This has probably been suggested a thousand times but I’ll just add to it. Those that are interested, and want to comment on sports are almost totally different than those that are into virtual games, internet or otherwise.
You have a lot of forums. I’m just suggesting that “sports” and “games” these days are mutually exclusive.
Very few of the people that care about elite field sports where athletes are actually doing something, give a crap about D&D, trivia dominoes or that other shit.
That sort of OP damages your case more than it helps it, you realize?
I run a weekly D&D game. Out of the eight or so guys who show up every week to pretend to be elves and hobbits and shit like that, I’m the only one who has no interest in professional sports. One of the guys who used to be in my group (until he started having kids, and all his free time mysteriously vanished) coaches high school football.
Also worth pointing out: one of the most popular video game genres out there? Sports games. The Madden line alone has sold more than two million copies a year, every year, since 2002. I’m guessing more than a few of the people who bought that game are sports fans.
Lastly, as far as I’m aware, you are the first person to ever suggest this.
How?
Really! I am very surprised. Really, truly.
I follow sports, at least on a casual basis, and I played sports as best as I could, but I have no interest in on-line or video games. To me, athletes that are out there putting their bodies on the line are a total disconnect from some programmer’s simulation even if they are based on the same game rules.
Why even stage the Olympics (as shitty as they are) when a bunch of programmers can dish it up to us for $29.95? We could certainly save the cost of the billions that are being spent to put on the charade.
I’m coming at this from someone who is fairly new to the Game Room Board. I have almost no interest in the non-physical games that dominate the Board and apparantly those that feel otherwise have little interest in what I tend to talk about. So therefore, why not separate them?
I’m not making a value judgement, I’m just suggesting that the two forums are, for the most part, mutually exclusive.
Some of our most hardcore videogame posters and hardcore sports posters are the same people. For a quick example, SenorBeef. I think your premise that the two worlds are mutually exclusive is faulty.
That’s true to an extent, sure, but so what? There’s a pretty big disconnect between playing World of Warcraft and mahjong, but that doesn’t mean we need separate forums for them. They’re both (along with sports) different kinds of games, and they all go in the Game Room. If we were a game-specific site, it might make sense to differentiate to that level, but as a general purpose site that happens to attract a lot of people who have interests in a lot of different kinds of games, just the one forum seems more than sufficient for our needs.
I… don’t really know what you’re trying to say here. You seem to be arguing against the idea that video games and sports are two different things, which seems counter to the general thrust of your OP.
Out of 69 threads on the front page of the Game Room, I count 24 sports-related threads. 25 if you count Formula 1. I see 21 threads about video games. There are 15 threads relating to “on board” games - that is, games actually being played using the SDMB. Trivia games, Mornington Crescent, things like that. And a whopping 3 threads about table-top games. What do these numbers tell us? Well, for one thing, I suck at math, because that’s only 64 threads. But it also indicates that, far from “dominating” the board, sports threads are (at least at the moment) the most popular type of thread in the forum. And correct me if I’m mistaken, but there aren’t any major sporting events going on right now, so this is probably a bit of a slack time for sports threads. Around the World Series or Superbowl, I expect the numbers skew even more heavily towards sports.
So, why should we give sports its own forum again, other than the fact that you, personally, don’t have any interest in any other kind of game?
What are you basing this observation on, exactly?
We’ve had only two Madden threads in the last year, both with fewer than 10 posts each. Doesn’t seem like a terribly strong reason. Certainly no stronger than arguing that videogames should be moved back to Cafe Social because of movie or comic-based games which also sell millions. Batman: Arkham Asylum alone has had about as much activity as Madden has, and I’d wager many of them are movie or comicbook fans.
He was offering Madden as a general example to disprove the idea that there are sports fans, videogame fans, and never the twain shall meet.
Honestly, the OP’s posts in this thread read to me like a jock who wants the pencil-neck geeks out of his locker room.
They are very different aren’t they.
However you have forgotten one little thing.
You forgot to show even one reason why these two different pastimes should be in different forums.
I too don’t see why there is no separation since I have no interest in sports and it seems very different from games. Threads about actually participating in sports do feel more game-ish since in both of these cases you are actually participating. Yet threads about going a-sporting usually end up in MPSIMS for some reason.
I don’t know if I would support a separation though because of real estate issues. But I wouldn’t fight one, either.
Of course, ideally, threads about running or biking would go into the Game Room since they are recreational, while idle chit-chat about your favorite team would go into MPSIMS because they’re mundane and pointless, and debates about teams into IMHO, but I’m not the hall monitor.
(Plus, someone will come along later and say “hey, why not move the meta-participational threads into their own forum, too, because they’re different from talking about participatory games”, but that’s an entirely different argument. I wouldn’t fight that, either, but wouldn’t support it due to real estate issues again.)
There are certain types of video game discussions that would fit in better with cafe Society that The Game Room, in my opinion. Specifically, discussions of plots and characters, the quality of voice acting, or the use of music. I’ve seen discussions of all these things on other forums, but not here.
My suggestion would be to allow threads discussing video games as entertainment or art in Cafe Society, and keep threads to do with the actual playing of games in The Game Room
The game room has so little traffic, relative to the other forums, it seems like a waste of time to split it up…
Joe
Parse this comment you made:
*Very few of the people that care about elite field sports where athletes are actually doing something, give a crap about D&D, trivia dominoes or that other shit. *
Really, could you be more insulting to gamers? If you want to start a jock/geek war, go somewhere else to do it.
Can I hijack this thread to suggest that we split up Cafe Society too?
I watch TV and I sort of follow movies. I contend that the poster base for those is a very different base from the people who like to talk about cooking and restaurants.
So why don’t we restrict Cafe Society to TV and movies and those fatty-fat foodies can have their own forum?
I don’t know what to do about books. They’re pretty nerdy, so maybe roll them into the new Nerd Gamer forum, I don’t care.
There simply isn’t a lot of evidence that this is true. I personally love sports, trivia, and video games.
More pertinently, however, The Game Room is extremely little-used as compared to the other forums. As compared to the other forums of significance it is just a quarter their size; there just is not any pressing reason to split it up. It’s easy enough for a user to select the threads that interest them and ignore the ones they don’t. As it is, The Game Room was split off from Cafe Society not that long ago; I’m happy we have as much as we do.
Logically, I also don’t see the point. Having football and video games in the same forum is no less logical or more overinclusive than having a Great Debates forum where we discuss both American fiscal policy and alternative histories of the Pacific War, or a Pit where you can burn both pop culture things you dislike and rip into other posters.
I think I speak for a lot of folks when I say that I like the fact we have a limited number of forums; it keeps each one seeming lively. I really would like to see the Game Room pick up significantly; it is underused, if anything.
Which wasn’t a very strong point considering the weak amount of apparent overlap. I doubt the OP literally thought no one who likes sports also likes videogames.
Oh, really Re-read the OP:
*Those that are interested, and want to comment on sports are almost totally different than those that are into virtual games, internet or otherwise. *
It’s like an 80s movie all over again.
NERRRRRRRRRDS!
Well, if there’s a forum for games, and a forum for sports, there should be another forum for things that are unclear where they should reside. Discussions about golf, darts, and pool need to go somewhere.
I did…“Those that are interested, and want to comment on sports are **almost ** totally different than those that are into virtual games, internet or otherwise.”
I said “I doubt the OP literally thought no one who likes sports also likes videogames.”
The disparity lies with you.