Thanks for your help, people

And for those of you that no longer play so much because you lack time, does these same time constraints affect how much you watch movies? Or is it always possible to find time to put on a movie?

Quote:Original post by Muji_
Thanks for your help, people

And for those of you that no longer play so much because you lack time, does these same time constraints affect how much you watch movies? Or is it always possible to find time to put on a movie?

I have less trouble finding time for movies:

1) They're more social. Multiplayer gaming is usually over a network, limiting the interaction between players, and few games are good spectator sports. The Mario Party series, the various kart racing games, and sports titles for consoles are good "counter examples", which is one reason they're so popular.

2) They're shorter. Unless you're playing Minesweeper or some flash game, most of them require an overall investment of 10's of hours. Movie's total investment is two hours.

3) They're passive. I can watch a movie when I just want to veg-out. I can watch a movie while doing homework or playing a board game with friends. I'm watching Along Came a Spider right now.

4) They don't waste my time. You don't see Morgan Freeman talking to every citizen in the city in an attempt to find the next step in the quest to find the kidnapper. Usually, there're very few moments that aren't interesting in some way during a movie. There's also no waiting for the next scene to load (unless your DVD's been damaged).

5) The stories are better. Granted this only applies to those who play games (not necessarily exclusively) for the story, but a mediocre story in a movie is better than a good story in a game. (By the way, I do play some games "for the story")

Not related to time, but other benefits movies have over video games:

6) The classics are still good. About the only NES era games I can say this about are Tetris and Dr.Mario. A couple months ago I watched Cool Hand Luke for the first time. That's still a good movie.

7) They're cheaper. ~$15-20 when they first come out, ~$10-15 a couple months later, $5-10 a bit after that. Sure, games come down in price, but add in (6) and it becomes less appealing (although I've found some treasures in the $10 game bin, and my computer's old enough that there's no trouble running them!).

Quote:Original post by Muji_
And for those of you that no longer play so much because you lack time, does these same time constraints affect how much you watch movies? Or is it always possible to find time to put on a movie?

When I played the original Splinter Cell on Xbox, I got heavily engrossed in the story. After about 10 hours' worth of play (over a few days), I became incredibly frustrated because I wanted to know how the story progressed and concluded, but there was still all this tedious playing to do.

Note that I said "tedious" play. Games put you on a treadmill to stretch out the length of the game - which has become a major marketing point, and you'll even hear or read game reviews that say "at only 11 hours, though, the game probably isn't worth a purchase." Only 11 hours? What do I look like, a zit-faced 14-year old with nothing to do but sit in front of my couch with a zoned out expression while I twiddle my thumb against bits of plastic?

RPGs are the worst at this, with all the irrelevant side quests which not only take up more time but also break the illusion of a coherent story. If I am hurrying to the Imperial City to rescue my master, why am I then competing with an oafish caricature of an Englishman in the Philosopher's Garden, or helping a moronic artist escape the wrath of his patron's stubborn husband? I would ignore these quests if I could, but the game is often structured such that I can't, or that I am lead to fear a severe amount of backtracking for an "item" I would have received in "reward" if I don't complete the quest.

A film, on the other hand, aside from 7-hour Hungarian art-house monstrosities, barrels along a path of inevitability for less than three hours and presents me with a thoughtful, concise narrative. (Yes, not all films are all that, but the ones I elect to watch and spend my hard-earned money on are.)

The compactness of a movie gives it a huge advantage over a game. The ease with which one can view a film over from beginning to end in order to share with someone else is a huge advantage over a game. The shared experience of linear narrative, even if consumed separately by each viewer, makes discussion and analysis of a film infinitely simpler, from a structural perspective, and more enjoyable than doing the same for a game.

Film, being a presentational medium, is inherently more social and scales better than games. You can watch a film alone, with a friend, with a class, in a theater... and with a well-behaved audience, the film might even get better the more people you watch it with. Large audiences are the best ways to watch high-octane action flicks and riotous comedies.

So films take less time but easily involve more people. In essence, films multiply your effective socialization-time (number of people × time spent socializing), making it a better return on time investment for people with comparatively little leisure time. Also, films fit naturally into a sequence of socialization activities - dinner, the bar, the club - in a way that games don't for the majority of adults.

Comparing games and movies on a time utilization basis is a dismal activity. Games lose hands down.

Quote:Original post by Muji_
Thanks for your help, people

And for those of you that no longer play so much because you lack time, does these same time constraints affect how much you watch movies? Or is it always possible to find time to put on a movie?

I might be the opposite of the other replies so far [smile]. I've also cut back a fair bit on my film watching as well. However in my case that's probably because I wasn't really a huge fan of films to begin with. Once I found my available free time shortening, first I cut back on T.V. (to the point where I don't really watch at all), then on films, then finally cut back on the games. I still like to catch a film now and then, particularly at the university theatre (where the audience is usually well controlled for once [smile]), but I'm still more fond of games.

As for DVDs, the main advantage for me that DVDs has over games is the ability to multi-task while watching them. These days I typically only watch DVDs when I'm doing something else (such as cooking or cleaning), or when I'm too tired to do anything else.

For most of the human species, "DVDs" are "films." Aggregated in that fashion, Trapper Zoid, do you play more games than you consume pre-packaged linear cinematic content, regardless of delivery medium?

Quote:Original post by Extrarius
Also, there isn't the same kind of community there used to be and the increased anonimity has brought out the worst in too many people.

For example, once upon a time, Counter-Strike was insanely popular for a game, but gaming itself wasn't too popular.

Honestly, I've heard the same complaints about Counter-Strike from Quake-era players. And, on the whole, they didn't behave much better, either.

Quote:
It's not worth playing, and in many cases it isn't possible because opponents will leave or ban you if you're not losing (in those rare cases where opponents are findable - even in a league it can be very difficult to find opponents).

Probably for another thread, but this seems to me to be a serious problem. Any solutions?

Like you say, playing with friends is usually your best bet...

Quote:Original post by Oluseyi
For most of the human species, "DVDs" are "films." Aggregated in that fashion, Trapper Zoid, do you play more games than you consume pre-packaged linear cinematic content, regardless of delivery medium?

In my small collection of DVDs, I own more sitcoms than films, so I guess that's why I made the distinction. I often rewatch an episode or two of one of those in the background while I do something else.

As for whether I play more games than linear cinematic content, I would definitely say yes. I would probably play up to a couple of hours of games at night, whereas I would only watch on average a couple of hours of T.V., DVDs or films a week. I am much more of a game addict than I am for other media. I guess I mightn't have made it clear in my first post in this thread that I still play a lot of games, it's just I don't play nearly as much as I used to (not nearly as many all-nighters or spending the entire weekend playing games). Maybe if I were to also consider books (fiction and non-fiction), then it might be more balanced.