# Am I the ONLY one who just doesn't "get" the allure of gaming?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-just-doesnt-get-the-allure-of-gaming/157485>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [February 25, 2003, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-just-doesnt-get-the-allure-of-gaming/157485 "2003-02-25T21:21:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![swingchick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@swingchick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swingchick)\
**Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-just-doesnt-get-the-allure-of-gaming/157485/41 "2003-02-27T17:47:52Z")

</div>

> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by SmackFu \*  
> \*\*Ha! Books? Video games replaced TV, not books.
> 
> Also, you’re clearly not alone. (Broad generalization) Most women have no interest in gaming. \*\*

I do , I do. But I reckognize that I am in the minority. 😃

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![DKW](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dkw/32/3118_2.png) [@DKW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DKW)\
**Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-just-doesnt-get-the-allure-of-gaming/157485/42 "2003-02-27T19:35:54Z")

</div>

Many years ago, video games were touted as mindless fun. All kinds of people played them. (My sister, who hasn’t given electronic entertainment the time of day for about 20 years, played them.) Many got hooked.

Advances were made. The hopelessly out-of-touch old guard…Chicken Little news outlets, fuddy-duddy parents, and the like…railed against the pervasive deliquentizating (or whatever the hell they called it) factor of video games. That only increased their popularity. Later, games like NARC and Mortal Kombat brought video game violence to the mainstream. Rants were screamed. Ludicrous, half-baked legislative measures were proposed. Video games’ popularity skyrocketed. The transition from mindless fun to serious fun was complete.

Somewhere along the time…I think it was while the Playstation 2 was in development…the paradigm shifted like a house during an earthquake, and “serious fun” became “insanely overcomplicated, hideously easy to fail _work_ with about 99 bazillion things to remember.” Incredibly enough, most gamers (definitely not me) thought this was a _good thing_. Games got more and more complicated and required more and more time just to figure out. Learning curves shot up like a rocket with a rocket under it.

Hence the modern state of console gaming. 😃

As for why people like this…hell, I’ve been trying to figure that out for years. It’s reached the point where I won’t _touch_ a new PS2 game without Gameshark codes…they’ve become necessary simply to avoid going nuts, let alone have any fun. Know why I can’t praise Beatmania IIDX enough? Because _it’s fun without Gameshark codes._

And do not get me started on computer games. I could _fill_ an entire thread with that.

There’s never any accounting for taste. Just one of the weird quirks of humanity.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-just-doesnt-get-the-allure-of-gaming/157485.md?page=2)