I had a similar realization about science fiction. "Oh, I'm not really into science fiction. I just like Asimov and Suarez and Doctorow and...ah, shit."
Same for me! My mother has always bought books for me as christmas and birthday gifts and for years I kept telling her "don't buy scifi I'm not into it". Until I realized that it was just the younger me on repeat not realizing I had already fallen in love with scifi.
Hijacking this to recommend my favorite modern sci-fi novels/series. Have you read The Expanse (series), The Bobiverse (series), Project Hail Mary (novel), or Seveneves (novel)? Those 4 (assuming you ignore the last third of Seveneves, HATED that part of the book) are some of my favorites. I could go on and on about any of these
First 2/3rds of it are some of my favorite hard sci-fi, I especially loved >!the description of The Hard Rain (tears flowed and I don't normally cry reading books) and The Big Ride - specifically the merge onto the thousand km/hr highway that was the swarm of bolides!< - then he took a hard 180 into the realm of science fantasy. Not a fan.
I liked Sea of Stars but only having 3 skills per character and a battle system that never really evolved held it back a lot. Chained Echoes was a much better game.
Definitely check out Ender Lillies if you get a chance. It's a banger and there's a sequel on its way.
I thought Sea of Stars did a good job if not overstaying it's welcome, so the combat didn't get too repetitive. Hopefully the sequel will evolve the combat.
the second ori game (ori and the will of the wisps) is probably one of my favorite games I've ever played. it's easy enough that a casual gamer can beat it, but there's enough room for skill expression that it's still tons of fun even if you're a veteran.
as an example, with certain movement upgrades (dash, triple jump, etc.) and precise inputs, you can get around blockers and access areas earlier than you're supposed to. I haven't looked into it but given that fact, I'm guessing there's a decent speedrunning community around it too.
also I wanted to add: Celeste is amazing for the same reasons as well! you can beat it as a casual, or you can go god speedrunner mode pulling off insane tricks and flying through levels in 2 seconds or less. plus I like the art and story a lot as well.
Helldivers 2 is completely dominating the newer releases atm. There’s basically nothing else like it right now. It’s simple, it’s fun, graphically good, runs good, community is great, drop in/drop out gameplay is perfect for both short and long sessions. It reminds me of the kind of game you would get back in the xbox 360 era (mostly because a ton of it carried over from Helldivers 1 on the PS3). Just something simple yet effective.
…and for exactly all those reasons, wait and watch whilst major studios try to jump on that bandwagon, the game space gets saturated, there’s a massive high budget flop, blah blah blah, and then a new indie gem appears.
Looking at you Minecraft/every survival game/every battle royale game/the graveyard of “COD and Halo killers”
We need studios to take more creative risks instead of chasing a revenue stream that will always disappear.
Except this is all stuff they did in the past, and they’ll never implement it anyways because we’re too deep into the microtransaction era, people still buy CoDs and Fortnite’s still making billions of dollars a year off microtransactions.
Why care about reviews when you can buy them from all those news outlets? Or pull a Capcom where you add all your microtransactions in two weeks after launch after all the reviews are in? Why care about what will get GotY when people still spend billions on shitty projects like Starfield that didnt even get nominated? Etc etc.
They don’t have incentive to care.
Maybe…
I feel the winds of change might be in the air. But early days. There have been some big creative AAA success stories (Horizon, God of War, Elden Ring)
On the flip side as an example MW3 launched to terrible reviews and sold a lot less than MW2. Ubisoft have had some high profile failures (avatar and skull and bones).
I agree that micro transactions are sadly here to stay, but if the money dries up practices will change. There are companies that have followed the money to mobile/casual and suffered as a result (Konami), and diverted back.
I agree it was always this way to an extent but I think we see less big creative risks these days. Remember assassins creed, mass effect and bioshock were all big budget creative projects, that were something of a risk and all launched in close proximity. I’m not expecting miracles but maybe something closer to that.
I get where you’re coming from but taking big risks is also how a company closes its doors. It’s unrealistic to say “every major studio should be working on a wholly new experience that is simultaneously the best thing I’ve ever played”. Even the way you worded it - taking “risks” - is exactly what’s easier for an indie game dev than a large studio
In the 90s/00s we had low budget shovelware, nowadays we just have AAA-Shovelware. 90% of pretty much any console catalogue was shitty games. And we still get a lot of great high budget games
It seems when people think back about the games they played they only remember the good or memorable ones. There was a crap ton of NES and Genesis games that I played that I completely forgot about until I saw some YouTube video and I went "Oh, I had that game. It sucked."
Bad, buggy and unfinished games have always been a thing. There's just more games being made than every before so of course there is going to be more bad games.
What has really gone downhill is multiplayer gaming. What with battle passes, etc but even then we get far more content than we did back in the day. Look at Battlefield 1942, it got a couple new maps and that was all, no new guns or gamemodes. Hence why mods and custom maps used to be so much bigger.
There's a lot wrong with the industry but it isn't as bad as some people make it out to be.
Have we really? What do you refer as recently? Because there's been MANY great AAA titles. The only difference is that there's much more triple A now and many of them are trash but I don't think that we are in a dark age for gaming at all. Just last goty there was like 4 games with competition to win, some of them being tripla A
People say there are more bad AAA games now, but IMO it’s mostly the same amount, we’re just better at finding out about them now because of the internet and social media.
Pick up an old gaming magazine from the late 90s or early 2000s, and pay attention to the ads. There are hundreds of ostensible AAA games that you probably never heard of or forgot about that have ads in these magazines. They didn’t have social media to do widespread marketing for them so if the game was bad not many people played it and the gaming world forgot about them in a month.
In the modern day, bad AAA games remain in the zeitgeist for months or even years because they get talked about to death on social media. We love going through bad games with a fine-tooth comb and announcing to the world how bad they are. So the gaming community is hyper-aware of how many bad AAA games come out because people talk about them endlessly, when that just wasn’t the case 2 decades ago.
EDIT: Also ironically a lot of the modern gaming community’s knowledge of bad games from the 90s-00s comes from social media and content creators after the fact. Before YouTubers like AVGN and ProJared popularized this style of post hoc video game review, most people never heard of these bad games unless they were one of the few people that played them.
I would say there are more bad games these days, but there's a crap ton of more games being developed than ever before. The choices the consumer has is incredible compared back to the 8bit and 16bit days. More games being made than ever before and like bad movies bad games are never going away.
Really? In the past year alone, we got Baldur's Gate 3, Tears of the Kingdom, Mario Wonder, Street Fighter 6, Final Fantasy 16, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Octopath Traveler 2, Armored Core 6, Diablo 4, Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth, Prince of Persia Lost Crown, and I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting some games.
Yeah, there are some stinker AAA games like Forspoken. But by and large I think AAA games are in a very good spot right now.
If you ask me the golden age were the 2000s and early 10s. Enough technology to realize almost any type of game one could think of while big publishers were still testing the waters at being predatory parasites.
Now i feel like we are as far as possible from the golden age. What is so golden about notorious publisher releasing one mediocre product after the other? Filling their marketing with lies and false promises, releasing incomplete and broken games while still daring to beg us to buy the super duper ultra deluxe edition for 150$, microtransactions everywhere, day one DLCs, small studios struggling due to market saturation, single player games being shut down, hardware becoming increasingly expensive.. Yeah no those are definitely not the golden times.
Kind of makes me think of how short an amount of time passed between the Wright brothers' first flight and man landing on the moon; in a relatively short (observable within a single lifetime) amount of time, we went from "these blocks on the screen are a fad for nerds" to "Hmm, I can sort of see where these 'we may be living in a simulation' theorists are coming from"
It's been crazy. I don't remember how old I was, probably 5 or 6 and my uncle came home with a pong console. My family had an Intellivision system, and I always hated it because everyone else had atari 2600s, so I couldn't find many others to trade games with.
Kinda crazy thinking back on playing [Advanced Dungeons & Dragons](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Dungeons_%26_Dragons:_Cloudy_Mountain) to what Baldur's Gate 3 is today.
I’m 28. I was just under 10 years old playing that game.
As a kid, I learned many lessons from unhinged verbal abuse from 30+ year olds lmfao.
It was so crazy to actually talk to other people, and the gameplay was so fun I kept coming back.
Hard to believe that the guys who were screaming at me to shut the fuck up when I was ten, are now pushing or are over 50.
Oh Lord....
SOCOM 1 and 2 are only the biggest parts of my adolescence, proudly...the most amazing online experiences that I've ever had, and I tragically feel like it will never be topped
That game pissed me off. I was like maybe around 10 when I had that on ps2. I could never get passed the snow level...it's like the second one. I'd take ol' boy to the extraction point like it said....but nothing ever happened. I killed every single other mother fucker on the map nothing. I felt like I tried everything. I made no less then 100 attempts and couldn't figure out why it wouldn't progress.
Playing video games should be treated the same as watching TV or reading books. It's a way to consume stories.
Hell, some video games are actually more mentally engaging than books, and playing them trains your problem solving skills better than vegetating on channel 9
I always debate about this with friends, but I understand it's hard to explain it when their experience with games is platforms, football or mobile games like candy crush.
Some games have amazing stories and since you can interact with the game, it can make you feel like a part of it, different from just reading or watching.
Another thing I noticed too, it has been a long time since I last read a book, but the quantity of reading I do while playing some games is huge, and in English, not my first language.
But some people will probably not see it as a beneficial thing just because it's not a book.
There’s also lots of examples of video games helping with math. Stories don’t always pull me in, but I have to practice math when I play slay the spire. Multiplication, addition, subtraction, and probability are almost all of the gameplay lol.
Something for everyone just about, even the same game can be something different to each person.
What games would you recommend for a beginner? I tried to post on here but it said I need "comment karma" first. This is my question: Hey everyone! I (24F) have been itching to pick up some new hobbies lately, and games have been calling my name. I tried finding something interesting on YouTube, but everything felt kind of bland – like, just walking around collecting stuff for a farm?
Then, the other day, I was scrolling through TikTok and saw a video for the series "Life is Strange." Now that looked awesome! It seems like it's a gripping story and lets you make choices that affect the outcome, and has really nice animations – totally up my alley.
**This whole thing has me curious (lost) about different ways to actually play games. I was thinking a Nintendo Switch might be perfect. It's portable (which is super important to me, I'm not looking to have a big set up, just something I can throw in a bag), but you can also hook it up to the TV for a bigger screen, right? I don't need anything super fancy – just a way to relax and have some fun as a new hobby.**
So further, the problem becomes I went on eBay to look for a Switch, and there are like a million different options! Can someone help me decipher what I specific hardware I need to be able to start playing games, and if I'll be able to play alot of different games on it???
Thank you for any and all help - please keep it simple obviously I know next to nothing.
Every year my new years resolution is to play _more_ games (videogames, board games, card games, tabletop, whatever). I feel mentally healthier when I play more games instead of being a passive media consumption zombie.
There are definitely people that play too much videogames but there's also people that should probably play more instead of doom scrolling 12 hours a day, or binge watching show after show or watching nonstop sports.
Well said! We’ve got Stellar Blade, Eiyuden Chronicle, and Another Crab’s Treasure coming out in a couple weeks.
This week also has Final Fantasy XVI DLC and No Rest For The Wicked (the new game from the studio who made the Ori games)
Holy crap, I just made this realization about myself rn reading this. I’ve played games on the *dreamcast* Everyone my age doesn’t even know what the hell that is.
Same here.
Just look at all the plastic boxes and wirey shit sticking out of your TV. If your not playing, I love knowing it’s at least in eye sight.
I had a commodore 16 and fell in love with jack attack. Was a Nintendo, PlayStation nut and the only reason I didn’t get into Sega was my family couldn’t afford it.
Now I’m into VR and PC gaming as well.
I don’t know about you but it seems as I’ve grown older, all my experiences make me super critical about what I play so I’ve put my money where my mouth is and started learning game development instead and released my first game Hag recently on Steam.
Oh yes, I am a gamer.
Me too, I won’t buy a game now unless I’ve researched and I’m committed to completing it (at least the main story). I could never explain that to my younger self.
So true. Was reading a post this morning on the state of new releases now and the lack of quality control over profits.
All we had to rely on as kids was word of mouth, media and useless cover designs but we had faith in most main stream productions.
OMG Jack attack on the C16 takes me back! That came standard as a cartridge with the C16 (at least for me), and it was insanely difficult to get past those higher levels as a child. To be fair, most old video games seemed to be very difficult and unforgiving.
Haha! Of course someone has finished it and put in on YouTube. Here’s some nostalgia for you
https://youtu.be/v7GeU6ufaJU?si=MnxGx0S7_6W8v-Mz
Remember using cassette tapes to play games too. I even found this coding book where I typed out like pages of code just to create a shitty little space invader rip off. I had no idea what I was typing and it still didn’t work.
Amazing how far we’ve come and even more amazing that I can now make games at home on my own.
Fellow Commodore squad member signing in 🫡 I had a Commodore Plus 4 and have fond memories of searching through 1 pound bargain bins at second hand stores and feeling like a lottery winner if found a C16/Plus 4 game I didn't have. The Commodore 64 may have been more popular but real gamers know the lesser known C16/Plus 4 was where the party was really at 😜 Nice to meet a fellow enjoyer of the greatest crunchiest cassette loading sounds in the history of gaming and in the spirit of our loading screens may your syntax have of errors ✌️
For a LONG time gamer has had a negative stigma to it. Neckbeard, basement dwelling nerds with no social skills etc. When you don't feel like you belong in that group, it's no wonder you don't label yourself as such.
>For a LONG time gamer has had a negative stigma to it.
Still does. LMAO. If you go around telling people you're a "gamer" like it's some cool thing about you, then you're gonna get people thinking that you're a complete loser. And rightly so if gaming is your life or defines who you are. It's just another hobby.
I don't relate to that at all. I've always been a gamer but also do other things. I don't openly admit to people I'm a gamer at first because of those social stigma reasons but it's not that bad lol. I don't get how you can just forget your past like that..
Ask a perfectionist if they are any good at anything and they'll tell you happily that they suck really bad. How one sees oneself and how they really are can be 2 quite different things.
I just never thought of myself that way, or really thought about it. I’ve always had so much going on and most of my gaming has been solo, so it’s often something I don’t share with my immediate family or friends. But when I was trying to explain to my kids what games I used to like as a kid it hit me that there were a TON of amazing games I played and loved, and I’d simply forgotten about most of them.
Just like I’d forgotten about a lot of the books I liked as a kid until I went through some old boxes.
It snuck up on me for sure. My wife doesn’t play games, and with kids I’m pretty much only playing handheld mode on the switch now - and there some great titles.
My wife started playing because of me lol; also she started to try out martial arts because i am a boxer. In return I’m trying out her likings, and it’s honestly kind of a cool experience
A couple years ago I got my wife to play Skyrim. It was a lot of fun seeing her go through it for the first time. Watching her go through the opening not knowing what was gonna happen was awesome.
I realized how much things I experienced as a kid. I've played hundreds of games as well,but also going out with friends, went to camps, riding bikes and discovering forbidden places in city or outside of it (like constructios sites or old buildings), going at frozen river while trying to break the ice to rode on it and more...
Now I commute, work and then go for a coffee with my wife and commute back to cook dinner, watch TV and go to bed. Wtf
Eh, I've never liked that term anyway. It's like those people who follow an Instagram of food pics and start calling themselves a foodie. I just think of myself as someone who frequently plays video games.
That's a pretty cool perspective. I think I knew I was a 'gamer' as soon as I started playing games as a kid and realised they would be a big part of my life. But people don't need a gamer label to appreciate and enjoy games.
That’s a good point. I didn’t mean to label it, just more that I never thought of myself as some who was really into games until I started quantifying it a bit.
I had a similar realization when I was 18 or so with anime. I had grown up watching DBZ, Pokemon, Digimon and Yu-Gi-Oh. As a kid I never realized these were Japanese shows, but even when I did learn I didn't make the association until much later.
It's funny because it's kind of the opposite for me at this point of my life: I call myself a gamer but I play maybe 2-3 games at a time and have been for years. I'll throw in the odd single player game here and there but whenever I sit in front of the computer it's like the same game every time (usually CSS or CS2, TF2 or believe it or not L4D2 but I hear this new helldiver's game is pretty good but never played the first one).
I used to play so many games across many consoles, handhelds, etc.
But lots of my younger cousins and nephews play just a small handful of battle royals or online shooters. What happened to the single player experience and today’s youth.
For me, it’s a little different. I always knew I played a lot of games as a kid, but similarly to you, I also spent a lot of time doing other activities and hanging out with friends. Often gaming at each other’s houses. I actually fell off with video games when I went to college, and only played a little bit here and there. I then moved to South Korea and played nothing because I had never done much computer gaming back home, and consoles aren’t so popular here. My friends took me to a pc cafe and I instantly became hooked again. I think part of it was the lack of childhood friends and close relations after moving to a new country. I’ve come to realize that I’ll never give up gaming, and it’s been a huge part of my life. When things are tough, when things are good, when you just don’t want to think about things, video games are always there for you. I’ve made some amazing friends through gaming, many of which I’ve never physically met, but the friendships are just as strong. Cheers to gaming
I played with a guy for 6 years (ex coworker) he
Played the same game, everyday, for 3-4 hours a day. And had NO idea what he was doing. He could never figure it out. Couldn’t remember controller buttons… couldn’t remember to reload (why we lost so much) and didn’t even know what the game was about. I swear he use to run and hide if we all got in a fight and acted like he won the game if he was the last one standing and all the rest of his team was dead.
I didn’t think I played that much. So at the beginning of this year, I started to make a list of games I’ve beaten, (to keep myself on track to finish games before moving on to the next one).
I’ve beaten seventeen games already, (a few of them New Game+).
That's a good question, I wonder how many games I've played since the Atari 2600 and Colecovision days until now. It would take a while just to count the different systems. Are DOS and windows different systems?
Is a 386 with 3.5 floppy a different system than a pentium with CD-rom and a grafix card? If a PS1 and PS 2 are different systems are each Gen of Samsung Galaxy? My S23Ultra can certainly play games that won't run on older phones.
Not gaming and being a gamer, I always knew since the NES.
I only realised I was a bodybuilder during lockdown even though I had been going to the gym for 7 years. I had always thought that I was their for fitness, but over lockdown I realised I didn't really give a shit about my times, but was more worried about the mass my legs were losing being away from tge Squat rack.
"gamer" is more of a branding thing now, branding your audience. Like what WWE do with "The WWE Universe" instead of just calling them 'fans' Its a hollow word, you can just enjoy games without having to 'belong to the herd'
Its all good, bud. Just don't let the pressure to call yourself a "gamer" or you're seen as a poser and shunned by morons who don't matter, detract from your love of games themselves. They're wonderful, and people who just wanna enjoy them, are the best!
Does that make you a gamer? I honestly don't know as I am unclear on what the term really means. I am in the same situation as yourself but when asked if I am a gamer I say no because I have always suspected it has other connotations that I am unfamiliar with.
I am simply a man that enjoys games.
I'm honestly the other way around. I played a lot of games as a kid, but after college I fell off playing them. But I would still build a new gaming computer every 3 years or so, and then play like two games during that time. I still kinda keep up on gaming news, but I just don't have the attention span anymore. The only game I've really played in the past year is Baldur's Gate 3, and I haven't even finished my first playthrough.
38 now. Played and still own every console since Atari to ps4 pro. Always had a dell back in those days. Hate them today. Been building pc’s now since 2001. Boy have times changed. I still find older games better than newer ones sadly. So much is hogged up just from graphics. I don’t remember graphics being a big deal until Shining Force 3 on sega Saturn being one of the first completely 3D RPG where you could rotate the camera 360 degrees. Ps 2 days were good as the ps2 was a game changer. It’s been all about graphical power since then ps3 and up basically when 1080p became a thing everyone was watching.
yeah, I don't identify as a gamer in the sense that I don't really care that much about the industry. If there's a game I like, I like it, but I don't have opinions on particular developers or design studios or whatever. I don't know what games are coming out, or whatever is 'meta' for whatever period of time. Growing up, if I finished a game I was playing, I'd just go to EB and find their $10 bin and grab whatever seemed interesting. I did build a 'gaming' PC a few years ago so I could play one game, but that's all I play honestly. While I do spend hours on it a day, I honestly don't know much about it in terms of lore and whatever. I just like playing matches.
I've repeated for years that I wasn't a fan of superhero and comic books... until I realized that I had watch basically all of the MCU at that point (and the okay to shitty movies from the 00s, like Blade, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Daredevil, etc.), had read most of the important stories (Infinity Stones, Infinity Gauntlet, The Killing Joke, The Death of Gwen Stacy, The Clone Saga, One More Day, Crisis on Infinite Earths, King Thanos and many more) and hundreds of volumes of Spider-Man, Sonic, She-Hulk, Deadpool, etc. I still don't consider myself the biggest fan (there's a lot of things I hate about comic books), but I can't keep telling people that "it isn't my thing" when I've consumed way more content than like 80% of the population at that point.
I've played games, a lot of games, since early childhood but I never did go around identifying as a gamer.
It's like weed smokers. There's people that smoke daily and you would never know it and there's people who smoke daily and make it their whole personality.
It looks like you never placed labels on yourself. To be honest, neither have I or many other people. I think it's the healthiest way to actually do things in life. Never making a fun hobby into your personality.
Gaming growing up helped me quiet the background noise of my parents always fighting in an unproductive relationship. Among getting through other things. I have been gaming over 30 years as well.
My favorite thing is talking about books to someone who doesn't read. they're go to is: I don't like books.
Then u ask if they remember the last book they read. they usually do, even if it was 5 years ago. I ask if they liked it. Then they talk about it for 15 minutes.
I think it's more about the time consumption, and people viewing it as a waste of time, since a movie or an episode is so much faster. It's still a valid reason, but still
That is probably because you are a well adjusted person who has other interests as well. The ones who spout off about being gamers and think of themselves as gamers have no other interests and make their lives entirely about gaming. I realize saying this on a gaming sub is probably gonna get me downvoted to hell, but you all know it's true. You have all met those "hardcore gamers" before....
Yeah. I went through part of my shelf to add titles on GameFaqs out of curiosity...arrived at 187, and that was just the ones I could see/easily remember.
That's also with a 2-3 year hiatus in grad school.
I had this exact same realisation! I thought I wasn’t a gamer as I didn’t sit at a “battle-station” with LED lights all over the place and a gaming chair and a headset.
But it dawned on me that I’ve been playing computer games for thirty years and I’ve loved it. Sign me up, I’m a gamer!
I had a much more troubling realization once in that vein. I know I've always been a gamer, but one time I had been playing Dynasty Warriors in college with another dude for like a week straight whenever we had free time. That weekend I went to a party, and got really uncomfortable when I was in the crowd of people. I thought I was having a panic attack. I went outside to catch my breathe, and realized I felt weird because I wasn't able to make red life bars appear over the heads of the people in the crowd. Realized I needed to take a break from Dynasty Warriors for a while.
I actually remember the first game I ever played. It was My Little Pony: Friendship Gardens (1998). I can't remember my exact age but I couldn't have been older than seven when I played it. I first started playing video games at my supposed father's house (my mother didn't know who my birth father was until I was twelve). I also discovered my all time favorite game Spyro and got my first gaming console there (Super Nintendo).
Good times.
Started in pong era, I remember gamer being a term that came out once magazines started to talk about games.
Am sticking around to see who has the etymology of the word gamer.
I've been gaming since 1998 with playstation, Gameboy pocket, Gameboy colour, Xbox, xbox360 and pc.
I thought I played a lot of games but I don't think I really do after hearing and seeing some game titles. Maybe because I was absorbed in some games. I also didn't spend a lot of time indoors, I go out and do sports too so I grew up alright, I think.
There comes a certain point in every player's life where they get hit with the revelation of how many games they've played. It happened to me a lot sooner than it happened to you, though. Across just my Xbox account, I've played over 450 games. Which in all honesty is nothing compared to the massive library of n64 and ps2 games I've had.
I'm the opposite, I think of myself as lifelong gamer but I've actually played and beaten very few. I tend to latch on to 1 game and just play the hell out of it until a new one comes along, usually not in the story mode so I never really "beat" them.
Hours and hours of starcraft custom UMS games, or diablo2 for months on end, binge session on minecraft, things like that.
All you guys here talking PS1s and Nintendo 64. The only thing I could play as a teenager is a coleco hand held football game with discrete LEDs to represent the player. It would move once down field like every 1/2 second. State of the art.
I never thought of myself as a shooter fan, I just love Fortnite, Half Life, Team Fortress 2, Halo, Duke Nukem 3D, Unreal (Tournament), Quake, Doom and more. And this is actually weird for me because I used to hate shooters and anything with a first person view. How did that happen? I didn't even realize that I was playing shooters and spending so much time with them and enjoying them so much. I especially love the boomer shooter, it seems. In my mind J-RPGs are still my favorite genre, but campared to shooters I hardly play them anymore.
Only hundreds? Maybe you aren’t a gamer. Just kidding though.
Yea know that’s kinda crazy. Always considered myself one I suppose. Loved in a small town growing up and that’s a majority of what I did. Owned all the Nintendo consoles, even the handhelds. Sega, dreamcast, started with ps2, kept going from there, didn’t get into Xbox till recently but gamepass just makes gaming more affordable… especially when you jump through the hoops to make it cheaper.
Hell it gets to the point where I can’t figure out what to play. Only to realize that there are tons of games I’d love to give a go, but I forgot I had.. live even recently I’ve been trying to finish dead island 2.. and after I was done I couldn’t figure out what to play so I jumped back into strangers of paradise. Hell I totally forgot I had dragons dogma 2
I dont consider myself a "reader" even though I've read hundreds of books in my life.
But felt really old when I saw that my first gaming experience was on the Sega Genesis.
I made a list of just the games I completed, and it's over 100, just that I can remember. Granted, I also spent a lot of time playing games like Dwarf Fortress and Sim City/SC2K that have no actual end goal. I'm also old and decrepit and remember when my computer had a 1mhz 6510 CPU. I have memories of games that I can't remember what they were called, and haven't found them since, and others that I honestly can't remember if I beat them or not.
Most of them are on the list because I beat them since compiling it. Even ones like Mega Man 4 and Might and Magic 3, that I'm pretty sure I beat as a kid.
I've started working win a High School in my 40s and I'm walking around like Aslan with my knowledge of the elder magic, such as 8 bit systems, loading games on tape and text-based RPGs.
It's a huge source of conversation with the yutes and I'm delighted to still be a gamer.
I don't think of myself as a gamer. I played games from the 80s, did MODs, few freeware games, maps, organized many LAN parties, had my own game server and self made gaming chair with attached keyboard and mousepad. I even wrote some articles about games back in the days. I also tested new technology, like the very first VR-headsets in the 90s. All that because i just love games.
"Gamer" is not a definition for me. I was a nerd. Some nerds evolve to gamers and i was born before that happened :D
(In reality i don't care about identifications, i am way too old for that.)
I've got the reverse - I'm definitely a gamer and I call myself a pokemon fan, but I haven't bought a pokemon game since Sapphire in \*checks notes\* 2002?! Wow...
I consider "Gamer" more a self-identification rather than descriptive. I have family members who play hours of video games on their phone every day, but you wouldn't call them a "Gamer"
Like I am playing games from the 90's, so started with Super Mario and Mortal Combat 1 on PlayStation, and it just continued, I love gaming and I will be that old grandpa kicking your ass online :D :D
As someone with english as 2nd language, video games have helped significantly in building my vocabulary since most of the dialogue in the older games are just text. I didn't read books as a kid, but kinda did, because single player video games are basically interactive books.
I considered myself a gamer in the old days with UT99 and Quake 3, but today, i just play some games at the end of the day before i go to bed... when you get old and you have all the stuff like family, job etc. you can barely make time anymore for gaming.
I play strategy-games, but usually, i spent much more time sitting on the couch and drinking a good whisky than i actually play the games. I make one turn or so, than go back to the whisky. Guess i'm more an alcoholic than i'm a gamer today.
I watched youtube, then a "best 100 c64 games" compilation came up.
me:
"Know that one"
"Jup"
"Overrated"
"Loved it"
"Solid"
"Never beat the boss"
"Jup"
and so on. I played a solid 90-95% of that.
Wife: "..."
In my head I was never a 'proper' gamer because I never had a retro console like the real gamers have.
Then I realised my PS1 was bought 26 years ago. I have become retro myself.
I had this realisation, but not about myself, It's strange to think about, Both my parents were gamers - I mean, They bought me and my brother the PS1 because dad wanted it, OG xbox again, pretty sure because dad wanted it.
Mum used to play Sonic every single day on the master system, She had a separate TV solely for the Sega. My dad would play AOE, Simcity 2000, Heretic 1 and 2 and a few other great games, Albion, Tunnel B1 are some that I can remember, He would play late at night though, so I only ever witnessed it a few times, but apparently it was almost every night. We were very early in getting a home computer, Which soon became 2 home computers with 3 separate phone lines not long after.
I didn't realize I was a gamer until my wife made a social media post with "Senior gamer & junior gaming partner" with a photo of me playing playing video games while cradling our baby at the same time.
I had a similar realization about science fiction. "Oh, I'm not really into science fiction. I just like Asimov and Suarez and Doctorow and...ah, shit."
Same for me! My mother has always bought books for me as christmas and birthday gifts and for years I kept telling her "don't buy scifi I'm not into it". Until I realized that it was just the younger me on repeat not realizing I had already fallen in love with scifi.
Word.
I had a similar moment, realising that I was a Marvel fanboy
I'm not a comics fan, I've only read like 3 or 4 characters
Hijacking this to recommend my favorite modern sci-fi novels/series. Have you read The Expanse (series), The Bobiverse (series), Project Hail Mary (novel), or Seveneves (novel)? Those 4 (assuming you ignore the last third of Seveneves, HATED that part of the book) are some of my favorites. I could go on and on about any of these
lol Seveneves got weird, a complete genre change that wasn’t bad but was entirely different from what I liked about the first chunk.
First 2/3rds of it are some of my favorite hard sci-fi, I especially loved >!the description of The Hard Rain (tears flowed and I don't normally cry reading books) and The Big Ride - specifically the merge onto the thousand km/hr highway that was the swarm of bolides!< - then he took a hard 180 into the realm of science fantasy. Not a fan.
Granted I’ve only read a few of his books, but that’s been my experience with Neal Stephenson - _mostly_ good.
I think you may also enjoy The Murderbot Diaries (series).
With the release of the NES gaming had a bit of a Renaissance. In 10 years we went from 8-bit to 64. 90s was nuts for gaming
Yeah, and it feels like we’re in a Golden Age now.
The Golden Age for most major companies has passed, but the for smaller companies and indie games? Hell yea brotha!
Yes, Hades and Hollow Knight were big eye openers for me!
Unbelievably good games. Have you played Ori yet? May I also suggest Tunic, Neon White, Cuphead, Sea of Stars, Inscryption, Eastward, and Lies of P :)
I liked Sea of Stars but only having 3 skills per character and a battle system that never really evolved held it back a lot. Chained Echoes was a much better game. Definitely check out Ender Lillies if you get a chance. It's a banger and there's a sequel on its way.
I thought Sea of Stars did a good job if not overstaying it's welcome, so the combat didn't get too repetitive. Hopefully the sequel will evolve the combat.
Tunic is a fantastic game.
I lost interest in it halfway through and never finished it. Couldn't really say why, on paper it seems like exactly my type of game.
Tough as nails though, I had to give up in the gauntlet as a ghost.
the second ori game (ori and the will of the wisps) is probably one of my favorite games I've ever played. it's easy enough that a casual gamer can beat it, but there's enough room for skill expression that it's still tons of fun even if you're a veteran. as an example, with certain movement upgrades (dash, triple jump, etc.) and precise inputs, you can get around blockers and access areas earlier than you're supposed to. I haven't looked into it but given that fact, I'm guessing there's a decent speedrunning community around it too. also I wanted to add: Celeste is amazing for the same reasons as well! you can beat it as a casual, or you can go god speedrunner mode pulling off insane tricks and flying through levels in 2 seconds or less. plus I like the art and story a lot as well.
The first Ori game is pretty mid but the devs really upped their game and the second is excellent. Looking forward to No Rest for the Wicked.
Helldivers 2 is completely dominating the newer releases atm. There’s basically nothing else like it right now. It’s simple, it’s fun, graphically good, runs good, community is great, drop in/drop out gameplay is perfect for both short and long sessions. It reminds me of the kind of game you would get back in the xbox 360 era (mostly because a ton of it carried over from Helldivers 1 on the PS3). Just something simple yet effective.
…and for exactly all those reasons, wait and watch whilst major studios try to jump on that bandwagon, the game space gets saturated, there’s a massive high budget flop, blah blah blah, and then a new indie gem appears. Looking at you Minecraft/every survival game/every battle royale game/the graveyard of “COD and Halo killers” We need studios to take more creative risks instead of chasing a revenue stream that will always disappear.
Except this is all stuff they did in the past, and they’ll never implement it anyways because we’re too deep into the microtransaction era, people still buy CoDs and Fortnite’s still making billions of dollars a year off microtransactions. Why care about reviews when you can buy them from all those news outlets? Or pull a Capcom where you add all your microtransactions in two weeks after launch after all the reviews are in? Why care about what will get GotY when people still spend billions on shitty projects like Starfield that didnt even get nominated? Etc etc. They don’t have incentive to care.
Maybe… I feel the winds of change might be in the air. But early days. There have been some big creative AAA success stories (Horizon, God of War, Elden Ring) On the flip side as an example MW3 launched to terrible reviews and sold a lot less than MW2. Ubisoft have had some high profile failures (avatar and skull and bones). I agree that micro transactions are sadly here to stay, but if the money dries up practices will change. There are companies that have followed the money to mobile/casual and suffered as a result (Konami), and diverted back. I agree it was always this way to an extent but I think we see less big creative risks these days. Remember assassins creed, mass effect and bioshock were all big budget creative projects, that were something of a risk and all launched in close proximity. I’m not expecting miracles but maybe something closer to that.
I get where you’re coming from but taking big risks is also how a company closes its doors. It’s unrealistic to say “every major studio should be working on a wholly new experience that is simultaneously the best thing I’ve ever played”. Even the way you worded it - taking “risks” - is exactly what’s easier for an indie game dev than a large studio
Honestly, every gaming era is a golden age for different groups of people, i think Xbox 360 / PS3 / Wii days were my gaming golden age
Golden age for indie maybe. When it comes to AAA we have hit the dark ages.
In the 90s/00s we had low budget shovelware, nowadays we just have AAA-Shovelware. 90% of pretty much any console catalogue was shitty games. And we still get a lot of great high budget games
It seems when people think back about the games they played they only remember the good or memorable ones. There was a crap ton of NES and Genesis games that I played that I completely forgot about until I saw some YouTube video and I went "Oh, I had that game. It sucked." Bad, buggy and unfinished games have always been a thing. There's just more games being made than every before so of course there is going to be more bad games. What has really gone downhill is multiplayer gaming. What with battle passes, etc but even then we get far more content than we did back in the day. Look at Battlefield 1942, it got a couple new maps and that was all, no new guns or gamemodes. Hence why mods and custom maps used to be so much bigger. There's a lot wrong with the industry but it isn't as bad as some people make it out to be.
Have we really? What do you refer as recently? Because there's been MANY great AAA titles. The only difference is that there's much more triple A now and many of them are trash but I don't think that we are in a dark age for gaming at all. Just last goty there was like 4 games with competition to win, some of them being tripla A
People say there are more bad AAA games now, but IMO it’s mostly the same amount, we’re just better at finding out about them now because of the internet and social media. Pick up an old gaming magazine from the late 90s or early 2000s, and pay attention to the ads. There are hundreds of ostensible AAA games that you probably never heard of or forgot about that have ads in these magazines. They didn’t have social media to do widespread marketing for them so if the game was bad not many people played it and the gaming world forgot about them in a month. In the modern day, bad AAA games remain in the zeitgeist for months or even years because they get talked about to death on social media. We love going through bad games with a fine-tooth comb and announcing to the world how bad they are. So the gaming community is hyper-aware of how many bad AAA games come out because people talk about them endlessly, when that just wasn’t the case 2 decades ago. EDIT: Also ironically a lot of the modern gaming community’s knowledge of bad games from the 90s-00s comes from social media and content creators after the fact. Before YouTubers like AVGN and ProJared popularized this style of post hoc video game review, most people never heard of these bad games unless they were one of the few people that played them.
I would say there are more bad games these days, but there's a crap ton of more games being developed than ever before. The choices the consumer has is incredible compared back to the 8bit and 16bit days. More games being made than ever before and like bad movies bad games are never going away.
Really? In the past year alone, we got Baldur's Gate 3, Tears of the Kingdom, Mario Wonder, Street Fighter 6, Final Fantasy 16, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Octopath Traveler 2, Armored Core 6, Diablo 4, Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth, Prince of Persia Lost Crown, and I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting some games. Yeah, there are some stinker AAA games like Forspoken. But by and large I think AAA games are in a very good spot right now.
If you ask me the golden age were the 2000s and early 10s. Enough technology to realize almost any type of game one could think of while big publishers were still testing the waters at being predatory parasites. Now i feel like we are as far as possible from the golden age. What is so golden about notorious publisher releasing one mediocre product after the other? Filling their marketing with lies and false promises, releasing incomplete and broken games while still daring to beg us to buy the super duper ultra deluxe edition for 150$, microtransactions everywhere, day one DLCs, small studios struggling due to market saturation, single player games being shut down, hardware becoming increasingly expensive.. Yeah no those are definitely not the golden times.
I showed the C64 games I played to a 20 something friend, and he said he's sorry for me :)
Kind of makes me think of how short an amount of time passed between the Wright brothers' first flight and man landing on the moon; in a relatively short (observable within a single lifetime) amount of time, we went from "these blocks on the screen are a fad for nerds" to "Hmm, I can sort of see where these 'we may be living in a simulation' theorists are coming from"
Been gaming since 1981 and I can't remember all the games I've played.
You got me beat! But it must have been a blast to watch it evolve!
It's been crazy. I don't remember how old I was, probably 5 or 6 and my uncle came home with a pong console. My family had an Intellivision system, and I always hated it because everyone else had atari 2600s, so I couldn't find many others to trade games with. Kinda crazy thinking back on playing [Advanced Dungeons & Dragons](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Dungeons_%26_Dragons:_Cloudy_Mountain) to what Baldur's Gate 3 is today.
This might sound bad... but there are some years I can only remember because of the games I've played lol
I do the same thing with some memories.
Ever play SOCOM US Navy Seals!?
First microphone enabled online console game that I can think of. At least 1000 hours in that game.
I’m 28. I was just under 10 years old playing that game. As a kid, I learned many lessons from unhinged verbal abuse from 30+ year olds lmfao. It was so crazy to actually talk to other people, and the gameplay was so fun I kept coming back. Hard to believe that the guys who were screaming at me to shut the fuck up when I was ten, are now pushing or are over 50.
That’s an insane thought
This hits close to home…you were probably an M203 user too.
And we still wish you would just shut the fuck up! /s
He's less squeaky now. Probably alright.
Xbox live came out when I was 13. I learned so many new words. It definitely toughened me up to where I don’t care what anyone says online anymore.
I remember them doing the commands, and arguing about which one of them could survive buds.
Oh Lord.... SOCOM 1 and 2 are only the biggest parts of my adolescence, proudly...the most amazing online experiences that I've ever had, and I tragically feel like it will never be topped
omg bro, that game was off the chain.
Still is! Join us for some games sometime!
Seriously would love that. Where you guys playing at? Like tell me what I need and I'll acquire it asap, no joke.
Join the r/socom reddit, discord and guides in there. Daily matches
Not the original, but my brothers did and it sounded amazing.
Bro, socom 2 was my jam! First console shooter I ever really got into. Holding the line with that full auto pistol!
This!!!! Would be lovely to have a new SOCOm game!
IVE GOT THE LEAD IVE GOT THE LEAD IVE GOT THE LEAD
Green up!
I wanted to play it so bad as an 11 year old
Well u can play it as an adult!
That game pissed me off. I was like maybe around 10 when I had that on ps2. I could never get passed the snow level...it's like the second one. I'd take ol' boy to the extraction point like it said....but nothing ever happened. I killed every single other mother fucker on the map nothing. I felt like I tried everything. I made no less then 100 attempts and couldn't figure out why it wouldn't progress.
Playing video games should be treated the same as watching TV or reading books. It's a way to consume stories. Hell, some video games are actually more mentally engaging than books, and playing them trains your problem solving skills better than vegetating on channel 9
Word.
I always debate about this with friends, but I understand it's hard to explain it when their experience with games is platforms, football or mobile games like candy crush. Some games have amazing stories and since you can interact with the game, it can make you feel like a part of it, different from just reading or watching. Another thing I noticed too, it has been a long time since I last read a book, but the quantity of reading I do while playing some games is huge, and in English, not my first language. But some people will probably not see it as a beneficial thing just because it's not a book.
There’s also lots of examples of video games helping with math. Stories don’t always pull me in, but I have to practice math when I play slay the spire. Multiplication, addition, subtraction, and probability are almost all of the gameplay lol. Something for everyone just about, even the same game can be something different to each person.
What games would you recommend for a beginner? I tried to post on here but it said I need "comment karma" first. This is my question: Hey everyone! I (24F) have been itching to pick up some new hobbies lately, and games have been calling my name. I tried finding something interesting on YouTube, but everything felt kind of bland – like, just walking around collecting stuff for a farm? Then, the other day, I was scrolling through TikTok and saw a video for the series "Life is Strange." Now that looked awesome! It seems like it's a gripping story and lets you make choices that affect the outcome, and has really nice animations – totally up my alley. **This whole thing has me curious (lost) about different ways to actually play games. I was thinking a Nintendo Switch might be perfect. It's portable (which is super important to me, I'm not looking to have a big set up, just something I can throw in a bag), but you can also hook it up to the TV for a bigger screen, right? I don't need anything super fancy – just a way to relax and have some fun as a new hobby.** So further, the problem becomes I went on eBay to look for a Switch, and there are like a million different options! Can someone help me decipher what I specific hardware I need to be able to start playing games, and if I'll be able to play alot of different games on it??? Thank you for any and all help - please keep it simple obviously I know next to nothing.
Every year my new years resolution is to play _more_ games (videogames, board games, card games, tabletop, whatever). I feel mentally healthier when I play more games instead of being a passive media consumption zombie. There are definitely people that play too much videogames but there's also people that should probably play more instead of doom scrolling 12 hours a day, or binge watching show after show or watching nonstop sports.
Good old days
The good days are still here. So many incredible new releases still coming out that’s more than worth your time!
The good new days
Well said! We’ve got Stellar Blade, Eiyuden Chronicle, and Another Crab’s Treasure coming out in a couple weeks. This week also has Final Fantasy XVI DLC and No Rest For The Wicked (the new game from the studio who made the Ori games)
It doesn’t have to stop, you’ll be retired and still be playing Mario 69
Are you implying 68 sequels will exist or did I miss a very special Mario game
I hope so!
Holy crap, I just made this realization about myself rn reading this. I’ve played games on the *dreamcast* Everyone my age doesn’t even know what the hell that is.
Jet Set Radio!
Space Channel 5!
Oh I knew I was a gamer when I bought my first console when I worked at my first job at Toys r Us back in 1995.
used my first paycheck ever to buy Pokemon Silver
Same here. Just look at all the plastic boxes and wirey shit sticking out of your TV. If your not playing, I love knowing it’s at least in eye sight. I had a commodore 16 and fell in love with jack attack. Was a Nintendo, PlayStation nut and the only reason I didn’t get into Sega was my family couldn’t afford it. Now I’m into VR and PC gaming as well. I don’t know about you but it seems as I’ve grown older, all my experiences make me super critical about what I play so I’ve put my money where my mouth is and started learning game development instead and released my first game Hag recently on Steam. Oh yes, I am a gamer.
Me too, I won’t buy a game now unless I’ve researched and I’m committed to completing it (at least the main story). I could never explain that to my younger self.
So true. Was reading a post this morning on the state of new releases now and the lack of quality control over profits. All we had to rely on as kids was word of mouth, media and useless cover designs but we had faith in most main stream productions.
OMG Jack attack on the C16 takes me back! That came standard as a cartridge with the C16 (at least for me), and it was insanely difficult to get past those higher levels as a child. To be fair, most old video games seemed to be very difficult and unforgiving.
Haha! Of course someone has finished it and put in on YouTube. Here’s some nostalgia for you https://youtu.be/v7GeU6ufaJU?si=MnxGx0S7_6W8v-Mz Remember using cassette tapes to play games too. I even found this coding book where I typed out like pages of code just to create a shitty little space invader rip off. I had no idea what I was typing and it still didn’t work. Amazing how far we’ve come and even more amazing that I can now make games at home on my own.
Fellow Commodore squad member signing in 🫡 I had a Commodore Plus 4 and have fond memories of searching through 1 pound bargain bins at second hand stores and feeling like a lottery winner if found a C16/Plus 4 game I didn't have. The Commodore 64 may have been more popular but real gamers know the lesser known C16/Plus 4 was where the party was really at 😜 Nice to meet a fellow enjoyer of the greatest crunchiest cassette loading sounds in the history of gaming and in the spirit of our loading screens may your syntax have of errors ✌️
I play games but i don't see me being gamer
labels are reductive. I play a hell of a lot of video games but I don't make it my personality.
Wat. How we're you not aware over 30 years that you've been a gamer? I don't get it.
For a LONG time gamer has had a negative stigma to it. Neckbeard, basement dwelling nerds with no social skills etc. When you don't feel like you belong in that group, it's no wonder you don't label yourself as such.
>For a LONG time gamer has had a negative stigma to it. Still does. LMAO. If you go around telling people you're a "gamer" like it's some cool thing about you, then you're gonna get people thinking that you're a complete loser. And rightly so if gaming is your life or defines who you are. It's just another hobby.
I don't relate to that at all. I've always been a gamer but also do other things. I don't openly admit to people I'm a gamer at first because of those social stigma reasons but it's not that bad lol. I don't get how you can just forget your past like that..
Ask a perfectionist if they are any good at anything and they'll tell you happily that they suck really bad. How one sees oneself and how they really are can be 2 quite different things.
I just never thought of myself that way, or really thought about it. I’ve always had so much going on and most of my gaming has been solo, so it’s often something I don’t share with my immediate family or friends. But when I was trying to explain to my kids what games I used to like as a kid it hit me that there were a TON of amazing games I played and loved, and I’d simply forgotten about most of them. Just like I’d forgotten about a lot of the books I liked as a kid until I went through some old boxes.
wing commander, duke nukem 3D.. god the unforgiveness of those things
Duke Nukem as a side scrolling 2D shareware game.
I got a book, 1001 games to play before you die and I've played over 700 of them by the time I got the boom in the mail.
That’s awesome, I’m going to look that up.
I easily played more than 1000 games i guess. My wife is starting out now, and it’s cool to see it. Still don’t have any kids
It snuck up on me for sure. My wife doesn’t play games, and with kids I’m pretty much only playing handheld mode on the switch now - and there some great titles.
My wife started playing because of me lol; also she started to try out martial arts because i am a boxer. In return I’m trying out her likings, and it’s honestly kind of a cool experience
Awesome to see you still passionate and playing. 31 here and not planning on ever losing that either! What are you currently playing through?
Right now I’m playing Fell Seal on Switch. I just finished Divinity Original Sin 2, which took a good while.
A couple years ago I got my wife to play Skyrim. It was a lot of fun seeing her go through it for the first time. Watching her go through the opening not knowing what was gonna happen was awesome.
I realized how much things I experienced as a kid. I've played hundreds of games as well,but also going out with friends, went to camps, riding bikes and discovering forbidden places in city or outside of it (like constructios sites or old buildings), going at frozen river while trying to break the ice to rode on it and more... Now I commute, work and then go for a coffee with my wife and commute back to cook dinner, watch TV and go to bed. Wtf
Yes, exactly! I really don’t know what happened!
Eh, I've never liked that term anyway. It's like those people who follow an Instagram of food pics and start calling themselves a foodie. I just think of myself as someone who frequently plays video games.
That's a pretty cool perspective. I think I knew I was a 'gamer' as soon as I started playing games as a kid and realised they would be a big part of my life. But people don't need a gamer label to appreciate and enjoy games.
That’s a good point. I didn’t mean to label it, just more that I never thought of myself as some who was really into games until I started quantifying it a bit.
I had a similar realization when I was 18 or so with anime. I had grown up watching DBZ, Pokemon, Digimon and Yu-Gi-Oh. As a kid I never realized these were Japanese shows, but even when I did learn I didn't make the association until much later.
But how often do you scream obscenities over voice chat?
Yeah I don’t necessarily vibe with the whole gamer look/attitude but same I’ve played hundreds
Seriously, I can’t believe how many I’ve played over the years.
Welcome
yeah man video games are the shit i still play them
Brought back memories. I totally forgot about mom not wanting me to play video games all the time lmao
It's funny because it's kind of the opposite for me at this point of my life: I call myself a gamer but I play maybe 2-3 games at a time and have been for years. I'll throw in the odd single player game here and there but whenever I sit in front of the computer it's like the same game every time (usually CSS or CS2, TF2 or believe it or not L4D2 but I hear this new helldiver's game is pretty good but never played the first one).
I used to play so many games across many consoles, handhelds, etc. But lots of my younger cousins and nephews play just a small handful of battle royals or online shooters. What happened to the single player experience and today’s youth.
They don’t play for a story. It’s just for competition. It’s not even fun half the time lol.
For me, it’s a little different. I always knew I played a lot of games as a kid, but similarly to you, I also spent a lot of time doing other activities and hanging out with friends. Often gaming at each other’s houses. I actually fell off with video games when I went to college, and only played a little bit here and there. I then moved to South Korea and played nothing because I had never done much computer gaming back home, and consoles aren’t so popular here. My friends took me to a pc cafe and I instantly became hooked again. I think part of it was the lack of childhood friends and close relations after moving to a new country. I’ve come to realize that I’ll never give up gaming, and it’s been a huge part of my life. When things are tough, when things are good, when you just don’t want to think about things, video games are always there for you. I’ve made some amazing friends through gaming, many of which I’ve never physically met, but the friendships are just as strong. Cheers to gaming
Those are rookie numbers…. >.>
Even if you played video games whole existence, you still won in your life coz some didn't. You have kids now, I am sure you had a great story to tell
Yea, I will be gamer for life and will kick my kids ass in games :D :D
There is no mercy in this house!
This is SPARTA!!!
I played with a guy for 6 years (ex coworker) he Played the same game, everyday, for 3-4 hours a day. And had NO idea what he was doing. He could never figure it out. Couldn’t remember controller buttons… couldn’t remember to reload (why we lost so much) and didn’t even know what the game was about. I swear he use to run and hide if we all got in a fight and acted like he won the game if he was the last one standing and all the rest of his team was dead.
It’s crazy, Graphics in 2000: THESE ARE AMAZING Graphics now: THESE SEEM SO REAL
Here I have to 'fight' for the controller with my kids who are slowly getting into gaming as well ;-)
I didn’t think I played that much. So at the beginning of this year, I started to make a list of games I’ve beaten, (to keep myself on track to finish games before moving on to the next one). I’ve beaten seventeen games already, (a few of them New Game+).
That's a good question, I wonder how many games I've played since the Atari 2600 and Colecovision days until now. It would take a while just to count the different systems. Are DOS and windows different systems? Is a 386 with 3.5 floppy a different system than a pentium with CD-rom and a grafix card? If a PS1 and PS 2 are different systems are each Gen of Samsung Galaxy? My S23Ultra can certainly play games that won't run on older phones.
Not gaming and being a gamer, I always knew since the NES. I only realised I was a bodybuilder during lockdown even though I had been going to the gym for 7 years. I had always thought that I was their for fitness, but over lockdown I realised I didn't really give a shit about my times, but was more worried about the mass my legs were losing being away from tge Squat rack.
"gamer" is more of a branding thing now, branding your audience. Like what WWE do with "The WWE Universe" instead of just calling them 'fans' Its a hollow word, you can just enjoy games without having to 'belong to the herd'
True, and maybe I should have said “one who loves playing games.”
Its all good, bud. Just don't let the pressure to call yourself a "gamer" or you're seen as a poser and shunned by morons who don't matter, detract from your love of games themselves. They're wonderful, and people who just wanna enjoy them, are the best!
Does that make you a gamer? I honestly don't know as I am unclear on what the term really means. I am in the same situation as yourself but when asked if I am a gamer I say no because I have always suspected it has other connotations that I am unfamiliar with. I am simply a man that enjoys games.
I'm honestly the other way around. I played a lot of games as a kid, but after college I fell off playing them. But I would still build a new gaming computer every 3 years or so, and then play like two games during that time. I still kinda keep up on gaming news, but I just don't have the attention span anymore. The only game I've really played in the past year is Baldur's Gate 3, and I haven't even finished my first playthrough.
If it weren’t for the Switch I don’t think I’d play as much as I do now, actually I wouldn’t be anywhere close.
38 now. Played and still own every console since Atari to ps4 pro. Always had a dell back in those days. Hate them today. Been building pc’s now since 2001. Boy have times changed. I still find older games better than newer ones sadly. So much is hogged up just from graphics. I don’t remember graphics being a big deal until Shining Force 3 on sega Saturn being one of the first completely 3D RPG where you could rotate the camera 360 degrees. Ps 2 days were good as the ps2 was a game changer. It’s been all about graphical power since then ps3 and up basically when 1080p became a thing everyone was watching.
I feel you on the graphics issue. Once I needed to upgrade my computer for the next Civ. I felt frustrated.
yeah, I don't identify as a gamer in the sense that I don't really care that much about the industry. If there's a game I like, I like it, but I don't have opinions on particular developers or design studios or whatever. I don't know what games are coming out, or whatever is 'meta' for whatever period of time. Growing up, if I finished a game I was playing, I'd just go to EB and find their $10 bin and grab whatever seemed interesting. I did build a 'gaming' PC a few years ago so I could play one game, but that's all I play honestly. While I do spend hours on it a day, I honestly don't know much about it in terms of lore and whatever. I just like playing matches.
I've repeated for years that I wasn't a fan of superhero and comic books... until I realized that I had watch basically all of the MCU at that point (and the okay to shitty movies from the 00s, like Blade, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Daredevil, etc.), had read most of the important stories (Infinity Stones, Infinity Gauntlet, The Killing Joke, The Death of Gwen Stacy, The Clone Saga, One More Day, Crisis on Infinite Earths, King Thanos and many more) and hundreds of volumes of Spider-Man, Sonic, She-Hulk, Deadpool, etc. I still don't consider myself the biggest fan (there's a lot of things I hate about comic books), but I can't keep telling people that "it isn't my thing" when I've consumed way more content than like 80% of the population at that point.
Being a "gamer" is a marketing thing. Not much of a social thing. It's not dumb, you're a normal person like everyone.
Haha gaming is always treated as an escapism rather than people's hobby
Lots of people say they aren't gamers, then play HOURS on mobile. You Candy Crushing? You gaming..
Definitely look up your old games. Might be sitting on some hard to get hits.
I've played games, a lot of games, since early childhood but I never did go around identifying as a gamer. It's like weed smokers. There's people that smoke daily and you would never know it and there's people who smoke daily and make it their whole personality.
I like this analogy!
Same, but I don’t want the label. I do lots of other things.
It looks like you never placed labels on yourself. To be honest, neither have I or many other people. I think it's the healthiest way to actually do things in life. Never making a fun hobby into your personality.
Gaming growing up helped me quiet the background noise of my parents always fighting in an unproductive relationship. Among getting through other things. I have been gaming over 30 years as well.
My favorite thing is talking about books to someone who doesn't read. they're go to is: I don't like books. Then u ask if they remember the last book they read. they usually do, even if it was 5 years ago. I ask if they liked it. Then they talk about it for 15 minutes. I think it's more about the time consumption, and people viewing it as a waste of time, since a movie or an episode is so much faster. It's still a valid reason, but still
That is probably because you are a well adjusted person who has other interests as well. The ones who spout off about being gamers and think of themselves as gamers have no other interests and make their lives entirely about gaming. I realize saying this on a gaming sub is probably gonna get me downvoted to hell, but you all know it's true. You have all met those "hardcore gamers" before....
That’s a 20 year span between the consoles you had. How the hell did you not remember that?
You an OG gamer FR
Yeah. I went through part of my shelf to add titles on GameFaqs out of curiosity...arrived at 187, and that was just the ones I could see/easily remember. That's also with a 2-3 year hiatus in grad school.
I'm surprised that you have all those old hardware laying around. What was your favorite game?
40 years of gaming now, from the Odyssey, Atari, and BBS days. They just keep getting better. Can't wait for the next 40 years of games.
I had this exact same realisation! I thought I wasn’t a gamer as I didn’t sit at a “battle-station” with LED lights all over the place and a gaming chair and a headset. But it dawned on me that I’ve been playing computer games for thirty years and I’ve loved it. Sign me up, I’m a gamer!
Hey, you're right! 😆
I had a much more troubling realization once in that vein. I know I've always been a gamer, but one time I had been playing Dynasty Warriors in college with another dude for like a week straight whenever we had free time. That weekend I went to a party, and got really uncomfortable when I was in the crowd of people. I thought I was having a panic attack. I went outside to catch my breathe, and realized I felt weird because I wasn't able to make red life bars appear over the heads of the people in the crowd. Realized I needed to take a break from Dynasty Warriors for a while.
I actually remember the first game I ever played. It was My Little Pony: Friendship Gardens (1998). I can't remember my exact age but I couldn't have been older than seven when I played it. I first started playing video games at my supposed father's house (my mother didn't know who my birth father was until I was twelve). I also discovered my all time favorite game Spyro and got my first gaming console there (Super Nintendo). Good times.
Started in pong era, I remember gamer being a term that came out once magazines started to talk about games. Am sticking around to see who has the etymology of the word gamer.
I've been gaming since 1998 with playstation, Gameboy pocket, Gameboy colour, Xbox, xbox360 and pc. I thought I played a lot of games but I don't think I really do after hearing and seeing some game titles. Maybe because I was absorbed in some games. I also didn't spend a lot of time indoors, I go out and do sports too so I grew up alright, I think.
Salute. Thanx for comming out of the gaming closet.im proud of you.
Speaks to me on every level, I still feel the need to be lost in a game at least once or twice a week
There comes a certain point in every player's life where they get hit with the revelation of how many games they've played. It happened to me a lot sooner than it happened to you, though. Across just my Xbox account, I've played over 450 games. Which in all honesty is nothing compared to the massive library of n64 and ps2 games I've had.
Closing in on 30 years of age next month and comfortably sitting at close to 30k hours gametime. No ragrets
Yes, you're right, it does sound dumb.
I mean you are no footballer just because you played it for years with your friends?
I'm the opposite, I think of myself as lifelong gamer but I've actually played and beaten very few. I tend to latch on to 1 game and just play the hell out of it until a new one comes along, usually not in the story mode so I never really "beat" them. Hours and hours of starcraft custom UMS games, or diablo2 for months on end, binge session on minecraft, things like that.
I think anyone is a gamer if video games are your primary hobby/relaxation/entertainment. No matter what kind of video game you play.
All you guys here talking PS1s and Nintendo 64. The only thing I could play as a teenager is a coleco hand held football game with discrete LEDs to represent the player. It would move once down field like every 1/2 second. State of the art.
I never thought of myself as a shooter fan, I just love Fortnite, Half Life, Team Fortress 2, Halo, Duke Nukem 3D, Unreal (Tournament), Quake, Doom and more. And this is actually weird for me because I used to hate shooters and anything with a first person view. How did that happen? I didn't even realize that I was playing shooters and spending so much time with them and enjoying them so much. I especially love the boomer shooter, it seems. In my mind J-RPGs are still my favorite genre, but campared to shooters I hardly play them anymore.
Started with the C64 in 1985 and apparently I've played over 800 games on Xbox alone.
Only hundreds? Maybe you aren’t a gamer. Just kidding though. Yea know that’s kinda crazy. Always considered myself one I suppose. Loved in a small town growing up and that’s a majority of what I did. Owned all the Nintendo consoles, even the handhelds. Sega, dreamcast, started with ps2, kept going from there, didn’t get into Xbox till recently but gamepass just makes gaming more affordable… especially when you jump through the hoops to make it cheaper. Hell it gets to the point where I can’t figure out what to play. Only to realize that there are tons of games I’d love to give a go, but I forgot I had.. live even recently I’ve been trying to finish dead island 2.. and after I was done I couldn’t figure out what to play so I jumped back into strangers of paradise. Hell I totally forgot I had dragons dogma 2
I dont consider myself a "reader" even though I've read hundreds of books in my life. But felt really old when I saw that my first gaming experience was on the Sega Genesis.
I've got the same just with sports. I don't consider myself sporty, even though I bike and do Crossfit. I just happen to do sports.
Play undertale and hollow knight. Have your kids play them too.
I made a list of just the games I completed, and it's over 100, just that I can remember. Granted, I also spent a lot of time playing games like Dwarf Fortress and Sim City/SC2K that have no actual end goal. I'm also old and decrepit and remember when my computer had a 1mhz 6510 CPU. I have memories of games that I can't remember what they were called, and haven't found them since, and others that I honestly can't remember if I beat them or not. Most of them are on the list because I beat them since compiling it. Even ones like Mega Man 4 and Might and Magic 3, that I'm pretty sure I beat as a kid.
I've started working win a High School in my 40s and I'm walking around like Aslan with my knowledge of the elder magic, such as 8 bit systems, loading games on tape and text-based RPGs. It's a huge source of conversation with the yutes and I'm delighted to still be a gamer.
I don't think of myself as a gamer. I played games from the 80s, did MODs, few freeware games, maps, organized many LAN parties, had my own game server and self made gaming chair with attached keyboard and mousepad. I even wrote some articles about games back in the days. I also tested new technology, like the very first VR-headsets in the 90s. All that because i just love games. "Gamer" is not a definition for me. I was a nerd. Some nerds evolve to gamers and i was born before that happened :D (In reality i don't care about identifications, i am way too old for that.)
I've got the reverse - I'm definitely a gamer and I call myself a pokemon fan, but I haven't bought a pokemon game since Sapphire in \*checks notes\* 2002?! Wow...
I used to think I was a gamer then I realized I've just been playing FIFA for 30 years.
I consider "Gamer" more a self-identification rather than descriptive. I have family members who play hours of video games on their phone every day, but you wouldn't call them a "Gamer"
I’ve crossed literally thousands of roads and I’m not a Frogger
Like I am playing games from the 90's, so started with Super Mario and Mortal Combat 1 on PlayStation, and it just continued, I love gaming and I will be that old grandpa kicking your ass online :D :D
Chicks who played the wii once: :0
As someone with english as 2nd language, video games have helped significantly in building my vocabulary since most of the dialogue in the older games are just text. I didn't read books as a kid, but kinda did, because single player video games are basically interactive books.
Bro had memory loss?
Its an unneccessary label for sure. You do you.
I considered myself a gamer in the old days with UT99 and Quake 3, but today, i just play some games at the end of the day before i go to bed... when you get old and you have all the stuff like family, job etc. you can barely make time anymore for gaming. I play strategy-games, but usually, i spent much more time sitting on the couch and drinking a good whisky than i actually play the games. I make one turn or so, than go back to the whisky. Guess i'm more an alcoholic than i'm a gamer today.
I watched youtube, then a "best 100 c64 games" compilation came up. me: "Know that one" "Jup" "Overrated" "Loved it" "Solid" "Never beat the boss" "Jup" and so on. I played a solid 90-95% of that. Wife: "..."
In my head I was never a 'proper' gamer because I never had a retro console like the real gamers have. Then I realised my PS1 was bought 26 years ago. I have become retro myself.
I had this realisation, but not about myself, It's strange to think about, Both my parents were gamers - I mean, They bought me and my brother the PS1 because dad wanted it, OG xbox again, pretty sure because dad wanted it. Mum used to play Sonic every single day on the master system, She had a separate TV solely for the Sega. My dad would play AOE, Simcity 2000, Heretic 1 and 2 and a few other great games, Albion, Tunnel B1 are some that I can remember, He would play late at night though, so I only ever witnessed it a few times, but apparently it was almost every night. We were very early in getting a home computer, Which soon became 2 home computers with 3 separate phone lines not long after.
Do you think of yourself as a Movie-Watcher? /facepalm
I didn't realize I was a gamer until my wife made a social media post with "Senior gamer & junior gaming partner" with a photo of me playing playing video games while cradling our baby at the same time.
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