Yeah, I think so. Also, after working in his garden he created Pikmin.

AceLosesKing

thefremen

If they want campers, try going to Best Buy this Saturday...

KM91

SFLegend

Purple Dave

AsWater

However, at no time do I head out solely to watch birds. Birds are interesting for a few minutes, but after that, it's time to move on.

SinistarX

execrationist

System_Zero

But until that time comes, I'm spending my days gaming.

boopadoo

Karlott

Tyle-Shananigin

_Ted_

Too cold? Try living 100 miles farther north than Wabasha. And hey, if you get pissed off because people don't let you live in ignorance while simultaneously dooming the rest of us, more power to you.

SSJPabs

moominsean

I, for one, am a gamer and a backpacker/camper. My favorite two hobbies, actually. I wish more people would find joy in both.

naturcrafte

Next the rednecks will realize Deer Hunter 4 at the bar is far easier then getting there truck unstuck in a foot of mud.

I <3 Video Games

Final

Erwin

Reilaos: Reading Comprehension is your friend!

Jac21

I make a point to take my dog for a walk in a woodland area near my house for about an hour and a half a day. Last summer I visited some relatives in Arizona and spent most of that time camping and riding horses. It's healthy to get outside.

I don't think you can blame video games for people not getting outside, though. For generations there have been lazy things you can do inside, and for generations people have chosen to do those things.

Anyone that hasn't been seriously camping or out to a National Park, I suggest you do so, at the very least to see if you enjoy it as much as I do. But if you don't, that's your business, and it's not mine to tell you that you need to get out more.

I think that what with people like Jack Thompson out there, and that dumbass Fox News Mass Effect fiasco, we gamers have started taken on a hypersensitive state in which everything is an assault on our hobbies and indirectly an assault on our character or morals.

This isn't.

tzaketh

lumpy108

lumpy108

topaz420

Also, the eagles in Wabasha are neat for a few minutes, but then they just keep doing the same thing over and over. The weather in Minnesota is always too cold or there are too many bugs to make camping truly enjoyable.

But the worst thing about Minnesota is that it's full of assholes who know how you should live your life and know all the choices you should make a lot better than you do. And they think nothing of passing a law forcing you to accept their better, more enlightened choices in place of your own. Some of those assholes write for the Star Tribune.

Kohath

Strangelove

Nayl

Now that I think about it, I'm glad people like you aren't spending time in the great outdoors.

TOWER_JUNKIE

SuperMaxZero

There's definitely potential, considering we could certainly create things only our imaginations could concoct, but coding complexity hasn't gotten to the point to match that broad paintbrush yet.

Ampillion, Dayman. Fighter of the Nightman.

EbulaJonez

MantisDragon

slikz21

ban_hammer

jp182

deek

well thats my opinion as well. I mean I love videogames but I have yet to see a beach in a videogame that rivals the beaches off most Caribbean islands.

Also, seeing things like the Grand Canyon in person can actually have a MUCH more profound effect on a person then one would think.

When I went to see the Hoover Dam I could care less but my friends wanted to go and they were driving. Once I saw it, I was actually really impressed that people actually made that.

If you are the kind of person that think videos, pictures and videogames can compare to the real thing; then my guess is that you don't get out alot. Try going to a different country and see some different cultures.

jp182

Pong was basically incredibly predictable virtual tennis, but decades later bioshock is littered with art, characters, story, history, etc etc etc, what are the limits of this medium? Will videogames be so mindblowingly awesome in 30 more years that no one cares remotely about the natural outdoors?

I suppose that may seem like a doomsday scenario to many of you, but I for one can't wait :)

btw, i'm an Eagle scout =) hahaa

meandering_drivel

TOWER_JUNKIE

No, seriously. Video games are a pale, pitiful excuse for the real thing. Because last I checked, video games have failed to really represent anything that goes on in the real world in any detailed way as far as nature goes. Maybe I missed something though, I haven't played a lot of stuff on most of this generation's systems... however, I doubt many gaming companies are tackling the AI issues really needed to truly represent a real environment in a computer simulation.

If you're talking purely from a 'graphical wowing' factor, I suppose that all depends on just what you're playing and where you've been or lived in life. I can't say I've seen much of anything in games that makes me think it's in any way better than what I've actually seen with my own two eyes. If you live in a dull urban environment, that might be one thing. Coming from someone who's been tromping through midwestern forests, and done some sightseeing in the Rockies, gaming has nothing on actually being there. But that's merely my opinion against yours.

Ampillion, Dayman. Fighter of the Nightman.

Again it all returns to the idea that the creations of nature are more limited than nature's greatest creation, the human mind. I believe that people, with the aid of better technology, can imagine and then create places so astounding that you'd never care for boring old planet earth again :)

meandering_drivel

Erm.... That's... uh... Xboxes.

Remember when people used to know English? Yeah, those were the days.

MoarFightos

Seriously though, the Great Outdoors is overrated. I used to go camping in up-state New York as a kid, and I'll tell ya, it's not as glamorous as people would love to believe. Taking in the beautiful Scenery was alright, everything else, not so much.

I don't need to impersonate Grizzly Adams to enjoy nature. Brooklyn Botanic Gardens will do the trick just fine for the time being. Until I get the sudden urge to fend off against a bear or Poison ivy, while sitting around a dirty ass, decrepit, wooden bench and eating food while hoping to god those freaking huge bugs crawling all over the place doesn't decide to congregate on my plate, I'll be taking Half-Life 2 instead.

Besides, the closest park around my way these days isn't exactly safe at night. It's the human animals you have to worry about.

KeroseneClimax

Erwin

but the 360 is the most played console right now or not?

Gambare

Erwin

aaa

coffinmouth

Kaneda

aaa

I remember really enjoying playing outside, biking and camping when I was younger, and not just for the fact that it made me miss my computer and made it so much more exciting to go back to it. ...But also for that reason.

Kaneda

SSJPabs

Truepatriot

23albanian

Namtillaku

thegreatgazoo999

Vexorg

What is causing the increase in video gaming? Pirates, obviously.

rkr215

I do wonder how the ability to experience nature by proxy via film, music, literature and games changed the public's perception of the wild.

Given that the most fantastic landscapes i've ever witnessed are contained inside digital mediums like videogames, I often wonder what the value of preserving national parks really is.

Will the human imagination be irreparably handicapped without the natural world, or is a film of the grand canyon just as significant as actually seeing it?

Personally I feel that videogames are an opportunity to experience organisms and landscapes far more titillating than anything nature has produced in the past billion + years... and games are something you can interact with, human history shows that our interaction with nature is disastrous at best, given the number of species that we have hunted and polluted to extinction.

I suppose that's really what humans are, the evolution of nature, and that's what videogames are, the evolution of human culture.

meandering_drivel

Old-school Sonic fanboy

Torgen got his apology faceplate but not his fixed GH3 disc

Not surprising seeing this come from the Star Tribune, which is basically a propagandist newsletter instead of anything resembling journalism.

crider

doubtful

Sollus

skrame ☆

Then again, I'm a former Boy Scout, so it's probably expected of me to live in the damn woods and survive on berries.

TOWER_JUNKIE

Mr.SithNinja

And, yes. It would be epic. So NYAH!

Kirbytheslayer: In-Kirby XMB

gamadaya

Furious_Liver

wicko

P.S.- I'm an ENVS major.

ceilingFANBOY

TOCATL

El-Suave

wisconsinista

Gaming, making teens do anal.

More at 11.

Black-Dog-Howls

Funny thing is parents are so protective right now that IF you get out in the forest you're probably going to be surrounded by enough modern technology it'd ruin the experience anyway.

I still enjoy a good camp myself anyway, but it usually involves much booze, BBQ and skinny-dipping.

Absent Blue

metadae

muu

PaulHunter

Ahsayuni

NeutralFanboy

To be fair outdoor activities loses out to the addictive lights and noise and immediacy of games, movies and television. Sometimes it can be difficult to climb down from this 'wired' state and accept the more sedate pace the outdoors offers compared to the effort free spontinaety of gaming.

Still, once you do unplug it's a nice place to be.

Degreeless

Relax, dude. No one's up in arms around here. :/

And I play video games because I hate being "in the outdoors" to begin with. I doubt I'd go out anymore if I had nothing to play.

gigantor21

@Erwin: Oh yeah? Well, I went out into the desert during the heavy rains in California, and slept NAKED on jagged rocks while it snowed on me.

...okay, I really didn't. But wouldn't that make a great scene for a video game?

Kirbytheslayer: In-Kirby XMB

Erwin

Suffice to say, I'm much more happy staying indoors playing games. Camping is okay in moderation, and by moderation I mean no more than 2 days a years MAX! The other 363 days are for gaming.

PaulHunter

NeutralFanboy

TheNocturnalSun

Erwin

Torgen got his apology faceplate but not his fixed GH3 disc

GAMING IS KILLING PLANTS!

GAMING IS CAUSING WARS!

GAMING KILLED MY TURTLE!(although this one is true in away... neglect)

GAMING IS THE REASON THE DEATH STAR BLEW UP!

Wellhereweare

Gileadxv

...God, we're such nerds.

Ashurahori

jihadjoe343

Erwin

Hell, I'm a gamer and I agree with it.

futurebiblehero

I'm pretty sure that even if I didn't own anything electronic and was slightly retarded, that still wouldn't be an appealing activity.

Moonshadow101

Mr.SithNinja

kw4k

Prior to June 2007, when I joined Kotaku, I had never gone camping.
I've now been camping once, and am going again this weekend.

So my percentage went up infinitely after I started gaming hardcore.
If we average infinity over 150 million, we end up with everybody having infinitely more camping since Kirby joined Kotaku.

Kirbytheslayer: In-Kirby XMB

bigmil87

Phoenixtilt

I read the title, first and thought:

"There's way to kill campers automatically online now!?! Sweet!"

Then i realized you were talking about outdoors camping...

exkon

TalKeaton

gamadaya

Madnoir

TheDollHouse

lanion

Sheen_Latrine