China's Restriction on Video Games

[Metamorph]

Kids In China Now Allowed Only 3 Hours Of Video Games On Weekends Only : NPR

It's no wonder the US hates China. They seem to be doing many things much better.

[xerx]

Kids In China Now Allowed Only 3 Hours Of Video Games On Weekends Only : NPR

It's no wonder the US hates China. They seem to be doing many things much better.

I say this as someone who loves video games (both writing them and playing them): One day, we'll look back on technology-addiction the way we look back on opium dens.

[Metamorph]

I say this as someone who loves video games (both writing them and playing them): One day, we'll look back on technology-addiction the way we look back on opium dens.

Yeah, I've stopped boycotting games but I don't do the big commercialized ones.

Games didn't really used to be commercialized. Sure, there were arcade games, but something like Dungeons and Dragons was free and many computer games were still free. Now even those are mostly commercialized.

[Squirrel]

This must be applied to my brother
Maybe he'll do smth better than screaming/hitting the keyboard when he lose

[Metamorph]

I think it sometimes takes alot of financial effort to make a great game, especially if it has advanced graphics and good voice acting. The commercial sphere might be kind of needed for that.

There was a game that was free a while ago called agar io. I think it's probably full of ads and other forms of getting monetized now. It's kind of unfortunate.

Edit: So, it seems like my flaw for the past few weeks has been that I don't check things. It seems like it's playable.

I tend to not care about graphics and voice acting. Game graphics always look like game graphics, and too much voice acting just slows down the game a ton for me compared to reading lines when I'm not just playing on mute anyways. I don't want to spend 300 hours before the Final Fantasy series supposedly gets good when in that amount of time, you could probably reread Harry Potter several times over and even that would be a better use of time. I don't want to stare at poorly-rendered CGI blobs. I am pro-games now, but still anti-commercialization since that seems to overwhelmingly be the factor which ruins it.

[Poptart]

I say this as someone who loves video games (both writing them and playing them): One day, we'll look back on technology-addiction the way we look back on opium dens.

Gaming functioned like a drug for me. Instead of drinking a cup of coffee in the morning, I woke myself up with a game of call of duty before getting ready. Playing that game was like injecting a shot adrenaline lol. I would instantly feel more alert. Sometimes my heart raced fast if the game was really close. Especially in war zone and blackout.

I’ve always said that Red Dead Redemption 2 is an underrated cure for insomnia. Every night I would get ready for bed, snuggle up on my couch and doze off while picking flowers and wandering aimlessly on my horse. That game was so boring and would put me to sleep faster than anything.

I think I was more of a functioning game addict. I never let my games interfere with work, and I still took showers and left the house and I never lived in my mom’s basement. That said, I cringe when I think about the number of weekends I wasted playing video games. I also lugged that PlayStation around with me everywhere. I would not spend the night without it lmao.

I’ve noticed that it’s hard to be a casual player. You’re either in or OOTL. Right now I’m out, but sometimes I miss it.

[The Reality Denialist]

Gaming functioned like a drug for me. Instead of drinking a cup of coffee in the morning, I woke myself up with a game of call of duty before getting ready. Playing that game was like injecting a shot adrenaline lol. I would instantly feel more alert. Sometimes my heart raced fast if the game was really close. Especially in war zone and blackout.

Yup. I'm not a fan of that adrenaline stuff so... In case I feel super masochistic I should play horror games (and I have tried...).

[Metamorph]

I think I was more of a functioning game addict. I never let my games interfere with work, and I still took showers and left the house and I never lived in my mom’s basement. That said, I cringe when I think about the number of weekends I wasted playing video games. I also lugged that PlayStation around with me everywhere. I would not spend the night without it lmao.

I’ve noticed that it’s hard to be a casual player. You’re either in or OOTL. Right now I’m out, but sometimes I miss it.

Yeah, I think the really commercialized games are designed to be addictive, but games as a medium aren't inherently more addictive than reading a book or watching a movie. Is playing chess or checkers addictive? How about playing poker not for money at summer camp? I don't think so. It's not really the medium of games being on computers or consoles vs. traditional games, it's the content. Video games (as well as certain tabletop games) want to milk you for your time because if they can have your time they get your money for free, since you'll be comparing the money you'd spend on their games to the time you'd spend rather than on how difficult it is for them to produce the games. That being said, I'm hard-pressed to think of a console that isn't super commercialized, but computers generally aren't, and I've totally played computer games with controllers and joysticks.

[Poptart]

Yeah, I think the really commercialized games are designed to be addictive, but games as a medium aren't inherently more addictive than reading a book or watching a movie. Is playing chess or checkers addictive? How about playing poker not for money at summer camp? I don't think so. It's not really the medium of games being on computers or consoles vs. traditional games, it's the content. Video games (as well as certain tabletop games) want to milk you for your time because if they can have your time they get your money for free, since you'll be comparing the money you'd spend on their games to the time you'd spend rather than on how difficult it is for them to produce the games. That being said, I'm hard-pressed to think of a console that isn't super commercialized, but computers generally aren't, and I've totally played computer games with controllers and joysticks.

I like the highly commercialized games because they provide more of a social experience than other games. I want to play something with a good pvp or pve mode, and most smaller/indie/budget games don’t provide that. I’m also not entirely sure what you mean by “commercialized games”.

[Popcorn]

Anyone else feel like gaming isn't really fun anymore? It might just be age, but I can't sit down and play a long game anymore. Even short games aren't all that fun when they are too competitive and I need downtime to relax from work stuff. I've transitioned to watching people play games lol because I can half-ass watch/listen and do other stuff.

Or is that what happens with drugs/addictions, you eventually get tired/grow-out of them?

[Metamorph]

I like the highly commercialized games because they provide more of a social experience than other games. I want to play something with a good pvp or pve mode, and most smaller/indie/budget games don’t provide that. I’m also not entirely sure what you mean by “commercialized games”.

Nowadays I pretty much just play stuff like Dungeons and Dragons (3.5e not 5e)/Pathfinder if I want a social experience. Or sports. I'm never going to be the best at League of Legends, where the only skill is really button-mashing despite the pseudo-classes, and I don't think I want to play with the average LoL player (even if not all of them are bad in my experience, especially since I did try it.) Even if I won't be the best at sports either, at least I'll get a workout and I won't be disappointed that the LoL version of the mind mage or soulknife or what have you isn't all that good this season. I like some really sandboxy games for the same reason I like reading a book or watching a movie or show, and like books, movies, and shows those don't cost much time or money unless you actively try to make them cost time and money. If it's a really story-based video game I will probably not play it at all since I could just watch dozens of movies and/or read dozens of books within that time, and I don't like eSports-type PvP stuff since it just feels like a waste of time to me.

By commercialized games I mostly mean things where they want you to dump in hundreds of hours or dollars for, which are mostly made by major studios but sometimes independent studios try emulating that model. Usually, they want your time more than your money/microtransactions, because if they can have outrageous amounts of your time, you'll feel like giving them your money is more justified. Essentially, a sunk cost fallacy.

[xerx]

Gaming functioned like a drug for me. Instead of drinking a cup of coffee in the morning, I woke myself up with a game of call of duty before getting ready. Playing that game was like injecting a shot adrenaline lol. I would instantly feel more alert. Sometimes my heart raced fast if the game was really close. Especially in war zone and blackout.

I’ve always said that Red Dead Redemption 2 is an underrated cure for insomnia. Every night I would get ready for bed, snuggle up on my couch and doze off while picking flowers and wandering aimlessly on my horse. That game was so boring and would put me to sleep faster than anything.

I think I was more of a functioning game addict. I never let my games interfere with work, and I still took showers and left the house and I never lived in my mom’s basement. That said, I cringe when I think about the number of weekends I wasted playing video games. I also lugged that PlayStation around with me everywhere. I would not spend the night without it lmao.

I’ve noticed that it’s hard to be a casual player. You’re either in or OOTL. Right now I’m out, but sometimes I miss it.

I miss gaming too. I quit both gaming and coffee. If I was a pro player doing it for money, then maybe it wouldn't count as an addiction, lol.

[RBRS]

China will eventually succeed in establishing second stage socialism (they will ban videogames I mean)