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posted by Fnord666 on Monday March 06 2017, @04:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the in-it-for-the-game dept.

A very interesting piece of long form journalism cum memoir about the way video gaming has subsumed and changed the way we live, interact, and think.

To the uninitiated, the figures are nothing if not staggering: 155 million Americans play video games, more than the number who voted in November's presidential election. And they play them a lot: According to a variety of recent studies, more than 40 percent of Americans play at least three hours a week, 34 million play on average 22 hours each week, 5 million hit 40 hours, and the average young American will now spend as many hours (roughly 10,000) playing by the time he or she turns 21 as that person spent in middle- and high-school classrooms combined. Which means that a niche activity confined a few decades ago to preadolescents and adolescents has become, increasingly, a cultural juggernaut for all races, genders, and ages. How had video games, over that time, ascended within American and world culture to a scale rivaling sports, film, and television? Like those other entertainments, video games offered an escape, of course. But what kind?

In 1993, the psychologist Peter D. Kramer published Listening to Prozac, asking what we could learn from the sudden mania for antidepressants in America. A few months before the election, an acquaintance had put the same question to me about video games: What do they give gamers that the real world doesn't?


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Monday March 06 2017, @05:04AM (6 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday March 06 2017, @05:04AM (#475496) Journal

    Do you like dopamine? You're in luck [psychologytoday.com]. Virtual reality MMORPGs [lookingglass.services] are coming. Brain computer interfaces [scientificamerican.com] are advancing and will soon be at the point where you will get an invasive implant even if you aren't stuck in a wheelchair. Twitch streaming is a legitimate career path... for those with alpha personalities at least. Betas will need to farm items for sale. That's the future of employment BTW. Universal basic income will fund your small footprint lifestyle [fastcoexist.com] and enough nutrient slurry (make sure to try the new SoylentNews Soylent brand crossover) to keep you alive. Keep in mind that you don't actually need a window [wikipedia.org] in the apartment.

    I had bonded with Leon, a graphic designer, musician, and Twitter magnate, over our shared viewership of online broadcasts of the Street Fighter tournaments held every Wednesday night at Next Level.

    Friendship is streaming. Such as streaming hot piss into a bottle hooked up to your junk while watching MLG pro gamers stream on Twitch/console/Beam [alternativeto.net].

    To the uninitiated, the figures are nothing if not staggering: 155 million Americans play video games, more than the number who voted in November’s presidential election.

    This is an untapped force. Yuuuu- Huge potential for online voting. A lot of commentards here will tell you that online voting is insecure. But they clearly haven't considered how the blockchain can be used to solve all online voting security issues. In fact, unnamed sources [washingtonpost.com] tell me that the SEC Blockchain will launch in about 3 years.

    more than 40 percent of Americans play at least three hours a week, 34 million play on average 22 hours each week, 5 million hit 40 hours

    It's mildly disappointing, but good to see that the numbers are trending upwards. We definitely want to see around 500 million Americans playing vidya games in excess of 48 hours a week by 2025.

    a niche activity [...] has become, increasingly, a cultural juggernaut for all races, genders, and ages

    Let's not be too hasty here. Don't trust bet on anyone over 30 [pbs.org]. Anti-aging [wikipedia.org] needs to be developed to ensure that gamers of all ages find their role/niche in the gaming workforce. But yes, people of all genders can expose their tits/moobs for views.

    “If we go to surveys that track subjective well-being,” he wrote, “lower-skilled young men in 2014 reported being much happier on average than did lower-skilled men in the early 2000s."

    I heard that younger men are getting married less often. I wonder if there is some kind of correlation hidden in the data.

    This he did, but he didn’t come out. There was too much to absorb. He started skipping classes, staying up later and later. Before, I’d leave when it was time for him to sleep. Now, it seemed, the lights in his room were on at all hours. Soon he stopped attending class altogether, and soon after that he left campus without graduating.

    He got lucky! College is worthless for most Americans. He found the aforementioned subjective happiness! Unlike the disaffected youth of days past, he's online and loving it!

    Y’s fine now, I think. He did finally graduate, and today he works as a data scientist.

    Ouch, you're about to get clouded machine learning style hard in the job. At least you'll have gaming to fall back on.

    The first, most superficial level is the most attractive: the simple draw of a glowing screen on which some compelling activity unfolds. There will always be a tawdry, malformed aspect to gaming — surely human beings were made for something more than this?

    But of course. You need a VR headset with high dynamic range color and a high contrast ratio [wikipedia.org].

    video games distinguish themselves from film and television in granting the viewer a measure of control

    We found the first and best use case for strong AI [wccftech.com]. Not designing starships, but crafting narratives in real time!

    Video games are rife with those Pythagorean vistas so adored by Americans, made up of numbers all the way down; they solve the question of meaning in a world where transcendent values have vanished. Still, the satisfaction found in gaming can only be a pale reflection of the satisfaction absent from the world beyond.

    Better to embrace a pale reflection than a murky darkness!

    “We have to change our image, and we have to be more professional.”

    Uh-oh. It's cleanup time. Dank memers are gonna get gassed.

    “Only rich countries can have places like this,” says the bespectacled and crane-thin Cen. “You wouldn’t see this in Third World countries.”

    Finally, a true and honest metric for determining the world order. GAMING.

    a number of writers noted the connection between Trump supporters and the world of militant gamer-trolls determined to make gaming great again through harassment and expulsion

    Trump is a philosopher-God-king for the gaming community. He talks the talk and walks the walk. He doesn't have to touch a controller. He IS the controller.

    Gaming didn’t impact the election, but electing to secede from reality is political, too.

    Yes, this is a secession movement. Reality is seceding from reality. Virtual reality is virtually real and virtuous.

    In conclusion, it's all ogre. We on that Next Level shit [erowid.org]. Oops, wrong one [wikipedia.org].

    --
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  • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday March 06 2017, @05:19AM (3 children)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Monday March 06 2017, @05:19AM (#475501) Journal

    takyon, just asking, you alright?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @09:13AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @09:13AM (#475544)

    Let's not be too hasty here. Don't trust bet on anyone over 30. Anti-aging needs to be developed to ensure that gamers of all ages find their role/niche in the gaming workforce.

    I play more games now at 40 than I did when I was 30. But then again, twitch games have never been my thing, and your link talks about reaction times. I do ok in games like Team Fortress 2 and Gran Turismo, but something like Call Of Duty was never my thing.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @03:51PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @03:51PM (#475666)

      Agree here. I cannot fathom how "Cock of Duty" as my friends call it can be entertaining. Somehow that game is the only game women play, whereupon they encounter foul-mouthed ADHD "tweens" and conclude that it's representative of video games. Their loss I guess, and I guess the women who pick up Monster Hunter when its popularity waxes from time to time (not all are traps either amazingly) are traitors to their gender or something.

      The twitchiest I'll get is probably the Armored Core series, but I especially liked how 5 at least had more emphasis on being somewhat tactical. Big fan of the Gran Turismo series. I think I was in high school when the first came out, and it's one of the few games I'll buy a new system to play. I don't do the whole cockpit thing, but having an actual steering wheel and pedals really helps.

      Monster Hunter is probably the other one I'll get a new system for. If you try to twitch play Monster Hunter like Cock of Duty, you'll get your ass handed to you in short order. That one in particular I've found the 3D on the 3DS really helped me; I suck at gauging distance in games.

      Come to think of it, Gran Turismo is probably the most competitive game I like, though that territory battle mode in Armored Core 5 was fun while there were still people playing it. Generally I tend to enjoy cooperative games a lot more, and I just don't have the time to dedicate endless time to grinding. If I wanted to spend my free time doing repetitive bullshit, I'd just get a 2nd job.