The Video Game Generation Grows Up

MarchingAnts writes "The Gaming Generation: Once A Gamer, Always A Gamer has interviews with Gabe from Penny Arcade, best-selling science-fiction author John Scalzi, veteran games journalist and founder of gamerdad.com Andrew Bub, futurologist Dr. Michael Zey, and sociologist Dr. Steve Jones commenting on the phenomena of how video gamers are coping with balancing their hobby with marriages, careers, and how video games might affect families in the future. 'Mike Krahulik, better known to his legions of fans as Gabe, one-half of the team behind the gaming webcomic Penny Arcade, says that time is the biggest challenge in blending gaming and parenthood. "You just don't have as much time for gaming," he says, "when you're getting up every 30 minutes to change diapers and get thrown up"'"

Comments

Re:Cold Turkey

[WidescreenFreak]

There's just so much more to life (YMMV).

Actually, some of the most fun times that I have with my daughter are the multi-hour sessions playing head-to-head games like Mario Kart 64 or Diddy Kong Racing on the old Nintendo 64. Many times my wife joins in, particularly with Mario Kart 64, and we'll play together for hours on end. Once I get the Wii hooked up, I expect we'll all spend a lot more time playing Wii Sports as well. (I'm going to have to reinforce that ol' Wiimote strap for my daughter. That handcuff mod might do nicely.)

"More to life" doesn't have to mean "outside" or "at the park".

Re:There is the other side of the coin, though.

[shemnon]

You know when I play my video games? Between he time I start putting my toddler to bed and when he actually goes to sleep. So now a days I am limited to my Nintendo DS. When I hear him get up I can quickly click it closed (especially since most of the newer games auto pause when the clamshell is closed) and go put him back down. This takes up to a half hour or so.

The only real problem is if he gets a hold of it. I either need to wait for two hours when he finally drops it (he doesn't play the games, just takes the pen out and tries to scribble ont he top screen) or I have to bear two hours of him screaming "GAME GAME GAAAAAMMMEEE!!!" when I take it away from him. And I can jsut forget about playing it in front of him. That means it's at least a year or so before I can buy the Wii and put it somewhere other than the closet.

The joys of parenthood.

Re:There is the other side of the coin, though.

[Senobyzal]

As someone who is into roleplaying games, I find I actually get to play more due to technology helping out. I had to drop out of a few groups because I didn't have as much time as an adult for 8-hour Saturday sessions anymore. My last group had something like 10 players but it was very rare that more than 5 would make it to any given session, due to RL commitments. Plus the game site was a 40 minute drive from my house. I finally had to quit because I was missing too many sessions.

But since Neverwinter Nights came out, I've been able to run two long campaigns, one of which started in August 2002, the other in September 2003. Both are still going. Using the matchmaking/scheduling site Neverwinter Connections, I was able to find players for both games, each of which plays two hours a week. One of them I run early on Sundays, while my wife is still asleep. While it has some disadvantages over tabletop gaming, my campaigns have now lasted longer than any tabletop RPG I've played. In my experience, most roleplaying campaigns die out due to scheduling issues. In this case, technology has made it easier to run a long campaign.