Slashdot Mirror
Christmas Shopping For A Gamer
An anonymous reader writes "This step-by-step guide shows you have to find the perfect gift for your gamer, even if you don't know anything about gaming yourself." From the article: "Trying to figure out which games are sure-fire hits and safe bets for the gamer in your life is never an easy task. Tastes range from the light and fluffy to the dark and deadly, and there are games for almost every type, style, and preference. There's no better way to come across as being on top of the game than to give just the right title, just as there's no faster way to cast yourself as clueless by dispensing copies of the GameCube's Charlie's Angles."
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/19/153422 3&tid=233&tid=188&tid=97
I may be wrong but you're downright ugly!
Just buy them a gift card or give them money.
There, article replaced in one sentence. Jesus. Who pays people to write shit like this? Mom, Dad, Girlfriend, Boyfriend, Cousin, Uncle - we don't want you buying us games unless we specifically say "Buy us x."
schild
editor, f13.net
Best geometry-related educational game I ever played
Occasionally I'll find good deals. If I do get a game for christmas it might be something off the $10 shelf at Walmart.
Aw Frell this
adom of course. There's no better game, even though I've recently bought 6600 GT (because I need dualhead DVI for development). And even though nexuiz works pretty well on my debian system under 1600x1200, with 70 FPS.
next question, this one was easy.
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
#
I found the easiest thing to do is point them to my Amazon wishlist. The secret is to have lots of items at various price-points. It makes their shopping easier and you get what you want. That way I'll be playing Medal of Honor 2 for my PC instead of Backyard Hockey for the GBA.
Sorry, but when you give someone a straight line like that, it is unfair to expect them to resist.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
And why would that be a problem? People who aren't gamers cannot understand that our game preferences aren't only based on the quality of the game itself. A game might get rave reviews, and fit in my favorite genre, but I might not buy it. I just am not interested.
The best example I have is Shogun:Total War/Crusader:TW. I loved the first one, played it to death, but I didn't even consider for one second buying Crusader. I wasn't interested. Even though the genre/quality/publisher is the same, I liked the first one because I'm an anime junkie and love anything with sociopaths running around with on horses with Katanas, "Crusader" just didn't work out for me.Just ask me what I want... screw the surprise, at least you won't end up having paid for a game that I don't want/need.
How about just asking them what they want?
Or, start a conversation with them about games, ya know actually talk to them, and they'll eventually volunteer the information.
No need for a covert operation.
Now I've seen Everything
What kind of sick joke is it to give a gamer a Linux CD?
Charlies Angles? - I know they're (a)cute, but the reference is a little obtuse. ;)
Stuck down a hole! In the middle of the night! With an owl!
"Christmas shopping for the 12 year old gamer with ADD"
I give my friends a gift voucher each for Duke Nukem Forever when it comes out, expiring 24th Dec the next year. I've been giving them the same voucher for close to 10 years now.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/metricmusic
I'm inclined to think the same.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/metricmusic
Quite frankly, unless you're willing to reject all of the "commercialization" of the Xmas holiday completely, and refuse to give *any* pre-built products as gifts - you can't escape what you're complaining about anyway!
I mean, what do you suggest? We all start making hand-made wooden gifts for everyone on our shopping list, so they "truly come from the heart"? Or maybe we should just write hand-written letters wishing them a happy holiday, and offer to mow their lawn a few times next summer, or shovel snow off their driveway for free?
Personally, I find it the exception rather than the rule where I feel I have a great gift idea for someone I know, and feel positive they'll appreciate it every bit as much as anything they'd find on their own if I gave them a gift card or cash. Xmas may be "about giving rather than receiving", but nobody really wants to be the one giving less than desireable gifts.
If anything, I'd venture to guess that most of the notion of "cash is such an impersonal gift" came from the mouths of retailers, scared some cash recipients might just save or invest the money, rather than spend it in their stores. IMHO, cash is a *very* personal gift, simply because you only earn money as a result of your labor. If someone thinks enough of me to give me a portion of their "buying power" they earned through hours and hours of work for someone else, I'm very thankful for that.
...but then again, I'm probably not considered a typical "gamer."
My collection is pretty much Flight Simulator, Train Simulator, Syberia (I and II), the Myst series, various Chess games, and old-school DOS games such as Stunts and Tetris.
Why does everyone assume that all gamers either want to play a sports-related game or kill something? (OK, so judging from the titles available in the stores and the video games in the arcades, most of them do, but not all.)
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
A useful trick for finding out what someone would like as a present is to ask him to go shopping with you for presents for other people, then see what he shows interest in. A clever boyfriend did that with me.
Something simpler would be to ask your friend for advice on buying games for someone else. Your friend will end up volunteering what games he has, what's new and hot, what he thinks is cool, etc.