To game or not to game ..

JBrown

Any similar hardcore gamers here ??

A movie about the 50 million gamers who spend most of their time in virtual worlds. Alter Your Ego

Hulu - Second Skin - Watch the full feature film now.

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GT-Rob

Any links to download an .avi of it? Hulu is US only

JBrown

Sorry no other links available.

djhss68

You can't visit Hulu in Canada?

msteinhilber

Interesting video, I figured it would be fairly bias against gaming but it wasn't too bad with the exception of the lady who ran the AA type setup for gamers, she kind of got on my nerves a bit.

I'm an occasional gamer of some MMORPG's but nowhere near addicted. I went through a stage around 99/00 where I spent a great deal of time playing Ultima Online and would often be on it from shortly after getting done with work, and be at it until 3-4AM and be up at 7AM for work again. I never got into the calling into work thing or letting it interfere if I had plans to go out with friends or family though. I largely attribute it to the fact I was living with my friend at the time that was also a very heavy gamer and still is, except they take it to a bit more of an extreme and let it get in the way of their relationship.

jamesleecoleman

I really liked the rap song

Anyways I'm happy that the one guy (forgot his name) turned his life around. It shows that anyone can turn their life around if they try hard enough. It is sad that the guy shot himself though.

I'll never let gamming take over my life. I've never called in to work or skipped school because of videogames. I do admit that I have played when I was supposed to be studying and I've played like 5 min before/during a class. Theres way more to life than videogames and trying to reach the highest level in the game. Yet I can understand of having something of accomplishment to help with self esteem.

Lamini

hello. i was an everquest addict (lols)
I was fortunate i snapped out of it in 2007, got a cool 2k for selling my paladin too... i played from 1999 till then.
i was an officer and ran the raids. i saw a few minutes of this movie and was relating. people need to keep in mind is there is a fine line between a hobby and insanity. i knew people that grew health problems and others because of EQ, and not just obesity. WoW looks like a kids cartoon and was a way nummed down version of EQ imo. (earlier) EQ was hardcore. no other games required a 50+ player presence every night for one week or longer (plane of air, NToV, Plane of Time, etc). one of the scary commands i last time i played that game was "/play", which resulted in over 400 real time days i played since 1999. though that included nights i left my character online selling his wares. the shame was, i spent more time researching the game, being the raid officer that ran raids, yup top 3 guilds on cazic thule server.

but yah, there were worse, i was not like those who played as soon as they got home on friday night and played till late sunday night. then there were those that actually went to fanfares... got married in game and held a grudge if you didnt attend... or attempted making lawsuits for items in game... i had a boss that made real chain mail at work... i had little idea i would eventually understand what tradeskill was

Paul Boz

I've done my fair share of gaming but never to the point where its all I ever did. In high school I played ultima online for probably 6 hours a day but I still made good grades and played football. In college I played WoW about as much and worked fulltime and went to school fulltime. In hindsight I wish I wouldn't have spent quite so much time playing those games but I truly enjoyed it so I don't regret it. as long as you can keep your life in order I don't see a problem with playing video games all day.

Hell, I just bought a ps3 on tax-free Saturday

It looks nice next to my 360 that gets some serious use. I don't think my generation is ever going to stop gaming. We came up with games as a great entertainment option and they remain that way now. I've gotten better at street fighter over the years

rsutton

I used to play Wow and had to stop due to how much time it was sucking up. It's hard to play a game like that casually. Now I primarly do Console games which are much better if you only want to play an hour here and there.

arwes

I've never considered myself a hardcore gamer, I can play about 3-4 hours tops before I have to find something else to do. I've never been a big MMO fan due to the fact that the only ending is when you stop paying

. If I ever play one, I last maybe a few months before I lose interest due to the treadmill aspect. I used to volunteer for a local LAN party that would have around 150 people show up, and I realized very fast that I didn't want to be those people. We had one guy that was so addicted to Quake 3 that he took his two week vacation just to play against people online. The guy ended up losing his well paying job at Coca-Cola because he'd play Quake 3 all hours of the night and was only partly there (mentally) during work hours.

I've got a friend that's somewhat similar, though he's "Mr. I Play One Game, and One Game Only". It used to be Desert Combat, a mod for Battlefield 1942. Then I showed him World of Warcraft (cruel I know, but I got tired of hearing about new strategies & stuff for a game I quit playing 2 years ago) and now he's addicted to that. Tried to get him to play Warhammer Online, but it wasn't enough like WoW so he went back to that.

@Paul Boz: The PS3 is pretty fun, though I use mine for media streaming more than anything. Using PS3 Media Server and PlayOn so I can watch Hulu & Netflix Instant Watch (just use a gigabit switch, the wireless stinks). The funny thing about Hulu is that you can fast forward through the 30 second commercials (I don't think you can do that on the website).

Aldur

Very interesting indeed, I really enjoyed it. I thought that rap song was awesome too! The AA lady did bug me as well. It especially bothered me when she said something along the lines of "I've never met a grateful gamer"... Talk about stereotyping all gamers!

I played Ultima Online back in the day and then I played WoW. I was the addicted gamer that everybody talks about. I remember when I was playing UO I would go to school, come home and work for a few hours and then stay up all night long playing UO. I would get about 1 or 2 hrs of sleep a night. I remember so many times just trying to stay awake as I was driving home from my girl friends house. I eventually quit playing after a few years.

I then started playing WoW and it was the same thing all over again but better, except this time I wasn't a teenager living with my parents. I spent all my time playing, hardly any sleep, and I would skip class most of the time. It got to the point of almost ruining my marriage before I finally took a good look at myself and realized that this is not what I wanted to do with my life.

I felt that to play the game and be good at it, to be the best, I had to put in an unreal amount of time. I did this and I did become one of the best but I almost sacrificed the things that are really important in life for it.

I still love and play video games now days but I keep it to console games that I can play 1 or 2 hours here and there and then put the game down. With MMO's it was just to easy to throw my life away.

Knives Out

djhss68 wrote: »

You can't visit Hulu in Canada?

Unfortunately not- I gotta try watching that somehow

Here's my story...

I was mildly addicted to WoW from late 2007 to late August 2008 - I leveled a priest and spent a lot of hours grinding out pvp gear once I hit 70. A friend of mine from another MMO came to play and she made a hunter to level up with me, once we hit 70 after 2 months of playing alternating days - my pvp gear grind began. This alone we spent anywhere from 1-3 hours playing almost every day.

Once we got the pvp gear grind done and were max'd resilience we played battleground after battleground for a couple months. In this stretch of time alone, I almost equaled my original character (mage) 2 years of pvp kills:

Priest's Lifetime Honorable Kills: 14401
Mage's Lifetime Honorable Kills: 15453

Looking back, I don't really encourage the amount of time I spent doing this - but it was a ton of fun and was seriously the best time I've had in gaming experiences ever. It also served a side purpose of me staying home a lot and begin paying off my debt

The funny thing was, she just came to play to hang out and in the other MMO we played we didn't even talk that much as we were in a guild together, but never went out of our way to hang out together. Basically, two MMO loners with dark senses of humor - it just so happened to turn out, we had amazing pvp chemistry together and some of the crazy situations we got ourselves in and out of in world pvp were consuming. It got to the point that we were working so well together that the only times our side lost in battlegrounds when we we played is if we went up against premade teams (basically organized teams on ventrilo).

We didn't really engage in the raiding/pve aspect because it requires a different playing commitment in that you have to be there and listen to the raid leader - we enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere of battlegrounds because it allowed us to take several breaks during the course of the time we were logged in. It was great because we never played alone - if one of us wasn't signed in and playing, we'd wait maybe 10 minutes to see if the other showed up and if not - then we logged out. When we did happen to catch each other logged in, boom! Instant team invite.

The weird part is that we had another group of people on the server that played the other MMO with us before WoW and once we made the new characters - got to 70 and were poorly geared new 70s- they didn't want us near their arena teams or anything to do with us pvp wise. We were good players, but if you don't have the gear for pvp and you're playing against pvp geared characters - your survivability %s are way down. Once we got all our gear and were cleaning house in battlegrounds, they were all over us to join their teams. It sorta put into perspective for us how people in the game choose their friends based on who can get them the best loot.

We both decided to take a serious step back from playing WoW, which resulted in both of us quitting - once the expansion was getting close, we realized the grind was going to start all over again. She quit just before the expansion, but I ended up staying to play to 80 on my priest and found it wasn't the same without her so I quit. Looking back, I dont think it was really WoW that we were addicted to but it ended up a great social experience sharing similar tastes in movies, music. Actual WoW discussion between the both of us was very minimal. If not for geographic difference, we would probably be best friends in real life.

On one hand, I'm like Ugh I played WoW for THAT long...but on the other, I had a great time.

Knives Out

Aldur wrote: »

I still love and play video games now days but I keep it to console games that I can play 1 or 2 hours here and there and then put the game down. With MMO's it was just to easy to throw my life away.

I agree completely. I don't have any MMOs installed on my PC anymore, and now have a xbox 360 live membership.

I had a few Saturdays in WoW where I logged in at 1pm..and was logging out at 1am. Disgusting.

Its much easier to recognize on console games when you're mentally fatigued - I find the social aspect of console games is easier to get away from.

GT-Rob

You know, I think most people here (and most young people in IT in general), have a story to tell about playing a game too much. They are designed to be addicting, and its very easy to fall into it. I've been there (D2), and almost did it again (WoW). I could see the signs though, and quickly dropped it.

What matters is that you learn from it, and move on with your life. I still keep in touch with former 'gamer' friends, and the ones who are still hardcore, are completely useless, unsuccessful in life. They are mid-20 years old, never had a real job, still living with mom, and barely getting through school. Its about what you would expect from a drug addict, but with carpal tunnel instead of tracks on their arm.

Obviously playing games passively is healthy, but as soon as other things in your life begin to get sacrificed for it, even the smaller things, then its time to step back.

Aldur

Knives Out wrote: »

I had a few Saturdays in WoW where I logged in at 1pm..and was logging out at 1am. Disgusting.

Ha, I remember doing that exact thing, but I had many 14hr stints. Roll out of bed around 9am into the comp chair by 9:15, don't move till 3 or 4 in the morning. I sure enjoyed it and sometimes I miss it.... I think it's safe to say that I was heavily addicted

Knives Out wrote: »

Its much easier to recognize on console games when you're mentally fatigued - I find the social aspect of console games is easier to get away from.

couldn't agree more, it's like yesterday. I'm playing some fallout 3 and after about 2 hrs I just didn't feel like playing anymore. It wasn't hard to put it down.

GT-Rob wrote: »

What matters is that you learn from it, and move on with your life. I still keep in touch with former 'gamer' friends, and the ones who are still hardcore, are completely useless, unsuccessful in life. They are mid-20 years old, never had a real job, still living with mom, and barely getting through school. Its about what you would expect from a drug addict, but with carpal tunnel instead of tracks on their arm.

I think that is the biggest thing you can take from a situation like this. Am I better from the experience? Sure thing, as long as I don't relapse

I too have friends that I keep in contact with who still play wow endlessly. My bro in-law for example. He's 23, lives in his moms basement, and plays WoW about 10-14 hrs a day. The kid can't even hold a rational conversation with another human being unless it's about WoW. The last time I was over there I tried to talk to him about things other then WoW, I couldn't get two sentences out of him, then I made the mistake of bringing up WoW and I couldn't get him to shut up for the next 1/2 hr.... He is so completely involved in this virtual life that he can't even think about anything else. I've been there before so I can empathise with him but at the same time it just disgusts me.

GT-Rob wrote: »

Obviously playing games passively is healthy, but as soon as other things in your life begin to get sacrificed for it, even the smaller things, then its time to step back.

I think this is a good rule of thumb that you pointed out and it's true with any hobby. Any time you start sacrificing the important things in life for the unimportant things you know you're on a slippery slope.

JBrown

I have played WoW once or twice for a few hours. I kinda liked it except the monthly fee it came with. So i stopped playing it.

The real fun for me was back in 1997-2001 with Diablo 1and 2 then Counter-Strike beta, Delta Force, Unreal Tournament and so on. Some friends and I would come to the computer club around 8 PM with drinks and food for overnight gaming and leave the club around 10 am next morning. That is during the weekdays, some hardcore gamers would come for weekend and leave on Monday 6 AM, because they have to get some sleep before heading back to work.
Sometimes we would just spend browsing the internet. The 1997-98 were the best ever time for browsing file shares on Win95/98 somewhere in Texas or UK.

you cant even imagine kind of pictures some people would keep on their hard drives back then. That was the real fun time.

erengsev

I’ve gone through phases of heavy gaming and long breaks, so I get the “to game or not to game” dilemma. When I was deep into MMOs, it felt great to be part of a world where progress was clear and the goals made sense, but after a while I noticed how easy it was to lose the balance with real-life stuff. What helped was treating gaming like any other hobby—scheduled time, a couple of trusted games, and avoiding the urge to grind just because everyone else is doing it.

Documentaries like the one you mentioned can be a good reminder of how different people experience virtual worlds. They don’t demonize gaming, but they show what happens when it becomes the only place someone feels present.