Dean's World

There's a serious point to be made here. Video games are carefully constructed to maximize the likelihood that you'll keep playing; sports like skating aren't.

Devices used by game designers include variety and continual reinforcement through small rewards. I've got a pal who wrote his masters thesis in psychology on the psychology of computer games (after adding a year to his grad student time by virtue of the time wasted playing the old computer game hack).

Also, skating that much is extremely expensive — vastly more expensive than video games. (unless you're in wintertime Canada)

I consider my Video Game playing "Time well Wasted", thank you.

Financially there is NO other form of entertainment or hobbies that I could do that would cost less. I spend less per month on my variety of game poison than I do on books, cable TV, movie, rentals, tickets, etc.

I limit myself to "After Hours", when the family has gone to bed. Sure, I could hang out at the local bar or rot on TV, or any number of other things, but I choose Video Games.

Now, that being said, If this product had been available when I was a teen, I don't know that I would have done anything else but. If nothing else, this fact has encouraged me to act the good parent and help my children enjoy Video Games, but also balance them with other activities.

As I explained to my wife when considering the purchase, I don't want to be that dad that wakes up and realizes that I have no understanding of what my children are doing to have fun... and even If I did know what they were doing, wouldn't understand why it was fun.

This is NOT your father's century... Father, Son, and grandson will NOT be going to the ballgame together, the entertainment medium is changing too fast, don't miss the bus.

I play games, a few hours each day. And I switch between games. There are few "quest games" that I have gotten to the end of the quest. I still enjoy setting up a character or a party and going through the game-world (this is solitaire, not on-line gaming like WoW). I still like AoEII, putting together a small kingdom and righteously kicking my foes in a massive assault - raid my city? Ha! Feel my wrath! (Oh, I got carried away again.)

One thing I would like are smaller, shorter, "quests", those that could be accomplished in a few hours. Some of the NWN modules provide that. I really do not have the time or the patience or the attention level for a four-hours-a-day-for-a-month long quest. I have done some, but I would really like to be able to go into a certain section and replay it for a night; sort of like opening a favorite book to a certain section and reading from there.

*sigh* I'm rambling again.

Sigh... more attacks on the hobbies of others because somebody disapproves of the activity.

Let's do some comparisons:

Let's say I play a round of golf each week. First I have to have golf clubs. That ain't cheap. Then I have to pay greens fees. That's as much as a set of cheap golf clubs at many golf courses. Then I spend six to seven hours on a Saturday or Sunday driving around a green park chasing a little white ball and trying to put it in a little round hole 18 times. Then I head to the "19th hole" and have a few beers. Total cost per week? Maybe $50 if you are lucky. That's now counting lost balls and broken clubs... Clearly golf is a horrible financial and time drain that should be discouraged. And to what gain? To get better at putting a little white ball into a little round hole. Serious evolutionary advantage to that skill set, eh?

How about softball? Let's see, with uniforms, bats, gloves, etc.. I can easily sink $300 into a summer's worth of activity, that's not counting beer or emergency room visits.

Then there's skiing... Man, I don't even wanna start calculating the cost of weekend ski trips in Colorado... They make golf look positively cheap in comparison.

Bicycling? Well, for me it's not so bad, a couple hundred bucks for a bike and then gas to drive to and from some bike trails. But the vast majority of cyclists I see have sunk hundreds and even thousands of dollars into their hobby, and none of the ones I know (and I know quite a few) have yet been invited to try out for the Olympics.

I could go on. This sort of snarky attack on video gaming is nothing new. When I was a kid it was comic books, then it was role playing games that were "black holes of productivity."

Why people have to pontificate on what other people find entertaining is a mystery to me.

I am one of those people who have wide and varied interests. I fish, play golf, play softball, play video games, play cards, play role playing games, in essence, I just do what I enjoy doing. Most of the things I do are fairly inexpensive compared to my peers who spend significant chunks of their disposable income on their hobbies (let's talk about amateur photographers, for example). The truth is that in my entire life I have probably spent less than $250 on video games. My golf clubs cost more than that. And I can't golf at midnight on a rainy day.

Good lord, when do we get the lecture on watching too much HBO?