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Husband and Wife Computer Games?
An Anonymous Coward asks: "I have a home network, and my wife and I each have our own computers (plus a few extra). My wife has a fear of computers, and uses hers as little as possible. In an attempt to get my wife in front of her computer more, I am looking for games we can play together. My question is, what networkable games out there appeal to the female gender? Quake-like games are definelty out. Too bad Sims isn't multi-player..." I've gotta echo the sentiment about the Sims not being multi-player, however lately I've noticed a few husband and wife couples out there on a few MMORPGs. Are any of you couples out there playing games together? If so, which ones?
My wife and I tend to play [together]:
- Anarchy Online (and formerly Everquest). She's really into AO now and plays even when I'm not around. Worth noting is that we 'hooked up' as a result of playing a MUD... geeks in love, indeed.
- Age of Empires/Kings. The only RTS that I've seen women play, with perhaps the exception of Starcraft.
The key here is that she likes to play cooperatively. We have never found a competitive game that we both liked. I'm seriously into FPS's and she won't touch them. Again, exception to the rule: Team Fortress Classic. She plays with me as a 2 person fireteam, we support each other well.
I must state for the record that my wife is a CS major, so we both come from a long history of single player games. She plays a significant amount more than I do!
- Zoldax
i was the wife who was afraid of computers a few years (oh, it seems like a lifetime!) ago. i thought he was insane and the whole computer thing was 1) too hard, 2)scary and 3) a massive waste of time and money. but i wanted my husband to be happy so i smiled and tried to listen while my eyes glazed over when he raphsodized over the mysterious inner workings of this ugly box sitting in my living room.
what brought be around was when we when he snagged a little desktop publishing program. cheesy clipart, zillions of fonts, all that crap. suddenly, i could see some fun and productive stuff i could do with it. (ok, well productive is perhaps a bit of a stretch--our first project was writing a christmas newsletter. but it was fun and we did it together.)
eventually, he also got some "cute" games like bubble bobble and rainbow island, and we played them together. we raced for the little goodies that dropped down as we played. i never felt pressured or pushed, but he just put that computer out there and made sure there was stuff on it i liked and was interested in--money management programs, word processing programs, desktop publishing programs, that kind of thing. he was there in a flash anytime i had a problem with the computer, and made sure it was fixed pronto and i didn't end up feeling foolish for "messing something up." later on i started to get intereted in the internet, and he got me a copy of frontpage and some graphics programs. i made some butt-ugly webpages and had a good time with it.
and gradually, slowly, i started to become more and more comfortable with it. now we play baulder's gate together a lot, and in the past we've spent time playing diablo--i also like the sims. i'm also a web developer now, so i've clearly gotten over my fear of machines.
so i would say, get your wife some stuff she would be interested in and don't start off with the involved games, which may not appeal to her in the beginning and may require more of a commitment to learning how to play than she's initially interested in. the computer is intimidating when you're first starting out because it can make you feel stupid.
so, to sum up: find things to put on the computer that can make her life easier and more fun. with games, start off with very simple and cute games, and make sure she knows that you value the interaction with her more than the gameplay itself. go slowly and don't push her. support her efforts to do things independently on the computer (and if she screws something up, fix it goodnaturedly). and after you've spent some time doing something together on the computer, let her know you've enjoyed doing it with her. feeling closer to my husband after we'd spent time working on something together on the computer was the most powerful positive reinforcement i could have gotten.