Gamers don't suck at life

http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/200844/2333/Studies-claim-videogame-players-enjoy-richer-better-lives

Take THAT mum!

...

Actually, not to belittle my favorite pastime but I think that richer folk playing Games is symptomatic of Games being an expensive pastime more then Games themselves having any bearing on success.

One study undertaken for a gaming industry organisation and the other for a gaming website. I wonder if they'd have been published if the results couldn't be made to look good?

Good point Grey.

Captain Red said:

Take THAT mum!

...

Actually, not to belittle my favorite pastime but I think that richer folk playing Games is symptomatic of Games being an expensive pastime more then Games themselves having any bearing on success.

Video games are cheaper than movies, music, and possibly books. They're definitely cheaper than going out to some venue. I'm talking in terms of hours of enjoyment versus money spent.

It's creepy when you read a news article and it resembles a self-profile.

For the whole thing on making money, it sounds believable!

Lets take two types of students: a party boy, and a gamer. I bet that the gamer is going to get a better job and possibly have a better life in the long run. There's exceptions of course, but generally speaking the more dorment students tend to focus on schoolwork better.

This study sounds weird. My roommate spends every waking hour playing video games, while I play on average about an hour per day, maybe a little more. He = fat, smelly, with no social life, with crap job. Me = goes out and has fun all the time, even at work.

I've recently kind of abandoned gaming, usually just playing a couple hours on my days off (much less than I used to). Since then, I've been having a lot more fun, going for walks, going out and drinking with friends, and that sort of thing. I have more fun when I go out and do stuff than I do shut up at home playing games.

AndrewB said:

Video games are cheaper than movies, music, and possibly books. They're definitely cheaper than going out to some venue. I'm talking in terms of hours of enjoyment versus money spent.

How about no.

New video game: $30-$60
New Movie: $20 (as long as you don't get the super-ultra mega deluxe edition)
New CD: $15
New Book: < $10 paperback, $20 hardback
Ticket for show at club: $15-$30

As for how often I use that stuff, I play CDs just as often, possibly more, I watch movies nearly as much, and I've gotten a lot of mileage out of some books I really enjoyed. Going to see a show one time isn't going to have a huge fun time-to cost ratio, but who really cares about that? I've memories (and photos, and shirts, and posters, and CDs) to last a life time from those events. Fuck, I'll not be forgetting my last show for a good long while. Met up with a couple friends I hadn't seen in years and I shook hands with one of my favorite musicians.

Just saying.

I kind of suck at life, but then again, I haven't been playing as many games lately. I need to spend more time gaming, obviously.


Yeah, as GreyGhost pointed out, this was a study run by organizations with an interest in the outcome, so it should definitely be taken with a grain of salt, possibly two. Also, there's the old saw "correlation does not imply causation." You need to be from a family with more disposable income to regularly buy new games and all the necessary equipment (new computers, new consoles, and a nice big plasma screen). It's possible to get hooked on old/free games, but mainstream gamers are always most interested in what's new, because that's what everyone else is interested in.

I'm curious about what the non-gamers in this study did with their free time if both categories apparently spend equal time reading. What I have to guess is that the non-gamers spend more time just watching good old-fashioned TV, in which case I'm not surprised that the gamers show better social behaviour in general, as games provide more social opportunities and are better brain exercise than marathons of Crime Investigation: The Investigators of Crime.

There are definitely those whose lives suffer from playing games to an excessive degree, but I suppose that demographic is small enough to avoid affecting the results of a study to any significant degree. (Or maybe they can't influence a study like this because they don't answer their phones.)

Gaming is like anything else in life. Too much is too much. I do agree with the family relations point in the article, but parents have to have some involvement for that to really ring true, I think. My dad played video games with my brother and I constantly as we grew up and we still share a very strong relationship. Hell, my first memory is being four or five years old and having my dad help me play The Legend of Zelda. But the point is that good parenting is just being involved. It could have very well been sports instead of video games.

Danarchy said:

How about no.

New video game: $30-$60
New Movie: $20 (as long as you don't get the super-ultra mega deluxe edition)
New CD: $15
New Book: < $10 paperback, $20 hardback
Ticket for show at club: $15-$30

As for how often I use that stuff, I play CDs just as often, possibly more, I watch movies nearly as much, and I've gotten a lot of mileage out of some books I really enjoyed. Going to see a show one time isn't going to have a huge fun time-to cost ratio, but who really cares about that? I've memories (and photos, and shirts, and posters, and CDs) to last a life time from those events. Fuck, I'll not be forgetting my last show for a good long while. Met up with a couple friends I hadn't seen in years and I shook hands with one of my favorite musicians.

Just saying.

You failed to take into account hours spent on video games versus movies. If I get 4 hours out of a DVD, that's more than average. If I only get 8 hours out of a video game, I'm disappointed. As for your "who cares" point about time-to-cost ratio, don't aim that at me. Aim that at the person who originally claimed that video games are expensive.

Heh... guess all I can say is that there were much worse ways to spend my time, even though gaming took up a bigger chunk of my childhood than it should have. I'm still happy with who I am, though.

7.1 hours a week?? Of course the teenage anti-social couch potatoes are playing far more than this.

I'd hardly consider the people they studied "gamers" but more "people who have played games at some point in their lives"

I've gotten several games in the last few months for $20 or less that have lasted me a good 50 hours on average. Much more than I could get out of any movie.

Doom was worth the money spent. Had to have got at least 200,000 hours of playtime off that bitch. ;)

Yeah, games may be cheaper than other sorts of entertainment, but they're costly in time spent, and more expensive than playing ball in the public park.

Cost aside, gaming might be more common among the families of business-owning people and white collar employees than among those of blue collar workers.

I went through my gaming phases... when I was younger, I had a whole lot of nothing to do so I spent it playing video games unless a friend wanted to hang out or something (and then again we usually ended up playing video-games). Some days I would literally spend 12 hours in front of the TV playing gran turismo, doom, command and conquer, and morrowind, then world of warcraft came out and I became much less social in my free time (I had a 20 hour day once playing WoW). Right now though, I don't game as much, especially since I closed my world of warcraft account (for wrestling season, and to focus on school). Weight lifting and my friends take up my free time now., and of course doomworld right now while I do homework.

myk said:

Yeah, games may be cheaper than other sorts of entertainment, but they're costly in time spent, and more expensive than playing ball in the public park.

Yeah, World of Warcraft was eating hours of my life every day until I canceled my account. These days I actually get shit accomplished.

EarthQuake said:

Doom was worth the money spent. Had to have got at least 200,000 hours of playtime off that bitch. ;)

HELL YEAH!

I don't play games as much anymore, cause of classes and work, plus most of the time i'd rather hang out with friends and go out.

But every once in a while I sit down to play for a little bit. Usually the one that gets me is Diablo 2, before I know it its nearly the end of the day because I'm trying to find all the elite items.

Lich said:

Gaming is like anything else in life. Too much is too much. I do agree with the family relations point in the article, but parents have to have some involvement for that to really ring true, I think. My dad played video games with my brother and I constantly as we grew up and we still share a very strong relationship. Hell, my first memory is being four or five years old and having my dad help me play The Legend of Zelda. But the point is that good parenting is just being involved. It could have very well been sports instead of video games.

I have to agree with you my man, i remember that when i was 3 years old, my dad was teaching me how to play old tetris on NES (the unlicensed one), once i got hang of it, we used to do many-hours long marathon to make sure who's better at this game ;) well it was pretty fun for a long time and still i play nowadays some Tetris like i do play some Doom. Well, it depends how parents raise you, mine raised me in a way that i'm getting good grades at school yet being not serious and balanced towards gaming and life (read: not letting gaming suck me in) unlike those WoW nerds which creep me out loads, have no life, spend hours doing nothing and gaining nothing! Sheesh, whoever thought of WoW should kill himself seriously! but that's about it, i hope you guys don't let gaming suck you in that much that your life turns upside down! Good luck, later

EarthQuake said:

Doom was worth the money spent. Had to have got at least 200,000 hours of playtime off that bitch. ;)

Could not agree more. I don't play games as much as I used to, but when I got an hour or two to kill, A round of Doom for a couple maps, shoving shotgun shells down the throats of imps does a great job keeping me entertained during that time.

How much you spend on a game is irrelevant if you feel you're getting value for money and the game hasn't become an obsession.

EarthQuake said:

Had to have got at least 200,000 hours of playtime off that bitch. ;)

Playing non-stop since January 1986 - surely you must be getting tired by now? :-)

i got over 1500 hours played on ff7 when i used to play it all the time... my brothers and i played it literally nonstop for 2 years straight, made seriously 30 new games of all level 99 characters at different points in the story line, trying to exploit all glitches and bugs and endlessly attempting that "save aeris" rumor.

Games can be like drugs or alcohol, you can get so damn addicted to all that. I would say parts of my life have been ruined by games to a degree, but still I don't regret even started playing. Also I have seen an example on what I would call "wow dating". :P

But yeah, too much can be too much. But games is like everything, just entertainment. You can also end up spending your time doing something else and still be not that social.

I know it's *******ely true, that all gamers aren't nerds, or losers.
Most of the people I know that game, have lives, are not Geeks, don't live on their consoles (or computer).

Of course, the 7 Super Nerds that I witnessed going into a Gamestop to get the "Gears of War 2" game, really trainwreck the normal, as one of these kids carried around a plastic sword. I SWEAR I'm NOT making that up. :)

Then again, us older folk (mid to late 30's and up) are more "normal", which I'm sure you know what I mean by that.

YAY Go us

AndrewB said:

You failed to take into account hours spent on video games versus movies. If I get 4 hours out of a DVD, that's more than average.

What are you saying, that you've never bought a DVD and watched it more than once? If there's a movie you really enjoy, you could get quite alot of hours of enjoyment out of it, watching it again and again over time. And no, I don't mean all in one sit down.

Megaz said:

What are you saying, that you've never bought a DVD and watched it more than once? If there's a movie you really enjoy, you could get quite alot of hours of enjoyment out of it, watching it again and again over time. And no, I don't mean all in one sit down.

Yeah, I've watched most of my movies at least 3 times, and some of them like 10 times or more. Not to mention all the DVD extras.

Inferno said:

For the whole thing on making money, it sounds believable!

Lets take two types of students: a party boy, and a gamer. I bet that the gamer is going to get a better job and possibly have a better life in the long run. There's exceptions of course, but generally speaking the more dorment students tend to focus on schoolwork better.

Nah, I don't buy that. How old are you?

I'm nearly 26 now and since leaving uni I would say the party people on the whole have done better than the nerds I know. Take my best friend - he's always out in London partying, but he's a city whizzkid. You have to party to make the contacts to earn the serious bucks.

Ok, when you're young and sitting exams it's good to stay in and study. But at my age people who stay in playing computer games... well they aren't going to go anywhere. No-one gives Duane the dweeb promotion over Jack the Stallion. When you become a professional employee people analyse your prospects as much on the rounded individual you are as they do your talent for the job IMO. This is what I'm seeing anyway.

pritch said:

When you become a professional employee people analyse your prospects as much on the rounded individual you are as they do your talent for the job IMO. This is what I'm seeing anyway.

It's not so much a popularity contest as much as a likability contest. And business likability is different than party likability. Your likability affects how productive you can be with coworkers and clients and that's what determines promotability.