I'm starting to think that it's unhealthy for adult guys to be playing games that have no real life consequences.

When I was growing up, even video games required a quarter or more to play. Now you can get better than arcade quality in your own home for very cheap, and have infinite lives.

In the same way that re-instituting the draft would probably make us choose our battles more carefully, I think that if guys had some real skin in the game for video games or other similar activities, it might force them to spend their time in a better way.

I could be wrong about all this, but my sense is that the lack of this adversity might be contributing in some way to the types of the problems we talk about here a lot.

Thoughts?

ps. You're Avatar is a video game character.

I see a lot of videogame hate on the manosphere, but I don't really get it. Overlooking extreme examples like WoW addicts (who are by and large aspergers losers to begin with, can't blame videogames for that) what makes videogames 'limit your potential' blah blah any more than do books, movies, sports?

Anything fun, entertaining, or pleasurable can be taken to an unhealthy extreme, and in that regard there is absolutely nothing unique about videogames. WAY more alcoholics, porn addicts, gambling addicts, food addicts, workaholics, and shopping addicts out there than there are video game addicts.

I can understand if you just don't find videogames fun, but saying an hour or two of gaming a day is going to sabotage your ability pursue your dreams and goals is just stupid. WTF is the point of life if you aren't having fun (whatever form that may take, for you)? What a boring existence.

Pizza, nutritionally speaking, is total garbage, but guess what; it's fucking mindbogglingly delicious. I'm not going to go denying myself a base human pleasure and eat nothing but baked chicken and vegetables to conform to someone else's puritanical ideal of being a 'better man'. Ditto for playing videogames.

Well, I've been playing street fighter 4 all morning and I can't beat ryu. It's annoying but started thinking it would be cool if you could bet on this game like online poker.

Then the guys who actually play these games could make some money.

Well, if you're good enough, competitive gaming is an option.

On a semi-related note, I think one of the paradigm shifts we will begin to see in videogames in the near future will be crowd sourcing of art, design, and code from players. Imagine getting paid to contribute content to your favorite videogames, kind of like Second Life (except, not gay).

I think video games are like porn in some ways. Perhaps the biggest masculine enterprises are to have sex, compete with other guys, and build stuff. Video games provide an avenue to compete and build in a way that is perhaps a little too easy, or at least too easy compared to what it takes to build and compete in real life, just like porn gives a sexual outlet that is too easy compared to real life.

How old are you guys?

Anyways, videogames are a waste of time, if you want to do something productive, why don't you program or build a videogame? Be more constructive with your downtime. Get a real hobby, not one that someone else has made for you.
Go to a pawn shop and buy a set of chisels, then just go crazy on some wood. Learn how to sand and stain wood after it's carved.
Or, buy some shitty old guns and bullets, go to goodwill, buy a bunch of toys, then go out in the woods with friends and go shooting.
Go on craigslist, there's tons of old power tools for cheap. Buy them and build something.

Quote: (12-25-2013 12:44 PM)commiejoe Wrote:  

Go on craigslist, there's tons of old power tools for cheap. Buy them and build something.

Good advice for someone that works in an office. But some of us get paid lots of money to build shit all day, and we don't want to come home to make something else. "The mechanics wife drives the shittiest car". I'm all about my Xbox for downtime.

Quote: (12-25-2013 12:44 PM)commiejoe Wrote:  

Anyways, videogames are a waste of time, if you want to do something productive, why don't you...

...buy some shitty old guns and bullets, go to goodwill, buy a bunch of toys, then go out in the woods with friends and go shooting.

Damn Soup I think you stirred up the hive....... People have been resurrecting a lot of video games threads since you made this.
Power to the players

I agree with Ziltoid.

As long as you're not playing video games for hours on end daily, there is no harm.

Time outside the house, at the gym, catching up with friends, meeting new girls is necessary to improve yourself and your game.

But so is alone time. Time to reflect, read, distract yourself.

I'm a fairly busy guy, but I'll play video games when I have some downtime. Like anything in life, it's about moderation, and the self-discipline to step away.

That being said, I've lost interest over the last generation, as gaming became more mainstream. Video games are dumbing down to the point they basically play themselves, such as Call Of Duty, and there's no challenge, just empty achievement. Sandbox games are full of pointless busy work to basically function as Time Sinks for people with nothing better to do. This is why I never bother going for achievements: I have a life. (I also find they break immersion).

Matt Forney had an interesting post recently that echoed my own thoughts that there's two kinds of people: people who recognise you can achieve through intellectual curiousity, hard work and effort, and passive, complaining blobs with a voracious hunger for entertainment. One creates, one can only consume.

Producers Vs. Parasites

I see the parasistes becoming even more passive, yet more entitled. People who can create a life trajectory of doing interesting things have a game advantage, because a girl will recognise you as being able to offer her positive life value. Most girls are incapable through their passivity of doing that themselves, and latch onto successful men for that reason. If your only achievements are those in video games, you simply won't attract, hence why the manosphere looks down on video games.

That being said: Smartphones + Social Media is just Xbox For Girls. A constantly-curated online persona is just the ultimate tamagotchi.

My 3 favorite games are:

1) Getting happier and more authentic
2) Getting money and power
3) Getting quality pussy

I prefer reality to fantasy.

I did enjoy video games as a kid. Now, life is my "video game".

^

There's grown men(over 18) in China that have played video games in marathon sessions of 3 days straight and died from the experience. Of course there is also a great lack of supply of pussy in China. So a man has to get his entertainment somewhere.

Video games are a vice like drinking, smoking, drugs, sex and gambling. It's entertainment that takes you out of the drudgery of the real world for a short period of time. And like any other vice moderation is the key.

Quote: (12-25-2013 05:19 PM)Giovonny Wrote:  

My 3 favorite games are:

1) Getting happier and more authentic
2) Getting money and power
3) Getting quality pussy

I prefer reality to fantasy.

I did enjoy video games as a kid. Now, life is my "video game".

I'll sit fat and happy on unemployment and play Final Fantasy all day. My gf gets off work and comes over, sits on the couch and reads the strategy guide while I play. Then when I get hungry, will stop the storyline and do some repetitive shit like leveling or gil mining. She gets bored and goes into the kitchen to cook, and is closer to the fridge to boomerang my beers that she bought. Then I get drunk and fed, then run my character to the hidden village with the bunny eared bishes and pan the camera to close up the boobies and hineys while making creeper noises with my hand in my pants. My girl gets the hint and has sex with me.

I make video games part of reality. Video 'game' recognized.



   

I'm not into games at all but those cosplay broads can get it.

^ I shudder to think of the big mess of mental issues an in-shape chick must have if she has to work that hard to ape fantasy to attention-whore for men, when she could attract comparable alpha attention just by wearing a bikini and not having a cunty attitude smiling.

Just get with some friends and put money down on games of Madden, nba2k, or fight Night.

$20 games of madden are a lot of fun.

Quote: (12-25-2013 06:44 PM)AnonymousBosch Wrote:  

^ I shudder to think of the big mess of mental issues an in-shape chick must have if she has to work that hard to ape fantasy to attention-whore for men, when she could attract comparable alpha attention just by wearing a bikini and not having a cunty attitude smiling.

If you watch the PBS documentary on Dragoncon, you'll see how mind fucked those girls are. I'd still bang, but would be afraid to ltr. We still need to have an rvf meetup and game those bishes. Considering most of the dudes there are gay or dorks, I think we have a chance.

Those chicks tend to come out of the raver/goth/graver scene. I knew hot girls growing up that were into vampire roll playing games etc. That was back in the nineties. This is this same shit. They like masculine dudes or gothy vampires guys. Mystery would have done well at dragoncon.

Another bullshit thread for guys to blame all their problems on videogames.

I fvck my Chinese girl every other day pretty well... at least I did last week and after we are finished, wtf are you gonna do? Sit in bed and stare deeply into each other's eyes? FUCK THAT. I get on mass effect, skyrim or sonic racing.

Quote:Quote:

Video games are a vice like drinking, smoking, drugs, sex and gambling. It's entertainment that takes you out of the drudgery of the real world for a short period of time. And like any other vice moderation is the key.

Games are MUCH better than any of those things: they don't cause cancer, you don't lose money, you don't have to constantly spend money every day to buy new ones and you don't feel drained at the end. Many of those things also breakup families and relationships with friends, I would say that gaming does the opposite.

My friends and I ALL own XBOXs here and we all get together on weekends for HALO gaming sessions. How old are you commie? I'm 35 and I probably enjoy my life alot more than you do. I've been into Magic Cards, Video Games and D&D since I was a kid and I'm not about to give it up because some jock dickhead or stupid spoiled whore thinks its immature. Games are a GREAT way to relax and add an absolute ton to a party.. not to mention D&D, which is great if you have 8 people and not much to do. Don't date gamer chicks though, convert them. Mine had never even seen an Xbox prior to me bringing it into the house let alone touched a controller. Now she loves playing, even though she sucks at it.

My friend and his wife play League of Legends back to back and our girls here are solid 9's by your 'American' standards. Infact all of my friends play games, cards, boardgames and we all have women and access to horny women everywhere.

So tired of this "real men don't do XYZ"... I got fvckin news for you, I'm a real man, I live a really good life, I'm married and making a fairly decent amount of money every month and I still have plenty of time and energy to game. I get way more enjoyment from my xbox blowing the heads off of covenant with a friend, then really WASTING TIME chasing some bitche$ skirt around. I don't know how old the rest of you are but my sex drive isn't what it used to be and after about an hour of sex, I'm fvcking bored. I have a projector that displays HD on a huge wall and 4 controllers, getting a new game to play with my friends excites me way more than getting my wife into bed.

Its really strange when you have men shaming other men for doing what they like... I thought that was the whole POINT of MGTOW, go your own way and do whatever you like. BTW if you are out doing what you like and ignoring what others think, THAT turns women on more than anything else. If you are hitting the gym everyday, building muscles and buying new fashions, you are in essence pandering to women and spending all your time trying to get between their legs. I like to think games allow me to BUILD BONDS and solidify friendships with other men. I'm quite certain I could invite the gamer guys in this thread over for some multiplayer SLAYER and after a few hours, all of us would be fairly good friends. Not everyone has the skills or interest to go out and learn to use power tools, I sure as fvck am not going to cut my arm off or blow my brains out if I accidentally press the wrong button on a controller. Also consoles are basically a party in a very small box. Get 4 guys together, an empty room with plain white walls, 4 chairs, an XBOX with HALO and a projector and you have a rockin party.. throw magic cards or a board game (settlers of Catan) into the mix and you have a party that may very well last all night long.

Just last week, my friend and I came home from work and invited my other friend over, we played a bit of cards and then turned on the xbox for what felt like half an hour. When I got up to take a p1ss, we looked at the clock and found that 5 hours had flown by. It was all good fun and no matter how much I killed those other two, they kept on trying.. I'm really ace when it comes to FPS games... anyway, it added ANOTHER layer to our get togethers and now whenever the doctor's kid, the marine, the academic, the journalist, and the mysognist show up together we always have stuff to talk about and do, where without that stuff, we really wouldn't have all that much in common. I support my friends and trust them more than I do just random dudes off the street and my friends hand me off jobs that they can't fill. I mean how can creating a support network ever be a bad thing? We are in China, a world away from home and when I had my recent heart problems, THESE were the guys that covered for me in my job, brought me stuff in the hospital and got me new jobs afterwards.

Quote: (12-25-2013 07:03 PM)Aliblahba Wrote:  

If you watch the PBS documentary on Dragoncon, you'll see how mind fucked those girls are. I'd still bang, but would be afraid to ltr. We still need to have an rvf meetup and game those bishes. Considering most of the dudes there are gay or dorks, I think we have a chance.

Yeah, it's not remotely my world, mate. I just see girls who want to be considered sexy by posing as unattainable fantasy objects. The idea is to be admired from afar, (which is why so many of these cosplayers pose as emasculating female empowerment fantasies), not to actually open themselves up to the possibility of sex with a man.

To my eyes, they're trying to reap the attention for being sexy without the actual threat of sex rearing its head, therefore, middle class white girl issues. Note how the 'dressing like this doesn't mean we're asking to be sexually-harrassed' feminist screeds that this kind of attention-whoring has resulted in lately.

Quote: (12-25-2013 05:40 PM)Parlay44 Wrote:  

It's entertainment that takes you out of the drudgery of the real world for a short period of time. And like any other vice moderation is the key.

For realz. I'm ADHD, and video games help me when I get spun up. I've know 3 people that got addicted to MMORPG's. 1 chick lost her job from coming in late to work. 1 dude estimated that in hours, had wasted full 1 year on WoW. That's almost 9K hours to put it in perspective.

And then there is my bro. Holy shit. He started back in the 90's when those games were still text based. GMUD or something. It got way worse with him with the introduction of Evercrack and then WoW. He was pretty deep in that shit for around a decade. I mean every moment he wasn't at work was in front of the monitor. He would fall asleep in his recliner waiting for all his little friends to get together and kill a dragon. I would be afraid to know how many hours he logged in.

I can't stand p2p games, and almost never play a game twice. I'll go 6 months sometimes without picking up a controller. Shit, I felt guilty after logging in 124 hours on FFXII. That's a lot of time staring at those bunny bishes asses.

Quote: (12-25-2013 12:58 PM)Aliblahba Wrote:  

Quote: (12-25-2013 12:44 PM)commiejoe Wrote:  

Go on craigslist, there's tons of old power tools for cheap. Buy them and build something.

Good advice for someone that works in an office. But some of us get paid lots of money to build shit all day, and we don't want to come home to make something else. "The mechanics wife drives the shittiest car". I'm all about my Xbox for downtime.

This is hilarious and true. This is why my co workers and I would play video games all weekend while other people went camping. We just did that shit all week and got paid for it. Would you want to volunteer your time off to go back to work and drink?