Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: How Do I Get My Spouse To Start Gaming With Me?
x_IamSpartacus_x writes "I've been a gamer for a long time (started on Nibbles in MS-DOS) and enjoy pretty much any good game. I can enjoy side-scrolling relics (original Prince of Persia, Win 95), to modern MMORPGs (stopped playing my 85 lvl Mage on WoW just recently, read on to see why), to a good sports game (Madden series are a blast) and many more. I've been married for 4 years now and have hardly touched my games since being married and starting having kids. My wife and I are Americans but live overseas and have little access to new movies/entertainment and, from experience, I know that a good game can provide much more entertainment than a good movie. My question is, what are good ways/good games that I can use to get my wife into computer gaming? We both have good laptops that I'd love to get her interested in using to do co-op or combative games with me. Because of my long experience, gaming comes naturally to me and so even on a game I haven't played I would probably be much better than she. Is there a game or idea that would take away the embarrassing factor for her of being much worse than I am while still being enjoyable and worth spending a lot of time on with me? Do any other Slashdotters struggle getting their spouse to game with them?"
You don't.
Either she'll game differently/better than you and you'll regret it.
Or all your time becomes gaming time when your together and you don't end up enjoying it.
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
This is a decision you will soon regret. Go out and immerse yourself in the local culture, take the wife and kids. It's an experience you'll never have again, take advantage of that rather than cooped up at home.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."-THG
Why not do something active?
Why not get out and explore the country that you are in with your wife and kids?
---
Segmentation Fault ( core dumped )
Get friends together so she's not the only inexperienced person, and so she can take a break when she wants. Do stuff like Rock Band that is cooperative and easily adjusted for new players.
The cluelessness of the nerd knows no bounds.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Dude, I've been married for over thirty years and have never been able to get my wife into gaming... unless it was "Bubbles" on her iPhone or a simple solitary type game. She just has no desire to play and/or sees it as too much work. It is not fun for her at all; needless to say I am the exact opposite.
Portal 2 has a nice co-op mode (video), you solve the puzzles together. It could be fun.
Speaking as a gamer who got married and had kids, as well as somebody who lived overseas: Spend the time meeting your wife and kids in activities that THEY like,and explore the huge world around you IRL. The gaming will wait a few years, your wife won't feel abandoned in a foreign land, and when the kids get older, they'll love gaming with you (can be your "thing" with them). I have a gaming rig that I haven't even turned on in 2 months.. Sad, but time with the family is priority one for me, and I'll be honest in saying that there were many times I had to CHOOSE to make it that way, as my selfish feelings told me to sit in the basement many times. If your wife IS interested, I agree with above that Portal would be a good start, in coop mode.
Some girls don't like games but here are some to try that the female population seems to be more receptive to in my experience:
Party Games: Guitar Hero, Mario Party, Wii Party, Scene It, Monopoly Streets
Multiplayer Platformers: Mario Kart, New Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong Country, Little Big Planet
Puzzle Games: Bejeweled, Peggle, Hidden Object Games like Mystery Case Files
Adventure Games: Back to the Future (big hit with my fiancee, we played through the whole thing)
For the more girly girls, you might need to go with something with the "cute" factor. Little Big Planet is especially good at this one. You can put stickers on stuff and dress your sack boy/girl. It's also multiplayer. Co-op is usually a plus.
We'll make great pets
I hate to break it to you but she grew up and you didn't.
I hate to break it to you, but it's not elementary kids feeding the gaming industry to the tune of a billion dollars a year. Adults game, and there's not a damn thing wrong with it unless you allow it to become one.
Hell, I'd rather find a fellow adult co-worker who games to blow off steam than wonder when that quiet shy guy in the corner cube is gonna suddenly snap one day and murder the entire office because he can't seem to find an outlet to deal with adult stress.
Gaming does have its benefits for all ages. True, it also has its downsides, especially for those who become addicted. But when is that not true for anything in life.
>> each of us has 1 weeknight to totally dictate what activities we do that night (with the intent that whatever we do will be together)
A three-way?
You make time for gaming, and for doing stuff both of you like.
I don't know what he/she likes that you don't, but what would it take for you to take THAT up ? Nothing doing, right ? same here...
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Let me explain a little bit more...
You know those hours that you spend alone, immersed in a game while you own n00bs in BF3 or while you wage some pathetic WoW or LoL quest? What is your wife doing while this is going on? Is she cleaning, making dinner, keeping the kids occupied or watching a movie, leaving you uninterrupted for your fun?
Now, imagine she's gaming, spending hours immersed in a WoW or LoL quest, or worse still some ridiculous hours long farming stint. Imagine she's as addicted to that crap as you are. Who's cleaning, making dinner, watching the kids? I can tell you who won't be playing games for long stretches. I can tell you who won't be enjoying the fact that their spouse is gaming. You won't.
The proper course of action is for you to spend a little less time gaming and a little more time doing group activities with your family. Then you can enjoy your uninterrupted game time.
Regret, thy name is x_IamSpartacus_x
My SO is a gamer, but a different sort from me. She likes Xbox games, mostly shooters and RPG titles. The only PC game she'll play is The Sims 2. I primarily play role playing and real time strategy games.
We found our crossover points in a couple different ways:
1. We compete on silly casual games on our phones and tablets. Superiority in Bubble Shooter or figuring out a new way to make pictures of dicks relevant in Draw Something is treasured gaming experience.
2. The PC gaming experience for games like Skyrim, Fallout 3 and Dragon Age is better, so we kind of play and make decisions together. I'm more of an explorer and she's more of an action junkie, but in practice this means that if one of us can't do something with our normal approach, it's time for the other to take a crack at it.
3. Sometimes I suck it up and let her kick my ass in some kind of console shooter or Kinect title. I'll also sit out with her and read while she leans on me and plays Borderlands or something. It's kind of passive/introvert together time.
4. We experimented with MMO-playing, but the MMO I actually like closed and she's not into WoW any more, so the motivation for that just evaporated. That actually worked pretty well.
Mostly, though, we play different games and it's FINE. I do my thing and she does hers.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
Does it have to be computer games? Especially "real gaming" which is usually defined as boring WWII FPS sequels?
You're overseas? Invite friends over to place some kind of euro board/physical game. Yes yes agricola takes 45 minutes to set up all the counters but there's plenty of lighter fare. Settlers of catan? Carcassonee? How about Dominion (a euro-card game)? Or strip-Dominion? Pretty much anything in the Rio Grande catalog?
How about paper and pencil RPG? Yeah if you're overseas in Saudi Arabia they might get nervous about "magic" or whatever fictional religious aspects, but if you're in a civilized part of the world it should be no problem. Pathfinder or classic DnD?
Plain ole card games? You're overseas so invite several locals over for poker night. Better yet if it works out rotate to each players house.
There's a certain theme to the above... yes you can play all of the above "on a computer" but it works just as well in person and that's probably the way to pivot into "computer" gaming if you're the type where the UI matters more than the gameplay or if its occasionally just more convenient to play on a tablet while traveling or whatever. Example: if she likes playing euro-resource-type-games in person using cardboard like "powerline" or WTF its called, its a pretty short jump to Civilization / Simcity.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Maybe you haven't run into this one yet, but the advice I'll give you (based on nearly 20 years of happy marriage) is the same I give to newlyweds:
(1) Housekeepers are significantly cheaper and more effective in promoting marital harmony than marriage counselors, and far cheaper than divorce lawyers. That's where your first discretionary dollars should go.
(2) New activities are most interesting with friends. That is, if you want her to enjoy getting into skiing, gaming, whatever, with you, then find a couple also interested in getting into it, and make it a group thing.
It's of course a bit different. It uses different hardware. It has similarities to your game:
- you can advance through several levels
- you can use your fingers for control
- you can customize her outfit
- you can collect and use tools
- you can play it on the couch
- there's a boss level at the end (you most likely won't get near it, nor will beat it, just use some tools for now)
But there are differences, too:
- it's more exciting
- you can use more than your fingers
- you get more physical feedback than rumble
- you are not restricted to your couch
- you might achieve more satisfaction
Just try it. You'll probably realize that she's not playing your game because her game is a lot better.
Oh, give me a clone
Of my own flesh and bone
With its Y chromosome changed to X.
And after it's grown,
Then my own little clone
Will be of the opposite sex.
Adults game, and there's not a damn thing wrong with it unless you allow it to become one
Sure, but all the (male) adults I know who game fit into one of these categories -
- Single, or in a relationship but have no kids (ergo, have time for gaming)
- In a relationship with kids, but have an extensive child support network (grandparents etc.)
- In a relationship, with kids, but have a 'traditional' marriage where the burden of child rearing almost entirely falls on the woman - The husband is in the basement playing WoW while the wife is handling bath time, putting on pajamas, reading stories, brushing teeth then cleaning the kitchen.
- In a relationship, with kids, but the kids are largely grown up
No male I know that has younger kids and an 'equal' marriage has time for video games.
The submitter might as well be David Beckham asking how he can get Victoria Beckham to play soccer with him.
Look, the fact of the matter is, you've been playing video games most of your life, so there's few things that are true for you that are never going to be true for your wife:
1) You started when you were very young. Very young is when most people pick up new interests, and one of the things that makes that interest interesting in their adult lives is that it was part of their young lives. No matter what you do, video games are never going to be a part of your wife's young life.
2) You have tens of thousands of hours of experience. That means even when you encounter entirely new games, you get to apply that experience to the new game. Your wife will have no frame of reference. For example, let's say you tried to introduce her to WoW.... you know what a character level is. She has no idea. You probably played RPGs at some time in the early 90's (or a bit earlier or later depending on your age), she's done it... never.
3) When you're playing with her and your skill level is going to be much higher than hers is. EVEN if you're playing cooperatively, that's going to be frustrating. We're talking basic skills here, like even manipulating a controller, or precise mouse use. Doing activities with someone who is at an entirely different skill level than you - even the simple version of that activity - is rarely pleasureably.
4) Because of 3) your wife is going to have a bit of a learning curve before she can really enjoy a game. That might be OK, *IF* your wife wasn't married with kids. And I imagine at least one of you has a job. By the time she spends an hour or two working on that learning curve, it's going to be time to put the kids to bed or go to bed yourselves and she's just going to think the activity stinks if she never gets past the learning part to the fun part.
And, the laptop is the LAST place you should attempt this. There is nothing that requires a laptop to play that you should try and get a novice gamer interested in. If you can't play it on a phone, it's almost certainly too advanced.
The reality of this is, if you dated this girl before you got married (and I hope you did), and she didn't pick up an interest in video games during that exposure to you, it's not going to happen now.
Maybe you two can play words with friends together.
paintball
Tripod - Gonna Make You Happy
Maybe you two can play words with friends together.
Did you know they even have a version you can play in real life now? Games are finally growing out of cell phones and into the third dimension! It's a really exciting time to be a gamer, with these new and innovative products.
More seriously, try board games! My wife isn't much of a video gamer, but board games were a huge hit with her. Look at things like Agricola, Ticket to Ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, and Settlers of Catan. They reward analytical thinking like video games do, so you won't be bored, I promise.