You're playing too many computer games... mum?

[Trolldor]

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/societ ... 18squ.html

Last month the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia released a study predicting that mums are set to overtake teenage boys as the new gamers. Nearly half of gamers are women over 30 and of those 40 per cent are women with children under 18.

[JimC]

All that time wasted that could be used baking cakes and making jam...

[borealis]

That's just substitute for life... and sex. Mostly. Like forums too.

[PsychoSerenity]

Is Farmville a game? I thought it was pretty much a sandbox with farm-based sprites. Just because games are played doesn't mean that all "playing" is a game. From what I've seen of it, playing Farmville is no more "gaming" than playing with a train-set.

[Trolldor]

Is Farmville a game? I thought it was pretty much a sandbox with farm-based sprites. Just because games are played doesn't mean that all "playing" is a game. From what I've seen of it, playing Farmville is no more "gaming" than playing with a train-set.

lol. "Gaming" is gaming.
Harvest Moon for Wii, Nintendo Gamecube, DS.

[PsychoSerenity]

lol. "Gaming" is gaming.
Harvest Moon for Wii, Nintendo Gamecube, DS.

Nah I'm not convinced, that actually offers challenge and entertainment.

While looking up about Farmville earlier I came across an excellent piece on it.
http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org ... -farmville

We are citizens of a democracy, and democratic citizenship has always been a difficult skill to master. This is why Aristotle tells us that, in an ideal state, citizens would possess ample leisure time: the education of a citizen depends upon contemplation, deliberation, and training.

“Play is an occasion of pure waste: waste of time, energy, ingenuity, skill, and often of money….”[1] So said Roger Caillois in his book, Man, Play, and Games. Of course, Caillois went on to praise games as a source of joy, as well as a healthy means of “escape from responsibility and routine.”

Farmville is not a good game. While Caillois tells us that games offer a break from responsibility and routine, Farmville is defined by responsibility and routine. Users advance through the game by harvesting crops at scheduled intervals; if you plant a field of pumpkins at noon, for example, you must return to harvest at eight o’clock that evening or risk losing the crop.

The secret to Farmville’s popularity is neither gameplay nor aesthetics. Farmville is popular because in entangles users in a web of social obligations. When users log into Facebook, they are reminded that their neighbors have sent them gifts, posted bonuses on their walls, and helped with each others’ farms. In turn, they are obligated to return the courtesies.

The most important thing to recognize here is that, whether we like it or not, seventy-three million people are playing Farmville: a boring, repetitive, and potentially dangerous activity that barely qualifies as a game. Seventy-three million people are obligated to a company that holds no reciprocal ethical obligation toward those people.

[GreyICE]

Unbelievable. We're like maybe 3 years out of the 'Jack Thompson is talking to the Senate,' 'Columbine was caused by Doom' era and one group of gamers wants to attack another group of gamers because the gaming they're engaged in is dangerous.

How does one go about failing that hard?

[PsychoSerenity]

and one group of gamers wants to attack another group of gamers

What?

[beige]

Farmville is not a good game. While Caillois tells us that games offer a break from responsibility and routine, Farmville is defined by responsibility and routine. Users advance through the game by harvesting crops at scheduled intervals; if you plant a field of pumpkins at noon, for example, you must return to harvest at eight o’clock that evening or risk losing the crop.

And where does that leave most MMOs?

[Trolldor]

lol. "Gaming" is gaming.
Harvest Moon for Wii, Nintendo Gamecube, DS.

Nah I'm not convinced, that actually offers challenge and entertainment.

While looking up about Farmville earlier I came across an excellent piece on it.
http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org ... -farmville

We are citizens of a democracy, and democratic citizenship has always been a difficult skill to master. This is why Aristotle tells us that, in an ideal state, citizens would possess ample leisure time: the education of a citizen depends upon contemplation, deliberation, and training.

“Play is an occasion of pure waste: waste of time, energy, ingenuity, skill, and often of money….”[1] So said Roger Caillois in his book, Man, Play, and Games. Of course, Caillois went on to praise games as a source of joy, as well as a healthy means of “escape from responsibility and routine.”

Farmville is not a good game. While Caillois tells us that games offer a break from responsibility and routine, Farmville is defined by responsibility and routine. Users advance through the game by harvesting crops at scheduled intervals; if you plant a field of pumpkins at noon, for example, you must return to harvest at eight o’clock that evening or risk losing the crop.

The secret to Farmville’s popularity is neither gameplay nor aesthetics. Farmville is popular because in entangles users in a web of social obligations. When users log into Facebook, they are reminded that their neighbors have sent them gifts, posted bonuses on their walls, and helped with each others’ farms. In turn, they are obligated to return the courtesies.

The most important thing to recognize here is that, whether we like it or not, seventy-three million people are playing Farmville: a boring, repetitive, and potentially dangerous activity that barely qualifies as a game. Seventy-three million people are obligated to a company that holds no reciprocal ethical obligation toward those people.

*snoooooooooooore*

And once again, a game is a game.
That you don't like it doesn't make it any less of a game.

[Kristie]

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/societ ... 18squ.html

Last month the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia released a study predicting that mums are set to overtake teenage boys as the new gamers. Nearly half of gamers are women over 30 and of those 40 per cent are women with children under 18.

[PsychoSerenity]

And where does that leave most MMOs?

To be honest I don't have that much experience with MMOs, but from the little I have, I would agree that there are elements in some of them that are similar to the routine and obligation described in the article - but crucially, most of them offer some real gameplay as well, challenges you have to learn how to overcome, problems to solve etc.

But it is an interesting discussion about a potentially nasty side of games. There's an open-ended RPG that I got properly hooked on, and long after I had exhausted the entertainment value in exploration and the character development game mechanics etc. I continued to play, even though I wasn't enjoying it, because there was always more to be done. If you can create a product that compels people to keep using it, even though they get little or nothing out of it, and even gets them to convince others to use it, I would say that has some fairly serious moral consequences (not that the government has ever minded such things).

What they said in the article about Farmville, reminds me of those chain letters that said something like "send this to 10 people including me". If people had taken it seriously they would forever be sending it back and forwards between each other. Of course that never worked because even if someone decided to send it on in the first place, they generally weren't stupid enough to do it again when they received it back.

*snoooooooooooore*

And once again, a game is a game.
That you don't like it doesn't make it any less of a game.

Sorry you didn't find it as interesting as I did.

But it's not that I don't like it - it's that I'm not sure it necessarily meets the definition of a game.

[Trolldor]

Actually it does qualify. There's a reason they're called 'flash games'.
It's a new attribution, but that doesn't make it any less of a game because it's not in 3-d with rendered physics.

[PsychoSerenity]

Actually it does qualify. There's a reason they're called 'flash games'.
It's a new attribution, but that doesn't make it any less of a game because it's not in 3-d with rendered physics.

Who do you think you're talking to here? I'm well aware that there are plenty (probably still the majority) of computer games that are 2d.

I'm talking about the actual definition of a game (which admittedly is fairly loose and philosophical) - That includes sports, board games, card games, computer games, and excludes toys, puzzles, interactive art, and webs of social obligation. Obviously there's plenty of crossover in the definitions, but from what I've heard (again I should probably say, I haven't played it myself, but I have seen videos of it and read about it) Farmville is at least at the very edge of what could be defined as a game.

[Clinton Huxley]

Where does the "biscuit game" stand in this semantic debate?