Admittedly, I am not a games enthusiast, whether video or board, but I have played both at times. In particular, I played a lot of – OK, this is totally gonna reveal that I’m an old ;P – THPS, and I’m 100℅ sure I played both RPG-type computer games as well as like Mario Bros stuff. However, I just have never really grasped what makes video games so enticing.

I suspect this is an annoying and well-trodden path, but I would sincerely appreciate it if you could find it in your heart to help me understand.

For me personally, I tend to look at things in terms of costs and benefits. Through that lens, most games seem like a bad deal. In principle, I like some of the more quirky or esoteric ones, but it quickly seems like a lot to learn relative the payout.

When I was in HS, I had a band. Has that type of interaction simply been replaced by video games?

I swear I’m not trying to troll – I really want to understand the interplay between video games and psychology. Cuz it seems like FPSes are dominant whereas not too long ago they were a single niche among many niches.

I appreciate your taking the time to read/reply.

  • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
    7·
    6 hours ago

    I’ll bite. (Note I do notice you do have a 12 day old history, and we have had a wave of spammers trying to incite bullshit, so we’ll see how this goes)

    So, why play long games? Why read long books? Why watch long movies?

    For me, I like a good well-told story. A game like Red Dead Redemption 2 has such a good story that it is worth investing 120 hours into. It’s protagonist, Arthur Morgan, is so well written that he is arguably the most well-written fictional character of all time. Over the course of 120 hours you get to know him so intimately that you truly feel like you know and understand him, and over the story that will both make you laugh and cry, it culminates in an amazing climax, truly a story that could only be told over 100 hours.

    To answer your other points:

    For me personally, I tend to look at things in terms of costs and benefits. Through that lens, most games seem like a bad deal

    This goes counter to what you said at the beginning, they are actually ridiculously cheap compared to other forms of media. Going to see a 2 hour movie now costs about $18 in the states, that’s $9/hour. RDR2 was $60 and for only the first playthrough of 120 hours that’s $0.50/hour of entertainment value. Now, take playing it multiple times and it’s one of the cheapest forms of entertainment. (arguably the hardware to run it needs to be calculated in, but it depends on preferences etc etc etc)

    When I was in HS, I had a band. Has that type of interaction simply been replaced by video games?

    No. Apples and Oranges.

    I really want to understand the interplay between video games and psychology.

    I like good story telling. I like being enveloped in my media, and feeling truly immersed. Gaming does that in spades.

    Cuz it seems like FPSes are dominant whereas not too long ago they were a single niche among many niches.

    Maybe in your friend group they are, but in the circles I’m in it’s simply not true. Everyone is different. Everyone has different preferences. I just played Dispatch over the weekend, a fun 8ish hour romp that also made me both laugh out loud and well up with tears, it was an adorable game. I see 98% positive ratings on it with almost 100k reviews, so I don’t think we need to jump to “FPS is dominant”.