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I've found learning and creating to be more fulfilling activities than videogames. That's not to advocate against gaming, or to generalize all games, but I've t

I've found learning and creating to be more fulfilling activities than videogames. That's not to advocate against gaming, or to generalize all games, but I've thought about how much time I spent playing games in the past and if I was happy with what I gained from it: I largely was not. I felt as if I was lacking in skills that I wished I had, and believe I could have learned in that time. I'm happier with myself after cutting down greatly on gaming, and I wonder if other people share the same joy of learning that I feel or if it's an unpopular perspective. Add.: What I believe causes a game to feel unfulfilling is if after the game is finished the player, and the world, is (nearly) unchanged. If there's nothing to show for it. No new philosophy, no useful talent, no object created, nothing to share with others. Most games are equivalent in their impact to a bad reality TV show, a distraction from progress, a time sink, a void.

M_Grey 10y ago
I find that videogames fill my "brain in neutral" space very nicely. If I'm just not in the mood to read, or get out, pick up some new skill or polish an old one, hang out with friends or do something productive (and sometimes you truly want to do nothing)... I find that videogames are a nice choice. I especially enjoy combining them with unabridged audiobooks that I might not otherwise bother reading/listening to otherwise. The trick is to make sure that you resist the temptation to allow that empty time (like empty calories) to dominate your life. It's like ice cream... a little is great stuff, but don't make eating it the center of your lifestyle.
- droopyEyelids 10y ago
  I believe the essence of what you're saying is true, but I dispute the overall reasonableness of what you describe. The vast majority of video games are either built around the principles of addiction, or require a tremendous amount of time in muscle memory training. What you're describing seems like describing how enjoyable it can be to smoke one cigarette a month. (assuming that actually felt good). Could be true- but the odds are certainly stacked against people attempting that behavior.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    You can build the skills necessary to play games over time, and of course it greatly depends on the games you play. I would tend to stay away from pure time sinks like MMO's, and I've lost the taste for 2D fighters. That said, I've been playing FPS' since FPS', and those skills wake up whenever I play for more than ten or twenty minutes. I don't see a correlation with cigarettes, which offer you nothing beneficial, are physically addictive on the level of heroin, and are one of the leading causes of human death.
    - GuiA 10y ago
      > which offer you nothing beneficial Nicotine can have some benefits; see for instance https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6457772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6457772 > are physically addictive on the level of heroin False. They're a bit above alcohol; heroin is much higher. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rational_scale_to_assess_the_harm_of_drugs_(mean_physical_harm_and_mean_dependence).svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rational_scale_to_as... > and are one of the leading causes of human death. Correct.
      - M_Grey 10y ago
        Fair enough... if you're schizophrenic and medicated, by all means vape or take nicotine in some form. There is still no real argument for smoking though... it's the worst way to handle something that is already mildly hazardous. Edit: By the way, for an appreciation of "A bit above alcohol", check out an inpatient alcohol detox clinic sometime... it is no joke at all.
      - NateEag 10y ago
        > False. They're a bit above alcohol; heroin is much higher. I realize this is anecdotal, but I feel the need to point out that my father, a veteran ER doctor of over thirty years, has said more than once that based on his experience of patients, he thinks it is easier to quit heroin than nicotine.
        10y ago
- reedlaw 10y ago
  By basing your choices on feelings (i.e. "not in the mood") you are likely to go with the path of least resistance. If instead you choose to do what you prioritize by conscious mental effort you are likely to feel more rewarded in the end. For example, if you decide that learning photography is important and you spend hundreds of hours practicing you will be more satisfied than if you spent those hundreds of hours playing a game. At least you will feel that in retrospect. In the moment, perhaps the game will seem more satisfying. But most people find more fulfillment in practicing a skill or hobby.
  - XorNot 10y ago
    This is a surefire way for people to burn out on something. If you never allow yourself mental downtime, then everything you do feels like work. If it's not meant to be work, then it's a hobby and if it's a hobby then it needs to actually allow you to unwind. Some people do surprisingly complex things for this, but the mistake we tend to make externally is view the accomplishment as "work" or something they really need to achieve - rather then something they devote idle brain-time to.
    - reedlaw 10y ago
      Decisions about priorities should be considered carefully. If the outcome isn't fulfilling, perhaps the choice was made on the basis of what others expect rather than what truly pleases. If a hobby is something you really enjoy it will not feel like work. Games can be enjoyed in their own right as well. If we play for pure enjoyment and can otherwise balance our lives then they are certainly a means to unwind.
      - algorias 10y ago
        > If a hobby is something you really enjoy it will not feel like work. Sorry, that's just not true. There are lots of interesting, rewarding hobbies that do feel like work, in the sense that they require a fresh mind capable of bearing a high cognitive load to engage in them. When my mind is fresh you're right, those hobbies are very satisfying to spend time on, but my "fresh" timeslots are mostly devoted to my actual job (phd) these days, which doesn't feel like work either much of the time. Be careful, your attitude is a road straight to burnout.
pokeloki 10y ago
I went through that phase too, but deep down it was guilt- and anxiety-driven. Once I accepted that life is too short to learn everything or be the best at everything, and that I'm already really good at the things I care about and learn a lot at work anyway, I'm quite satisfied to spend free time playing games.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  >>but deep down it was guilt- and anxiety-driven. EXACTLY! There is value in realizing that one is wasting time, but viewing a leisure activity as a waste of time simply because it doesn't result in advancement is not healthy. Personally speaking, the important thing has been learning to recognize when I'm in a productive mood vs in a gaming mood. These fluctuate all the time depending on various factors. But I no longer feel like I should be working when I play games or vice versa. It's quite refreshing.
TheCowboy 10y ago
I'm in the same boat and it applies to games overall. I do make an exception for when there is a social component to it, such as playing games with friends. I'm also not advocating against gaming. A game with enough strategic depth can provide that feeling of learning and creativity when you can share and discuss strategy with other players. I feel like the trend in online gaming overall has transformed the social aspect into a more robotic process---getting auto-matched against strangers who never talk. Part of this might be due to the challenge of managing trolls/griefers. But I don't like to feel like the game has served as a mechanical distraction and not something that made life more interesting for an hour.
r00fus 10y ago
Some people like listening to music while doing productive things, some like watching TV. I play slow online turn-based games when at home doing really boring work. I can context-switch, engage my creative mind for 15-30s, and jump back into page 57 of the design doc I'm reviewing. As for intense gaming sessions, I have young kids = unless it's appropriate for them (more and more the case as they grow up) I don't have time for it.
- VonGuard 10y ago
  OK, now I want to know what games you're playing. I do this too with Starcraft II Arcade offerings.
  - r00fus 10y ago
    Nothing exceptional, mainly mobile CCGs or card-based games that exercise my math processing. Games like Hearthstone, Ascension, Sword & Poker, Carcasonne along with a bit of SF4 Volt. Turns need to be done in at most 1m or games should be done in 2-3m max.
marcofloriano 10y ago
I can relate to you. Ten years ago (with 20 yo) i was playing WOW and skipping college. Before that, i was playing competitive Counter Strike and doing bad on high school. Today i look back and think: if i studied and worked more, i would be much far by now. Probably rich. I´m creating an online business where i have to learn and create every day. And yes, i'm very happy doing it and not playing anymore (one year now). But, what if ... ten years ago, playing World of Warcraft would lead me to a rich life today? What if it paid well to be a Counter Strike player? I suspect i would be even happier. But that's not the truth of the world. Yet.
- pikzen 10y ago
  >if i studied and worked more, i would be much far by now. Probably rich. Or not. Maybe at the same place in life. Studies are not as important as a defining criteria for your life as sociocultural group, or class. I wouldn't get too hung up on it if I were you, what's done is done. >What if it paid well to be a Counter Strike player? If you're a pro player, sure, it does. There are regular tournaments with $1m prize pools, teams like Virtus Pro pay their players generously. There's money in it, if you can manage to be in a top 16 European team. Or top 4 North America because of level discrepancies. That's around 100 spots.
  - logfromblammo 10y ago
    No, you wouldn't be rich. Whenever I think that maybe I could have had a better life if only I had done X, it always falls apart on closer examination. It wouldn't have been better, it just would have been different. I still would have been me, and that person just isn't cut out to be independently wealthy, or famous, or influential, or even noticed. In this kind of civilization, I'm a nobody. In the end, it hasn't mattered whether I was good or bad at my job. The world simply does not care whether I pursue sloth or aresteia. It would have kicked me in the teeth just as hard if I was a driven genius or just a lazy smartass. You leave a lot of opportunities on the table when one of your major life goals is to not be the same sort of exploitative asshole that you have always hated dealing with. So I have played video games, still play them, and don't feel even an iota of guilt or regret about what else I could have been doing instead. And I read escapist fantasy/sci-fi novels. And I indulge prurient interests. And I eat too much candy, and don't exercise enough. For me, working hard has always paid off about the same as coasting. If ever I lift a finger to do better for myself, someone comes along and eats up my efforts, leaving me with a pile of tasty crumbs. They're nice, but probably not worth all the effort and sense of moral outrage. If the world wanted me to do more with my life, it wouldn't have filled itself with parasitic and predatory humans.
emodendroket 10y ago
Isn't improving at the game an enjoyable end in and of itself? Getting really good at chess has few extrinsic benefits but nobody's embarrassed about it. Why is getting really good at Street Fighter or whatever any different?
- neumann 10y ago
  It is! When playing with other people. I find multiplayer (played locally with friends in the same room) games really fun. I used to also enjoy playing alone, or online, but nowadays the level of story telling doesn't grip me so all that's left is the challenge of the gameplay and as I got older, it feels like I am just figuring out the designer's underlying blueprint.
- tradersam 10y ago
  I think the difference is chess is more a mental planning game, Street Fighter is muscle memory. (Disclaimer: I'm a huge gamer.)
  - gydfi 10y ago
    I think the difference is just in status: being an excellent chess player gets you respect from a more respectable-looking crowd than being excellent at Street Fighter. Neither gets you quite as much widespread adulation as being good at golf or Formula 1 car driving, while both get you more than being good at Candy Crush. But ultimately they're all just games.
    - deleted 10y ago
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  - enraged_camel 10y ago
    Sure but Street Fighter is a very specific type of game. Take something like Civilization that requires tons of research, planning and critical thinking. Those types of skills are more applicable to other things outside of the game.
btown 10y ago
I feel like a lot of people desire validation and achievement as short-term feedback. When we go through middle and high school, you can find achievement in short-term feedback on academic assignments, or in extracurricular activities where competitive matchups are rather frequent. (The American focus on short-term "A for Effort" grading is debatable, in this context.) Then you go to college or the real world, and suddenly the goalposts become much further away, all eggs in a nebulous basket: academic research that takes years to gain the next level of credentials, career progression, dating, financial stability. Learning requires you to subconsciously justify self-designed goalposts - you have to set your own goals for when you can be happy with what you've learned - and that's just as nebulous as the real world. I think many gamers would envy, and aspire to, your ability to have confidence in self-set learning goalposts. But rather than despair at not being able to do so, if they can sit down on their couch and be spoon-fed goals, a process to get there, and Steam Trophies when they do... and they are truly legitimately happy (a local rather than global maximum, to be sure, but who ever achieves the global maximum of happiness anyways?)... who's to argue against that? Efforts like Khan Academy and Duolingo understand this dynamic; they break things down into achievable interim goals, with flashy rewards as you progress. But it's hard for serious learning apps to reach the mental intensity and dopamine release of, say, a successful boss fight. A company that can figure that out would do a lot of good for humanity... but why wouldn't they just be a game studio instead?
- hinkley 10y ago
  See also Jane McGonigal, who has done some work specifically around those self-defined goal posts. One reason why AI is being employed for some problems is based on what we know about human problem solving. For instance, a human could come up with a near-optimal solution to the Traveling Salesman problem in under a minute. Long before a computer could get even close. How is that happening? What are we doing that's so special? Which makes me wonder if we could gamify NP-complete problems and use gamers to come up with better solutions. Like a game to lay out circuit traces, route delivery trucks, or organize a warehouse. Random reinforcement (giving out not just merit based rewards but also random rewards) keeps people coming back but it's a higher goal than beating a raid boss in a game that 95% of the human population has never heard of.
mikejmoffitt 10y ago
A great junction of all of these things is creating games.
- cableshaft 10y ago
  Damn skippy. That's what I do. I need to play games so I can playtest my creations (and research and get inspired!)
cableshaft 10y ago
I create, and I also play a lot of games (nowadays more board games). I also now spend a lot of time with my puppy. I get enjoyment out of all of them. Also, even though I like to think I can create some pretty cool things, I don't see how I could ever create anything as intricate, beautiful, or full of discovery as Jonathan Blow's The Witness. That was absolutely worth the 40+ hours I've spent on it so far.
jonahrd 10y ago
I feel lucky that in my high school days of excessive gaming, my game of choice was Garry's Mod, and I was really into modding it and creating new gamemodes for it. This meant that beyond the social connections that multiplayer gaming provides, I also had a "portfolio" of sorts, of all the things I learned and created. I definitely don't regret those hours.
jxramos 10y ago
Absolutely, you basically get good at what you do, and conversely you don't get good and what you do not do.
smacktoward 10y ago
Sure, but these things aren't mutually exclusive: you can learn and create and play videogames too. Not every waking moment has to be productive. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, etc. As with most things, the key is moderation: finding a balance where you're getting enough relaxation/leisure to keep yourself happy, while not dedicating so much time to it that it completely takes over your life.
- eludwig 10y ago
  Thanks for this. I was hoping someone would cover the obvious: games are fun! Why is that we feel the need to justify fun? Isn't fun (a form of happiness) what we are all striving to be able to have more of?
  - dvtv75 10y ago
    Sometimes we feel the need to justify fun because it takes away from otherwise productive time we would have had. In the past year, I've racked up more than 400 hours playing RimWorld, well over two weeks just playing that. I'm sure I could have found something more useful and interesting to do than that.
    - meheleventyone 10y ago
      I think considering this as a zero sum exchange is pretty unhealthy. Different activities have very different trade offs. Why is lesuire time considered unproductive? Does everything need to obviously contribute to something you feel is productive? Can lesuire activities contribute to productivity? Personally I think spending time playing games, reading, watching tv and other activities are essential to remaining productive. Not least because they are all interesting input to consider things in different ways. But also because they give me space.
  - jessriedel 10y ago
    > Isn't fun (a form of happiness) what we are all striving to be able to have more of? No, we are not all striving to have more happiness (although some people surely are). So long as you don't circularly define happiness as "that feeling you get when you accomplish your goals", then most people have at least some goals besides happiness, and some of us explicitly advocate that many or most goals should not be happiness related.
mooseburger 10y ago
>I felt as if I was lacking in skills that I wished I had, and believe I could have learned in that time I play a fair amount of videogames, but what can I say? I have never felt that way. There are some deficiencies in my life, but the main reason they remain deficiencies is that I'm not even sure how to resolve them. I suppose I don't care much about learning skills because I know I'll never learn everything there is to learn, so I'll always have to defer to experts in certain domains.
lutorm 10y ago
I agree, I enjoy playing Civ, but realizing the absolutely astronomical amount of time I've sunk into it and all the things I could have done instead has really turned me off from it. Maybe it's an age thing; once you realize half your life is gone, wasting time like that seems less attractive than it once did.
- chadgeidel 10y ago
  I'm not sure we should beat ourselves up over what we did in our leisure time. Could we be "better people" by spending our leisure time better? Perhaps. Maybe we just need a break now and then.
- pmarreck 10y ago
  At least until you retire. ;)
  - lutorm 10y ago
    It's not even that I don't have time, I just have so many other things I want to do, explore and learn that it just doesn't seem attractive any more.
OraclesDyn388 10y ago
I find it depends on the game. The Witness was truly challenging and interesting. It really made me think "how do I solve this". I want to play it more. Things like TF2 and OW are really just re-enforcing muscle memory, and an exercise in "how long can I last all this chaotic audio/visual vomit" (both from the game and juvenile player base). Pushing near 40, I can understand why people saw them as just noisy distractions when I was a kid: more often than not a video-game is a noisy distraction. Re-hashes of CoD and other FPS shooters really aren't teaching anything new. It's exercising muscle memory built up 15 years ago playing the first one.
hanksy 10y ago
This is true. I love games. But after finishing there is definitely a feeling of being "unfulfilled." It is tough.
kakarot 10y ago
I get anxious when I've played video games for too long instead of honing a skill or working. I get anxious when I've been working or cramming info into my head for too long. It balances out. Besides, it's important to allow yourself rest periods between bouts of learning to allow your brain to consolidate the new information and subconsciously draw inferences and review detail. Otherwise you reach a point when you've bitten off more new information than you can comfortably chew. I also tend to play games that involve exploration of worlds I will never experience in my own life, mastery of skills that require cognitive precision and dexterity, or philosophical rumination. I find these experiences to be a positive addition to my world and my understanding of people around me. Now that we are seeing real potential for VR, this is about to reach a whole new level. The line between games and educational tools blend more and more every day. Imagine a war game so visceral that it makes you cry, gives you PTSD, and completely makes you rethink the wars you support. Or full job or skill training courses. The potential for video games to positively impact our lives has never been greater.
- liuhenry 10y ago
  I also tend to play games that involve exploration of worlds I will never experience in my own life, mastery of skills that require cognitive precision and dexterity, or philosophical rumination. I find these experiences to be a positive addition to my world and my understanding of people around me. Care to share some of your favorites? I'd be curious to check them out.
  - kakarot 10y ago
    For exploration/adventure, try Adventure[0]. For skill games, try Nidhog[1]. For a good recent psychologically engaging game, try Firewatch[2]. A spattering of other favorites: Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, the Jak and Daxter series, Antichamber, Dishonored, Skullgirls, all of the 2D Mario titles, Final Fantasy Tactics, Smash Bros, Minesweeper, Dwarf Fortress, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 [0] http://www.2600online.com/adventure.html http://www.2600online.com/adventure.html [1] http://store.steampowered.com/app/94400/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/94400/ [2] http://store.steampowered.com/app/383870/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/383870/
krylon 10y ago
> I've found learning and creating to be more fulfilling activities than videogames. To each his/her own, but to me, video games lost nearly all appeal when I started learning how to program. The only game I still play with any kind of enthusiasm these days is Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. But all in all, if I have the choice of spending a Friday night playing a video game or programming, I'll go for programming almost all the time. (And roughly 99.999% of the programming I do in my free time is mainly to learn about something, not to solve some urgent problem.) I still think video games have a huge untapped potential as devices for storytelling or education or as an artform of their own. But we've only been creating video games seriously for ... what? 30, 40 years? Books and theater have been around for millennia, and it took people quite a bit of work before sublime works of art emerged. (Although I'll admit I was quite happy to discover that there is an open source clone of Doom, and I spent a few happy hours with it. Great fun!)
navbaker 10y ago
>>What I believe causes a game to feel unfulfilling is if after the game is finished the player, and the world, is (nearly) unchanged. If there's nothing to show for it. Maybe in a tangible way nothing has changed, but for me, when I finish a good RPG or RTS, I feel like I have inhabited a different world for a short time. I come out of games like that with fond memories of how the combination of the story, game mechanics, music, characters, etc all made me feel. To me it's just as real and satisfying of a memory as going to the beach with my wife and son or completing a difficult programming project. Every game has a unique feel in my mind: Super Metroid feels different than Baldurs Gate which feels different than Mass Effect. I wouldn't trade the time spent on making those memories for anything.
dmichulke 10y ago
There are games that make you learn a lot. I never thought I'd ever know as much about 15th century ++ history as I do know thanks to Europa Universalis 4. Often I find myself zapping through Wikipedia after a few hours of gaming. And the game itself is very good.
matwood 10y ago
> That's not to advocate against gaming, or to generalize all games, but I've thought about how much time I spent playing games in the past and if I was happy with what I gained from it: I largely was not. I feel the same. I like games and still play them here and there (and enjoy them), but a couple points in the past I was clearly addicted to them. First it was DAoC that was like a second job, and then to a much lesser extent WoW. I think if you treat games as entertainment/downtime things then they are fine. It's only when they start replacing TV, and then reading, and hanging out with friends, etc... that they really become an issue.
- mozumder 10y ago
  Overall life satisfaction of a middle-class that where people feel as wealthy as the upper-class also seems to be destroying our labor force among the young. From: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/opinion/the-national-death-wish.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/opinion/the-national-deat... "Nationwide, there are now about 200,000 unfilled construction jobs, according to the National Association of Home Builders. If America were as simple as a lake, builders would just raise wages, incomes would rise and the problem would be over. But that hasn’t happened. Builders have gone recruiting in high schools and elsewhere, looking for people willing to learn building skills, but they’re not having much luck." Why would anyone go work on a farm or construction when they could play video games instead?
  - matwood 10y ago
    Good point. People do not want to do things with their hands. That's not just games though. I would imaging many people on this site make their money just typing at a computer all day. We build abstract concepts instead of physical things. Because I deal with abstract complexity all week, I build stuff around the house and do home improvements whenever I get a chance. It's great and rewarding feeling when building something and seeing it done.
  - XorNot 10y ago
    Yes I suppose it could have nothing to do with the fact that (1) those jobs aren't remotely respected, (2) the jobs pay terribly, (3) OH&S will be treated as a joke, and you can expect to be physically unable to do the work by your mid-30's at which point you're unemployed and unskilled and (4) the work is a wildly unstable source of income. Every time someone talks about trades paying well, they miss the fact that the whole industry routinely goes bankrupt when there's a drop in demand and prices plummet once people start moving into it. Short answer: unless you work one of these jobs already, you are really not qualified to be telling other people they should plan to take them. Tangential to the point: also you'd generally find people who work in those industries play videogames anyway - because entertainment media has very little to do with America's employment situation.
white-flame 10y ago
This is why I like games with a beginning & end, and an actual story. The first keeps you from sinking unbounded time with it, and the latter actually can be enlightening, informative (ie, bringing in mythologies or historical context), and ethically challenging. Stuff like endless PvP matches or MMO grinds never held much appeal to me.
- robryan 10y ago
  PvP for some games can be like joining a sports team. Some people prefer it as a competitive outlet.
jacmoe 10y ago
I agree. But there is one difference between watching a crappy TV show and playing a crappy Video Game: You are actively engaged in playing the game. No matter how trivial it is. Of course, if you pick a more challenging game, like an RPG/Puzzle, then the difference grows greater. I also agree that it is more fulfilling to create something. Which is the reason why I myself like to create ... ... video games! :) Win-win: you get to create it, and play it.
alexchantavy 10y ago
> I've thought about how much time I spent playing games in the past and if I was happy with what I gained from it: I largely was not. I totally identify, and yet somehow I feel that because gaming is such an important part of how I grew up that I would be very sad and never quite myself if I gave it up altogether. To me, a lot of important culture has its roots in video games - characters, storylines, social experiences with other friends, etc etc. It's a definitely time sink, but for me at least, a very important and defining one.
Frogolocalypse 10y ago
I find the social interaction of clan and squad-based play in games like bf rewarding in its own right.
brokenmasonjars 10y ago
I always found myself unfilled with games. To me if anything it was 'work', to get to the next stage, fight the next boss or whatever. That's not to say I think it's a waste. I think for a lot of people it's a good activity. Personally though, a lot of my energy that would be put towards gaming is either put in my blacksmith hobby which is not at all close to professional, it's just a hobby. That and hunting birds that my labradors compete to retrieve.
stephengillie 10y ago
This is a feeling I've recently come across as well. While playing ARK: Survival Evolved, I came across the ARKServers.net server page, which shows the Steam name and play time of players on the server, to generate interest. I started scraping this into an Excel spreadsheet, and combined this with player ingame names, and also their tribe names. This gave me a basic report of tribe strength on the server, which I could share in my tribe's Skype chat. After reading about tracking your Facebook friends on HN, I pressed F12 on ARKServers.net, waited for a request, then right clicked this and copied the cURL link. This returns a JSON payload of user names and play times. I used this as the foundation of a Powershell static site generator, with an HTML boilerplate generating a report every 60 seconds. I registered a domain cheaply with Google and host the site with IIS on my home internet. I soon learned that any Steam server will return a list of players and play times when queried with the correct UDP packet. The ARKServers site was just running a PHP application called SteamQuery that performs the UDP call and turns it into the JSON payload. I'm still working to port this to Powershell. After some time, I expanded the website. Now, the static site includes an HTML5 canvas that combines 3 JSON payloads (server, tribe, map) to show tribe base locations on a rotating map background, with player and tribe listed in menus. The project is pre-3.0, needing bug fixes and a true dynamic map. But making the site has actually been more fun than playing ARK. Code on Github: https://github.com/Gilgamech/ARKScrape https://github.com/Gilgamech/ARKScrape Demo site (Currently inactive): http://gilgamech.com/ARKData/_Wiped_2_4__NoobFriendly_8xT_3xAll__ORP2_S__Wyverns___More_____.html http://gilgamech.com/ARKData/_Wiped_2_4__NoobFriendly_8xT_3x...
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wazanator 10y ago
Have you tried modding or mapping? In high school a large part of my life was spent around learning to map for various games because it felt like a way I could actually give back to the community I was a part of while exploring the creativity of it. I enjoyed making the content and seeing reactions to it and trying to one up myself then I did actually playing the game. In fact it gets to a point where you've seen enough behind the curtain that it loses a lot of its charm.
partycoder 10y ago
What I learned from activities related to being a gamer, decades ago: - Built my own computer from parts, and squeezed more performance out of it through overclocking and tuning mostly everything that could be tuned - Learned about networks, power grids and basic event planning setting up LAN parties - Built a website for my team. Learned to program with PHP and to manipulate images - Made many contacts, many of them software engineers, including the ones that got me my first jobs - Lots of team related administrative tasks like screening and recruiting players for my team, creating strategies and tactics with fault tolerance in case of events such as missing players or reduced network connectivity All this before I turned 18. All these skills and connections turned out to be incredibly valuable later on when I went through financial hardship during college, my former teammates showed up with job offers for programming jobs, which helped to sustain me and my family.
Falkon1313 10y ago
>I've found learning and creating to be more fulfilling activities than videogames. >I wonder if other people share the same joy of learning that I feel Yes, but... Most of my learning and creating has been inspired by games. I started with AD&D (pen and paper, not a video game), then historic tabletop miniature games. By middle school, I was reading 1000+ page college-level books about history because the games got me interested. School taught little or nothing about ancient civilizations, the napoleonic era, or the pike-and-shot era. There were also the WWII, Cold-War, and near-future games that led me to learn a lot about geography, geopolitics, and recent history. By the time I got a PC (still before high school), I was playing some really complex detail-oriented games. There was a lot of paperwork to keep track of game state, tables to do lookups on, and rules details to remember. I learned how to program trying to make things that would ease the paperwork burden and let me focus on the strategy. (Coincidentally, that turned out to be a valuable career skill.) I also tried to make my own PC games, of course. As PCs got more powerful, PC games got better and more detailed (and better than I could make) and I mostly switched to them. Playing simulators like Silent Hunter and 688(I) led me to learn a lot about geometry and such. At the same time I started trying to make PBeM and PBW client software (again, useful career skills involving networking, client/server programming, and data processing/presentation). As a fan of serious strategy games, I was interested in creating an AI player that could actually handle those types of games (which are exponentially more complex than chess-like games). I read a lot about AI and played around with different types of heuristics and other ideas. Nothing really came of that (yet) but it was very interesting learning about learning and thinking and planning. Another genre that interested me were economic games like Wall $treet Raider and Capitalism Plus. That led me to many interesting books and movies to try to understand why companies did things like mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, spinoff subsidiaries, holding companies, etc., and how that related to the stock market. Much enjoyable time was spent drawing illustrations and doing digital art, and learning a bit about 3-D modeling and CAD. That too was largely gaming-inspired, or trying to make art for games. While my skills have atrophied, I'd probably never have gotten as good as I did if I hadn't had inspiration. Generally, my bookshelves are lined with books about topics that gaming got me interested in. My career is built upon foundations of things that I learned because of games. But I can't think of a single time when watching a new episode of _insert favorite TV show here_, or any other leisure/hobby, has led me to the bookstore to learn more, or led me to experiment with new creations, the way that a new game is likely to do. I'm happy with what I've gained from it.

M_Grey 10y ago

I find that videogames fill my "brain in neutral" space very nicely. If I'm just not in the mood to read, or get out, pick up some new skill or polish an old one, hang out with friends or do something productive (and sometimes you truly want to do nothing)... I find that videogames are a nice choice. I especially enjoy combining them with unabridged audiobooks that I might not otherwise bother reading/listening to otherwise. The trick is to make sure that you resist the temptation to allow that empty time (like empty calories) to dominate your life. It's like ice cream... a little is great stuff, but don't make eating it the center of your lifestyle.

droopyEyelids 10y ago
I believe the essence of what you're saying is true, but I dispute the overall reasonableness of what you describe. The vast majority of video games are either built around the principles of addiction, or require a tremendous amount of time in muscle memory training. What you're describing seems like describing how enjoyable it can be to smoke one cigarette a month. (assuming that actually felt good). Could be true- but the odds are certainly stacked against people attempting that behavior.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  You can build the skills necessary to play games over time, and of course it greatly depends on the games you play. I would tend to stay away from pure time sinks like MMO's, and I've lost the taste for 2D fighters. That said, I've been playing FPS' since FPS', and those skills wake up whenever I play for more than ten or twenty minutes. I don't see a correlation with cigarettes, which offer you nothing beneficial, are physically addictive on the level of heroin, and are one of the leading causes of human death.
  - GuiA 10y ago
    > which offer you nothing beneficial Nicotine can have some benefits; see for instance https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6457772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6457772 > are physically addictive on the level of heroin False. They're a bit above alcohol; heroin is much higher. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rational_scale_to_assess_the_harm_of_drugs_(mean_physical_harm_and_mean_dependence).svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rational_scale_to_as... > and are one of the leading causes of human death. Correct.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      Fair enough... if you're schizophrenic and medicated, by all means vape or take nicotine in some form. There is still no real argument for smoking though... it's the worst way to handle something that is already mildly hazardous. Edit: By the way, for an appreciation of "A bit above alcohol", check out an inpatient alcohol detox clinic sometime... it is no joke at all.
    - NateEag 10y ago
      > False. They're a bit above alcohol; heroin is much higher. I realize this is anecdotal, but I feel the need to point out that my father, a veteran ER doctor of over thirty years, has said more than once that based on his experience of patients, he thinks it is easier to quit heroin than nicotine.
      - 10y ago
reedlaw 10y ago
By basing your choices on feelings (i.e. "not in the mood") you are likely to go with the path of least resistance. If instead you choose to do what you prioritize by conscious mental effort you are likely to feel more rewarded in the end. For example, if you decide that learning photography is important and you spend hundreds of hours practicing you will be more satisfied than if you spent those hundreds of hours playing a game. At least you will feel that in retrospect. In the moment, perhaps the game will seem more satisfying. But most people find more fulfillment in practicing a skill or hobby.
- XorNot 10y ago
  This is a surefire way for people to burn out on something. If you never allow yourself mental downtime, then everything you do feels like work. If it's not meant to be work, then it's a hobby and if it's a hobby then it needs to actually allow you to unwind. Some people do surprisingly complex things for this, but the mistake we tend to make externally is view the accomplishment as "work" or something they really need to achieve - rather then something they devote idle brain-time to.
  - reedlaw 10y ago
    Decisions about priorities should be considered carefully. If the outcome isn't fulfilling, perhaps the choice was made on the basis of what others expect rather than what truly pleases. If a hobby is something you really enjoy it will not feel like work. Games can be enjoyed in their own right as well. If we play for pure enjoyment and can otherwise balance our lives then they are certainly a means to unwind.
    - algorias 10y ago
      > If a hobby is something you really enjoy it will not feel like work. Sorry, that's just not true. There are lots of interesting, rewarding hobbies that do feel like work, in the sense that they require a fresh mind capable of bearing a high cognitive load to engage in them. When my mind is fresh you're right, those hobbies are very satisfying to spend time on, but my "fresh" timeslots are mostly devoted to my actual job (phd) these days, which doesn't feel like work either much of the time. Be careful, your attitude is a road straight to burnout.

pokeloki 10y ago

I went through that phase too, but deep down it was guilt- and anxiety-driven. Once I accepted that life is too short to learn everything or be the best at everything, and that I'm already really good at the things I care about and learn a lot at work anyway, I'm quite satisfied to spend free time playing games.

enraged_camel 10y ago
>>but deep down it was guilt- and anxiety-driven. EXACTLY! There is value in realizing that one is wasting time, but viewing a leisure activity as a waste of time simply because it doesn't result in advancement is not healthy. Personally speaking, the important thing has been learning to recognize when I'm in a productive mood vs in a gaming mood. These fluctuate all the time depending on various factors. But I no longer feel like I should be working when I play games or vice versa. It's quite refreshing.

TheCowboy 10y ago

I'm in the same boat and it applies to games overall. I do make an exception for when there is a social component to it, such as playing games with friends. I'm also not advocating against gaming. A game with enough strategic depth can provide that feeling of learning and creativity when you can share and discuss strategy with other players. I feel like the trend in online gaming overall has transformed the social aspect into a more robotic process---getting auto-matched against strangers who never talk. Part of this might be due to the challenge of managing trolls/griefers. But I don't like to feel like the game has served as a mechanical distraction and not something that made life more interesting for an hour.

r00fus 10y ago

Some people like listening to music while doing productive things, some like watching TV. I play slow online turn-based games when at home doing really boring work. I can context-switch, engage my creative mind for 15-30s, and jump back into page 57 of the design doc I'm reviewing. As for intense gaming sessions, I have young kids = unless it's appropriate for them (more and more the case as they grow up) I don't have time for it.

VonGuard 10y ago
OK, now I want to know what games you're playing. I do this too with Starcraft II Arcade offerings.
- r00fus 10y ago
  Nothing exceptional, mainly mobile CCGs or card-based games that exercise my math processing. Games like Hearthstone, Ascension, Sword & Poker, Carcasonne along with a bit of SF4 Volt. Turns need to be done in at most 1m or games should be done in 2-3m max.

marcofloriano 10y ago

I can relate to you. Ten years ago (with 20 yo) i was playing WOW and skipping college. Before that, i was playing competitive Counter Strike and doing bad on high school. Today i look back and think: if i studied and worked more, i would be much far by now. Probably rich. I´m creating an online business where i have to learn and create every day. And yes, i'm very happy doing it and not playing anymore (one year now). But, what if ... ten years ago, playing World of Warcraft would lead me to a rich life today? What if it paid well to be a Counter Strike player? I suspect i would be even happier. But that's not the truth of the world. Yet.

pikzen 10y ago
>if i studied and worked more, i would be much far by now. Probably rich. Or not. Maybe at the same place in life. Studies are not as important as a defining criteria for your life as sociocultural group, or class. I wouldn't get too hung up on it if I were you, what's done is done. >What if it paid well to be a Counter Strike player? If you're a pro player, sure, it does. There are regular tournaments with $1m prize pools, teams like Virtus Pro pay their players generously. There's money in it, if you can manage to be in a top 16 European team. Or top 4 North America because of level discrepancies. That's around 100 spots.
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  No, you wouldn't be rich. Whenever I think that maybe I could have had a better life if only I had done X, it always falls apart on closer examination. It wouldn't have been better, it just would have been different. I still would have been me, and that person just isn't cut out to be independently wealthy, or famous, or influential, or even noticed. In this kind of civilization, I'm a nobody. In the end, it hasn't mattered whether I was good or bad at my job. The world simply does not care whether I pursue sloth or aresteia. It would have kicked me in the teeth just as hard if I was a driven genius or just a lazy smartass. You leave a lot of opportunities on the table when one of your major life goals is to not be the same sort of exploitative asshole that you have always hated dealing with. So I have played video games, still play them, and don't feel even an iota of guilt or regret about what else I could have been doing instead. And I read escapist fantasy/sci-fi novels. And I indulge prurient interests. And I eat too much candy, and don't exercise enough. For me, working hard has always paid off about the same as coasting. If ever I lift a finger to do better for myself, someone comes along and eats up my efforts, leaving me with a pile of tasty crumbs. They're nice, but probably not worth all the effort and sense of moral outrage. If the world wanted me to do more with my life, it wouldn't have filled itself with parasitic and predatory humans.

emodendroket 10y ago

Isn't improving at the game an enjoyable end in and of itself? Getting really good at chess has few extrinsic benefits but nobody's embarrassed about it. Why is getting really good at Street Fighter or whatever any different?

neumann 10y ago
It is! When playing with other people. I find multiplayer (played locally with friends in the same room) games really fun. I used to also enjoy playing alone, or online, but nowadays the level of story telling doesn't grip me so all that's left is the challenge of the gameplay and as I got older, it feels like I am just figuring out the designer's underlying blueprint.
tradersam 10y ago
I think the difference is chess is more a mental planning game, Street Fighter is muscle memory. (Disclaimer: I'm a huge gamer.)
- gydfi 10y ago
  I think the difference is just in status: being an excellent chess player gets you respect from a more respectable-looking crowd than being excellent at Street Fighter. Neither gets you quite as much widespread adulation as being good at golf or Formula 1 car driving, while both get you more than being good at Candy Crush. But ultimately they're all just games.
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- enraged_camel 10y ago
  Sure but Street Fighter is a very specific type of game. Take something like Civilization that requires tons of research, planning and critical thinking. Those types of skills are more applicable to other things outside of the game.

btown 10y ago

I feel like a lot of people desire validation and achievement as short-term feedback. When we go through middle and high school, you can find achievement in short-term feedback on academic assignments, or in extracurricular activities where competitive matchups are rather frequent. (The American focus on short-term "A for Effort" grading is debatable, in this context.) Then you go to college or the real world, and suddenly the goalposts become much further away, all eggs in a nebulous basket: academic research that takes years to gain the next level of credentials, career progression, dating, financial stability. Learning requires you to subconsciously justify self-designed goalposts - you have to set your own goals for when you can be happy with what you've learned - and that's just as nebulous as the real world. I think many gamers would envy, and aspire to, your ability to have confidence in self-set learning goalposts. But rather than despair at not being able to do so, if they can sit down on their couch and be spoon-fed goals, a process to get there, and Steam Trophies when they do... and they are truly legitimately happy (a local rather than global maximum, to be sure, but who ever achieves the global maximum of happiness anyways?)... who's to argue against that? Efforts like Khan Academy and Duolingo understand this dynamic; they break things down into achievable interim goals, with flashy rewards as you progress. But it's hard for serious learning apps to reach the mental intensity and dopamine release of, say, a successful boss fight. A company that can figure that out would do a lot of good for humanity... but why wouldn't they just be a game studio instead?

hinkley 10y ago
See also Jane McGonigal, who has done some work specifically around those self-defined goal posts. One reason why AI is being employed for some problems is based on what we know about human problem solving. For instance, a human could come up with a near-optimal solution to the Traveling Salesman problem in under a minute. Long before a computer could get even close. How is that happening? What are we doing that's so special? Which makes me wonder if we could gamify NP-complete problems and use gamers to come up with better solutions. Like a game to lay out circuit traces, route delivery trucks, or organize a warehouse. Random reinforcement (giving out not just merit based rewards but also random rewards) keeps people coming back but it's a higher goal than beating a raid boss in a game that 95% of the human population has never heard of.

mikejmoffitt 10y ago

A great junction of all of these things is creating games.

cableshaft 10y ago
Damn skippy. That's what I do. I need to play games so I can playtest my creations (and research and get inspired!)

cableshaft 10y ago

I create, and I also play a lot of games (nowadays more board games). I also now spend a lot of time with my puppy. I get enjoyment out of all of them. Also, even though I like to think I can create some pretty cool things, I don't see how I could ever create anything as intricate, beautiful, or full of discovery as Jonathan Blow's The Witness. That was absolutely worth the 40+ hours I've spent on it so far.

jonahrd 10y ago

I feel lucky that in my high school days of excessive gaming, my game of choice was Garry's Mod, and I was really into modding it and creating new gamemodes for it. This meant that beyond the social connections that multiplayer gaming provides, I also had a "portfolio" of sorts, of all the things I learned and created. I definitely don't regret those hours.

jxramos 10y ago

Absolutely, you basically get good at what you do, and conversely you don't get good and what you do not do.

smacktoward 10y ago

Sure, but these things aren't mutually exclusive: you can learn and create and play videogames too. Not every waking moment has to be productive. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, etc. As with most things, the key is moderation: finding a balance where you're getting enough relaxation/leisure to keep yourself happy, while not dedicating so much time to it that it completely takes over your life.

eludwig 10y ago
Thanks for this. I was hoping someone would cover the obvious: games are fun! Why is that we feel the need to justify fun? Isn't fun (a form of happiness) what we are all striving to be able to have more of?
- dvtv75 10y ago
  Sometimes we feel the need to justify fun because it takes away from otherwise productive time we would have had. In the past year, I've racked up more than 400 hours playing RimWorld, well over two weeks just playing that. I'm sure I could have found something more useful and interesting to do than that.
  - meheleventyone 10y ago
    I think considering this as a zero sum exchange is pretty unhealthy. Different activities have very different trade offs. Why is lesuire time considered unproductive? Does everything need to obviously contribute to something you feel is productive? Can lesuire activities contribute to productivity? Personally I think spending time playing games, reading, watching tv and other activities are essential to remaining productive. Not least because they are all interesting input to consider things in different ways. But also because they give me space.
- jessriedel 10y ago
  > Isn't fun (a form of happiness) what we are all striving to be able to have more of? No, we are not all striving to have more happiness (although some people surely are). So long as you don't circularly define happiness as "that feeling you get when you accomplish your goals", then most people have at least some goals besides happiness, and some of us explicitly advocate that many or most goals should not be happiness related.

mooseburger 10y ago

>I felt as if I was lacking in skills that I wished I had, and believe I could have learned in that time I play a fair amount of videogames, but what can I say? I have never felt that way. There are some deficiencies in my life, but the main reason they remain deficiencies is that I'm not even sure how to resolve them. I suppose I don't care much about learning skills because I know I'll never learn everything there is to learn, so I'll always have to defer to experts in certain domains.

lutorm 10y ago

I agree, I enjoy playing Civ, but realizing the absolutely astronomical amount of time I've sunk into it and all the things I could have done instead has really turned me off from it. Maybe it's an age thing; once you realize half your life is gone, wasting time like that seems less attractive than it once did.

chadgeidel 10y ago
I'm not sure we should beat ourselves up over what we did in our leisure time. Could we be "better people" by spending our leisure time better? Perhaps. Maybe we just need a break now and then.
pmarreck 10y ago
At least until you retire. ;)
- lutorm 10y ago
  It's not even that I don't have time, I just have so many other things I want to do, explore and learn that it just doesn't seem attractive any more.

OraclesDyn388 10y ago

I find it depends on the game. The Witness was truly challenging and interesting. It really made me think "how do I solve this". I want to play it more. Things like TF2 and OW are really just re-enforcing muscle memory, and an exercise in "how long can I last all this chaotic audio/visual vomit" (both from the game and juvenile player base). Pushing near 40, I can understand why people saw them as just noisy distractions when I was a kid: more often than not a video-game is a noisy distraction. Re-hashes of CoD and other FPS shooters really aren't teaching anything new. It's exercising muscle memory built up 15 years ago playing the first one.

hanksy 10y ago

This is true. I love games. But after finishing there is definitely a feeling of being "unfulfilled." It is tough.

kakarot 10y ago

I get anxious when I've played video games for too long instead of honing a skill or working. I get anxious when I've been working or cramming info into my head for too long. It balances out. Besides, it's important to allow yourself rest periods between bouts of learning to allow your brain to consolidate the new information and subconsciously draw inferences and review detail. Otherwise you reach a point when you've bitten off more new information than you can comfortably chew. I also tend to play games that involve exploration of worlds I will never experience in my own life, mastery of skills that require cognitive precision and dexterity, or philosophical rumination. I find these experiences to be a positive addition to my world and my understanding of people around me. Now that we are seeing real potential for VR, this is about to reach a whole new level. The line between games and educational tools blend more and more every day. Imagine a war game so visceral that it makes you cry, gives you PTSD, and completely makes you rethink the wars you support. Or full job or skill training courses. The potential for video games to positively impact our lives has never been greater.

liuhenry 10y ago
I also tend to play games that involve exploration of worlds I will never experience in my own life, mastery of skills that require cognitive precision and dexterity, or philosophical rumination. I find these experiences to be a positive addition to my world and my understanding of people around me. Care to share some of your favorites? I'd be curious to check them out.
- kakarot 10y ago
  For exploration/adventure, try Adventure[0]. For skill games, try Nidhog[1]. For a good recent psychologically engaging game, try Firewatch[2]. A spattering of other favorites: Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, the Jak and Daxter series, Antichamber, Dishonored, Skullgirls, all of the 2D Mario titles, Final Fantasy Tactics, Smash Bros, Minesweeper, Dwarf Fortress, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 [0] http://www.2600online.com/adventure.html http://www.2600online.com/adventure.html [1] http://store.steampowered.com/app/94400/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/94400/ [2] http://store.steampowered.com/app/383870/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/383870/

krylon 10y ago

> I've found learning and creating to be more fulfilling activities than videogames. To each his/her own, but to me, video games lost nearly all appeal when I started learning how to program. The only game I still play with any kind of enthusiasm these days is Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. But all in all, if I have the choice of spending a Friday night playing a video game or programming, I'll go for programming almost all the time. (And roughly 99.999% of the programming I do in my free time is mainly to learn about something, not to solve some urgent problem.) I still think video games have a huge untapped potential as devices for storytelling or education or as an artform of their own. But we've only been creating video games seriously for ... what? 30, 40 years? Books and theater have been around for millennia, and it took people quite a bit of work before sublime works of art emerged. (Although I'll admit I was quite happy to discover that there is an open source clone of Doom, and I spent a few happy hours with it. Great fun!)

navbaker 10y ago

>>What I believe causes a game to feel unfulfilling is if after the game is finished the player, and the world, is (nearly) unchanged. If there's nothing to show for it. Maybe in a tangible way nothing has changed, but for me, when I finish a good RPG or RTS, I feel like I have inhabited a different world for a short time. I come out of games like that with fond memories of how the combination of the story, game mechanics, music, characters, etc all made me feel. To me it's just as real and satisfying of a memory as going to the beach with my wife and son or completing a difficult programming project. Every game has a unique feel in my mind: Super Metroid feels different than Baldurs Gate which feels different than Mass Effect. I wouldn't trade the time spent on making those memories for anything.

dmichulke 10y ago

There are games that make you learn a lot. I never thought I'd ever know as much about 15th century ++ history as I do know thanks to Europa Universalis 4. Often I find myself zapping through Wikipedia after a few hours of gaming. And the game itself is very good.

matwood 10y ago

> That's not to advocate against gaming, or to generalize all games, but I've thought about how much time I spent playing games in the past and if I was happy with what I gained from it: I largely was not. I feel the same. I like games and still play them here and there (and enjoy them), but a couple points in the past I was clearly addicted to them. First it was DAoC that was like a second job, and then to a much lesser extent WoW. I think if you treat games as entertainment/downtime things then they are fine. It's only when they start replacing TV, and then reading, and hanging out with friends, etc... that they really become an issue.

mozumder 10y ago
Overall life satisfaction of a middle-class that where people feel as wealthy as the upper-class also seems to be destroying our labor force among the young. From: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/opinion/the-national-death-wish.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/opinion/the-national-deat... "Nationwide, there are now about 200,000 unfilled construction jobs, according to the National Association of Home Builders. If America were as simple as a lake, builders would just raise wages, incomes would rise and the problem would be over. But that hasn’t happened. Builders have gone recruiting in high schools and elsewhere, looking for people willing to learn building skills, but they’re not having much luck." Why would anyone go work on a farm or construction when they could play video games instead?
- matwood 10y ago
  Good point. People do not want to do things with their hands. That's not just games though. I would imaging many people on this site make their money just typing at a computer all day. We build abstract concepts instead of physical things. Because I deal with abstract complexity all week, I build stuff around the house and do home improvements whenever I get a chance. It's great and rewarding feeling when building something and seeing it done.
- XorNot 10y ago
  Yes I suppose it could have nothing to do with the fact that (1) those jobs aren't remotely respected, (2) the jobs pay terribly, (3) OH&S will be treated as a joke, and you can expect to be physically unable to do the work by your mid-30's at which point you're unemployed and unskilled and (4) the work is a wildly unstable source of income. Every time someone talks about trades paying well, they miss the fact that the whole industry routinely goes bankrupt when there's a drop in demand and prices plummet once people start moving into it. Short answer: unless you work one of these jobs already, you are really not qualified to be telling other people they should plan to take them. Tangential to the point: also you'd generally find people who work in those industries play videogames anyway - because entertainment media has very little to do with America's employment situation.

white-flame 10y ago

This is why I like games with a beginning & end, and an actual story. The first keeps you from sinking unbounded time with it, and the latter actually can be enlightening, informative (ie, bringing in mythologies or historical context), and ethically challenging. Stuff like endless PvP matches or MMO grinds never held much appeal to me.

robryan 10y ago
PvP for some games can be like joining a sports team. Some people prefer it as a competitive outlet.

jacmoe 10y ago

I agree. But there is one difference between watching a crappy TV show and playing a crappy Video Game: You are actively engaged in playing the game. No matter how trivial it is. Of course, if you pick a more challenging game, like an RPG/Puzzle, then the difference grows greater. I also agree that it is more fulfilling to create something. Which is the reason why I myself like to create ... ... video games! :) Win-win: you get to create it, and play it.

alexchantavy 10y ago

> I've thought about how much time I spent playing games in the past and if I was happy with what I gained from it: I largely was not. I totally identify, and yet somehow I feel that because gaming is such an important part of how I grew up that I would be very sad and never quite myself if I gave it up altogether. To me, a lot of important culture has its roots in video games - characters, storylines, social experiences with other friends, etc etc. It's a definitely time sink, but for me at least, a very important and defining one.

Frogolocalypse 10y ago

I find the social interaction of clan and squad-based play in games like bf rewarding in its own right.

brokenmasonjars 10y ago

I always found myself unfilled with games. To me if anything it was 'work', to get to the next stage, fight the next boss or whatever. That's not to say I think it's a waste. I think for a lot of people it's a good activity. Personally though, a lot of my energy that would be put towards gaming is either put in my blacksmith hobby which is not at all close to professional, it's just a hobby. That and hunting birds that my labradors compete to retrieve.

stephengillie 10y ago

This is a feeling I've recently come across as well. While playing ARK: Survival Evolved, I came across the ARKServers.net server page, which shows the Steam name and play time of players on the server, to generate interest. I started scraping this into an Excel spreadsheet, and combined this with player ingame names, and also their tribe names. This gave me a basic report of tribe strength on the server, which I could share in my tribe's Skype chat. After reading about tracking your Facebook friends on HN, I pressed F12 on ARKServers.net, waited for a request, then right clicked this and copied the cURL link. This returns a JSON payload of user names and play times. I used this as the foundation of a Powershell static site generator, with an HTML boilerplate generating a report every 60 seconds. I registered a domain cheaply with Google and host the site with IIS on my home internet. I soon learned that any Steam server will return a list of players and play times when queried with the correct UDP packet. The ARKServers site was just running a PHP application called SteamQuery that performs the UDP call and turns it into the JSON payload. I'm still working to port this to Powershell. After some time, I expanded the website. Now, the static site includes an HTML5 canvas that combines 3 JSON payloads (server, tribe, map) to show tribe base locations on a rotating map background, with player and tribe listed in menus. The project is pre-3.0, needing bug fixes and a true dynamic map. But making the site has actually been more fun than playing ARK. Code on Github: https://github.com/Gilgamech/ARKScrape https://github.com/Gilgamech/ARKScrape Demo site (Currently inactive): http://gilgamech.com/ARKData/_Wiped_2_4__NoobFriendly_8xT_3xAll__ORP2_S__Wyverns___More_____.html http://gilgamech.com/ARKData/_Wiped_2_4__NoobFriendly_8xT_3x...

deleted 10y ago

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wazanator 10y ago

Have you tried modding or mapping? In high school a large part of my life was spent around learning to map for various games because it felt like a way I could actually give back to the community I was a part of while exploring the creativity of it. I enjoyed making the content and seeing reactions to it and trying to one up myself then I did actually playing the game. In fact it gets to a point where you've seen enough behind the curtain that it loses a lot of its charm.

partycoder 10y ago

What I learned from activities related to being a gamer, decades ago: - Built my own computer from parts, and squeezed more performance out of it through overclocking and tuning mostly everything that could be tuned - Learned about networks, power grids and basic event planning setting up LAN parties - Built a website for my team. Learned to program with PHP and to manipulate images - Made many contacts, many of them software engineers, including the ones that got me my first jobs - Lots of team related administrative tasks like screening and recruiting players for my team, creating strategies and tactics with fault tolerance in case of events such as missing players or reduced network connectivity All this before I turned 18. All these skills and connections turned out to be incredibly valuable later on when I went through financial hardship during college, my former teammates showed up with job offers for programming jobs, which helped to sustain me and my family.

Falkon1313 10y ago

>I've found learning and creating to be more fulfilling activities than videogames. >I wonder if other people share the same joy of learning that I feel Yes, but... Most of my learning and creating has been inspired by games. I started with AD&D (pen and paper, not a video game), then historic tabletop miniature games. By middle school, I was reading 1000+ page college-level books about history because the games got me interested. School taught little or nothing about ancient civilizations, the napoleonic era, or the pike-and-shot era. There were also the WWII, Cold-War, and near-future games that led me to learn a lot about geography, geopolitics, and recent history. By the time I got a PC (still before high school), I was playing some really complex detail-oriented games. There was a lot of paperwork to keep track of game state, tables to do lookups on, and rules details to remember. I learned how to program trying to make things that would ease the paperwork burden and let me focus on the strategy. (Coincidentally, that turned out to be a valuable career skill.) I also tried to make my own PC games, of course. As PCs got more powerful, PC games got better and more detailed (and better than I could make) and I mostly switched to them. Playing simulators like Silent Hunter and 688(I) led me to learn a lot about geometry and such. At the same time I started trying to make PBeM and PBW client software (again, useful career skills involving networking, client/server programming, and data processing/presentation). As a fan of serious strategy games, I was interested in creating an AI player that could actually handle those types of games (which are exponentially more complex than chess-like games). I read a lot about AI and played around with different types of heuristics and other ideas. Nothing really came of that (yet) but it was very interesting learning about learning and thinking and planning. Another genre that interested me were economic games like Wall $treet Raider and Capitalism Plus. That led me to many interesting books and movies to try to understand why companies did things like mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, spinoff subsidiaries, holding companies, etc., and how that related to the stock market. Much enjoyable time was spent drawing illustrations and doing digital art, and learning a bit about 3-D modeling and CAD. That too was largely gaming-inspired, or trying to make art for games. While my skills have atrophied, I'd probably never have gotten as good as I did if I hadn't had inspiration. Generally, my bookshelves are lined with books about topics that gaming got me interested in. My career is built upon foundations of things that I learned because of games. But I can't think of a single time when watching a new episode of _insert favorite TV show here_, or any other leisure/hobby, has led me to the bookstore to learn more, or led me to experiment with new creations, the way that a new game is likely to do. I'm happy with what I've gained from it.