toneroni

I see. That's all I was wondering, in terms of how active of a gamer you are.

God knows I don't have much time right now, thanks to EMS homework killing me. Just from your post, it sounded as if this was a regular thing, where you don't game often nor did you miss it that much.

Wasn't calling you dead weight. Just wondering where you stood.

PapaBear434

TheBrain

That said though, I do still game like crazy - I have some nasty but only slightly disabling RSIs and I need to slow down a bit. Stop? Don't know if that would really work. I can end up not gaming if I'm doing a ton of something else instead, but I even tend to whip out my PSP on my coffee breaks at work - it's like things just aren't right if I don't "check in" once in a while and log a little progress in... anything really. I guess I could quit gaming if the whole industry went stone cold for about 5-10 years... but I'd have to see it to be sure. I'd probably still be catching up on excellent backlogged titles with little concern to whether new games will come out again.

Gaming is the mortar between the bricks that make up day to day living... It just fills in the gaps. (Though IMO, if you seek constant mental stimulation like that, meditation is virtually essential to avoid mental exhaustion. Sometimes I always have to be doing something, and other times I have to do nothing at all. A game can load you with a lot of needless mental clutter and distraction if you obsess over it...)

fuchikoma

What I do here at Kotaku doesn't hinge on me gaming a certain amount of hours a week. I'm not oblivious to what's going on in the industry simply because I'm not actively gaming 5, 10, 20 hours a week on a constant basis. I have enough faith in the editorial staff here to know if they felt I was somehow not living up to my end of the writing bargain and was dead weight, my ass would be fired. I'm still here!

Maggie Greene

That whizzing noise? That loud, sharp one? Yeah, that was my point flying straight over your head.

PapaBear434

Two kids, a wife, and a college education doesn't lend to my playing for hours a day either. I only play on the weekends anymore, and that's if the wife doesn't have plans for me.

Well, that, and at night when my insomnia sets in hard.

My point wasn't that you can't live a fulfilling life without gaming. I'm just wondering how you write for a gaming blog without gaming.

PapaBear434

crapsh00t

What was I saying?

All this video gaming has wrecked me attention span.

Hey! A quarter!

Anyone want to fry up some bacon?

2NinjasTapedTogether

I discovered a deep mental truth - I don't play video games to play a game. I play them to explore the product of someone's imagination. SL is nothing if not imaginative...

soul4sale

nxp3

I game in cycles. There are weeks where I'm glued to my consoles, and weeks where I don't touch anything. The PS2 has languished since I got my 360. My handhelds tend to languish unless I'm stuck on planes for long periods of time. That's just the way my life goes. If your life allows you the time to game for several hours a day, more power to you - mine doesn't.

Maggie Greene

Sorry Maggie, you didn't make all your X-box live achievements this week, you're not qualified to comment on recent developments within the Asian gaming industry or new developments in the business.

WTF dude? Do you think working in the gaming industry involves 9 hours a day of playing games? I work for a game design studio.. I'm lucky if I manage to get to play for an hour a day during lunch. Should I give up my job for this?

Tarislar

Type of Job
Marital status
number of kids
Interest in a new hobby

That's just a list of some of the potential factors to make someone change from playing games to not.

Myself, I started playing computer games in 1984. I'm 34 years old now, have a wife and a 5 year old, and I'm still playing games.

I don't watch sports on TV, I don't have any other real time-consuming hobbies, and my job has hours which give me about 3-4 hours a day of gaming time.

I'm a 'lifer' when it comes to playing games and following the industry.

MaxSteele

ABigSmall

ach77

Although I live and breathe gaming news, and it´s culture, I don´t really play that much. Sometimes because I don´t have enough time to stop and actually play, and, another reason, is that I love to play with more people and no one lives with me, so I play more often when I have friends around.

I don´t really suffer from abstinence at all. And when I feel like playing a fast game Tetris is always my ready-to-go "partner" lol.

lucasreis

I'm pretty sure it's true. It might seem odd, but remember that a 30 year old today was 10 in the 8-bit era...

SuperMaxZero

From article: "and it makes sense out of the intense, often perplexing personalization we feel toward the games they make."
Yeah, about that feeling toward games. I find it highly amusing that almost every article on Kotaku regarding a specific console has at least a quarter of its comments devoted to "OMG CONSOLE X SUCKS" or "OMG CONSOLE Y IS BETTER."

ABigSmall

If a virtual world has that "air", that let you feel like you're really inside it and you're glad, i need to walk and live in it for some time.
That's also why i can sometimes boot a game and do something at the opposite of what the game asks me.

I wish there were more real daily life locations and events too, but titles like Silent Hill, Ico and SOTC, Vampire Bloodlines, Siren, System Shock, Fallout, Deus Ex,Shin Megami Tensei stuff, Shenmue, etc...oh man.

Experiences with the capital E.

----
Btw, this is my first post here, and i really like your posts guys, nice place :)

AGPym

Hades

Tonx

Anyway, it was a good exercise for him. He rekindled his love of board games, and since then, our favourite games to play when he's around is stuff that he's found and imported from Germany or something. That being said - he just picked up Rock Band, so we're all rocking out pretty hard.

Tonx

Samos42

I don't even think it's that I don't find games exciting or that I'm outgrowing them, but more that the saturation of the market with same-game tactics has ultimately made the industry somewhat boring. To put it into perspective, in the heyday of my e-mania (yes, it sounds as douche-y as it looks), I would go to wherever I had to be - school, work, family occasions or what have you - and my mind would endlessly be tracked on the game that was waiting for me at home. Every step outside the door was a reluctant one as there was always something I desperately wanted to play.

Today, this still happens, but it is incredibly rare. My tastes are incredibly varied in that I pick up the most obscure to the megablockbusters, but more often than not, I simply yawn through most titles. It's not that I'm over my "addiction" per se, but rather that there's so little I haven't seen. For example, as good as COD4 is, I played the same game years ago when it was just a little bit (okay, a lot) uglier. The latest Final Fantasy or whatever is never going to be the same as my first time with FFVI. I'm a massive Splinter Cell and Rainbow Six fan, but nothing compares to the first experience I had with both series. And to be a dick - I've never liked Halo.

In contrast to my years from Intellivision to PSX (PS2 is when things started getting filthy), the games that got me back in that "don't wanna leave the house" mood make up a very short list. Among them are Shadow of the Colossus, Portal, Assassin's Creed, my first Burnout (I think it was 3?), Dead Rising, Metal Gear Solid, Vagrant Story, RE:CV, RE4, DMC3, and a few others. That's not to say I don't love the other popular titles (I may be the only FFXII fan), but rather that I don't get the itch to go home. I have much more of an itch these days to do SOMETHING, but the games aren't there. So I placate that with a social life... but in all honesty, I'd rather be home gaming.

dunetiger reads kotaku, seems pleased

Gouki4u

dowingba

GregoriusH

2.Booze

3.Gaming

4.Not so hot women; usually comes after number 2.

Friscodude

meloncollie

its a sad but true realisation ive come to. all this bullshit about games being more than entertainment? its never going to happen. because the audience is constantly renewing. its forever childish and unsophisticated. kids become gamers in childhood, play through their teens and early adulthood and drop it before theyre 30, with a generation at every stage left behind them and more kids entering into it. there arent any mature audiences to drag the brow of gaming higher and there never will be - all the teenagers reading this and getting pissed off can get back to me in a decade. so just enjoy it for the audiovisual stimulation.

i never thought, back when i showed off my nes to my olds and was dismayed at their lack of interest, that id end up turning into them. i can see the day on the horizon when my son or daughter delightedly shows the xbox 1080 i bought them for xmas off to me and i can only smile and nod, because ive got too much to do.

anyway. ive gone months without playing anything. and ive gone months playing every day. what can you say? life has its ups and downs. sometimes youve got a good book to work through. sometimes youve got a clingy SO. sometimes your jobs being a bitch. so far, i always default back to playing videogames, by choice.

red

For the past few weeks, I've hardly had time for anything because I've had to work on all the stuff I let accumulate for months, and I got in way less than an hour of gaming during that time. But, if I was told I wouldn't be able to play those games, I think it would have a been an issue for me.

Kirbytheslayer: In-Kirby XMB

My TV just broke a couple days ago, so I haven't been able to play console games, but I miss watching TV or DVDs more than the games. I guess it may have something to do with the sameness of games that have turned me off lately. Sure, I get my fix from my DS and my laptop, but I don't miss playing games that much. Certainly not to the point where I begin to wax poetic about it.

boopadoo

That's like an Accountant who hates math, or a literary major who refuses to pick up a book for the pleasure of reading. If you're not part of the community, you don't really have all that much of a viable view TO the community.

Really, it doesn't fall too far outside of the politicians who try to create legislation about the game industry, who haven't played a game since Pong was in the arcade. In an industry like this, it doesn't take more than missing one or two major milestone games, to lose track of exactly what is going on and where the trends are headed to.

On the other hand, I can appreciate if the goal is to include a decidedly "casual gamer" viewpoint. Casual(IE, not enthusiast) gamers have a viewpoint that's often a world apart from the core industry, even if they used to be part of the Core in the past. I've found myself falling square in the middle of that crowd, after being core for many years.

But, running a counter-comment based on the experience of someone who is a Core gamer to your own less-than-immersed lifestyle reveals one of the divides between the groups.

SilverStar95

NotoriousJnX

-

That or lobotomize Steve Ballmer. I'm still trying to decide which would work better.

DaiMacculate

This is how I am. I have a lot on my plate right now and games don't always make the schedule. But I take solace in the fact that I have 12 video game systems hooked up in my house, ready to power up and play at a moments notice if I find time.

Eltigro

PJ Moreno

I'm playing more handheld action in bed nowadays. I have gone weeks before without playing any games - that was a long time ago. When I was busy killing brain cells with a better living through chemistry approach to life.

sadkermit - soon to be banned for standing up to the ummm nazi.

I think they should.

Cpryd001

Aside from the occasional good movie, gaming is my other pass time. Work is 40 hours a week, give or take some overtime with an average of 1.5 hours of travel time a day and you've got nearly 50 hours a week. So naturally, there are weeks that I'm either too tired or have other matters to take care of.

I guess it's the main reason why I lean toward games like Super Stardust or mission modes in NGB or Sigma. RPG's and most action adventure games can be too time consuming and in turn, playing them little by little over the course of weeks can kill the fun factor.

I think at this rate, I may be done with gaming once my few favorite franchises die down (MGS, NG, RE, and DMC)

SG79

I'd elect anyone that stood up for video games. Even if it meant mandatory weekly government based fecal and urine testing. I'd do it.

indiemike

Could I give it up? Sure. Will I ever give it up? I hope not. I like gaming.

baberg

rdj

ShinyNew

altgod

Things were so much easier when I was a kid :P

BigSassy

superfrogsavestokyo

My focus is political science so maybe I can win a few elections and keep anti-gaming legislation off our backs. If that didn't work I was going to write for a newspaper or magazine.

Blind_Evil

altgod

Blind_Evil

I have many consoles that just rest for months before I turn them on. I received 6 Wii games for Christmas, and I've played 3 of them thoroughly, but I still find myself turning on my DS.

I never thought I'd be addicted to a handheld as much as I am.

indiemike

Gaming teaches long term patience not causes a lack of it. After all, how long do we have to wait for a game to come out after it has been announced?

HorseJacked

Not trying to challenge your geek-cred or anything. I'm just wondering in terms of what brought you here and what continues to keep you here.

I know my game time is going to be getting more and more lax in the future, due to time constraints, but I also don't make it a part time weekend job to write for a gaming website.

/hopes this post isn't taken as offensive.

PapaBear434

Blind_Evil

That may be your emotional quota but some people really feel like that when they don't play for a certain time. Yes, I see how the comment can be construed as exaggerated.

rickyyo

She went without games for a week and acts as if she has some huge emotional revelation?

Myself and many others often have periods when they can't game for a week, hell sometimes even a month, and there are no deep enlightenments to be had.

brent_w

[www.theonion.com]

DaiMacculate

Brian Crecente