How do adults still find time for their favorite games?

[timick1]

The Gaming Generation...How do adults still find time for their favorite games?


By Shawn Struck

The Atari 2600 was released in 1977. Pac-Mania swept the U.S. in 1980. The Nintendo Entertainment System took the American home-*console market by storm in 1986. And now, the first generation to grow up with video games is all grown up.

Gamers who stared down the challenges of reaching "just one more level" or beating an old high score are now facing a more significant challenge: blending the gaming lifestyle with marriages, mortgages, and raising children. How are some members of the "video-game generation" coping? And where do sociologists see this generation taking family *relationships and gaming itself in the future?

With gaming stepping out of the shadows of geekdom and into the spotlight of the mainstream, gamer parents aren't alone—in fact, they have some pretty noteworthy company. Mike Krahulik, better known to his legions of fans as Gabe, one half of the team behind the gaming Webcomic "Penny Arcade," says that time is the biggest challenge in blending gaming and parenthood. "You just don't have as much time for gaming when you're up every 30 minutes to change diapers and get thrown up on."

Another parent who juggles time constraints with his gaming is John Scalzi, best-selling author of Old Man's War and editorial contributor for Official PlayStation Magazine. The demands on his time can lead to a conflict between the way games were designed to be played and the way he wants to enjoy them. "I tend not to play games that don't allow me to save at any time and any place," he says. Whether or not game makers intend it, Scalzi feels arbitrary save points imply that "what the game has got going on is more important than anything else I've got *going on in my life. That's incorrect; games have to fit my life, not the other way around."

For Scalzi, Krahulik, and others, an important part of integrating gaming into their lives is sharing it with their children. Andrew Bub, a veteran gaming journalist, plays Barbie games with his young daughter Maggie; she's also an avid Mario Bros. and Ms. Pac-Man player. Scalzi plays not only classic arcade games with his daughter but "some of the more bloodless fighting games," such as the Soul Calibur series, and rhythm games such as Dance Dance Revolution.

Meanwhile, Dr. Michael G. Zey, noted sociologist and author of the forthcoming book The Ageless Society, predicts that with advances in medical technology and people living longer than ever, American society will see a reemergence of what he calls the "multigenerational family"—several generations living under one roof.

Video games have offered millions an opportunity to bond over a shared culture, and the gaming generation is taking the opportunity to share the experience with loved ones and pass a passion for gaming on to the next generation. Video games, once dismissed as a flash in the pan, have become a permanent part of the landscape. And for the generation that grew up with them, those virtual worlds have become a part of their everyday world.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2089402,00.asp

[HeadRusch]

What they fail to comment on is that gamers tend to use up their free time "gaming"...you could just as easily ask the jocks how they balance family life with their obsessions for Golf/Softball/Football and hanging out at the sports bars. Or what the movie-fiends or ship builders or obsessive readers do once they have a family of their own :)

[FiveMillionWays]

There is no time for gaming really. You just have to play when you can!

[DaverJ]

In my twenties when I was living alone, I found gaming to be the best and most fun time-filler. In my thirties and beyond, I have to find the time to game! :o

Not much changed in my life (still no kids) except the fact that I'm living with my SO which means I have to include her plans in my schedule. Also, there's more entertainment possibilities -- I currently have around 10 TV shows that I watch faithfully, not to mention at least a movie a week.

Still, gaming is thing I look forward to the most with my free time... there's just less of it.

[rsra13]

At 10 pm my daughters go to bed and that's when I start playing. I also play Wii games with my 7 years old.

But yeah, when you are married and with kids you just play when you can.

[Mobius_570]

What they fail to comment on is that gamers tend to use up their free time "gaming"...you could just as easily ask the jocks how they balance family life with their obsessions for Golf/Softball/Football and hanging out at the sports bars. Or what the movie-fiends or ship builders or obsessive readers do once they have a family of their own :)

Well said! It's our hobby and that is what we spend our free time on. It is just like any other hobby that people take time out of their lives to do. I usually plan my time just as I would if I wanted to go golfing. for instance my wife and kid are going away for the day on Saturday, so I have planned to spend a little alone time with my PS3 and/or PC.

[SpeedyHTPC]

I game only from 4-5 and 9-10:30pm daily. Otherwise I am at work or with my twins. This is most certainly not enough time to spend quality time with Ghost Recon AWF.

[cfmustang]

I guess I'll find out soon enough. We our having our first baby in October, so I am pretty sure my gaming time will be quite limited for a while...

[Scotty L]

Hate to say it but in my experience games get less & less fun as you grow older. I'd much rather have a drunken poker night with my buddies vs. racking up 50+ hours in the latest Metal Gear game. In college it would have been different, but you tend to get more concerned with the real world rather than a virtual one as you age.

That's not to say I don't love gaming anymore. I just don't have that passion I had for it when the N64/PSX/Saturn or even the SNES/Genesis wars were going on.

Who knows? If the next Zelda is beautiful with 1080p & 5.1 uncompressed audio I may get the itch all over again. :p

[RAVEN56706]

i have it planned..... will put the playpen in the computer room and play battlefield 2142 until the baby wakes up

[ChrisFB]

Hate to say it but in my experience games get less & less fun as you grow older.

To a degree I think it's realizing that we ultimately have less and less time left, more demands on that time, a better appreciation for high quality time with people we love and enjoy and in the end we really don't feel like blowing a ton of it sitting inside alone in front of a screen unless it's going to be a very worthwhile experience. I think when you are younger you feel like you have all the time in the world and with cheaply valued time and few demands it doesn't so much matter how you spend it.

There just aren't many games I want to bother with. I still enjoy gaming but it tends to be at night, when everyone else is asleep and I can get a quick session in some FPS or other similar non-commitment involved game every once in a while. I do expect to play more games as my 3 year old boy grows up but I certainly don't want that to be a major part of our total time together nor do I want him inside like a zombie pissing his time away when there is no game that can compare with the real world.

[HeadRusch]

To add to what Chris said, as you get older and older you realize: You've played this game before. THe FPS's, no matter how good, are still FPS's.

Same thing goes for movies....you start to see the same plots, the same stereotyped characters, in every movie. Or you notice how PC's the movies of today are.....and that also gets tiresome.

[DaverJ]

This thread is starting to depress me. :(

[HeadRusch]

And yet I still enjoy gaming, I still enjoy FPS's..even though I've done it all before.

Thing is, moving through ever-more-realistic environments blowing things away just doesn't seem to get old!

[Joe_M]

I'm married (no kids) and it's still difficult to find time to play game. There are a lot of other things I want to spend time doing that somehow I try and balance it all. I will usually play a little after work and then maybe some after dinner. Trying to split time between PC games and PS2 is sometimes hard. I find that I'm more critical about games now. If it doesn't hook me in the first 30 minutes, I'm done with it.

[bigpow]

I feel the same way.
I've been playing games for the last 20years of my life, and I still don't get bored.
The games are getting better and new genres are still being created every now & then

for those of you who are bored, you only need to play newer games ...
you're not bored, you just haven't found your next good game yet!

[SpeedyHTPC]

I just like simulation. I have enjoyed Flight Simulator since the Commodore days and still enjoy FS-X. I even joined VATSIM pilots with VA's.

I really like those FPS games that require some thinking. RTS was first but that got burnt out when StarCraft was over. I loved the Thief series after that.

Got back into games again with SWAT4, FEAR, RB6 Vegas, now Ghost Recon AWF.
I'm a fan of triplehead2go but I dont have it.

[rsra13]

The good thing about having babies is that your wife doesn't need you that much anymore, so you have more time to play. :p

[cfmustang]

:rolleyes:

I'm not sure if you are trying to cheer me up or depress me... :D

[JoeCog]

I played EQ since it came out, 2nd day servers were up, I was playing. I had to quit cold turkey in 2006 it was taking over my life, since then I haven't really looked back or for time to play, I assume I will some time in the future though.

[ChrisFB]

I played EQ since it came out, 2nd day servers were up, I was playing. I had to quit cold turkey in 2006 it was taking over my life, since then I haven't really looked back or for time to play, I assume I will some time in the future though.

When I first saw EQ and UO they looked really cool and being a big fan of RPGs from the old Ultima III/IV days and getting back into PC gaming, I was very interested to try them. I had the EQ box in my hand and giving it some thought just before walking to the register, I put it back. I often look back on that decision as a really good and lucky one. I'm sure I missed out on some great gaming but honestly even at launch that game looked like a monster potential time sink and I'm glad I side stepped it and the rest of the genre.

This comes from a guy who promises himself just "1 more round" of Counter-Strike and it's 4 hours later and while playing Vice City or Morrowind suddenly realizes it's 4am when it was 11pm just an hour ago. I shudder at the thought of Everquest and good MMORPG and want nothing to do with it. Like heroine, I acknowledge it likely feels quite good but since I have never seen much true positive come from its use - I've chosen to avoid.

[HeadRusch]

I have, on occasion. spent half a day just driving around Vice City, in a cab or cop car going on Vigilante missions.

Once I spent half an hour seeing if I could race from one side of the islands to Ocean Beach to watch the sun rise :D

[ChrisFB]

I have, on occasion. spent half a day just driving around Vice City, in a cab or cop car going on Vigilante missions.

Once I spent half an hour seeing if I could race from one side of the islands to Ocean Beach to watch the sun rise :D

I grew up in S. Florida during the Miami Vice era. Combine this with being a big 80s music fan and it's just a great game to mess around with (disclaimer - I am also a huge fan of blowing things and people up, large scale violence, and general exploring, I wore out a trigger on a Logitech Cordless controller with this game alone).

[drrosen2l]

For me, my sone goes to bed by 7:30-8:00 p.m. everynight, at which point my wife goes to work out, which leaves me a couple of hours eevry night to game.

-Paul

[drrosen2l]

For me, my sone goes to bed by 7:30-8:00 p.m. everynight, at which point my wife goes to work out, which leaves me a couple of hours eevry night to game.

-Paul

I am sure things will change when he gets older.

-Paul

[Logic_BomB]

I'm fairly fortunate to have a fiance who loves gaming (casually) and loves how I like home theater. Although I can't spend hours during the evening playing games, she let's me slip in an hour into the evening and I get plenty of time on those nights she falls asleep on my lap (the only limitation being when I personally want to go to bed).

Another perk is that she's gone to work at 6:45am while I only need to be out of the house at 8:30. All in all I get a good 2-4 hours a day in without any problems or complaints. Once I have a kid I might have a hard time but for now I get more than enough time in :)

[daschrier]

I pretty much gamed all the time during my free time. Since I started seeing my gf a year ago, my time has been reduced. I didn't play at all for months, but now she started working tuesday nights, so I game then, as well as when she works early, before I have to work. I've also moved most of my gaming stuff into her place, so I take advantage of the short amounts of time I have.

Her and her roommates don't understand it, but it's my relaxation, just like watching Grays Anatomy is for them.

[Genius74]

I guess I was lucky enough to marry a gamer!

No kids (and no plans for them), but as mentioned before, there are just so many other things to do!

[samsung hd]

they are bum ,, no job what so ever

[meflynn85]

this is an interesting thread. i find i still enjoy games just as much as ever-- the thrill of exploration and discovery, blowing things up, all of it. i love it. i just find that the older i get, the more guilty i feel for spending so much time playing games. maybe it's just parents/society's voice in my head telling me to do something more worthwhile, maybe it's the feeling of recognizing your time is finite as described above, or maybe the shallowness of artificial achievements grows increasingly clear the older you get, but it becomes more of a struggle to justify the amount of time and money i spend doing imaginary things. don't get me wrong, it's a major passion of mine and i'm proud to be a gamer. i hope i'm not too arthritic to still be playing when i'm 80. and the satisfaction i get from accomplishing things in games is so profound it's almost embarrassing. i think it's the closest thing to an out of body experience anybody can have. but i'm definitely noticing the experience changing as i grow older (now in my 30s) and former gamer friends drift away into full-fledged adulthood. sometimes i play a game and wish i were experiencing it as a young boy, oblivious to the stress of adult life and more easily taken in by the virtual world in front of me. but great games take me to that mindspace anyway. frankly that's what miyamoto is for.

[rsra13]

The best about having kids... they want to play. With your toys. Keyboard, controller, etc.

My 10 months old daughter grabs my xbox 360 controller and starts pushing the guide button , so she keeps turning on and off the console. I try to be calm and look for something to trade. Then she starts sweeping the carpet with the control, then licking it, then biting it.

[squidboy]

The best about having kids... they want to play. With your toys. Keyboard, controller, etc.

My 10 months old daughter grabs my xbox 360 controller and starts pushing the guide button , so she keeps turning on and off the console. I try to be calm and look for something to trade. Then she starts sweeping the carpet with the control, then licking it, then biting it.

:D

My five year old likes to sneak into the office in the morning when wifey and I are still in bed, and play games on the computer (Blues Clues, Dora, games like that). I'm thinking of setting up one of my old PCs for her and her little brothers to bang away on. I'll just image the drive so I can do quick restores when she inevitably messes something up.

My wife is hot and cold on games. She'll play some for a couple months, then forget about it for a few more months. Right now, she is in a game playing mood (BF2142 and BFME2), so I convinced her to let me buy a new gaming machine, for me, and she gets the old one so we can play together. Sweet. :cool:

[HeadRusch]

The best about having kids... they want to play. With your toys. Keyboard, controller, etc.

My 10 months old daughter grabs my xbox 360 controller and starts pushing the guide button , so she keeps turning on and off the console. I try to be calm and look for something to trade. Then she starts sweeping the carpet with the control, then licking it, then biting it.

Whats your $50 controller doing on the floor within reach of a 10 month old?

Or is your 10 month old walking and grabbging stuff.....? In which case look up MENSA on Wikipedia and start saving for Harvard.