, because this market is huge. This means as much culturally to us as much as movies mean to us culturally.
I'd disagree with that. Over half of video game sales are during the Christmas season. I've heard figures as high as 80%. Video games as entertainment for kids 15 and under is a huge, huge market, just as Nickelodeon (a cable channel, for those outside the US), and Barbie dolls are. Outside of that market, I would hardly call video games larger than movies. They may make more money--as does the toy industry--but the cultural impact isn't there. Remembering "up, up, down, down" is similar to remembering a cartoon you used to watch when you came home from school in the fourth grade (for me it was Speed Racer), or a toy that it seemed all the other kids had, like Gobots.
Compared to movies and books, I can't help but find video games as shallow. I like them, sure, but even the games that are touted for their plots--like Half Life--just seem like so much bubblegum fluff from the fifties. "Bad aliens have invaded and you, the last hope of mankind, must exterminate them!" There's a funny backlash against kiddie games that's resulted in a plethora of Blade Runner-esque post-apocalyptic games set in dark futures. But the gaming experience hasn't advanced much. Sure, you can pay with action figures when you're 30, but is it really all that appealling?
The video game industry has expanded like crazy, but it hasn't shown any artistic growth.
I can't help but agree. My best friend and roomate tried to get me into this game for a long time. I sat there and watched both him and all his friends get sucked into this mealstrom of digital Heroin. I have nothing against the games, per se; but I do take issue to doing absolutly nothing else with one's life.
I listened to him talk about it all day and all night. He took time off from work at least a few times every couiple of weeks to get a 23 hour day in on the servers. His friends would get on Ebay to buy and sell characters and items for hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars... Don't get me wrong, I love capitalism. However, I just can't imagine how one would (and this was the case with one of them) quit a job to be a full time EQ player. Thats right. He quit his job to amass power and glory on the servers to sell it on Ebay before they banned it.
Back in the day, we used to play a lot of D&D. We played all day and night, but we still went to school, to work, and out with friends. When we left the gaming table, we left the game. Now I see these people getting together and doing nothing but talk about EQ, or Diablo, or whatever the game might be. I get tired of it. His fiance is tired of it. Her complaint is that she's engaged to him, but he's already married to his computer. I don't blame her for being angry, and thank God she's tolerant of his exploits on the net.
The games aren't bad, but this is a real addiction out there. I won't say 'Get a life.' I'll just remind some 'Everything in moderation.'
I disagree, love can happen online. I've seen it happen to my friends. What's the difference between meeting in a chat room, and meeting through a dear abby letters-to-soldiers thing? Nothing. Love and marriage and all that crap can and does blossom from both.
/."
I do have to add my $.02 to the previous topic, though...I have been in IRC many a night chatting with friends in CO, Canada, and Europe, while boyfriend sat 3 feet away in the same room, chatting in the same channel, and we would more likely type than talk. It's sick, kinda. And I can't count the number of times I've run into someone and said "Oh I just sent you an email, I can't talk to you until you read it." That's disturbing!
"I'm not a bitch, I just play one on
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
1. Quake .. been playing that every weekend since '96 (The day QTest came out ;-)
2. Tony Hawks Pro Skater 1 & 2 ! (Normally I HATE sports games, but these skater games just have the all the right magic!)
3. Ultima Online, again, 2.5 years. (Allthough others swear by EverCrack, er EverQuest.)
--
Pffft. It's only karma.
It's posted below, but I have to re-iterate, Empire was the most addictive game I can remember. I ran the single player version on a VAX 11/780 at work, and dialed in on an 1200 baud modem with a dumb terminal to play it at home. It was very playable at 1200 baud. Included on many of the DECUS tapes. Simple text display/ interface, and it would seem like forever when the computer would take its turn, especially getting near to the end of the game, when there was a lot of enemy left. I was able to find a version I could run on a PC (8088), but it was never the same.
Give me a nice simple interface, that's playable without having to remember too many keystrokes... that's where I can get sucked in really easy.
Wolfenstien 3D and Doom were much the same for me, I got addicted quickly, but I was able to kick the habit eventually. The 2nd game I've ever played in a genre is never quite the same- I lose some of the wonder at the great artifical world that's been created for me.
My current gaming addiction is Counter-Strike - undoubtedly the most popular and IMHO the best online FPS in existence.
For sheer time wasting I would probably nominate Warcraft in its various incarnations, and before that Doom.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
According to the August 30, 1999 issue of Newsweek, videogame revenues exceeded box-office revenues in 1999, and that trend is expected to continue. Video games most definately are supplanting film as the entertainment choice of Americans.
-Vercingetorix
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
According to this Wired article: "Tetris significantly raises cerebral glucose metabolic rates (GMRs), meaning brain energy consumption soars. Yet, after four to eight weeks of daily doses, GMRs sink to normal, while performance increases seven-fold, on average."
Not only that, it's been ported darn near everywhere, for example the Atari 2600!
I dont know.. define "addictive".. is there a difference between "addiction" and "stubborness"?
.02 frags
I'll play Q3 if I have nothing better to do, but I dont think there are any games that just *call* me to the PC.. well.. except possibly "same gnome".. marbles is worse than Tetris used to be.
(does that count as an online game?)
But yeah.. I think that gaming is a great diversion, its *cheap* comparitively, when you figure what a lot of us used to pump into pinballs and pacman machines, now that most out of the box machines come with kickass video cards and processors. So what if Quake costs 40 bucks? thats only 160 games of pacman.. a cheap price to pay for a full game like that.
*sigh*
my
Maeryk
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
Due to the anonymous nature of the new they must rely on self-reporting.
If this study actually has a methodology that can create results that mean something, that woudl be bigger news then their supposed results.
"gaming has become a mainstream form of culture, if not the single most pervasive form of culture, in America."
Man, those are some heavy drugs Jon must be taking. Even in the Excited States, I don't see this as being anything less than outrageous exaggeration. What planet is he from anyways?
Oh yes, that's right--the planet where the only people who matter are the few hardcore nerds who were "victimised" in school, don't read, don't go out, don't socialise, and don't care. The other 90% of the population is irrelevant, and all bullies anyways.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Just a small correction. UO didn't get you kicked out of college--YOU got you kicked out of college!
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Well, wasn't that the original poster's point? That not EVERYBODY lives and breathes computer games? Sure gaming is mainstream--it has been since the original Atari VCS (before the called it the 2600 even!) came out. It's even a relatively significant demographic, although doesn't touch TV yet. The point still remains that Jon DESPERATELY needs to get out more, and see that games (or even computing in general) are not the lynchpin of The Free World(tm).
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Since you have a score of greater than zero, I'll respond :-)
The cheat code is a pretty famous one for several Nintendo games including Contra. It goes, up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, start. In Contra is gave you 30 lives, which made it easy to win that game.
Doh!
Oh, I don't know about that, Mr. Katz. We old fogeys had our games too...
My favorite was one called "strip poker".
This cycle was repeated almost every day for three months. We finished I and II, and most of III by then. Our characters were about 130th level and could do about 1500 points of damage to everbody we faced using mangar's mind mallet. We were gods.
Due to the constraints of having a real life, I've never had the chance to do anything like that since, but I haven't had the addiction too often either. Anything by Blizzard is about as close as it has come.
ahh C64, I still remember ye.
free online diet tracking.
i've been playing q3a a bit recently and was suprised at what happened maybe two weeks ago.
i was moving stuff off a counter in my house, and it made a "swish-click" sound exactly like the one in quake you hear just before you get fragged from behind.
the fingers on my left hand twitched just so, and i felt my eyes dart.
then i blinked and realized i was just in the kitchen...it was actually a little scary there for a second.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
> What, for example, is the most addictive game, now or ever: Asheron's Call? Quake? Final Fantasy 8? Red Alert2?
Lode Runner of course !
Cheers,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
For me its WarCraft II. God I love that game. Sure StarCraft is technically superior, but WarCraft has more personality. If I wasn't at work I would go play it now. Zug Zug.
- WeaselGod
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet turbines
I've lost count of the total number of days I've spent playing this in the last year.
/played and it will tell you how much of your life you've spent playing. ;)
In game, you can type
Some people brag about their 100+ days of played time. It's kinda scary when you think about it.
NO CARRIER
I agree that gaming isn't "the single most pervasive form of culture in America", but you cannot deny that gaming has started to become mainstream. The proof for me was when CNN.com had PS2 on their front page that day in October, but there are many more signs and examples. Walk into any Wal-Mart, K-Mart, or whatever, and compare their video-game section to their magazine/book section. Drop into Barnes and Noble, and count the number of gaming-related books. People are into this stuff.
Not everyone is married and has kids, just like not everyone watches TV often or reads many books. There are a lot of people out there spending a lot of money on a lot of video games: and these people do represent a significant demographic. Don't dismiss it just because it's not what your predomitely into.
Those "most frequently played games" Solitaire, Free Cell, Harts and Mindsweeper are bundled with Windows so even your middle aged, balding with a spare tire in the middle, boss can find them under Start>Programs>Accessories>Games.
That isn't insightful Jon, just reality.
This is another view of the world.
I missed a lot of the "proper" Ultimas, as I didn't own a computer till well after the release of U8 (which was one of the first games I bought when I did get one). My introduction to the series was Exodus on NES. Let's put it this way: my parents finally realized that it would be cheaper to just buy me the damn game than rent it for me every week. That was thirteen years ago.
Skip ahead to about two months or so ago. I got the Ultima Collection off eBay and ended up not leaving the dude feedback for two days because I got sucked into U7. Not just with the actual quest either...no, it was all the side shit that got me, and all the neat stuff you could do in the world (anyone else take time out to clean Iolo's nasty-ass house? Or go to the nursery in Lord British's castle for the sole purpose of getting dirty diapers to gross people out with?). That weekend I stayed awake for 26 hours straight playing the damn thing.
And then after that, Serpent Isle. I cannot remember another game, except maybe Xenogears, that made me laugh (killing poor defenseless worms with a claw hammer for one, Frigidazzi's little dance--for a female Avatar no less--for another), cry (if you've played it, you know the scene...sniff), and mutter darkly about killing this motherfucker or that (name of savegame prior to entering Spinebreaker: "Death to the fat fuck"), to the extent that SI did.
But now that I've finished those two, I am finding a major timesuck in the old U4. That was another game I first played on the NES, and while the NES graphics were better, the game play doesn't hold a candle to the real thing. All I need now are the Underworlds. And U9, five years or so from now when I have a computer that will run it. Jeezis.
This is a Chao. A Chao says "Mu."
I have to admit my favorite and most addictive game is tribes. I started with pong, and went through Wolfenstein all the way to todays popular games. Tribes was the first On-line only game which *required* gameplay which made the game unique and a ton of fun.
Close second would be anything by Warren Spector (System Shock, Deus Ex). He made games that broke the genre boarder (RPG FPS, for example).
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Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I'm with you on that one. For a good five years, Civ consumed almost all of my gaming time. I had my Amiga boot directly into Civ off the harddrive - which I bought primarily so I wouldn't have to run Civ off floppies anymore. And although I've bought every sequel or semi-sequel to the game (Colonization, CivNet, Civ2 (with every add on), Alpha Centauri, Call to Power, Call to Power 2), I have still played Civ more than all other games combined. There were earlier games that fascinated me, such as Seven Cities of Gold, MULE, Populous, SimCity and TradeWars, but Civilization brought together strategy, "god-mode", playability and REplayability in such a perfect package that I could barely put it down. I finally bought a 3D card last year so I could try FPS and RTS games and done a lot of this type of gaming, but it just doesn't compare to the total immersion of Civ. With Unreal Tournament, I am deeply into the game for about 10 minutes, and then it starts getting twitchy and mechanical and I'll lose interest after 30 minutes. With Civ, I would play the game for 12 hours straight, pumped up on caffeine, and when I finally had to stop from exhaustion, I'd have leg cramps and my back would crackle from sitting still for so long. I'm not saying the cramps and crackle are Good Things, but any game that can do that to you is doing something right. The stories I hear from EQer's sound the same, which is why I can never, ever play EQ. But EQ has nothing on Civ - Civ was 2D, single player, came on four floppies and the individual games were finite, and yet it is one of the best games ever made. If someone can capture the Civ magic and make it a massively multiplayer experience on the net, than EQ is done for.
I am still hooked on Bubble Bobble! Everytime I am in an Arcade, that game calls to me!
um.. I done, you can stop reading...
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
Dude, I have been in a guild in D2 (don't laugh) for a year and a half. We dropped the game after two months after it was finally released. It really does not live up to anyone's standards (I hope). I think that you have the words "addictive" and "determined" mixed up. D2, although not addictive, will cause one to force themselves to get to Hell Dificulty and kill the D-man out of sheer determination and fear of failure. I don't see how anyone could be addicted, but then again, people are aparently addicted to curry.
Finder of the any key.
But now...telnet to games.world.co.uk (yes, it runs on port 23) and you can get back into Shades again! Quite a few people play it. And it's still lots of fun!
Elite - I think the follow-ons are better, particularly Frontier: First Encounters. However, the learning curve is a little steeper (it uses Newtownian physics, not 'airplane in space' physics). And it inspires people: see all the FEU-fanfiction that's around. You might be interested to know that (hopefully) the Elite Club will be forming soon.
Doom - I agree with your comments entirely. The atmosphere was amazing. It actually made you feel kind of anxious as you could hear all the monsters shuffling around. I played it with the lights off and the headphones on. One day, a friend of mine scared the tar out of me by throwing a little bean-bag frog at my back whilst I was playing the game. I think I jumped about five feet! We still play Doom at lan parties today.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
dear slashdot,
is this sole joke of mine now dull and tiring?
thanks
j0sh
Does my bum look big in this?
i agree with you some what, interacting with other people is more rewarding , but i think you are looking at this in the wrong way. not every one who plays games is a hermit. by your argument reading a novel or watching a movie is anti-social. i like playing games to stimulate my mind. i would rather physically play baseball then to play the video game, and i would much rather play a baseball video game then to watch a baseball game.
point being I like interaction, I like having some say in a situation.
yes you can over do it I think playing a video game till you hear birds chirping in the morning is a problem and in the future when games have more realistic environments. it will probable be looked at like a gambling or a drug problem.
my only advice to you is never, never, never, play Deus ex.
The quote was "Men are also three times as likely as female gamers to participate in first-person shooter games (38 percent vs. 12 percent)..." (not 10 percent. Odd, huh?)
Also quoted from the article: "The study was conducted among a sample of 3,507 home Internet users, including both gamers and non-gamers, selected from a panel of 120,000 US home Internet users during Nov. 2 to 9. Margin of error on this data is +/- 1.7 percent." A sample of 3500 is pretty good, but the problem with this survey (I suspect) is that the marjority of these people surveyed were guys, thus reducing the sample of females. Of the women who were in these surveys, only the technically minded probably responded, thus messing with the results again. I suspect the number of women likely to play first person shooters is closer to 5% (or less). Although to give credit where credit is due, I was able to get my mother to play "Rise of the Triad" with me once. (She thought it was pretty funny actually.)
I have. It's impossible.
I mean, come on, it's a simple game, fly around and shoot down your opponents. But I just can't stop playing it. I tried it first back in -92 or -93 when it was really basic, and I still play it from time to time.
Anyone else played it and had the same experience? Or knows of a good cure?
A good advice, try it!
A better advice, don't! You won't be able to stop...
/HG
I don't have one
Apparently, men prefer war games ..
including 'strategy' games. Where is one
I can play on my PC? [NT, Win98 or Linux]
Strategy games exist: Chess and Go are strategy
games. There are lots of military board games
in the 'strategy' class.
While they also depend on tactics,
that is, short term planning and response,
the key feature of these games is the need
for long term planning. That's what strategy
is about: supply, logistics, finance,
production, technology...
I've never seen even ONE such game on a computer.
Perhaps there is an element of strategy in
Advanced Civilisation, but if you think
Starcraft is a strategy game, you don't know
what strategy is. (Starcraft is an arcade game,
it doesn't rate in the tactics category either)
Modern games have superb production quality,
excellent graphics, generally poor interfaces,
occasionally interesting tactics, but
not a one has any serious strategic content.
And this is a great pity, because it is almost
impossible to build a serious strategy game
on a board: you really need a computer
to manage the complexity.
John Skaller mailto:skaller@users.sf.net
You youngsters. Don't you see it? Tetris is the most addictive game _ever_. And there are millions of versions of it! And don't complain about lack of cool graphics - there is even several 3D-tetris-versions...
All these new games are just a lot of nice graphics and no new ideas behind.
And for multiuser-games: MUD just rox!
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
...as computers have become more sophisticated and graphics have got flashier, yesterdays super-addictive game simply fades away into obscurity.
However, a pick of three of high points in my experience of computing would be
MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) A text only multi player adventure played at University of Essex (UK). I believe that this was the first MUD ever (pre-1982); does anyone know better ? This was so addictive that I dedicated all my allocated mainframe time to playing this and I had to buy a BBC Micro to do my real computing projects... which leads to...
Elite for the BBC micro; one of the first wire frame 3D graphic space trading games. As you gained experience and graduated from "Harmless" through to the ultimate accolade of "Elite", you could send off to Acorn for badges to prove your prowess. Despite playing this once for 72 hours with only meal breaks I only got as far as Dangerous.... unfortunately the follow-ons to this game simply didn't deliver.
Doom I still believe that despite its age, Doom is the best 1st person shooter ever. I still play it occassionally and the sound combined with the graphics still have the power to make me leap out of my seat when something unexpected happens. Whilst Quake et al bought undeniably better effects, the magic atmosphere seems to be somewhat lacking in these games. One can only hope that the promised Doom 3 brings them back.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Well as a still active gamer I must say with a lot of this discussion about Diablo II, Everquest and games of this ilk, I find that I have to compare my gaming habits of the last few years pale in comparison to my old days of gaming.
I remember when I got my TRS-80 Mod III staying up for days on end playing Zork and Scott adams Adventures. Then again I was 10 years old, lived in a very rural area where my nearest friend was like 10 miles away. (Yeah it sounds like that old granpa school story) But my "addiction" to those games started my love of programming/debugging/etc.. as far as FPS' go. anyone remember Labyrith or bedlam??? They were out LOOOONG before Duke Nukem or Castle Wolfenstein.
I also remember inviting friends over to play Wizardy. We used put 3 or four computers together on the table and simulate multiplayer. Of course we weren't a true LAN party, but it was definately a premonition of things to come. Starting after school on a friday, and surviving on coffee, pizza and doritos till Sunday when we finally slept.
Hell, I met the manager for my company when I was 14 through a love of BTIII. We used to take turns with one person "driving" while the other one mapped, allowing the mapper the occasional nap whilst the "driver" went aroung grabbing experience before embarking down the next dungeon. I still have the maps that I drew on hex/graph paper. The 3 dimensional mazes for those bad boys were quite complex for their time.
So while I have spent some time doing the on-line multiplayer games from cards to "The Realm" to "Everquest",QIII,UT, whatever, for some reason they all seem to pale in comparison to the days I spent with the older games.
I agree with the above posters that to lose school/work/whatever for a game can be detrimental. The same goes for ANYTHING that takes ones time away from your "real-world" responsibilities. I remember getting in school trouble because I was out playing in bars with my band during finals week. Is that any different than playing games??. I don't believe so. The addiction has always been there for some of us, it's just are you responsible enough to know when it's time to quit. Well that and the carpal tunnel that starts kicking in after 8-10 hours of playing Quake or even programming would cause me to stop
-- Life: Hate the Game... Love the cereal
You're absolutely right. However, if you added up the number of people who watched "Survivor" or "Who Wants to Look Even Stupider than Regis Philbin is Annoying?" I bet every game published in the last year doesn't come close to that number. And let's not forget the Bush/Gore Celebrity Death Match in Florida. This was Real History (TM) happening.
Also, while computer games are very pervasive, even my Mom plays FreeCell, there's a big difference between the casual gamers (like my Mom) and the hardcore people who had a reason to coin the term "Evercrack".
Here are some aspects of popular culture that are and probably will always be more popular than computer gaming:
Going to church
Watching Sports
Playing Sports
Listening to the radio
Reading newspapers/magazines (even if they are online)
Reading popular fiction (ditto)
Politics
Complaining about politics
Watching TV (OK, this one will probably go down over time)
Also, I do frequent stores like Wal-Mart, etc, and the book sections are always bigger than the game sections, and the local bookstores generally have about 10 times as much space devoted to such esoteric subjects as history, popular fiction, science or any of a number of other subjects than they do about gaming.
I'm not bashing gaming. I love it. I encourage my kids to play computer games (but not to excess, my wife will reel us in when necessary) and have a number of games for Christmas presents for them. Even my two-year-old is an avid computer user (her favorites are "Thomas the Tank Engine" and "Fisher-Price Toddler", but she loves to watch her older brothers play things like Roller Coaster Tycoon or Lode Runner.) So don't get me wrong, but any view that gaming is the (or even a) predominant element of culture is just a little skewed.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
That number would not not surprise me at all. I host LAN parties from time to time, and almost every female I know has either tried playing them, or does play them (except for one gal who hasn't bothered trying them.) However, it is a bit different between playing online, and playing at a LAN party - a LAN party isn't anonymous, and people are yelling and cursing at each other, and generally having a good time. Online, well, it's a bit different - I don't know how many of those same females play online. But they sure have a blast at the local LAN parties! (Which makes me think - it's time for another one soon!)
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
They may be very involved and addictive, but they're just games. I guarantee you that there are people who are gamers who also brag about their sexual exploits, and having been in a combat zone myself, I can tell you I'd much rather tell war stories than describe cheats I came up with for Myth II.
To hear some people talk, you'd think they were in a real combat zone. Some people live and breath gaming now - if they gave a story to tell, it's gaming related. (And usually bores the fuck outta me. "Friendship is..." listening to some lame game-related story from a friend, and feigning interest!) Seriously, there's a good number of people who talk about games just as seriously as they talk about life. For me, talking about a video game is pretty boring - but get me started on tales of pen, paper, and dice role playing games, and you'd wonder if maybe my sanity is a little twisted based on the fact it almost sounds like *I* was there. This is just my experience , mind ya - but, people really do rave over thier exploits in games. (Geez - I have one friend who keeps relaying stories of his last games of Masters of Magic. Blow by blow. *SIGH*)
I know people who watch movies continuously. I know people who play pencil and paper role playing games for hours on end. Are they also taking part in some kind of hitherto never witnessed revolution in creativity?
Agreed. I think Jon missed something - online games aren't that much of a revolution, in many ways, and the fact that some people damned near live them is definitely not new. Some people do the same things with books, movies, role playing games, card games, majhong, etc. There's always a diversion to obsess over for anyone who's interested. It's no great revolution in thought or creativity - it's just an extension of what humans have always done in the past. Find something interesting, and dive in with both feet.
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
"The PC Data survey greatly underscores the idea that gaming has become a mainstream form of culture, if not the single most pervasive form of culture, in America."
Yes, even the homeless love a good video game! Get a clue. Video games are a cultural niche. There are many things which reach across age and economic barriers much more -- books, movies, TV, McDonald's, Wal-Mart, turkey on Thanksgiving, watching sports, e-mail (to a lesser extent), and so on. You can throw it against the wall, Jon, but it don't stick...
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If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, forget 'em, because man, they're gone. -- Jack
Hm. You know, when I was a teenager, I used to covertly berate my friends and somewhat lose respect for them over the quantity of their lives they spent on what I could argue as a significant underutilization of their free time via obsessively playing console games. [It saddened me, I knew someone who would play super mario brothers for over two hours a day, but never got around to reading].
...until one day I had the foolishness to install quake. Oh my.
;)
Anyway, I never really understood gaming obsession, although I had [as a youngster] quite enjoyed some infocom offerings, such as starcrossed, infidel [and of -course- zork].
I became completely immersed in the game; my psyche simplified down to an exclusive focus on the reward and happiness of getting the hard to find ammo units, the special armour, the medi-packs. Nothing else mattered. I would sit in the dark, face up against the screen, all of my emotional energy and self focused entirely into the world of the game. And it intellectually challenging at all. I'm kind of ashamed of myself in retrospect.
I was no better then those I had once used to berate for becoming obsessed with super mario [Which, BTW, has some -strange- symbolism. I did always like the fact that you had to slam your head into brick walls constantly to earn happy money coins. I'm not even going to go into a freudian intrepetation of the mushrooms you had to squash...]
Moderators::Note(humor)
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man sig
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the pen is mightier then the sword. the sword is mightier then the court. the court is mightier then the pen.
The game was a mixture of simple turn-based strategy and tactical cobat between two teams of competing robots. The robots were the typical "mechs" in several different varieties, two legged, four legged, tank treaded and flying. The innovative part of the game was that instead of controlling a mech, like a FPS, the player coded the software that dictated how the mechs reacted to their environments.
The programming system was simple and brilliant. Starting with a blank "card", the player placed and configured "chips" that created a sort of flowchart. The chips did all sorts of things like checking environmental conditions (presence of enemies, presence of friendlies, presence of ordinance, fuel remaining, weapons remaining), branching the program logic, moving the mech, firing the weapons and communicating with friendlies. The strategic part of the game was setting up factories, building the mechs, putting together squads and directing their movements on the battle maps.
I spent hours and hours of my free time playing the game (which was fascinating to watch, the game, not me playing it), but what's worse, I spent plenty of time away from the console diagramming new software configurations to try out later. Fortunately, my boss at the time was incapable of distinguishing my stacks of graph-paper flow charts from the work I was supposed to be doing.
At one point in my Doom days, I had been playing it for many hours a day for the past week. Suddenly one night, when I was trying to get to sleep, the instant I closed my eyes all I saw were various Doom levels, either real, made-up, or both, and I was playing them. For days after that point, if I even closed my eyes for a second, I would be in another Doom level, lobbing all sorts of artillery at various heinous creatures coming after me. It wouldn't stop.
Eventually, I stopped playing for a while, and my shut-eye time once again went dark. But Doom was very addictive. It paved the way for Duke Nukem, Quake, and all the billions of other FPS games out there. Hail to the King, baby.
Mr. Ska
> The PC Data survey greatly underscores the idea that gaming has become a mainstream form of culture, if not the single most pervasive form of culture, in America.
Jon, I don't know what your idea of culture is, but you have GOT to get out and see RealLife (TM, Pat. Pend.) just a little bit more.
You've got this bizarre idea that the whole world revolves around computer gaming and the Internet. Believe it or not, some people still watch TV, read books (gasp!) or even go outside and take a walk.
You've got to stop gauging the experience of 270,000,000 Americans on the poorly-spelled comments of a few pimply-faced geeks and those stupid PlayStation 2 commercials.
I am an avid gamer and Internet user, but I still spend more time reading books or playing with my kids than doing either. I'm even so radical as to have conversations with my wife. I guess I'm just a cultural throwback mired in the low-tech past.
Rick
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I'm not really surprised. While I was growing up my Mom and Grandma would play all sorts of board and crad games (backgammon, hearts, canasta, etc.) At holidays it would always be aunts and female cousins that would play the more social games.
Well now it's almost 2001 and even my grandma has cable modem and one of the first things she did was get on the MSN Game Zone to play with my Mom. It's the same as it's always been it's just going over packets now.
I actually think that it's really good that this is happening. It's easier for everyone to at least stay in touch and do the things that they would have done if they were actuall there in person. If my Mom lived more than a few blocks from my grandma I would think that it is even cooler.
This is going back to some of the things brought up during the "Voices from the Hellmouth" series about the net "alienating" youth. It can only alienate you if you want it to. I'm sure that there are people that this does happen to, but I also know a lot of people that have a richer social life from the net, either clubs (LUGs are good), chatting, emailing, or (on topic) online gaming.
it's open-ended games like this, with no story other than the one you make for yourself, that are often the most addictive. how many times can i kill Diablo before i get bored? "Not even death" .. can save me from you, Diablo, yeah yeah, i know. especially since i'll respawn in town and come back to try to kill you again.
but see, in UO, if you were killed, any random newbie or PK wandering by could take from you what it took months of hard labor to accumulate. today's MMORPGs are so wimpy by those standards .. there's no risk, nothing to lose of any real value.
that, among other things, is what made UO so compelling. i don't think a game will ever match that level of sheer EMOTION involved. other UO players will remember hacking trees in the woods, making logs into shields to sell in town, every UO player remembers the SHEER DREAD they felt the first time a PK appeared out of nowhere and began attacking them. or the RAGE at being stabbed in the back by some low life while you were fighting a lich .. standing there screaming "ooOoOOooOoO" in your death shroud as he looted your corpse of everything that was important to you...
nope, today, you lose a little experience, oh well, whatever. off to fetch my stuff off of my corpse. UO players didn't have that luxury .. they're stuff was GONE. today, it's a much safer gaming world, much tamer, more mature. i miss the old days.
i could live a little longer in this prison
i could live a little longer in this prison