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I'm seeing this a lot and don't understand... where the hell are you people travelling where bringing a console/game system is a concern? I travel for work or

I'm seeing this a lot and don't understand... where the hell are you people travelling where bringing a console/game system is a concern? I travel for work or for vacation. If for work, I'm there hitting "Spit money out for me" at an ATM. Not gaming. I'm not home so I can make much better money in a short timespan to enjoy home time more. End of days is visiting restaurants/bars and either socializing or schmoozing clients. If none of that, I read a book, do work on the laptop or enjoy a movie. Vacation... I mean... seriously, I can game at home. I go somewhere to do NOT home stuff. Why would I travel somewhere and spend money to... play video games like I would at home? Even not vacation, I go to the beach on the weekend to... hear me out... walk on the sand, sun bathe and go in water. These excuses for a subpar games as a service are pretty ridiculous. It's an obvious "We found a solution to a problem that doesn't exist". That and the controller looks so bottom barrel generic. It's like the knock-off to a knock-off of an Xbox controller until they realized it was for a ps3 instead and did a late night change to it. Edit: I get it, everyone vacations differently. But playing video games while out on vacation is like bringing a Subway sandwich to a 3-star steakhouse restaurant. You are there to not-home. But I also don't get the japanese restaurants where they expect you to cook your own food. Mofo, if I'm going to cook, I'll cook at home. I go somewhere to pay a premium for food, it's so I don't have to cook it. I'm 32, stop making me feel like the old man yelling to stay off my lawn!

hombre_fatal 7y ago
Your post makes sense if the only travel you do is your 2-week vacation you get every year while always returning to a permanent living fixture, like a house you own. Or if you just don't mind owning a bunch of appliances. I'm someone who lives abroad and doesn't like hunkering down with any equipment, not even a bookcase. I don't like staying in one apartment for a long time. The only cooking appliance I own is a single cast iron skillet. Something like Stadia interests me if it can deliver. Also, even when you're at the beach all day every day, you still come back to a place to sleep where you might enjoy some gaming or Netflix. And if you are living there for weeks, you'll find that you don't need to visit the beach every single day to enjoy your time there. It's nice to merely do something you love in a place you love. :) I'm generally happy with the few games I have on my Macbook Pro. But even on a $2000 two-year-old machine, I have to play almost everything at minimal gfx settings and I have limited SSD space. Even a game like Civilization 5 becomes a stuttering mess. I don't see the need to dismiss Stadia without trying it.
- FussyZeus 7y ago
  > I'm someone who lives abroad and doesn't like hunkering down with any equipment, not even a bookcase. I don't like staying in one apartment for a long time. The only cooking appliance I own is a single cast iron skillet. Something like Stadia interests me if it can deliver. But that's the rub innit? The only people who are going to be really interested in this product are the hypermobile, and I don't know about your experience with mobile internet, but my LTE can barely keep a YouTube video in decent quality going. With remote gaming, you're now adding controller input to that datastream, outbound, and then rendering those actions and transmitting back to the device to enable anything remotely approaching a good gaming experience seems like science fiction. The people who will be most interested in this are those without a "home" setup, and the less "home" you have, the more appealing, but also seems like it would in turn be the most frustrating experience to try and use. Which is sort of what this piece is getting at: - Gamers don't want it, because we already have our libraries and such tuned to existing platforms and devices - Casual gamers may want it, but they're already spoiled for choice in a massive mobile market, where games just happen on their already very powerful phones This puts Stadia in an awkward position of in theory being the worst of both worlds: the limitations of console, with the network requirements only high tier residential internet can deliver, over devices with limited network capability.
  - dzhiurgis 7y ago
    > but my LTE can barely keep a YouTube video in decent quality going You'd be surprised how better internet can be outside of USA. My LTE can probably keep up four 4K streams going.
    - FussyZeus 7y ago
      Considering I couldn't even stream steam games from my PC to my tablet at enough of a speed to make games like Destiny playable, let alone enjoyable, you'll have to forgive my skepticism.
  - cultofmetatron 7y ago
    you hit the nail on the head. I'm a digital nomad who can't afford lugging a heavy gaming PC around. I have a nice 15 inch mbp (descent at running cities skylines) and an ipad (my notebook replacement) and would love to use stadia! only problem is it only works in north america and I'm in southeast asia right now.
seangrogg 7y ago
Some of us vacation to relax in our own way. I like to go to Vegas because I find it enjoyable to gamble, chill at the pools in Mandalay Bay, and day drink. If I've hit my cap for those things for the day and I'm still awake I'd much rather spend the remainder of my waking hours playing games than pretending I want to see yet another Cirque show. This isn't a defense of Stadia, mind you. Just that vacation can mean different things to different people. Video games already let me escape reality on demand, I don't need vacation for that. Vacation can just be me wanting a change of weather.
- corodra 7y ago
  Hey, when I first visited Vegas, landed at noon, drunk by 2, vomiting by 4, asleep by 5, woke up with a hangover at 10. First time I went from sober, to drunk to hungover in the same calendar day. Fat Tuesdays margaritas man... so good... but will knock you clean the fuck out like Tyson. But... seriously though... I like video games too. But not that much. The whole escape reality, I get it. I enjoy it too. But, if you are escaping reality more often than you are in it... that's a problem.
  - seangrogg 7y ago
    > But, if you are escaping reality more often than you are in it... that's a problem. I do spend quite a bit of time escaping from reality and I do agree it's a problem. The greater SF Bay area suffers from a large amount of empty virtue signaling and shaming others into their morality while remaining apathetic to others plights. Work, while having the potential to be exhilarating, often descends into the myopic and uninspired. Passion projects I want to work on could potentially be wrenched from me by the company I work for via employment agreement which stifles creative desires outside of work. Friends and loved ones aren't available to me on-demand (and I respect that they have their own respective lives to live). Meanwhile, there are virtual worlds that I can still explore. Mechanics I can break. People I can meet. Adventures I can have. And if I feel like slicing someone down as an seductive shade-lady on a magical battlefield I can do so with the comfort of knowing I'm not actually hurting anyone else in the process, ego notwithstanding. When life starts offering me these opportunities for near-free (or around $1500 for around 4000 hours of entertainment, I suppose) I'll take them gleefully. Until then, reality can stand to evolve a bit.
Jach 7y ago
> If none of that, I read a book, do work on the laptop or enjoy a movie. I'd rather play a game, most of the time. And similarly, when I've had enough of the sand, sun, and water for the day, why not wind down with an hour or so playing something fun? If I'm on vacation, I might even be with other people I don't see all that often otherwise, and get to play some multiplayer games. (Board games on family vacations work for this too.) But I don't disagree with anything in the thread about this product really searching for a user. Nearly 100% of my gaming is on PC. If I had a gaming laptop, why wouldn't I just bring that along wherever I go? Not a big deal. And consoles + one controller aren't really that much more space either. There's also the Switch, and even the GPD Win if you want PC games in a very mobile form factor. I've lately started bringing my Steam Link (which I got for $2.50) and a controller with me when I travel, since Valve opened it up to support remote play. Sometimes I use it, sometimes I don't. It works better than I expected though. When I can access my full PC library remotely with no monthly subscription and the base hardware was only $2.50 (remote play also works with your phone, if it's powerful enough, so it can cost literally nothing), why would I ever pay Google money. Stadia is useless to me.
jyrkesh 7y ago
I bring a Nintendo Switch with me when I travel because it helps cut down the boredom on flights, especially international. Books are great, movies are great, but sometimes I just wanna play some indie game on a halfway decent screen with real thumbsticks. Could I do that with my laptop? Maybe, but I'd rather carry just my work laptop (heavy XPS 15, has everything on it, but can't/shouldn't install games) or a personal ultraportable that might not be powerful enough
sixothree 7y ago
More importantly, where are people going on vacation where they have bandwidth and latency enough to play video games over a streaming service!?
executive 7y ago
Vacation is the only time I game. Wonder how Stadia plays on the plane.
- jsjohnst 7y ago
  Given that plane Internet is generally satellite based with at minimum 300ms latency and at most 25MB/sec for all 150+ passengers on the plane, I’m guessing pretty bad. Even if it’s not terrible and unusable, I’m guessing it’ll be blocked fairly quickly like most streaming video providers are now.
- bronco21016 7y ago
  Maybe one day the airlines will offer Starlink based broadband on-board. Then you might have a chance.
daemonk 7y ago
I like turn based games. I don't really care about latency when playing Civilization.
- flukus 7y ago
  I didn't care about latency on old tile based games, but now that everything is 3D with smooth scrolling and animations the latency makes a difference.
bduerst 7y ago
When I traveled for work as a consultant, I would check the XBox more than a few times. Being alone in Sioux Falls, SD in the dead of winter leaves little to do outside the hotel. If you need a comparison, the mobility of the Nintendo Switch is analogous, except needing an internet connection and rendering triple A games.
LukeShu 7y ago
> I read a book, ... or enjoy a movie. Right there. For lots and lots of people, gaming is in the same class of activity as reading a book or watching a movie. It genuinely feels really weird for me to write that, it feels so obvious.
- corodra 7y ago
  Yea, like eating a salad and a Big Mac are the same class of food as well. Feels so weird since it's so obvious. A salad and a Big Mac. They're both food, thus they are both equally nutritious. Go out and get some sun.
  - delecti 7y ago
    Maybe you don't view video games as being "as nutritious" as your personal preferred forms of entertainment, but that doesn't make those preferences universal. I've brought handheld gaming devices on virtually every trip I've made in the past decade, whether for work or pleasure, and I doubt I'm an outlier.
    - corodra 7y ago
      I know people that bring cigarettes to every trip they've had in more than 10 years. Doesn't make it right either. Always having to rely on video games and the internet is a problem. You seriously can't mature through being alone in your own thoughts? People gladly, even smugly, say I'm a bad guy because on the weekends I treat myself to a cigar. Yea, I know it's bad and I don't push that habit off as some glorious thing to be protected. I have my vices. But I don't let my vice control me or become my identity. Everyone is on the kick the last 10 years like "video games define me". Y'all need to stop and go outside to hug a tree.
      - rowanG077 7y ago
        Why do you bring books and movies then? "You seriously can't mature through being alone in your own thoughts?"
corodra 7y ago
I think I'm more shocked how incredibly addicted and dependent people are to the internet and gaming. The conversations here are just, "Oh my god, I can't be without high speed internet for more than thirty seconds! I might die! Planes need super fast internet! My car needs it! My fridge needs it! My dog's food bowl needs it!" Stop. Go outside. Hug a tree or something. You need to realize, I'm a capitalist republican. I'm telling people to hug a tree and I mean it. You people need to hug a tree. Go out, with a book and sit underneath a tree for half an hour and collect some of them vitamin Ds. Leave your phone inside because no, the world will not end if you are without a phone for more than ten minutes. Chill, the fuck, out.
randallsquared 7y ago
> I get it, everyone vacations differently. But playing video games while out on vacation is like bringing a Subway sandwich to a 3-star steakhouse restaurant. You are there to not-home. You say you get it, but... I like home. When I'm on vacation, I mostly staycation, because that's the time I'm not out seeing people and doing activities to perform "happy" and "fun". > I'm not home so I can make much better money in a short timespan I'm not sure business travel is the same for everyone, either... I often take my personal laptop (as well as my corp laptop) on business travel, and if I were a gamer, I could totally see bringing a game system. It's not like my salary is higher when I'm traveling, so after the purpose-of-trip all-day meetings and catching up in the hotel on the normal work that still has to be done after that, I typically just want to veg for a couple hours before sleep.
- corodra 7y ago
  I really have to explain why a staycation is different from a traditional vacation? Fine, a group of tech engineers needs it completely spelled out. Fine. Yes, because a staycation means either you're at home or doing something nearby home to just no do what stresses you out. Most people do these, especially on the weekends. If that means veging out in front of a TV because it's not your dick head boss talking to you, awesome. But why the fuck would you veg out in front of a TV 1,000 miles from home when you're "trying to get away". Why would you do something you can easily just stay at home and do? It makes zero sense. Then do a staycation if you're just going to play video games. You save money and can buy more games then. This was made fun of constantly in 90s movies of families going on vacation, then doing nothing but watch TV in the hotel. It's stupid for them beecause, "Oh, they're boomers, haha, they're so stupid... MY GAMES ARE IMPORTANT TO ME AND I IDENTIFY WITH THEM!" Yea... You need to renegotiate your salary and scope of duties. It's called assertiveness. Anyways, I'm not against veging out. I'm fully for it. Everyone needs to do it from time to time and God knows I've done it with video games too. I've done many all weekend sessions before. It's this weird heroine like dependency people have to them that's showing up in these threads. Then they all wonder why they're so anxious and depressed when they have to interact in the real world. If I said I need to smoke a cigar whenever I travel on a plane, or I'm bored at a hotel, while eating, what would you say? But if I say I have to play video games on a plane, or bored at a hotel or while eating, that's okay? Yea, I ruin my physical health from smoking the occasional cigar, but I do it socially and guess what, I'm not anxious/scared talking to people like most people in HN claim themselves. Sure, I sacrifice some of my health, but sure as shit my mental health is better than the lot that vice on video games. Video gamers have both bad physical and mental health.
Razengan 7y ago
> If none of that, I read a book ... or enjoy a movie. How do you think playing video games is different from those activities? Other than your ability to relate to them.
- corodra 7y ago
  Really, to relate to them? How old do you think I am? Out of curiosity. Without answering, just check my history. My point to all of this, the strict addiction to video games is the problem. But people are flail and cry that they need their games so badly like a baby crying for their mother's tit. People need to be able to play video games on a plane, in their hotel, on a car ride. Seriously?
  - Razengan 7y ago
    > If none of that, I read a book ... or enjoy a movie. How do you think playing video games is different from those activities? We must address that first, as it's the core to this whole ..discussion.
drusepth 7y ago
>But playing video games while out on vacation is like bringing a Subway sandwich to a 3-star steakhouse restaurant. Fun fact: the Subway I had while vacationing in Reykjavik (where I brought my Xbox One) for 3 months was the best Subway I've ever had in my life. Sometimes having something familiar in a new location is just what you need to spice up your vacation. :)
JCharante 7y ago
> I get it, everyone vacations differently > You are there to not-home Some people take multi-month long vacations. To expect them to give up video games is a bit much.
- gordaco 7y ago
  Or multi-month long business trips (I know a lot of people in this situation); if I was in that situation, you bet I would take some form of video game system with me. I already do when I travel alone, even if just for the 1-2 hours at the hotel between dinner and bed (I've always hated nightlife, the way most people understand it). In fact these hours usually become the most relaxing moments of the whole trip.
xbmcuser 7y ago
I don't have a console or a gaming pc but I have been using the nvidia shield and its Geforce streaming service for playing a few of my steam library of games. It is not the exact same experience as you would get from a console or a gaming pc but for me it is good enough. Specially considering me being in asia and all the nvidia servers I am usually connected to are in NA or Europe as no nvidia asian server available. With the google internet infrastructure worldwide I think they can improve on what nvidia is doing which for me is already usable if not perfect.

hombre_fatal 7y ago

Your post makes sense if the only travel you do is your 2-week vacation you get every year while always returning to a permanent living fixture, like a house you own. Or if you just don't mind owning a bunch of appliances. I'm someone who lives abroad and doesn't like hunkering down with any equipment, not even a bookcase. I don't like staying in one apartment for a long time. The only cooking appliance I own is a single cast iron skillet. Something like Stadia interests me if it can deliver. Also, even when you're at the beach all day every day, you still come back to a place to sleep where you might enjoy some gaming or Netflix. And if you are living there for weeks, you'll find that you don't need to visit the beach every single day to enjoy your time there. It's nice to merely do something you love in a place you love. :) I'm generally happy with the few games I have on my Macbook Pro. But even on a $2000 two-year-old machine, I have to play almost everything at minimal gfx settings and I have limited SSD space. Even a game like Civilization 5 becomes a stuttering mess. I don't see the need to dismiss Stadia without trying it.

FussyZeus 7y ago
> I'm someone who lives abroad and doesn't like hunkering down with any equipment, not even a bookcase. I don't like staying in one apartment for a long time. The only cooking appliance I own is a single cast iron skillet. Something like Stadia interests me if it can deliver. But that's the rub innit? The only people who are going to be really interested in this product are the hypermobile, and I don't know about your experience with mobile internet, but my LTE can barely keep a YouTube video in decent quality going. With remote gaming, you're now adding controller input to that datastream, outbound, and then rendering those actions and transmitting back to the device to enable anything remotely approaching a good gaming experience seems like science fiction. The people who will be most interested in this are those without a "home" setup, and the less "home" you have, the more appealing, but also seems like it would in turn be the most frustrating experience to try and use. Which is sort of what this piece is getting at: - Gamers don't want it, because we already have our libraries and such tuned to existing platforms and devices - Casual gamers may want it, but they're already spoiled for choice in a massive mobile market, where games just happen on their already very powerful phones This puts Stadia in an awkward position of in theory being the worst of both worlds: the limitations of console, with the network requirements only high tier residential internet can deliver, over devices with limited network capability.
- dzhiurgis 7y ago
  > but my LTE can barely keep a YouTube video in decent quality going You'd be surprised how better internet can be outside of USA. My LTE can probably keep up four 4K streams going.
  - FussyZeus 7y ago
    Considering I couldn't even stream steam games from my PC to my tablet at enough of a speed to make games like Destiny playable, let alone enjoyable, you'll have to forgive my skepticism.
- cultofmetatron 7y ago
  you hit the nail on the head. I'm a digital nomad who can't afford lugging a heavy gaming PC around. I have a nice 15 inch mbp (descent at running cities skylines) and an ipad (my notebook replacement) and would love to use stadia! only problem is it only works in north america and I'm in southeast asia right now.

seangrogg 7y ago

Some of us vacation to relax in our own way. I like to go to Vegas because I find it enjoyable to gamble, chill at the pools in Mandalay Bay, and day drink. If I've hit my cap for those things for the day and I'm still awake I'd much rather spend the remainder of my waking hours playing games than pretending I want to see yet another Cirque show. This isn't a defense of Stadia, mind you. Just that vacation can mean different things to different people. Video games already let me escape reality on demand, I don't need vacation for that. Vacation can just be me wanting a change of weather.

corodra 7y ago
Hey, when I first visited Vegas, landed at noon, drunk by 2, vomiting by 4, asleep by 5, woke up with a hangover at 10. First time I went from sober, to drunk to hungover in the same calendar day. Fat Tuesdays margaritas man... so good... but will knock you clean the fuck out like Tyson. But... seriously though... I like video games too. But not that much. The whole escape reality, I get it. I enjoy it too. But, if you are escaping reality more often than you are in it... that's a problem.
- seangrogg 7y ago
  > But, if you are escaping reality more often than you are in it... that's a problem. I do spend quite a bit of time escaping from reality and I do agree it's a problem. The greater SF Bay area suffers from a large amount of empty virtue signaling and shaming others into their morality while remaining apathetic to others plights. Work, while having the potential to be exhilarating, often descends into the myopic and uninspired. Passion projects I want to work on could potentially be wrenched from me by the company I work for via employment agreement which stifles creative desires outside of work. Friends and loved ones aren't available to me on-demand (and I respect that they have their own respective lives to live). Meanwhile, there are virtual worlds that I can still explore. Mechanics I can break. People I can meet. Adventures I can have. And if I feel like slicing someone down as an seductive shade-lady on a magical battlefield I can do so with the comfort of knowing I'm not actually hurting anyone else in the process, ego notwithstanding. When life starts offering me these opportunities for near-free (or around $1500 for around 4000 hours of entertainment, I suppose) I'll take them gleefully. Until then, reality can stand to evolve a bit.

Jach 7y ago

> If none of that, I read a book, do work on the laptop or enjoy a movie. I'd rather play a game, most of the time. And similarly, when I've had enough of the sand, sun, and water for the day, why not wind down with an hour or so playing something fun? If I'm on vacation, I might even be with other people I don't see all that often otherwise, and get to play some multiplayer games. (Board games on family vacations work for this too.) But I don't disagree with anything in the thread about this product really searching for a user. Nearly 100% of my gaming is on PC. If I had a gaming laptop, why wouldn't I just bring that along wherever I go? Not a big deal. And consoles + one controller aren't really that much more space either. There's also the Switch, and even the GPD Win if you want PC games in a very mobile form factor. I've lately started bringing my Steam Link (which I got for $2.50) and a controller with me when I travel, since Valve opened it up to support remote play. Sometimes I use it, sometimes I don't. It works better than I expected though. When I can access my full PC library remotely with no monthly subscription and the base hardware was only $2.50 (remote play also works with your phone, if it's powerful enough, so it can cost literally nothing), why would I ever pay Google money. Stadia is useless to me.

jyrkesh 7y ago

I bring a Nintendo Switch with me when I travel because it helps cut down the boredom on flights, especially international. Books are great, movies are great, but sometimes I just wanna play some indie game on a halfway decent screen with real thumbsticks. Could I do that with my laptop? Maybe, but I'd rather carry just my work laptop (heavy XPS 15, has everything on it, but can't/shouldn't install games) or a personal ultraportable that might not be powerful enough

sixothree 7y ago

More importantly, where are people going on vacation where they have bandwidth and latency enough to play video games over a streaming service!?

executive 7y ago

Vacation is the only time I game. Wonder how Stadia plays on the plane.

jsjohnst 7y ago
Given that plane Internet is generally satellite based with at minimum 300ms latency and at most 25MB/sec for all 150+ passengers on the plane, I’m guessing pretty bad. Even if it’s not terrible and unusable, I’m guessing it’ll be blocked fairly quickly like most streaming video providers are now.
bronco21016 7y ago
Maybe one day the airlines will offer Starlink based broadband on-board. Then you might have a chance.

daemonk 7y ago

I like turn based games. I don't really care about latency when playing Civilization.

flukus 7y ago
I didn't care about latency on old tile based games, but now that everything is 3D with smooth scrolling and animations the latency makes a difference.

bduerst 7y ago

When I traveled for work as a consultant, I would check the XBox more than a few times. Being alone in Sioux Falls, SD in the dead of winter leaves little to do outside the hotel. If you need a comparison, the mobility of the Nintendo Switch is analogous, except needing an internet connection and rendering triple A games.

LukeShu 7y ago

> I read a book, ... or enjoy a movie. Right there. For lots and lots of people, gaming is in the same class of activity as reading a book or watching a movie. It genuinely feels really weird for me to write that, it feels so obvious.

corodra 7y ago
Yea, like eating a salad and a Big Mac are the same class of food as well. Feels so weird since it's so obvious. A salad and a Big Mac. They're both food, thus they are both equally nutritious. Go out and get some sun.
- delecti 7y ago
  Maybe you don't view video games as being "as nutritious" as your personal preferred forms of entertainment, but that doesn't make those preferences universal. I've brought handheld gaming devices on virtually every trip I've made in the past decade, whether for work or pleasure, and I doubt I'm an outlier.
  - corodra 7y ago
    I know people that bring cigarettes to every trip they've had in more than 10 years. Doesn't make it right either. Always having to rely on video games and the internet is a problem. You seriously can't mature through being alone in your own thoughts? People gladly, even smugly, say I'm a bad guy because on the weekends I treat myself to a cigar. Yea, I know it's bad and I don't push that habit off as some glorious thing to be protected. I have my vices. But I don't let my vice control me or become my identity. Everyone is on the kick the last 10 years like "video games define me". Y'all need to stop and go outside to hug a tree.
    - rowanG077 7y ago
      Why do you bring books and movies then? "You seriously can't mature through being alone in your own thoughts?"

corodra 7y ago

I think I'm more shocked how incredibly addicted and dependent people are to the internet and gaming. The conversations here are just, "Oh my god, I can't be without high speed internet for more than thirty seconds! I might die! Planes need super fast internet! My car needs it! My fridge needs it! My dog's food bowl needs it!" Stop. Go outside. Hug a tree or something. You need to realize, I'm a capitalist republican. I'm telling people to hug a tree and I mean it. You people need to hug a tree. Go out, with a book and sit underneath a tree for half an hour and collect some of them vitamin Ds. Leave your phone inside because no, the world will not end if you are without a phone for more than ten minutes. Chill, the fuck, out.

randallsquared 7y ago

> I get it, everyone vacations differently. But playing video games while out on vacation is like bringing a Subway sandwich to a 3-star steakhouse restaurant. You are there to not-home. You say you get it, but... I like home. When I'm on vacation, I mostly staycation, because that's the time I'm not out seeing people and doing activities to perform "happy" and "fun". > I'm not home so I can make much better money in a short timespan I'm not sure business travel is the same for everyone, either... I often take my personal laptop (as well as my corp laptop) on business travel, and if I were a gamer, I could totally see bringing a game system. It's not like my salary is higher when I'm traveling, so after the purpose-of-trip all-day meetings and catching up in the hotel on the normal work that still has to be done after that, I typically just want to veg for a couple hours before sleep.

corodra 7y ago
I really have to explain why a staycation is different from a traditional vacation? Fine, a group of tech engineers needs it completely spelled out. Fine. Yes, because a staycation means either you're at home or doing something nearby home to just no do what stresses you out. Most people do these, especially on the weekends. If that means veging out in front of a TV because it's not your dick head boss talking to you, awesome. But why the fuck would you veg out in front of a TV 1,000 miles from home when you're "trying to get away". Why would you do something you can easily just stay at home and do? It makes zero sense. Then do a staycation if you're just going to play video games. You save money and can buy more games then. This was made fun of constantly in 90s movies of families going on vacation, then doing nothing but watch TV in the hotel. It's stupid for them beecause, "Oh, they're boomers, haha, they're so stupid... MY GAMES ARE IMPORTANT TO ME AND I IDENTIFY WITH THEM!" Yea... You need to renegotiate your salary and scope of duties. It's called assertiveness. Anyways, I'm not against veging out. I'm fully for it. Everyone needs to do it from time to time and God knows I've done it with video games too. I've done many all weekend sessions before. It's this weird heroine like dependency people have to them that's showing up in these threads. Then they all wonder why they're so anxious and depressed when they have to interact in the real world. If I said I need to smoke a cigar whenever I travel on a plane, or I'm bored at a hotel, while eating, what would you say? But if I say I have to play video games on a plane, or bored at a hotel or while eating, that's okay? Yea, I ruin my physical health from smoking the occasional cigar, but I do it socially and guess what, I'm not anxious/scared talking to people like most people in HN claim themselves. Sure, I sacrifice some of my health, but sure as shit my mental health is better than the lot that vice on video games. Video gamers have both bad physical and mental health.

Razengan 7y ago

> If none of that, I read a book ... or enjoy a movie. How do you think playing video games is different from those activities? Other than your ability to relate to them.

corodra 7y ago
Really, to relate to them? How old do you think I am? Out of curiosity. Without answering, just check my history. My point to all of this, the strict addiction to video games is the problem. But people are flail and cry that they need their games so badly like a baby crying for their mother's tit. People need to be able to play video games on a plane, in their hotel, on a car ride. Seriously?
- Razengan 7y ago
  > If none of that, I read a book ... or enjoy a movie. How do you think playing video games is different from those activities? We must address that first, as it's the core to this whole ..discussion.

drusepth 7y ago

>But playing video games while out on vacation is like bringing a Subway sandwich to a 3-star steakhouse restaurant. Fun fact: the Subway I had while vacationing in Reykjavik (where I brought my Xbox One) for 3 months was the best Subway I've ever had in my life. Sometimes having something familiar in a new location is just what you need to spice up your vacation. :)

JCharante 7y ago

> I get it, everyone vacations differently > You are there to not-home Some people take multi-month long vacations. To expect them to give up video games is a bit much.

gordaco 7y ago
Or multi-month long business trips (I know a lot of people in this situation); if I was in that situation, you bet I would take some form of video game system with me. I already do when I travel alone, even if just for the 1-2 hours at the hotel between dinner and bed (I've always hated nightlife, the way most people understand it). In fact these hours usually become the most relaxing moments of the whole trip.

xbmcuser 7y ago

I don't have a console or a gaming pc but I have been using the nvidia shield and its Geforce streaming service for playing a few of my steam library of games. It is not the exact same experience as you would get from a console or a gaming pc but for me it is good enough. Specially considering me being in asia and all the nvidia servers I am usually connected to are in NA or Europe as no nvidia asian server available. With the google internet infrastructure worldwide I think they can improve on what nvidia is doing which for me is already usable if not perfect.