Suddenly I'm only like the 10th angriest person in SL.

Hopefully the world's equilibrium balances back out to normal soon.

Did you just realize what 90% of this forum demographic is?

Your problem is that you are grouping the stereotype of a guy who plays warcraft for 8 hours a day with the much more common guy who plays a game of fifa and some call of duty with his friends between class.

Meh still sounds pretty ridiculous to me. I'm not particularly cool and not baller at all (ie I dont really have the social proof to back me up) and have only once had anything that could be considered a bad reaction. I would say 1/3 of the time its a clueless 'oh cool', 1/3 of the time its pretty enthusiastic with a few questions about it, followed by a 'oh nothing exciting' and a return to talking about me when I ask what they do, and 1/3 follow me around the party talking about Poker and how they want to go pro too.

I just dont get how you guys are having such bad experiences with it. The only things going for me are that I dress reasonably well and I dont really look like a stereoptypical nerd, but thats pretty limited social proof considering im relatively busto compared to other poker pros. If you are at all cool/baller it should be super easy to get favourable responses since I seem to get them without being either.

Also, before people say well America is different. I find it way better here, because almost everyone knows someone who knew someone who played Poker and made a bunch of money from it. In NZ people were much more sceptical but it still wasnt a problem

my experience with videogames has been radically different from mullen/henry's.

i don't know ANY girls who think videogames are for losers nor do i know of ANY professionals who think videogames are for losers.

would they think a guy playing starcraft 4 hours a day is a loser? yes, most likely. but the vast majority of gamers are playing a couple of madden games vs. a friend or a couple of COD maps before bed.

But I played video games and had sex in my "tr", figure me out yo

prostitute obv

wtf just play the video games with your gf.

other than that, im in the mullen camp.

Karak, TR the "8th inning yankees game" story? I wanna hearrrr

we do once in a while, we even talked about video games and she told me she hates the ones I played(shooters) where I kill people and stuff haha, but I bought her zoo tycoon like 2 days ago so she'll like that I'm sure.

she hates video game violence? sounds craaaaaaaaaaaaaazy

Was going to just wait until this silly argument was over, but meh. I mean I have all kinds of sex and probably play ~7 hr's a week of video games. I actually just played through Ocarina of Time for like the 7th time lifetime over the last month or so, and my girlfriend actually wanted me to only play when she was around once I got to the Shadow Temple because she had never gotten that far any time SHE HAD PLAYED IT HERSELF and wanted to see what happens. She also insists on borrowing my PS3 all the time because she wants to play through Little Big Planet.

The blanket statements that get thrown around itt about "what is standard" is really just silly. Some people are different from you, no matter who you are. I typically like both Mullen and Henry's posts, and don't even think they're completely wrong in this argument, but idk... some people just like to sit and relax after work, or after doing something productive, or right before doing something productive, or whatever. For example, I grind poker for probably 30-40 hours a week, and spend another 15 or so writing/reading about baseball (though some of that time overlaps). I'd probably burn out and start to hate it if I did anymore. Sometimes I just need to wind down to avoid burnout, whether that's golf, drinking, TV, or the ever evil video games.

Anyone read that gizmodo story about the world champion magic player that manages a hedge fund the the author dated and called him a liar after somehow getting upset that she didn't like that, about not stating the magic stuff on his online profile?

Pretty funny stuff.

Kind of applies to this conversation. Is this guy a loser like this girl thinks, Henry et al?

There's never a bad time to point that out.*



Since balancing gaming and a social life is a topic near and dear to my heart, I'll chime in. I think the anti-gaming crowd is painting with much too broad a brush; it's entirely possible to live an exciting, enviable, attractive life and blow off steam with video games. It's certainly not something you want to generally speak about in public, but it's a really great way to have fun with your friends, and gaming can present unique challenges and opportunities for fun and teamwork that aren't available even in sports or other social, male-bonding activities.

That said, I personally completely stopped playing any video games about 6 months ago or so, and had been slowing down for a while before that. It wasn't a conscious choice, it was more that I sort of grew out of it. I have to say, as unfortunately un-nuanced an argument as Henry/Mullen present, in my experience it turns out that I enjoy life even more now that I don't play video games. I end up doing stuff that I find more fulfilling personally instead, and none of it has to do with being worried about how I'm perceived. I did great with girls even when I was doing marathon CIV sessions or m16/holo'ing badkids for hours on end in COD.

I'm not sure that I'd be getting that much out of quitting gaming if I hadn't come to it organically, and I don't know if it's applicable to others, but I can honestly say that I'm a happier person for it and likely more interesting to spend time with as well.

..but with all of that said, if my college buddies emailed me and asked me to free up a few hours for SC2 FFAs, you're damn right I'm going to do it if I don't have plans.

yeah, that was awesome.

edit: excellent post by mittens

I have a very addictive personality, so video games come and go for me very quick.

I played a game throughout high school consistantly, then got a gf and quit- brokeup and played again- got a new gf and quit. etc etc.

Once I broke up with my LTR gf I played again for a bit(so like Soph year of college) but I quickly decided I wasn't a huge fan of video games anymore. I never watch TV either(I think thats more useless but thats just me). But last year my roommate had played this same game and we kinda got each other hooked again and played the last month of school + first month of summer before we both got bored.

I stopped games again for a bit, but then bought CSS(played that a LOT this summer), and now I've started playing LoL with my roommate. I won't be able to play much at all during school year so I kinda am just zoning out the rest of my summer after work and playing for fun when I can. I don't see anything wrong with it.

In less than a week I'll be up at 7, home at 6, eat dinner, do hw/study and spend time with gf(if theres time) and then be drunk all weekend so definitely not playing games often during school year.

Too general, since both TV and video games come in multiple forms.

Watching Mad Men with friends > playing video games with friends > watching Mad Men by yourself > playing video games by yourself > watching anything on MTV ever in any form, and so on and so on.

do you think good TV > intellectually stimulating video games?

I think I get more intellectually out of thought-provoking TV, yes. That's me personally. Those are all pretty razor-thin margins with the main goal of the post obviously just to be swiping at MTV.

some examples of thought provoking TV? i ave a hard time finding good series (mad men is the only one i follow).

80% of what i watch on TV is sports-related. the other 20% is some combo of discovery/history channel crap + food crap (diners drive-ins, man vs. food, etc.)

In the past I thought 24 was pretty thought-provoking a lot of the time. LOST was another, though to me it certainly petered out and lost its artistic value over time.

Honestly, Mad Men is the only one that is currently running that I could give that label to from my own experience. I watch a few comedies for fun (The Office, Parks and Rec, and now Louie), but it would be a difficult argument to defend them against the "waste of time" label if I'm just watching them alone...I always see value in the occasional TV show or movie with friends as a fun social activity.

criminal minds is legit

FYP for how the real playaz do it

Also, ladies love my COD strategy

I have no idea what you are talking about so it is hard to comment.

With Mittens post the count is now at 4 for 4 of people who quit and saw an improvement in their life.

The Wire

Good Lord.

This is really quite a cherry-pick if there ever was one.

I probably played video games 5-10hrs/week from age 18-22. Now at age 25 I rarely play. Is my life any different? Nope, nor would it be for most video gamers. Most people don't play video games an excessive amount. Those that play WoW 20hrs/week=troubled. Those who play games as social activity with friends=not troubled.

Maybe the whole basis of the blowup of this thread was that Henry is talking about an absurd end of the spectrum of video gamers. He is basically grouping all video games into those who play degenerately