I’m an older dude whose phase of staying up all night playing was back in the early console days. I prefer in-person tabletop RPGs like D&D, Traveller and Call of Cthulhu. Just not into computer games anymore, but that and social media seem to be most people’s primary computer activities.
Game chatter has changed over the years - I used to see a lot of talk about graphics quality and massively powerful hardware - maybe that was during a period when it was rapidly improving, I dunno. But the current focus seems to be more on game industry business decisions sucking.
Anyway I’m just wondering how common it is to use computers more for coding and other technical non-game stuff.
My partner and I have some high end gaming machines and play games maybe once a week or every other week. Our computers’ main use is downloading movies and shows and playing them for us!
I used to play 40+ hours a week, but that was like a half-decade ago.
Does making game code count? I like making game things and binning them before they resemble something playable! :)
Besides that… I mostly… no that’s it, I rarely play things, unless that time every 6 months that I get really into a top-down RPG. For a weekend, my main use is exploring a colorado wasteland or a small town, but it’s followed by me starting to make a game aaaand giving up again… but it’s fun! :)
I really should make music, I sometimes feel the spark went and it’s sad. :(
I mean, I play a lot of games, but the time I spend coding for work and coding for not work is definitely greater time spent gaming.
I last launched Minecraft about 4 years ago. Before that, I don’t even remember what games I might have played on my computer. The last console game I played with any regularity was GTA 5 on console, and once I beat the single player game I pretty much stopped. I simply don’t have time to spend on games I guess. I do have both Cribbage and Sudoku on my phone. Probably play them a combined average of 2-3 hours a month.
I do so many different things on my computers that I rarely have time to play. I do have four or five games (as in Steam bought), but all I get to play is a clondike solitaire occasionally.
I build my machine about 8 years ago and it is time for a new one. I use it mainly for coding and research but I do like the occasional game (even VR). I try to max out specs so the PC lasts a long time.
Photo editing and uploading, maintaining my sports club’s website, video calls to family members, watching films and TV. Do word puzzles count as gaming? I do Quordle and Octordle every morning. I also have an ancient laptop running Linux; I’m trying to work myself up to switch the computer over come October.
Hmm it’s difficult to quantify. On workday I spend an average of probably 6-8 hours on a computer with job related tasks. Not really coding most of the time, since we’re maintaining and building a network, so it’s more configuration, planning, coordination, and documentation work. Some days we’re out to actually deploy hardware, or run around and debug stuff, so it’s hard to estimate the average screentime.
My free time involves a lot of computer time too, but it is split up into more smaller categories, either on the desktop computer or the smartphone computer. Manga, Games, Youtube, Movies, Anime Series, Lemmy, Pornography, News, Banking and Investments.
In the end I think my job is the biggest unified chunk of time, but that’s kind of arbitrary, if I started subdividing it into different tasks maybe gaming would become the biggest chunk.
I do game, but I have a dedicated HTPC that I game on. My laptop is mostly for work, I own my own business so I do a lot of design, spreadsheeting, etc. I also write lyrics and prose for a hobby, so I use my laptop for that, as well as some light music production. I think the only game I play on it is the KDE minesweeper clone.
Mainly gaming but if I’m looking things up online and need multiple tabs. I won’t use mobile. Mobile sucks ass for that.
Multiple tabs and two monitors makes things much easier to do research.
Spreadsheet work for my business… on mobile?
I’m crazy not stupid.
I still game on my desktop. But it’s never been the primary use.
Graphic Design, video editing, 3D modelling, etc… has been the reason for my upgrades over the years. The fact that each of those upgrades allowed my games to perform better was a side-effect instead of being the primary reason.
I am an adjunct professor. My evenings are taken for making slides and marking. I wish I had time for gaming.
I used to play a ton of games throughout my teenage years but fell off in my 20s. Now in my late 30s I still keep up with gaming news and discussion, but I rarely actually play through games anymore. I go through maybe one a year.
You’re right that the discussion has changed, and that’s due to a number of factors. Mostly, new games are pretty configurable and will run on pretty much any modern hardware. Long gone are the days where you simply couldn’t play something unless you ponied up for a Voodoo 2. Add to that, that PC hardware is a lot more standard now. Gaming enthusiasts dont need to learn a bunch of competing hardware standards to keep up anymore.
And the other side is that with the introduction of microtransactions, keeping an eye on how companies are trying to monetize games is important. AAA games these days have Hollywood movie budgets and if they’re not profitable, then hundreds of people are out of a job. Looking back, it’s pretty amazing what 10-15 people could accomplish with a fraction of the budget and time that modern developers get(indie games notwithstanding)
Maybe you’re old enough to remember Sierra Games - King’s Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, etc - in the 90s they hardly had any in-house game developers. Mostly they just marketed games written by very small companies or even lone developers. Back then I did a contract job for them to create an online tournament system (which they never used).
I learned English from kq1 on an ibm xt. Parents was pretty surprised of me as an 10 year old hogging the English dictionary. I still remember spending half a years pocket money on kq4 when it finally was available in Norway. Also loved that heroes quest series. I believe it was renamed quest for glory at some point
I never play, i always code… And i am not even that good at it 😢
Does collaborative writing for fun count as games? The communities involved call them games, but there’s no thoughts about control schemes or graphics, and no need to do anything outside your browser. That, chat, social media, reading (both for work and personal time), and the like take up the bulk of my PC time.
I would call collaborative writing computer use but not a computer game. Programming feels like a game to me!
