Argh, as an older parent of two younguns who doesn’t know a ps4 from an xbox, reading this made me cringe. Am I going to be hindering my kids socially by telling them to go play outside with the physical world, where hardly any other neighborhood kids are, while the rest of their friends are online?
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Been gaming since the early 70’s with my 1st console being a Magnavox Odyssey in 73.
Gotta love color overlays for the T.V.
But back to you.Guessing from that comment you weren’t around in the 70’s.
Most likely mid/late 90’s
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Just how social is blowing someone’s head off?
And “emergent media”? Just a heads up, in the early to mid 70’s video gaming was an emergent media.
Try Fad as in the latest fad in gaming is to try and shoe horn in social content to make money and gather data
You want positive social aspects in life?
Go do some volunteer work ( I do at the A.S.P.C.A. twice a week )
Actually I was implying via sarcasm that you missed the point. That there is more to social gaming than just playing the same game at the same time while connected over the internet. I shall venture to be more clear in the future.
Also, early 80’s. Though I don’t see how that is relevant in any shape or form.
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I’d imagine it doesn’t do them any major harm. Might mean they are somewhat lonely. But there’s always going to a friends house and playing there.
This. I already see the divide among the commenters here just by what games they are listing. Games, consoles or PC, earlier than the late 90’s were geared toward single player environments. You had some peer to peer stuff and lan setups (at least lan parties forced you to actually be social in person), but nothing like the team speak/headset stuff today. Look at FPS games today, they are co-op driven much more so than any focus on the single player aspect - especially the AAA titles. Of course a big part of that is generating a revenue stream, but it’s obvious a lot of people like that aspect of gaming. Personally I don’t care for it, especially the group driven stuff.
Like I said above I spent a lot of time in single player environments. Countless hours were lost flying around killing robots in Descent, cycling laser configurations in Mech Warrior, and exploring worlds in Star Control. I didn’t play those for social interaction, I played those as sort of an escape from reality. Having other people along for the ride only hindered my immersion into the fantasy of what I was playing. Sure they were just games, but damn it, when I was playing Half-Life I was Gordon Freeman carrying my Stanley 24 inch Wonderbar.
Before the internet the social aspect was in person. Arcades, lan parties, two player console co-op…those were all done in person. That’s a lot different than typing on a keyboard or chating on a headset, especially in the development of social skills in teenagers.
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Preferably by walking over to their cave with a gift of fresh-killed saber-tooth tiger.
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Say it with a smilodon?
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Walking is so yesterday…
Guess physical feedback for unwelcome shenanigans has has gone away over the years. But I’d say the amount of feedback has remained, just in a more social and verbal form.
No, you are providing them with the ages-old “excuse” to rebel against authority.
There’s always a reason – and it’s never really the one.
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Pedal-power is the new social transit, and it’s a boys club.
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Shhhhhhhhhh You don’t want another article to pop up here.
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I’m fairly old-school. We still do weekly gaming nights with pencil and paper (You didn’t tell me that I just activated Phase 12!), but have a wide range of friends we’ve met online. This year I sent out Xmas cards to people from all around the world that we know from our MMORPG, and we’ve visited and had online gaming friends visit us. I know that one of our guild members is taking care of his 3 year old daughter after a nasty custody battle, one is prone to migraines and other health problems, one just got engaged, one is in between jobs but doesn’t mind because of the snow, and one is having trouble with subcontractors at his job. Online gaming is very social if you take time to interact pleasantly.
That being said, I tend to turn off zone chat, because it frequently devolves into insults, political and conspiracy claptrap and general stupidity. You don’t need to be female to get annoyed at the verbal griefing.
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Frankly, even boingboing comment section is a game. Why? Because there’s a “like” button. More likes you get, the higher your score. So looking down on games with flashier graphics is just silly.
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I’m sympathetic to this view and to a certain extent, I do believe that boys will be boys and girls will be girls. You can encourage your kids to get interested in all sorts of things but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll take. There’s an interview between Conan O’Brien and Anna Faris where they talked about getting their respective sons interested in traditionally “feminine” stuff. Nope. Didn’t stick. All they wanted was guns, cars, and monster trucks.
But at the same time, it’s been proven that boys’ only hobbies do create boys clubs. Female players receive the lion’s share of abuse in online gaming.
Everyone who plays games online is going to get harassed sooner or later but recognizing that women receive a staggeringly disproportionate amount of that harassment is an important part of getting more women interested in online gaming.
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Far Cry Primal?
