I know you’re being facetious but, in terms of the raw potential to generate an audience, YouTube is probably the most just media market on earth.
It’s probably much less so when it comes to how much advertising revenue Google shares with its content providers, but the successful folks usually have multiple revenue streams.
I don’t like to play games. Never have, even when I was a teenager. Guess that makes me quite the outlier.
What Suranyi said. My husband has shown me all sorts of games, and i appreciate the skill and art to make them. But playing a game just seems like work. And pointless work.
Linday Ellis (the former Chick) is a respectable film analyst.
The Nostalgia Critic is every bit as much Daffy Duck as PewDiePie.
This thread appears to have wandered into the arena of opinion poll rather than debate. Off to IMHO.
(I am not sending it to The Game Room on the grounds that it is more a general topic about gaming and the people who play them than a discussion of actual games.
(IMHO Mods may disagree and move it, of course.)
I’m 37. I pretty much stopped with Sega Genesis. I got a Super Nintendo when that came out but it was pretty much over by then. I think I stopped around the time I got my first job. The last game I remember buying myself was NBA Jam. It probably took 15 hours of work to buy, and I think decided to prioritize elsewhere. Between that and school, any leftover time was for sports. Most of the kids I played video games with also played sports and some even spent time with girls, but I’m sure there were some who devoted all their time to one of those options.
When I was in my late teens and early twenties, again I was in college, working, and not living with my parents. My friends who were still into video games at that point and getting into the newer systems mostly lived with their parents and went to community college and/or had mall jobs and were single (not trying to generalize here, just my friends).
Now I have kids and they play games. We are usually a couple years behind on getting new systems due to the crazy costs, so right now they are on Xbox 360, some computer games and some ipod/iphone/ipad stuff. They watch some of the Youtubers, and it’s not something I could have imagined anyone from my generation spending time doing.
There are a lot of good things to take away from “gaming” IMHO, but right now I honestly don’t know any other adults who are into it other than playing with their kids a little here and there. Most adults I know have multiple jobs, family, romantic relationships and children that are already very neglected for the most part.
Repeating the ESA data, since people seem to ignore it all the time…
Industry Facts: The average game player is 35 years old and has been playing computer and video games for 13 years.
This IS gaming, though. It doesn’t fit the traditional mold of the fat 30-something living in his parents’ basement, but that mold hasn’t really been accurate for some time. Mobile gaming is a significant chunk of modern gaming, hence why we see these adds for random mobile games. At one point video games were reserved just for young boy, but as the stats outlined upthread point out, its demographic has expanded. Part of that is due to the simple fact that those of us who were kids when gaming started have grown up and kept the hobby, and part of it is that the industry has come to realize that there’s a huge market for adult games, particularly in shooters and sports, and there was a huge and untapped market in both casual and female gamers accessible in the mobile market or more casual types of games exemplified when the Wii was released.
I’d actually say that gaming seems to be taking the same sort of broader approach, though using a different route, as comic books. They were once seen as a thing reserved for young boys, there were some niche films, and a few of the big names would be blockbusters. But now, people who would have been seen as having no business or been shunned for being into super heroes 10 years ago are big fans. Gaming is a bit broader, but still, when I get gaming invites from 60-70 something aunts to play games, I see plenty of women on dating sites who mention their gaming preferences as matter-of-factly as they state their favorite music and film genres, I think gaming has “arrived” as just a part of modern life. Sure, there’s always going to be some who are more or less into it, just like there are people who don’t own TVs or never go to the theater to see a film or, if they listen to the radio, it’s talk radio or audio books, but it’s definitely just part of our culture now.
That’s a little dismissive. All those hobbies can become a “way of life”. That doesn’t necessarily make it a bad thing. Football is a “way of life” for Eli Manning. Some people make their entire career about developing videogames. Or maybe their entire social life revolves around gaming.
Growing up in the 80s, the video arcade was very much part of the social landscape. When I was home for college breaks, my high school buddies and I would have elaborate Tecmo Football tournaments. And a lot of the games out now that I’m an adult are pretty damn amazing.
The problem with gaming excessively is a) it’s a sedentary activity and b) it tends to be an isolating one. And unless you are developing games, reviewing games or otherwise involved in the gaming industry it c) is an activity that largely has no purpose that takes time away from other activities that could be more important.
In my 20s, a number of my friends were basically addicted to Everquest. They would play like every second of the day. Even when we were going out, they would take hours to get ready because they needed to reach some sort of save point, and then they would still keep talking about the game in the car. Fortunately they eventually grew out of it.
My take is that level of gaming can become unhealthy. As a parent with a professional job, I can’t play more than a few hours whenever I can squeeze in some time. But it’s hard to become a parent with a professional job if you spend every hour playing games and not studying or socializing with other people.
Well, it’s not like stamp collecting is an athletic, social endeavor.
That level of anything can become unhealthy. That’s why I never understand all these threads (there have been tons over the years) that ask if gaming is harmful by its very nature. But it doesn’t work like that. Gaming is just a thing. Some people do it professionally… some people do it for recreation… some people do it alone… while others do it in groups… but none of those options make it “a way of life” just by its very nature.
They certainly can be; but calling them “hobbies” implies a level of enthusiasm and deliberateness that goes beyond the way I’d describe some people’s participation in these activities.
Yes. There’s a difference between playing games and centering one’s life around them, which is what the OP is talking about.
This goes to the old question of what makes a “good life,” or a life well lived. Some of the answers people give to this involve:
A life well lived according to such criteria can certainly include gaming, but can it be centered around gaming? That’s a question the gamer will have to answer for himself. In particular, gaming can certainly provide a feeling of accomplishment, but is the accomplishment worthwhile or only illusory?
Well of course it’s illusory. I mean I like SimCity style games, but it’s not as if building a massive virtual city does me any good in the real world.