We have had this debate many times. There are two types of people that can have fun on the cheap -- the outdoors type people and people who think wasting their life playing video games and watching TV is fun. For most people it costs money to have fun.

I dont really believe that they are even having fun, I am sure that those people would prefer something else if they could choose.
Not having option to do anything else doesn't equal to actually enjoying something.

I think outdoorsy people actually do enjoy the outdoors. The second group I think it is a form of escapism but not just from a lack of financial resources but often a lack of social skills.

At least in my experience , I think that lack of financial resources is incredibly often correlated with lack of social skills. I can't think of too many well off people that are socially awkward.

Generally that is true but there are exceptions. Online poker has made the number of those exceptions considerably larger.

This statement is true in terms of categorizing the two groups, although I've wondered why the 2nd group has to be considered a waste of life if they genuinely enjoy it. I used to love video games when I was younger and spent lots of time playing games with friends during my childhood and those certainly were fun years and don't feel like a waste of life. So for someone who has their job and just elects to spend their free time playing World of Warcraft or some video game, why does this have to be construed as a waste of life.

I agree that it feels that way on an emotional level since for even myself I had to stop playing video games years ago in order to do things that feel more productive -- but truth of the matter is that objectively speaking it feels like World of Warcraft can be far more fun than most peoples real lives. I've asked myself at times if busting your ass to make lots of money even allows for more fun than video games, since if you remove public perceptions influencing your opinion (oh no! i play WoW, im a loser!)... it feels more fun in some regards. I mean, it's a video game that's designed for that entire purpose. I think there's lots of people who hang around bars on their Saturday night just sipping on a beer who probably would objectively be having more fun playing a video game, but shy away from it because it has a negative association with wasting your life.

Seems more like irrational emotion though rather than objective logical reasoning, since for some guy who is situated in his career and has a girlfriend, there's probably not many things that offer more objective entertainment than something like WoW. Even if he were able to be single and go out and get drunk every weekend that's still not necessarily more fun for everyone. Video games these days are extremely detailed and thorough.

So you don't believe a game like WoW can be fun? Have you ever played it? Beats the hell out of rockclimbing, that's for sure.

The direction this thread is going has already been done to death in BFI.

solving the needs of a lot of people

i read 2 pages.

OP seems pretty dumb imo.

What's so fun about wow? it is very repetitive and gets boring after 5 minutes
I dont even mean it in sarcastic way , but how don't you get bored after you realize that's doing exactly same things all the time again and again?

just was using WoW randomly since its one of the biggest games. not going to bother answering why its fun since clearly with 800 million a year in revenues from subscriptions there's something fun about it. but sure w/e, replace it with any game, counter-strike, unreal tournament, goldeneye, first person shooters, RPG's, real time strategy, w/e

Alright, I have never seen games you've named so let's go back to wow.

You have some hero and you build him up which is probably 90% of the game(i am assuming at least).Don't you think that it would be more fun/better to do it in real life and improve yourself instead of some imaginary character?

This might give you a better sense of accomplishment and if you choose decent stuff to excel at , it is going to be useful in real life or at least could be useful in the future, whereas wow skills are pretty much always worthless.

obv

Just to quibble. Doing "outdoors" stuff is quite expensive if you want to go and do actually cool stuff. Annapurna ain't cheap yo. Not to mention the extensive time requirements for cheaper per day variants.

Because humans are social creatures and playing video games leads to a solitary life. Someone who plays a lot of video games is going to have a difficult time maintaining social connections with anyone expect other nerds. Further, while many things are fun they also often offer secondary benefits -- renting the ice and playing ice hockey with friends is fun but you also increase physical fitness which makes you healthier, physically more attractive, and physically more capable. You also socialize and meet new people increasing both your social and professional network. Playing NHL2010 you develop nothing expect the skill of being good at NHL2010.

You can't remove public perceptions unless you are willing to remove yourself from society. What other people think about us matters.

No girl worth having is going to stay with someone if the entertainment is video games. While what people find fun is subjective at the individual level at the group level it is easy to see that certain activities are much more popular. Video games are popular among a certain demographic but certainly not as a whole and certainly not popular with hot girls.

Not recently. I did play WoW a few times but it was a long time ago (I still had an Amiga) and I'm sure it is nothing like it use to be. I am also certain I would not find it fun. I would feel stupid playing it and feel like I'm wasting my time when i could be doing something else.

Because real life has no repitition at all, oh wait...
Grinding life requires much more repitition then any online game.


note: I dont like WoW, or video games.

This is a dumb argument, but just to chime in here the MMOs actually have a very social aspect to them. There are people who actually do depend on you, and you do have social relationships with them, just not in the traditional sense.

I played a large MMO when I was in college and spent 2 years doing it. It was a ton of fun and my girlfriend (who I'm still with) put up with it, she didn't like it, but it's what I liked so she let it go.

Everything in moderation. If someone spends more than 10 (random number) hours a week playing video games, you could probably cut back and spend time doing something more productive. Reading or Working out probably more +ev in the long run.

LOL ex gf's brother used to spend as much time playing a WOW type game as I did playing poker....you want to talk about wasting your life. I was actually making money while he was sitting there building characters up. Playing video games and stuff is cool in spare time but ONLY doing it in your spare time? eeek like everyone said do something else. Think this got way off topic tho.

It's not really all that anti-social though in the strictest sense. It's certainly not social in the traditional sense at all but people in the game communicate using microphones, are part of guilds/clans or whatever, meet and meet/know lots of people within the game. There's been cases of people getting married through games like this. But what about console games where a group of guys all get together and play? Doesn't seem much different than sitting around watching football, just a different activity.

Clearly WoW though is incredibly nerdy and I agree that it's entirely counterproductive to excelling in life in the traditional sense, I just wonder at times though that if someone is entirely happy with doing that and immersed in some fictional reality, what's it matter as long as they are happy? Surely if they weren't entertained or amused by it they would just move on to something else, but if we assume that it's more entertaining for them than real life socializing (for many of them it is since if it's a demographic of nerds) then it offers more value than other things.

I was talking about people who are settled down in relationships and maybe have kids. Lots of people once they get caught up in their work lives don't do much exciting at all. In general though I would agree that yeah, spending too much time playing WoW discludes most people from getting a hot gf, and especially from keeping her.

Meh w/e though, not really a topic I've really deconstructed in depth, just something I've wondered at times when chasing money in life and start to question if just having more money translates into more fun necessarily, since the things you can do with more money are only more fun if the individual considers it more fun. Having more money would involve being able to do what exactly, drive a nicer car, eat at nicer restaurants, do some traveling, more lines of coke? For a lot of people xbox/ps3 rank pretty high in terms of pure entertainment value.

When i said have fun doing free stuff the last thing on my mind was WoW.
I meant pick-up basketball, play music, read a book, watch a movie, have sex, ect...
All of these are free and none fit into your "outdoorsy" or loser criteria.
People don't have hobbies anymore?
I feel bad for you if you can't have fun without blowing through money.

FYI : I sold 2 characters (not in WoW) for 1,500 and 2,500 each.

I knew some people who played 3K and while that is accurate the interaction was minimal. They would play online for ahours a day and meet up a few times a year. It was also more a sub-culture of geeks and nerds than a desirable part of society. I use to be a hacker and heavy into the warez scene because as a teenager I saw it as a good way to make money. I went to one meet up and it was pretty horrible.

Very different demographics

That is just as bad. Getting into a work -- come home -- do nothing cycle which I agree is common is also a waste of life.


Dating is an expensive activity. Watching movies is passive and a waste of life. Reading maybe but there is a limit to how much of that you can do and so very few books worth reading. Most people have no musical ability. Other sports can be expensive and again there is a limit to how much pick-up anything one can play. I use to quite enjoy pick-up hockey but renting the ice two or three times a week pretty much maxed out that activity so that is 6 out of 168 hours filled.