Slashdot Mirror
TV Losing to Video Games
An anonymous reader writes "Sony studies gaming habits finds that most games are played from 5pm to 11pm.
Shock! The days of the week might have been more useful..." of course the real point of all this is that the younger generation is turning away from television and turning to games.
most games are played from 5pm to 11pm
And what happens at 11pm? Oh yeah... Cinemax starts their quality material.
The 5-11 slot must be just for students.
I have to go to work every day, so most of my video game playing is restricted to 9am-5pm.
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
Simple reason - the quality of video games is consistently improving, and the quality of television material is consisently regressing. What kid wouldn't want to play the latest Final Fantasy/Legend of Zelda/id first person shooter when the other option is watching American Idol.
Those born in the 70s like me? The 60s? I mean, I know a lot of "older" people in their 30-40s who play games.
It's not just a younger generation thing. Unless a 44 year old is considered younger.
Sent from your iPad.
TV is losing to reading books.
Even with the advent of the American coffee shop and the massive book retailers (B&N, Borders, etc.), people just don't read much it seems.
I've heard book sales are up, but not reading, which is highly interesting. It means people buy books with the intent of reading them but never do. Or they just want to seem smart? Who knows.
-gabe
I've nearly completely switched from TV as an entertainment mechanism to video games on my PS2 and my PC. And I'm 33.
Besides, wasn't there just something published that said the average gamer is around 29-30 years old?
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
It's simply because there isn't much on network television in that timeslot that is entertaining to men 18-35. Most tv on the networks is completely geared towards women or 'metrosexual' men that want to watch crap with a laugh track.
Cable, luckily, is noticing this problem and is now working towards more tv that appeals to men, though 90% of it is overdone crap (new manshow). Look to Discovery for an example of how to provide decent male programming. We are all watching Cnn, history, tlc, discovery, speed, spike (not me!), comedy central, or HBO.
Oh yeah, or playing Video Games.
I get a lot of crap from people who say I play to much video games. These same people then turn around and sit their ass on the couch the same ammount of time and watch TV. I think it's better for you to be playing video games then watching TV, at least you're participating in something.
*DrugCheese rants*
At least the games interact with them. I gave up TV for my computer years ago. One factor, subconciously, was that I was able to interact, whereas TV, I just sat, stared, laughed on cue, and watched commercials when I was told to.
Traditional video game consoles (I know this is changing with things like XBox Live) don't offer some of the same communication builders (e.g. IM, Voice IM, message boards, creating websites, etc.), but at least you can tell it what to do instead of it telling you what to do. And something about building hand-eye-coordination. I guess that is a plus, since remote controls don't require that much hand-eye coordination.
Sony studies gaming habits finds that most games are played from 5pm to 11pm
This just in: studies show that all games are played between 00:00 and 23:59, TV networks are worried!
I mean come on, 5pm to 11pm is 6 hours, that's a quarter of a day. Even if it's a "span that encompasses TV prime time", that doesn't mean people play games for 6 hours. What if people play games most of the time during dumb shows, and during ads, and stop to watch their favorite shows?
What I'm saying is that the study seems way too coarse to deduce anything useful from it. Ideally, it should show console vs. TV usage by the minute.
Also, you'll notice that Sony, a manufacturer of consoles, did the study, not an independant, impartial organization.
In short, this article doesn't bring much useful information.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
With the fall-off in TV ratings, it seems that ads will soon be creeping into computer games. This will include product placements in traditional games and free games that market products. I notice that EA already has a director of advertising sales.
With no "fast forward" in games, players will have little choice but to be exposed to these product placements (other than avoiding/abandoning the game). I wonder if game makers will offer dual-versions of games -- an ad-free version for $99 and an add-supported version for $29? Given people's tendency to by the cheaper option, wonder which version will have the highest sales?
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
is the day I turn off the computer.
Maybe they could have a virtual survivor, where they still have to swim and get the flag, but I get to crouch on the beach and snipe at them the whole time.
Sony's study also suggests that gamers who play ganes on the PS2 experience nearly 70 percent more "fun-itude" than XBox and Gamecube gamers.
DecafJedi
my weblog: apropos of something
No one really thinks t.v. is a great medium, anyway. It's passive. That was the complaint all along -- people rotting their brains watching a passive medium for hours and hours. It should be no surprise that other exciting electrical mediums like games and (more important to me) the internet will supplant television. I don't think t.v. is going to go away because sometimes a passive video medium is appropriate (sitcoms and dramas as we know them can't really be interactive; movies; etc.), but viewership will shrink (in terms of average hours watched).
Nobody thinks this is a bad thing. Yo, if someone is going to waste their time consuming hollow, useless things they may as well do it actively, interactively, rather than watching produced, linear shows.
I'm your average 23 year old male college student. However TV is horrible lately, I just download the only 2 shows I like (angel and enterprise) and never go near the television itself. Maybe if the networks stopped with the reality shows and started putting back some well written high production value shows, i'd be more inclined to come back. As it is however, I'm not going to sit around and watch crap for days on end when I only really want to see 2 hours of programs per week.
Especially considering that networks are doing such brilliant things as cancelling their highest rated shows and generally screwing up everything else that's worth tuning in for.
When will the networks learn that 20 and 30 somethings are tired of commercials? There has to be another way for a TV network to make money.
Just like HBO, sure you pay for it, sure it doesn't have any commercials for OTHER companies, but damn they love to plug HBO every chance they get. I already bought the damn channel, I don't need to know how great you are.
I think gamers and nerds are just tired of the constant stream of bullshit that is coming from the media. This especially goes for all the half-truths and demonizing of opponents in the upcoming elections.
We'd rather hang out with friends and frag each other than sit still on the couch and be force fed bullshit and editorialized news.
Martha Stewart, Michael Jackson, Kobe Bryant, I couldn't give less of a shit about, but they're on the news every day because that is what advertising firms say that the US is interested in.
We've got a freaking WAR in Iraq that we only hear about in blurbs. We have TROOPS in Afganistan that we're lucky to hear about once a week. And we have diplomatic issues with France and Europe that we NEVER hear about. What about that whackjob over in North Korea? Why is China so quiet about everything? That's what I want to hear about, not how many kids Michael Jackson touched or how this woman is missing in Minnesota, hell people go missing in my local area every day, why did she rate?
That's why I get my news here, and other online sources. It's because it's on demand, and what I want to read about. And best of all, I don't have to watch any commercials.
"Kids aren't buying music--it's because of file sharing!"
"Kids aren't watching TV--it's because of computer games!"
"Our software isn't selling--it's because of Microsoft!"
How hard is it to figure out that YOUR CONTENT SUCKS!!!? Maybe those other things play a part. Maybe the competition for your audience has become stiffer. Producing ever-increasingly BAD content and blaming the competition isn't going to fix anything!
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban