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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: 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.