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Technology

Up, Up, Down, Down: Part Four 300

Posted by JonKatz from the gaming-archives dept.
Gaming cheats like "Up, Up, Down, Down..." are techno-folklore, a universal introduction to people of the gaming era. Other generations told war stories or bragged about their sexual exploits. Gamers trade techniques and other lore -- early experiences, confrontations, conflicts, great exploits, cheats, tricks, myths, and legends. Gaming is moving so quickly that it's time to start building some gaming archives. What, for example, is the most addictive game, now or ever: Asheron's Call? Quake? Final Fantasy 8? Red Alert2? You can testify, brag, reminisce, and otherwise post your own gaming stories and experiences here. (And more below about some surprising new stats on Xmas game sales figures, and gender and gaming)

A new report by PC Data says that 35% of Net users are going to buy console or PC console games this Christmas, and that PC and console gaming is no longer a male-dominated activity. The study found that while men make up 55% of gamers overall, for the first time women comprise a a majority of online gamers -- 50.4%. Women, according to the study, favor online gambling, card gones and quiz and trivia contests.

PC Data says men prefer war - and sports-themed games, and that men are three times as likely as women to participate in first-person shooter games (38% vs. 10%). "Solitaire," "Free Cell" and similiar bundled games are the most frequently played of all online and offline games. The top PC game categories are strategy real-time/turn-based, world building, and flight simulation.

Christmas is perhaps the best indicator of what mainstream America is buying and thinking about. The PC Data survey greatly underscores the idea that gaming has become a mainstream form of culture, if not the single most pervasive form of culture, in America.
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Part Four: Up, Up, Down, Down More

Part Four: Up, Up, Down, Down

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  • Most addictive game: MajicRealm (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There used to be an online gaming company in Vancouver BC known as Ice Online, they were offering Internet access long before anyone even knew what the Internet was. They also offerd BBS and online gaming services, gaming was their biggest asset.

    Unfortunately, ICE found maintaining all the modems necessary to be too much of a hassle, so around 1994 or 1995 they outsourced that and made their services accessible by telnet only. They could have jumped on this Internet thing if they had seen its potential, but they went the gaming route.

    Today ICE is no longer around, the company was purchased by EA, from which some of its employees were a part.

    The biggest game ICE had was the Majic Realm - an online text-based RPG in the Dungeons & Dragons genre. For the early 1990s it was huge - over 200 regular players, a complete online and offline community of people from all walks of life that would meet regularly, have Christmas parties, exchange terrain maps and tips and otherwise strategize about gaining power in the game. And the sysops were an integral part of the community... they were the equivalent to Norm from Cheers... everyone knew them, and knew them well, because they usually were the drunkest people at all the parties.

    The game was essentially Everquest without the graphics, and I frankly think that the text aspect made it a lot better because it was quick, simple and made players use their minds far more to visualize the game and problem solve. Some of the quests and traps in the game were amazingly difficult to complete and took some people as much as 4 years to solve, although questing wasn't the full-time purpose of the game.

    People used to play Majic Realm for massive quantities of time. Some people, if questing or doing P2P combat, would play over 24 hours, going without sleep, just to wait for their enemies to come online. That usually happened when a group of players made a well-planned strategy to go kill another character, or when there was a gang war that would break out between two or more gangs.

    People would play long hours, or wake up at 4 AM to play when none of their enemies would be on, or they would miss every meal of the day just to play the game. There are people that played MR actively for over five years and amassed great power, wealth and stories that were practically legend.

    Example - one character once discovered a bug that became an outright legend for everyone who played the game. There was a Red Dragon in one dungeon (most powerful evil creature in the game at the time) and in another dungeon there was a wand that was intended to be used to teleport away players that were attacking you. The third part of the story was the social room in the Realm, where huge numbers of players would gather in a place where they could chat in real-time in the game.

    The story went like this - the character completed the one quest to get the wand, entered into the second dungeon where the Red Dragon Lair was, ran into the room and used the wand to teleport the Red Dragon into the social room.

    The Red Dragon had magic offensive spells, and one of them was Fireball, an area-effect spell that did up to 50 points of damage. It was enough to kill every character up to about Level 5, but it would cast one Fireball every round. So the Red Dragon shows up and immediately begins to do what it was programmed to - Fireball every character in the room.

    The net result was that it became a story of legend told and retold and handed down as new generations of people got into the game. It was always a story that garnered huge amounts of laughter from players, because they understood the dynamics of the game and just how much of a challenge it was to get the wand and teleport the Dragon - not to mention the obvious fact that the sysops had overlooked a very subtle bug that had monumental consequences, mostly beneficial because it became such a great part of the Majic Realm culture. Seeing as it was a bug, the sysops compensated everyone.

    The game would draw out great emotions in people, from anger to the satisfaction of a quest solved, to total adrenaline rushes in tense situations, and the situations were ALWAYS tense because people were always gathering experience points in areas that were either at their limits, or slightly above.

    I have entire CD's of song melodies memorized, and some CD's bring me right back to my old computer and the hours I spent playing MR - the music and the game have become entirely associated with each other, as has my living situation, room mates, and the stage of education I was at when I played.

    All in all, it was a tremendous game that is no longer around, but some people are still trying to revive it. Four years after Majic Realm went offline, there is still a message board that is nearly as active today as the game was 4 years ago, and people would still willingly shell out money to play the game, despite all of the advances of computer gaming.

    I've reached one conclusion about MajicRealm - it offered significantly greater entertainment than Everquest, judging by the feedback of someone who used to be more addicted to the Realm than I was who is now some Level 40 guy in EQ.

    MajicRealm was a far more mentally engaging game, and it had a strong and devoted community of players in Vancouver and on Vancouver Island.

    MR is the most addictive game I have ever heard of.

    By now this has turned into quite a rant - it should be obvious that even the memories of the game still conjure up great emotions of good times.

  • Games are anti-social. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sorry to point the obvious finger here, folks, but every hour you spend in front of a video game is an hour that you *aren't* spending interacting with other humans. Multi-player games are something of an exception - although I find it ridiculous to compare the "interaction" of hunting down and shooting each other to the interaction of simple conversation.

    I used to be a hardcore gamer. I entered competitions, I owned a Street Fighter II machine - my first real goal was to become a video game programmer. I did. And, thats all over now. I haven't seriously played a video game on my computer in years, and only occasionally will I sit down in front of the TV to play games with lots of other people (multiplayer Tetris, Street Fighter, etc). Playing against the machine got boring long ago.

    My advice to everyone taking this thread seriously and postulating about which games were most addictive, which games were most this or that: stop. Involve yourself with people.

    Yes, yes, I know, 90% of people are ignorant and calous morons. Maybe thats why you're hiding in your room playing games all day in the first place. But think if you were to go out on a crowded street (don't try this on frat row) - every 10th person you walk past is actually worth knowing. Imagine that! Meet people, learn from them. Its a wonderful thing. Do it often enough and you'll realize some day down the road that you don't even give two shits about the new Sony Playstation - and you'll be proud of it, in an odd but fufilling way.

  • you anger me. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    first of all, it's Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A. the people who use B, A, B, A, were too stupid to have entered it right the first time. oh, and it's called the "Konami code". you probably don't even know that the first game to have a secret code was Road Runner for the Atari 2600, which was also the first game bigger than 40k. Justin Bailey was a good code, but don't forget the other games based off the same engine. Kid Icarus had a similar code: "Icarus Defeat Medusa Angels". these passwords totally contradict what you said in your post about passwords totally ruining new games... they've been in games for ages. anyone remember "IDKFA" for doom? oh, and by using a name from a movie that most of us hate with a passion, mixed with an email address that would incite half of us to slap you repeatedly doesn't help your case much.

  • Tried 'em all (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I started off with Manic Miner on the Spectrum, then moved onto Elite.

    At university, muds (MIST then Abermud) were the most addictive, but Nethack, Lemmings and Tetris all took their toll.

    Through the years my time fell foul to many series: Civ, Doom-Quake, Diablo, Ultima, etc.

    In the end, though, I've realised that there are only three elements that create addiction:

    1. Being at one with the machine.
      This is where you no longer have to think explicitly about the actual key strokes, moves or where you are on a map. Games such as Tetris and Quake can induce a zen-like altered mental state.
    2. Raising your abilities
      Whether by conquering new areas, developing character powers, or discovering new secrets. The skill tree in Diablo II is a good example.
    3. Creating a reputation
      Telling a story. Developing a personality for your character. Being recognised. Getting onto a high score board. Fitting into a team or a community. Winning respect.

    One day someone will design a game that has the simple twitch potential of Doom, the community strength of Everquest, and the ability growth potential of Civilisation.

    On that day, Television dies.

  • Re:Increasingly Annoying (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Mod this up! this is the most insightful comment I've heard today. you are not being creative and revolutionary when you play video games. you are being entertained. a true test of strategic might was perfected 2000 years ago when Go was invented. no one has ever beaten this game. it is the perfect abstraction of strategy and competition.

    If you think you are exercising your analytic skills by playing Civilization (which i loved), you're kidding yourself. Its a pleasant distraction, and very engaging.

    Video games are a step up from movies as entertainment goes. And Katz, you're right, people enjoy talking about movies they've seen just like they enjoy discussing the video games they've played. This doesn't make you a war hero, and it DEFINITELY doesn't make you Don Juan! (Usually quite the opposite).

    Stop being such a pretentious fop.

  • Of course RL communities won't go away. But participation in them will diminish for some, as it has with the spankenstein's mother. It's somewhat analogous to the decline in the idea of neighborhoods caused by planned suburbian subdivisions and gated communities (what an absurd idea!). We no longer have the corner markets or the neighborhood parks to foster community interaction.

    And as for pursuing romantic relationships, I question the validity of a truly loving relationship fostered soely on-line or with few RL encounters. It can't happen. Certainly people can meet online, maybe even become infatuated on-line. But love on-line? No way.

    --

  • The most addictive game I've ever played is called Linux.

    After having played for several years I got a little tired of some of the adventures (to name a few, slackware and redhat come to mind) and I'm still playing the debian one. I've passed the hamm, slink and potato levels but don't feel quite confident with the woody level yet.

    I've played both the 1.2 2.0 and 2.2 characters... still haven't tried the new 2.4 (sounds like great fun, though :)

    Seriously, anybody who's not telling you he/she has great fun (mmhh.. err err...) using linux is just plain lying ;-)

    ---

  • Empire, the multiplayer Unix game. I lost a month of my life to that thing, and I know others who lost far more. PC games just don't compare, because you can almost always save and come back to it.
  • Everyone knows that everquest was the most addictive. Or at least it was for me. Asheron's call was a cheap knockoff.
  • Wizardry was the BEST! I played for days during college. A few of my buddies would get together, we'd each mentor a character and the game, and the hours would slip past.

    I still have my Apple II diskettes somewhere, but no functional Apple II to play them on! Is there an emulated version of Wizardry (the ORIGINAL version, clunky graphics an all) available somewhere?

    TILTOWAIT!
  • Apart from being one of the earlier internet games, Netrek [netrek.org] remains one of the few true team-strategy games. Pitting up to eight players against eight (thought I believe there can be 32 in it these days) for three or four hour long battles, Netrek demands the most from it's players. The playing curve is even longer than Quake - it can take 30 hours of practice, before you can even remotely hold your own against good players...but two poor players can sometimes beat one good one. Over the years, the game has been rebalanced to perfection. I urge everyone to download it, and give it a go!
  • It's not exactly new, but I think it was released this year, and it's one of the freshest umbrella-techno-category albums I've heard in a while. Breakbeat Era [breakbeatera.co.uk] - Ultra Obscene. I've heard it described as "Vocal drum-n-bass," which covers it nicely but not completely.
    • _____

    • ToiletDuk
      Protector of the Wastes
  • Agreed. Civilization and Civ 2 were the most addicting games I've ever played. Hell, I still play Civ 2...and Civ 2 Multi-player came along and you got to play against real people. That was the pinnacle. I would spend entire days playing. I just need to capture this one city...then I'll stop...yeah, right.

    Lemmings is also another fond memory from days gone by. Getting all of those little bastards to the exit was damn frustrating at times....to the point of just maxing out the release rate and then just nuking them :-) But you just couldn't stop.

    And finally, I was a HUGE AD&D player back in the early to mid 80's. The moment I played Ultima III back on my Atari 800XL, I was hooked on the Ultima series. I would play until I couldn't stay awake anymore. While the most recent Ultima's were nice, there was something to the more simple graphics that almost made it more enjoyable. I think my favorite was Ultima IV (VI was a close second). They all had fabulous theme music and the stories were engrossing. Sometimes too much flash takes away from the real experience.

    ...ahhhh memories :-)

    - Rick Alther
  • Well, lets start way way back and work our way up.

    64 days.
    Bards Tale series, Ultima and Wasteland, and of course Gauntlet and Gauntlet expansion..
    And Borderbund Battleship (I think that was it)

    Amiga days.
    SuperFrog, Zool series, bouncey and Barbarian.

    Early PC days
    Duke Nukem, Command and Conquer, Warcraft, Q1, Heretic, Blood

    Today.
    Tribes, Half-life, Solider of Fortune, Q2, Q3A
    Vampire Masquerade single player..
    (Waiting for Tribes2 and Halo in 2001)

    My first ipx lan game was Duke Nukem. The detail on the battles where simply amazing. You could plant laser trip wires, first BFG rockets!

    Tribes.. What can I saw about this intense multiplayer, team combat game.
    I freaking LOVE it. Been playing 10+ hours a week for 2 years! The gfx are damn good on 3dfx cards. (yes kicks the geforce's ass)
    The ability to use sound packs. My current soundpack is over 700 megs now.

    Last night, this guy grabs the flag, I'm in a heavy, flip to mortar, wait for the guy to just about go over the mountain, and launch a big green smoke trail mortar over it.

    Almost 6 seconds later.
    "Your Flag was dropped"

    DAMN, 1 in a million shot. Was soo sweet.

    The game just can not compare with other FPS games. The freedom of movement, the weapons, the team play. THE pure evilness you can pull on people. Sneak up behind them, and mine-disc em.
    Snipe from a mountain top, making sure flag grabbers dont make it too far with your flag.

    Ive been to Tribescon 1999 (2nd place, thanks dynanmix for the pocketwatch)
    And Tribescon 2000 - First place! (Thanks Colosus for setting it up, and the 101 bux first prize!)

    Check out these sites for some cool screen shots and forums.
    www.planetstarsiege.com [playstarsiege.com]
    www.tribalwar.com [tribalwar.com]


    BTW. You can find me as IronWolve on your buddy list in Tribes.

    -Brook Harty
    aka IronWolve
    -
    vav
    gg

  • Most Addictive Game: Minesweeper

    For every PC around the world there was a person who just couldn't go to bed until they'd got the expert level out... it took four bombs in a row on the first square for you to realise that forces were against you solving it, at which point you'd turn the PC off in discust.

    Solitaire's up there too... but I think Minesweeper has it in the bag.

    Consecutive hours: Networked Quake

    Networked Quake wins hands down for the game most likely to keep you in your seat for more than 8 hours straight. But only because of the level changes. You'd finally give up after getting creamed on a frag count and bam! Next Level. Current Frag count: 0 - Time for redemption.

    I used to worry about my driving after some of our Quake sessions.
  • It took Blizzard long enough to push Diablo 2 out.

    As for Diablo I was never much of a fan, even when it first came out it was too boring and tedious to play. Here's something with REAL replay value: ADOM [www.adom.de].
  • There's nothing wrong with EverQuest or being addicted to it. I have a cable modem and that means people can phone me up on the voice phone line and badger me instead of talking to me on IRC like all my friends do.

    Am I addicted to IRC?
    And is there anything wrong with that?
  • CS is horrible, absolutely horrible. I prefer Tactical Ops for UT because it depends more on a player's skill than the server's random number generator.

    Sometimes /dev/random is nice to me and sometimes it's a bitch.
  • Empire, the multiplayer Unix game. I lost a month of my life to that thing

    No kidding! Me too. My roommate lost three years of his life and a girlfriend due to that game.

    xtrek was another good one, too. It's the earliest graphical multiplayer-over-the-internet game that I can think of.

  • Alioth wrote:
    I think the follow-ons are better, particularly Frontier: First Encounters.
    Frontier: First Encounters was let down IMO by the fact it was particularly buggy and unreliable. It did boast some good features, but it was not a revolutionary game in the sense the first Elite was.

    Thank you for pointing me to Shades - I'll give it a whirl.
  • Goldeneye: Yes, but its just another FP shooter.
    Sonic the Hedgehog: Yes, but I never got addicted to collecting golden rings.
    Final Fantasy VI: Nope, not played.
    None of the above IMO qualify for the title of truly addictive, and also I don't regard any of the above as revolutionary in any sense of the term. To be honest I haven't seen anything on a console that's made me want to go out and buy one, although I may be tempted into buying a Playstation 2 if I can ever lay my hands on one.

    I also missed out arcade games too, and then I would have to include Space Invaders, BattleZone, PacMan, and Dragons Lair in the role of honor.
  • Tetris, along with Solitaire and Minesweeper, belong IMO to a category of games which are not the most awesome in terms of addiction, graphics and sound, but boast the widest appeal to all ages from 4 till death.

    The fact that they are available on almost every Windows and Linux computer mean they allow you to waste thousands of hours doing something totally unrewarding with your brain switched off whilst waiting for your latest programming masterpiece to crash during compilation..... :-)
  • Just to echo the above poster's comments.

    A few years back I had the following conversation with my grandmother. "Gran, you really should get a computer and get on the internet" She couldn't see a reason to so she did not (this was back in 1995 or so.

    Then about 2 years ago she heard about the iMac and decided that that would be a good computer for her to get (she asked me and I agreed).

    Last year, she ordered a cable modem from @home so she now has faster connections at home than I do (and I own an Internet Software company).

    Her reason for getting a cable modem, so she could be online without tying up her phone (she lives in the Mountains of CA, getting a second phone line would cost her $1000's, since she already had cable it was the logical route.

    What does she do online now?

    Play bridge. Most evenings.

    So, in her late 70's my grandmother is joining the Internet community to play bridge, exchange emails with friends, and sometimes do some research online. She still has problems with certain things like opening up attachments (just as well most of the time) but all in all an amazing journey from "no reason to have a computer, to having high speed access and using it every night".
  • Damnit!

    And who here plays VO:OT? The docs don't explain the 5 different control configurations, and I can't get the goddamn thing to spin my robot. The Saturn controls worked much better.
  • I was never coordinated enough.
  • Alot of the carriers I had to use did not have adapters in coach, where I usually had to fly when travelling inside the United States.
  • I used to fly alot for my job, so I bought a color gameboy. Got Pokemon, Mario Bros and Tetris. It's all you need.
  • It's a good thing I work during the day or I'd have the same problem.

    What [server], johnburton? I'm on Innoruuk.
  • This is why I'll never get anywhere in the game, I only play about 6-8 hours a week.

  • EverQuest [everquest.com] is the most addictive game ever. I've lost count of the total number of days I've spent playing this in the last year.
    Don't need to say any more, any other players will know what I mean already.
  • ... and the everquest servers are down for a patch, why else do you think I'm here instead of there?
  • You're silly. My granny lives 2000 miles away from my mom. I'm not speaking for the poster, but this attitude that RL communities are going to somehow "go away" is just stupid. I now have the OPTION (say it with me...it's a good thing) of playing games, chatting, or pursuing a romantic relationship (I do all three) online.
  • People will continue to seek out the environments that provide them with rich interaction with others. For some, that's a chess table in a park. For others, it's a chat room after a three hour Quake deathmatch. It's axiomatic: For a given number of people, an increased number of activities means a decreased number of people per activity. This is not a new phenomenon, and it's not harmful. I bet people cried when we stopped having to be hunter gatherers, too. Oh well...life goes on.

    As for on-line relationships, you're entitled to your opinion, but I vehemently disagree. I met my girlfriend in RL, but we've fostered our relationship online, with occasional RL weekends together. It's not for everybody, but it can and does work.
  • the other day i realized i remember the old nintendo hint line from the mid 80's

    206-885-7539

    don't think i've called that since master blaster came out
  • Up up down down left right left right B A select start
  • If my Mom lived more than a few blocks from my grandma I would think that it is even cooler.

    And here is the problem with the .net. Why doesn't your mom just go over to see granny?

    I understand the power to bring people physically far apart close together through communication, and this is a wonderful thing. But I also think there's a danger of destroying community IRL. I have similar problems with folks stuck in "Gaming culture," "Hacker culture" and "Literary culture," just to name a few.

    --

  • I accept if I get a moderation for this, but I just need to say: Jon, your article was bracketed by two other articles- in an era where corporate and government control are trying to suppress community radio, and where government is attempting to mandate Internet censoring for public libraries, you are claiming that commercial video games are a defining cultural moment.

    Is it possible that you are mistaken? If you are not mistaken, if neither community media access or mandated government censorship are so significant to a generation as communal game tweaks and shared game experiences- is this not a pretty scathing indictment?

    If so, what do you propose to do about it, and where do you wish to try and draw people's attention in your capacity as a journalist?

  • It's clear that the online multiplayer games are the most addictive -- but that's usually not because they're good games, but rather because they're fun communities.

    It's clear to me that the most addictive games are the Roguelikes: Nethack, Angband, ADOM, Omega (my game ;-), Rogue itself, and so on. Civilization is at least a close second (it's an easier habit to break).

    It's amazing how the Roguelikes keep drawing me (and many others) back; they're not well designed, their UI sucks, and they have zero graphics. But they have a depth of gameplay which is just astounding, and INCREDIBLE replayability. Oh, and a very large amount of challenge.

    And no, they're not changing America, nor any of the other countries (yes, Mr. Katz, there are other countries). What a blowhard.

    -Billy
  • I played it loads on ye olde Speccy; managed to finish it, too! Best xp had to be the 396 berserkers in one of the castles.

    Just remember, monks rule! :)
    --

  • At first glance, Nethack appears to be quite primitive. But, it's superbly "Gamed." Addictive in the extreme, it has amazing replay value, and has much depth of immersion. One of
    the few games that will make you think the AI
    of your computer is mocking you. What nethack
    lacks in UI (arguable, since the UI is elegant if
    not pretty), it makes up for in gameplay.

  • For days after that point, if I even closed my eyes for a second, I would be in another Doom level, lobbing all sorts of artillery at various heinous creatures coming after me. It wouldn't stop.

    Yeah, this reminds me of one time I'd been playing 1-1 deathmatch (over modem) until about 3 or 4 in the morning. I turned off the light to go to bed, but as I lay down into bed, a blurry red LED caught my eyes (which were having trouble focusing after the 6 or so hours of staring at the screen). I instantly recognised it as a rocket, hurtling directly towards me. I physically strafed out of its way, nearly falling out of bed! :) Realising what I'd just done was pretty disturbing, too. :)

    The best thing is that I can still usually convince people to play an hour or two of DoomGL at LAN parties, which is a nice refreshing retro hit. :)
  • Its I believe a refernce to the most famous of all cheat codes, the Contra code for the 8bit nintento.

    It was up up down down left right left right b a select start.

    After that the same code was used on a whole load of nintendo games.. (in contra it gave you a bunch o' lives..)
  • At least it gives Slashdot something fun to read this morning.

    People don't read Slashdot, Slashdot reads Slashdot.

    -- By pressing down a special key it plays a little melody
  • I don't really know. Most addictive sorta implies that you can't stop playing 'em even thought they kinda suck graphically or whatever, so I'll just list my childhood favorites instead:

    - Star Control II (my first RPG!)
    - Wing Commander Privateer
    - the original Duke Nukem
    - Commander Keen 4-6
    - Monkey Island

    I also remember playing Wing Commander 1 a lot. I remember the first time I saw a dralthi, and just going "whoa.." : )
  • /nod
    /agree
    /smile

    /ponder
    /boggle

    /shrug

    /grin
  • Without doubt the most addictive game of all time would have to be: Tetris, in all its incarnations. I have yet to find a game that continually enthralls me, no other games has made me forget all other things like tetris. 'nuff said.

    ---
    if you can't figure out how to email me, tough.
    ---
  • The best games were the classic ones. They had good gameplay, not advertising driven spiffy graphics designed to hook you with five minutes of playing in Kmart but leave you bored fifteen hours later. (so you'll buy another)

    My favorites were:

    nethack, hack, rogue played over a 1200 baud modem link to the local community access SCO system

    Ultima V

    the DOS version of Spacewar on a Victor 9000

    Old school Apple ][ educational games like Rocky's Boots and Snooper Troopers.

  • Sim and various construction-like games seem to be a true timesuck for me. Countless nights were spent staying up with SimCity 2000 or Transport Tycoon, or, more recently, Roller Coaster Tycoon (which appears to have been the biggest timewaster of 'em all for me.) There's just something inherently fascinating about constructing a little model (city, amusement park, transit system, whatever) and then watching it go through its paces. I'd almost liken it to a good coding session (constructing your program and watching it go through its paces) if it didn't sound so inherently Katzish.

    However, in terms of total addictiveness and true timewasting, Civilization wins, hands-down. I could get stuck for hours with that game. There was a time during the summer of 1994 when there was always (and I stress always, it was indeed 24/7) somebody in the house I hung out at playing Civilization or DOOM, but Civ was just a bit more interesting for other people to sit around and watch, too. Someone learned the buy-as-building-switch-to-military-unit trick, we all learned the trick. Someone decided it'd be cool to use the Great Wall (and later the UN) to mercilessly spank the computer and still make peace every other turn, we all tried it. It was pretty interesting, to say the least. Civ 2 had the same tenacious addictiveness, but somehow it just didn't feel the same as the VGA graphics of Civ 1. Even just building your castle was more fun than watching your 'throne room' go up.

    I wonder why Katz is requesting "such archives be created" when there are probably quite a bit of web sites and Usenet groups and BBSes with at least one portion of their gaming content devoted to older games or, at the very least, sporadic nostalgia threads. Shrug. At least it gives Slashdot something fun to read this morning.

  • Tetris. Not only the most addictive, but the most pervasive game ever.
  • You've got this bizarre idea that the whole world revolves around computer gaming and the Internet. Believe it or not, some people still watch TV, read books (gasp!) or even go outside and take a walk.

    Agreed. I would bet that more people identify deer hunting as far more a mainstream cultural activity than gaming.

    I think this navel-gazing has gone on long enough. Gamers are fun people who enjoy their activities, and the rise of gaming may be part of a neat cultural shift in America, but it certainly isn't the most prominent representative of that shift, nor is it the cause.

    -schussat

  • I'd like to see some sources for that? I find it hard to believe that computer/console game sales are higher than that of the movie industry. When you take into consideration the multiple venues that a movie makes money in, I don't think your statement could possibly be accurate.
  • It's got to be Civilization... I lost MONTHS of my life to that game.. God games 0wn simple namby pamby shooters ;)
  • So when you say that its all about 'a few pimply-faced geeks' you are either a troll or off your rocker, because this market is huge. This means as much culturally to us as much as movies mean to us culturally.

    I'd disagree with that. Over half of video game sales are during the Christmas season. I've heard figures as high as 80%. Video games as entertainment for kids 15 and under is a huge, huge market, just as Nickelodeon (a cable channel, for those outside the US), and Barbie dolls are. Outside of that market, I would hardly call video games larger than movies. They may make more money--as does the toy industry--but the cultural impact isn't there. Remembering "up, up, down, down" is similar to remembering a cartoon you used to watch when you came home from school in the fourth grade (for me it was Speed Racer), or a toy that it seemed all the other kids had, like Gobots.

    Compared to movies and books, I can't help but find video games as shallow. I like them, sure, but even the games that are touted for their plots--like Half Life--just seem like so much bubblegum fluff from the fifties. "Bad aliens have invaded and you, the last hope of mankind, must exterminate them!" There's a funny backlash against kiddie games that's resulted in a plethora of Blade Runner-esque post-apocalyptic games set in dark futures. But the gaming experience hasn't advanced much. Sure, you can pay with action figures when you're 30, but is it really all that appealling?

    The video game industry has expanded like crazy, but it hasn't shown any artistic growth.
  • I can't help but agree. My best friend and roomate tried to get me into this game for a long time. I sat there and watched both him and all his friends get sucked into this mealstrom of digital Heroin. I have nothing against the games, per se; but I do take issue to doing absolutly nothing else with one's life.

    I listened to him talk about it all day and all night. He took time off from work at least a few times every couiple of weeks to get a 23 hour day in on the servers. His friends would get on Ebay to buy and sell characters and items for hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars... Don't get me wrong, I love capitalism. However, I just can't imagine how one would (and this was the case with one of them) quit a job to be a full time EQ player. Thats right. He quit his job to amass power and glory on the servers to sell it on Ebay before they banned it.

    Back in the day, we used to play a lot of D&D. We played all day and night, but we still went to school, to work, and out with friends. When we left the gaming table, we left the game. Now I see these people getting together and doing nothing but talk about EQ, or Diablo, or whatever the game might be. I get tired of it. His fiance is tired of it. Her complaint is that she's engaged to him, but he's already married to his computer. I don't blame her for being angry, and thank God she's tolerant of his exploits on the net.

    The games aren't bad, but this is a real addiction out there. I won't say 'Get a life.' I'll just remind some 'Everything in moderation.'
  • I disagree, love can happen online. I've seen it happen to my friends. What's the difference between meeting in a chat room, and meeting through a dear abby letters-to-soldiers thing? Nothing. Love and marriage and all that crap can and does blossom from both.

    I do have to add my $.02 to the previous topic, though...I have been in IRC many a night chatting with friends in CO, Canada, and Europe, while boyfriend sat 3 feet away in the same room, chatting in the same channel, and we would more likely type than talk. It's sick, kinda. And I can't count the number of times I've run into someone and said "Oh I just sent you an email, I can't talk to you until you read it." That's disturbing!


    "I'm not a bitch, I just play one on /."
  • 1. Quake .. been playing that every weekend since '96 (The day QTest came out ;-)

    2. Tony Hawks Pro Skater 1 & 2 ! (Normally I HATE sports games, but these skater games just have the all the right magic!)

    3. Ultima Online, again, 2.5 years. (Allthough others swear by EverCrack, er EverQuest.)

    --

    Pffft. It's only karma.
  • It's posted below, but I have to re-iterate, Empire was the most addictive game I can remember. I ran the single player version on a VAX 11/780 at work, and dialed in on an 1200 baud modem with a dumb terminal to play it at home. It was very playable at 1200 baud. Included on many of the DECUS tapes. Simple text display/ interface, and it would seem like forever when the computer would take its turn, especially getting near to the end of the game, when there was a lot of enemy left. I was able to find a version I could run on a PC (8088), but it was never the same.

    Give me a nice simple interface, that's playable without having to remember too many keystrokes... that's where I can get sucked in really easy.

    Wolfenstien 3D and Doom were much the same for me, I got addicted quickly, but I was able to kick the habit eventually. The 2nd game I've ever played in a genre is never quite the same- I lose some of the wonder at the great artifical world that's been created for me.

  • My current gaming addiction is Counter-Strike [counter-strike.net] - undoubtedly the most popular and IMHO the best online FPS in existence.

    For sheer time wasting I would probably nominate Warcraft in its various incarnations, and before that Doom.

  • According to the August 30, 1999 issue of Newsweek, videogame revenues exceeded box-office revenues in 1999, and that trend is expected to continue. Video games most definately are supplanting film as the entertainment choice of Americans.

    -Vercingetorix
  • According to this Wired article [wired.com]: "Tetris significantly raises cerebral glucose metabolic rates (GMRs), meaning brain energy consumption soars. Yet, after four to eight weeks of daily doses, GMRs sink to normal, while performance increases seven-fold, on average."

    Not only that, it's been ported darn near everywhere, for example the Atari 2600 [atarihq.com]!
  • I dont know.. define "addictive".. is there a difference between "addiction" and "stubborness"?

    I'll play Q3 if I have nothing better to do, but I dont think there are any games that just *call* me to the PC.. well.. except possibly "same gnome".. marbles is worse than Tetris used to be.
    (does that count as an online game?)

    But yeah.. I think that gaming is a great diversion, its *cheap* comparitively, when you figure what a lot of us used to pump into pinballs and pacman machines, now that most out of the box machines come with kickass video cards and processors. So what if Quake costs 40 bucks? thats only 160 games of pacman.. a cheap price to pay for a full game like that.

    *sigh*

    my .02 frags

    Maeryk
  • Hear hear!

    I used to spend DAYS playing SimCity 2000 and an obscure game called castle (maybe castles, or some variation) that I, uhm, borrowed from my friend.

    Those were the days. *sigh*

    Rami
    --
  • Due to the anonymous nature of the new they must rely on self-reporting.

    If this study actually has a methodology that can create results that mean something, that woudl be bigger news then their supposed results.

  • "gaming has become a mainstream form of culture, if not the single most pervasive form of culture, in America."

    Man, those are some heavy drugs Jon must be taking. Even in the Excited States, I don't see this as being anything less than outrageous exaggeration. What planet is he from anyways?

    Oh yes, that's right--the planet where the only people who matter are the few hardcore nerds who were "victimised" in school, don't read, don't go out, don't socialise, and don't care. The other 90% of the population is irrelevant, and all bullies anyways.

  • Just a small correction. UO didn't get you kicked out of college--YOU got you kicked out of college!

  • Well, wasn't that the original poster's point? That not EVERYBODY lives and breathes computer games? Sure gaming is mainstream--it has been since the original Atari VCS (before the called it the 2600 even!) came out. It's even a relatively significant demographic, although doesn't touch TV yet. The point still remains that Jon DESPERATELY needs to get out more, and see that games (or even computing in general) are not the lynchpin of The Free World(tm).

  • Since you have a score of greater than zero, I'll respond :-)

    The cheat code is a pretty famous one for several Nintendo games including Contra. It goes, up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, start. In Contra is gave you 30 lives, which made it easy to win that game.

  • Other generations told war stories or bragged about their sexual exploits.

    Oh, I don't know about that, Mr. Katz. We old fogeys had our games too...

    My favorite was one called "strip poker".

  • During the summer of 1987 I would climb in my best friend's window at around 8:30 am and while he was sleeping I would copy gold or magic items, recharge, heal, and get ready for the day on his commodore 64. Then he would get up and we would play Bard's Tale until 10:00 at night.

    This cycle was repeated almost every day for three months. We finished I and II, and most of III by then. Our characters were about 130th level and could do about 1500 points of damage to everbody we faced using mangar's mind mallet. We were gods.

    Due to the constraints of having a real life, I've never had the chance to do anything like that since, but I haven't had the addiction too often either. Anything by Blizzard is about as close as it has come.

    ahh C64, I still remember ye.

  • i've been playing q3a a bit recently and was suprised at what happened maybe two weeks ago.

    i was moving stuff off a counter in my house, and it made a "swish-click" sound exactly like the one in quake you hear just before you get fragged from behind.

    the fingers on my left hand twitched just so, and i felt my eyes dart.

    then i blinked and realized i was just in the kitchen...it was actually a little scary there for a second.

  • > What, for example, is the most addictive game, now or ever: Asheron's Call? Quake? Final Fantasy 8? Red Alert2?

    Lode Runner of course !

    Cheers,

    --fred
  • For me its WarCraft II. God I love that game. Sure StarCraft is technically superior, but WarCraft has more personality. If I wasn't at work I would go play it now. Zug Zug.
  • I've lost count of the total number of days I've spent playing this in the last year.

    In game, you can type /played and it will tell you how much of your life you've spent playing. ;)

    Some people brag about their 100+ days of played time. It's kinda scary when you think about it.
  • I agree that gaming isn't "the single most pervasive form of culture in America", but you cannot deny that gaming has started to become mainstream. The proof for me was when CNN.com had PS2 on their front page that day in October, but there are many more signs and examples. Walk into any Wal-Mart, K-Mart, or whatever, and compare their video-game section to their magazine/book section. Drop into Barnes and Noble, and count the number of gaming-related books. People are into this stuff.

    Not everyone is married and has kids, just like not everyone watches TV often or reads many books. There are a lot of people out there spending a lot of money on a lot of video games: and these people do represent a significant demographic. Don't dismiss it just because it's not what your predomitely into.
  • "Solitaire," "Free Cell" and similiar bundled games are the most frequently played of all online and offline games.

    Those "most frequently played games" Solitaire, Free Cell, Harts and Mindsweeper are bundled with Windows so even your middle aged, balding with a spare tire in the middle, boss can find them under Start>Programs>Accessories>Games.

    That isn't insightful Jon, just reality.

  • I missed a lot of the "proper" Ultimas, as I didn't own a computer till well after the release of U8 (which was one of the first games I bought when I did get one). My introduction to the series was Exodus on NES. Let's put it this way: my parents finally realized that it would be cheaper to just buy me the damn game than rent it for me every week. That was thirteen years ago.

    Skip ahead to about two months or so ago. I got the Ultima Collection off eBay and ended up not leaving the dude feedback for two days because I got sucked into U7. Not just with the actual quest either...no, it was all the side shit that got me, and all the neat stuff you could do in the world (anyone else take time out to clean Iolo's nasty-ass house? Or go to the nursery in Lord British's castle for the sole purpose of getting dirty diapers to gross people out with?). That weekend I stayed awake for 26 hours straight playing the damn thing.

    And then after that, Serpent Isle. I cannot remember another game, except maybe Xenogears, that made me laugh (killing poor defenseless worms with a claw hammer for one, Frigidazzi's little dance--for a female Avatar no less--for another), cry (if you've played it, you know the scene...sniff), and mutter darkly about killing this motherfucker or that (name of savegame prior to entering Spinebreaker: "Death to the fat fuck"), to the extent that SI did.

    But now that I've finished those two, I am finding a major timesuck in the old U4. That was another game I first played on the NES, and while the NES graphics were better, the game play doesn't hold a candle to the real thing. All I need now are the Underworlds. And U9, five years or so from now when I have a computer that will run it. Jeezis.
  • I have to admit my favorite and most addictive game is tribes. I started with pong, and went through Wolfenstein all the way to todays popular games. Tribes was the first On-line only game which *required* gameplay which made the game unique and a ton of fun.
    Close second would be anything by Warren Spector (System Shock, Deus Ex). He made games that broke the genre boarder (RPG FPS, for example).

    --
  • I'm with you on that one. For a good five years, Civ consumed almost all of my gaming time. I had my Amiga boot directly into Civ off the harddrive - which I bought primarily so I wouldn't have to run Civ off floppies anymore. And although I've bought every sequel or semi-sequel to the game (Colonization, CivNet, Civ2 (with every add on), Alpha Centauri, Call to Power, Call to Power 2), I have still played Civ more than all other games combined. There were earlier games that fascinated me, such as Seven Cities of Gold, MULE, Populous, SimCity and TradeWars, but Civilization brought together strategy, "god-mode", playability and REplayability in such a perfect package that I could barely put it down. I finally bought a 3D card last year so I could try FPS and RTS games and done a lot of this type of gaming, but it just doesn't compare to the total immersion of Civ. With Unreal Tournament, I am deeply into the game for about 10 minutes, and then it starts getting twitchy and mechanical and I'll lose interest after 30 minutes. With Civ, I would play the game for 12 hours straight, pumped up on caffeine, and when I finally had to stop from exhaustion, I'd have leg cramps and my back would crackle from sitting still for so long. I'm not saying the cramps and crackle are Good Things, but any game that can do that to you is doing something right. The stories I hear from EQer's sound the same, which is why I can never, ever play EQ. But EQ has nothing on Civ - Civ was 2D, single player, came on four floppies and the individual games were finite, and yet it is one of the best games ever made. If someone can capture the Civ magic and make it a massively multiplayer experience on the net, than EQ is done for.
  • I am still hooked on Bubble Bobble! Everytime I am in an Arcade, that game calls to me!

    um.. I done, you can stop reading...
  • Dude, I have been in a guild in D2 (don't laugh) for a year and a half. We dropped the game after two months after it was finally released. It really does not live up to anyone's standards (I hope). I think that you have the words "addictive" and "determined" mixed up. D2, although not addictive, will cause one to force themselves to get to Hell Dificulty and kill the D-man out of sheer determination and fear of failure. I don't see how anyone could be addicted, but then again, people are aparently addicted to curry.
  • MUD: Well, I played Shades in the 1980s. In fact, I've started playing Shades again. It used to run on Micronet 800.
    But now...telnet to games.world.co.uk (yes, it runs on port 23) and you can get back into Shades again! Quite a few people play it. And it's still lots of fun!

    Elite - I think the follow-ons are better, particularly Frontier: First Encounters. However, the learning curve is a little steeper (it uses Newtownian physics, not 'airplane in space' physics). And it inspires people: see all the FEU-fanfiction [alioth.net] that's around. You might be interested to know that (hopefully) the Elite Club will be forming soon.

    Doom - I agree with your comments entirely. The atmosphere was amazing. It actually made you feel kind of anxious as you could hear all the monsters shuffling around. I played it with the lights off and the headphones on. One day, a friend of mine scared the tar out of me by throwing a little bean-bag frog at my back whilst I was playing the game. I think I jumped about five feet! We still play Doom at lan parties today.

  • dear slashdot,

    is this sole joke of mine now dull and tiring?

    thanks
    j0sh
  • i agree with you some what, interacting with other people is more rewarding , but i think you are looking at this in the wrong way. not every one who plays games is a hermit. by your argument reading a novel or watching a movie is anti-social. i like playing games to stimulate my mind. i would rather physically play baseball then to play the video game, and i would much rather play a baseball video game then to watch a baseball game.
    point being I like interaction, I like having some say in a situation.
    yes you can over do it I think playing a video game till you hear birds chirping in the morning is a problem and in the future when games have more realistic environments. it will probable be looked at like a gambling or a drug problem.

    my only advice to you is never, never, never, play Deus ex.
  • Oddly enough, Katz misquoted the article. In fact he didn't quote it at all, he pretty much copied the text word for word, yet somehow messed up the statistic. (Follow the link in this article to verify.)

    The quote was "Men are also three times as likely as female gamers to participate in first-person shooter games (38 percent vs. 12 percent)..." (not 10 percent. Odd, huh?)

    Also quoted from the article: "The study was conducted among a sample of 3,507 home Internet users, including both gamers and non-gamers, selected from a panel of 120,000 US home Internet users during Nov. 2 to 9. Margin of error on this data is +/- 1.7 percent." A sample of 3500 is pretty good, but the problem with this survey (I suspect) is that the marjority of these people surveyed were guys, thus reducing the sample of females. Of the women who were in these surveys, only the technically minded probably responded, thus messing with the results again. I suspect the number of women likely to play first person shooters is closer to 5% (or less). Although to give credit where credit is due, I was able to get my mother to play "Rise of the Triad" with me once. (She thought it was pretty funny actually.)

  • I have. It's impossible.

    I mean, come on, it's a simple game, fly around and shoot down your opponents. But I just can't stop playing it. I tried it first back in -92 or -93 when it was really basic, and I still play it from time to time.

    Anyone else played it and had the same experience? Or knows of a good cure?

    A good advice, try it [xpilot.org]!

    A better advice, don't! You won't be able to stop...

    /HG
  • Apparently, men prefer war games .. including 'strategy' games. Where is one I can play on my PC? [NT, Win98 or Linux] Strategy games exist: Chess and Go are strategy games. There are lots of military board games in the 'strategy' class. While they also depend on tactics, that is, short term planning and response, the key feature of these games is the need for long term planning. That's what strategy is about: supply, logistics, finance, production, technology... I've never seen even ONE such game on a computer. Perhaps there is an element of strategy in Advanced Civilisation, but if you think Starcraft is a strategy game, you don't know what strategy is. (Starcraft is an arcade game, it doesn't rate in the tactics category either) Modern games have superb production quality, excellent graphics, generally poor interfaces, occasionally interesting tactics, but not a one has any serious strategic content. And this is a great pity, because it is almost impossible to build a serious strategy game on a board: you really need a computer to manage the complexity.

  • Youngsters! (Score:3)

    by redhog ( 15207 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2000 @07:22AM (#548663) Homepage
    You youngsters. Don't you see it? Tetris is the most addictive game _ever_. And there are millions of versions of it! And don't complain about lack of cool graphics - there is even several 3D-tetris-versions...

    All these new games are just a lot of nice graphics and no new ideas behind.

    And for multiuser-games: MUD just rox!

  • Addiction through the ages.... (Score:3)

    by maroberts ( 15852 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2000 @07:30AM (#548664) Homepage Journal
    ...as computers have become more sophisticated and graphics have got flashier, yesterdays super-addictive game simply fades away into obscurity.

    However, a pick of three of high points in my experience of computing would be

    MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) A text only multi player adventure played at University of Essex (UK). I believe that this was the first MUD ever (pre-1982); does anyone know better ? This was so addictive that I dedicated all my allocated mainframe time to playing this and I had to buy a BBC Micro to do my real computing projects... which leads to...

    Elite for the BBC micro; one of the first wire frame 3D graphic space trading games. As you gained experience and graduated from "Harmless" through to the ultimate accolade of "Elite", you could send off to Acorn for badges to prove your prowess. Despite playing this once for 72 hours with only meal breaks I only got as far as Dangerous.... unfortunately the follow-ons to this game simply didn't deliver.

    Doom I still believe that despite its age, Doom is the best 1st person shooter ever. I still play it occassionally and the sound combined with the graphics still have the power to make me leap out of my seat when something unexpected happens. Whilst Quake et al bought undeniably better effects, the magic atmosphere seems to be somewhat lacking in these games. One can only hope that the promised Doom 3 brings them back.

  • Old school addictions (Score:3)

    by GW Hayduke ( 19878 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @02:23AM (#548665)
    Well as a still active gamer I must say with a lot of this discussion about Diablo II, Everquest and games of this ilk, I find that I have to compare my gaming habits of the last few years pale in comparison to my old days of gaming.
    I remember when I got my TRS-80 Mod III staying up for days on end playing Zork and Scott adams Adventures. Then again I was 10 years old, lived in a very rural area where my nearest friend was like 10 miles away. (Yeah it sounds like that old granpa school story) But my "addiction" to those games started my love of programming/debugging/etc.. as far as FPS' go. anyone remember Labyrith or bedlam??? They were out LOOOONG before Duke Nukem or Castle Wolfenstein.
    I also remember inviting friends over to play Wizardy. We used put 3 or four computers together on the table and simulate multiplayer. Of course we weren't a true LAN party, but it was definately a premonition of things to come. Starting after school on a friday, and surviving on coffee, pizza and doritos till Sunday when we finally slept.
    Hell, I met the manager for my company when I was 14 through a love of BTIII. We used to take turns with one person "driving" while the other one mapped, allowing the mapper the occasional nap whilst the "driver" went aroung grabbing experience before embarking down the next dungeon. I still have the maps that I drew on hex/graph paper. The 3 dimensional mazes for those bad boys were quite complex for their time.
    So while I have spent some time doing the on-line multiplayer games from cards to "The Realm" to "Everquest",QIII,UT, whatever, for some reason they all seem to pale in comparison to the days I spent with the older games.
    I agree with the above posters that to lose school/work/whatever for a game can be detrimental. The same goes for ANYTHING that takes ones time away from your "real-world" responsibilities. I remember getting in school trouble because I was out playing in bars with my band during finals week. Is that any different than playing games??. I don't believe so. The addiction has always been there for some of us, it's just are you responsible enough to know when it's time to quit. Well that and the carpal tunnel that starts kicking in after 8-10 hours of playing Quake or even programming would cause me to stop

  • Re:Jon, you need to get out more... (Score:3)

    by ConceptJunkie ( 24823 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2000 @08:34AM (#548666) Homepage Journal
    You're absolutely right. However, if you added up the number of people who watched "Survivor" or "Who Wants to Look Even Stupider than Regis Philbin is Annoying?" I bet every game published in the last year doesn't come close to that number. And let's not forget the Bush/Gore Celebrity Death Match in Florida. This was Real History (TM) happening.

    Also, while computer games are very pervasive, even my Mom plays FreeCell, there's a big difference between the casual gamers (like my Mom) and the hardcore people who had a reason to coin the term "Evercrack".

    Here are some aspects of popular culture that are and probably will always be more popular than computer gaming:

    Going to church
    Watching Sports
    Playing Sports
    Listening to the radio
    Reading newspapers/magazines (even if they are online)
    Reading popular fiction (ditto)
    Politics
    Complaining about politics
    Watching TV (OK, this one will probably go down over time)

    Also, I do frequent stores like Wal-Mart, etc, and the book sections are always bigger than the game sections, and the local bookstores generally have about 10 times as much space devoted to such esoteric subjects as history, popular fiction, science or any of a number of other subjects than they do about gaming.

    I'm not bashing gaming. I love it. I encourage my kids to play computer games (but not to excess, my wife will reel us in when necessary) and have a number of games for Christmas presents for them. Even my two-year-old is an avid computer user (her favorites are "Thomas the Tank Engine" and "Fisher-Price Toddler", but she loves to watch her older brothers play things like Roller Coaster Tycoon or Lode Runner.) So don't get me wrong, but any view that gaming is the (or even a) predominant element of culture is just a little skewed.

  • That number would not not surprise me at all. I host LAN parties from time to time, and almost every female I know has either tried playing them, or does play them (except for one gal who hasn't bothered trying them.) However, it is a bit different between playing online, and playing at a LAN party - a LAN party isn't anonymous, and people are yelling and cursing at each other, and generally having a good time. Online, well, it's a bit different - I don't know how many of those same females play online. But they sure have a blast at the local LAN parties! (Which makes me think - it's time for another one soon!)

  • They may be very involved and addictive, but they're just games. I guarantee you that there are people who are gamers who also brag about their sexual exploits, and having been in a combat zone myself, I can tell you I'd much rather tell war stories than describe cheats I came up with for Myth II.

    To hear some people talk, you'd think they were in a real combat zone. Some people live and breath gaming now - if they gave a story to tell, it's gaming related. (And usually bores the fuck outta me. "Friendship is..." listening to some lame game-related story from a friend, and feigning interest!) Seriously, there's a good number of people who talk about games just as seriously as they talk about life. For me, talking about a video game is pretty boring - but get me started on tales of pen, paper, and dice role playing games, and you'd wonder if maybe my sanity is a little twisted based on the fact it almost sounds like *I* was there. This is just my experience , mind ya - but, people really do rave over thier exploits in games. (Geez - I have one friend who keeps relaying stories of his last games of Masters of Magic. Blow by blow. *SIGH*)

    I know people who watch movies continuously. I know people who play pencil and paper role playing games for hours on end. Are they also taking part in some kind of hitherto never witnessed revolution in creativity?

    Agreed. I think Jon missed something - online games aren't that much of a revolution, in many ways, and the fact that some people damned near live them is definitely not new. Some people do the same things with books, movies, role playing games, card games, majhong, etc. There's always a diversion to obsess over for anyone who's interested. It's no great revolution in thought or creativity - it's just an extension of what humans have always done in the past. Find something interesting, and dive in with both feet.

  • It's official - Jon Katz lives in never-never land (Score:3)

    by Seinfeld ( 243496 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2000 @07:08AM (#548669)
    "The PC Data survey greatly underscores the idea that gaming has become a mainstream form of culture, if not the single most pervasive form of culture, in America."

    Yes, even the homeless love a good video game! Get a clue. Video games are a cultural niche. There are many things which reach across age and economic barriers much more -- books, movies, TV, McDonald's, Wal-Mart, turkey on Thanksgiving, watching sports, e-mail (to a lesser extent), and so on. You can throw it against the wall, Jon, but it don't stick...
    -----------

  • Most addictive... (Score:4)

    by sanemind ( 155251 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2000 @07:28AM (#548670) Homepage
    Hm. You know, when I was a teenager, I used to covertly berate my friends and somewhat lose respect for them over the quantity of their lives they spent on what I could argue as a significant underutilization of their free time via obsessively playing console games. [It saddened me, I knew someone who would play super mario brothers for over two hours a day, but never got around to reading].

    Anyway, I never really understood gaming obsession, although I had [as a youngster] quite enjoyed some infocom offerings, such as starcrossed, infidel [and of -course- zork].

    ...until one day I had the foolishness to install quake. Oh my.

    I became completely immersed in the game; my psyche simplified down to an exclusive focus on the reward and happiness of getting the hard to find ammo units, the special armour, the medi-packs. Nothing else mattered. I would sit in the dark, face up against the screen, all of my emotional energy and self focused entirely into the world of the game. And it intellectually challenging at all. I'm kind of ashamed of myself in retrospect. ;)

    I was no better then those I had once used to berate for becoming obsessed with super mario [Which, BTW, has some -strange- symbolism. I did always like the fact that you had to slam your head into brick walls constantly to earn happy money coins. I'm not even going to go into a freudian intrepetation of the mushrooms you had to squash...]

    Moderators::Note(humor)


    ---
    man sig

  • Best game for programmers - Carnage Heart (Score:4)

    by banda ( 206438 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2000 @07:57AM (#548671)
    Maybe three or four years ago, a Japanaese company named Artdink (famous in Japan for railroad simulators) published a playstation game called "Carnage Heart."

    The game was a mixture of simple turn-based strategy and tactical cobat between two teams of competing robots. The robots were the typical "mechs" in several different varieties, two legged, four legged, tank treaded and flying. The innovative part of the game was that instead of controlling a mech, like a FPS, the player coded the software that dictated how the mechs reacted to their environments.

    The programming system was simple and brilliant. Starting with a blank "card", the player placed and configured "chips" that created a sort of flowchart. The chips did all sorts of things like checking environmental conditions (presence of enemies, presence of friendlies, presence of ordinance, fuel remaining, weapons remaining), branching the program logic, moving the mech, firing the weapons and communicating with friendlies. The strategic part of the game was setting up factories, building the mechs, putting together squads and directing their movements on the battle maps.

    I spent hours and hours of my free time playing the game (which was fascinating to watch, the game, not me playing it), but what's worse, I spent plenty of time away from the console diagramming new software configurations to try out later. Fortunately, my boss at the time was incapable of distinguishing my stacks of graph-paper flow charts from the work I was supposed to be doing.

  • most addictive: DOOM (Score:4)

    by mr.ska ( 208224 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2000 @07:48AM (#548672) Homepage Journal
    Yes, it was cheesy, but at the time, playing Doom (or Doom II) on my roommate's scortching fast Pentium 90 was just WICKED. The 4 of us would spend many, many hours in front of that screen in the dark, typing in the cheat codes and trying to make things go "Squish" with the rocket launcher.

    At one point in my Doom days, I had been playing it for many hours a day for the past week. Suddenly one night, when I was trying to get to sleep, the instant I closed my eyes all I saw were various Doom levels, either real, made-up, or both, and I was playing them. For days after that point, if I even closed my eyes for a second, I would be in another Doom level, lobbing all sorts of artillery at various heinous creatures coming after me. It wouldn't stop.

    Eventually, I stopped playing for a while, and my shut-eye time once again went dark. But Doom was very addictive. It paved the way for Duke Nukem, Quake, and all the billions of other FPS games out there. Hail to the King, baby.

  • Jon, you need to get out more... (Score:5)

    by ConceptJunkie ( 24823 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2000 @07:23AM (#548673) Homepage Journal
    > The PC Data survey greatly underscores the idea that gaming has become a mainstream form of culture, if not the single most pervasive form of culture, in America.

    Jon, I don't know what your idea of culture is, but you have GOT to get out and see RealLife (TM, Pat. Pend.) just a little bit more.

    You've got this bizarre idea that the whole world revolves around computer gaming and the Internet. Believe it or not, some people still watch TV, read books (gasp!) or even go outside and take a walk.

    You've got to stop gauging the experience of 270,000,000 Americans on the poorly-spelled comments of a few pimply-faced geeks and those stupid PlayStation 2 commercials.

    I am an avid gamer and Internet user, but I still spend more time reading books or playing with my kids than doing either. I'm even so radical as to have conversations with my wife. I guess I'm just a cultural throwback mired in the low-tech past.

    Rick

  • About women gaming online. (Score:5)

    by spankenstein ( 35130 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2000 @07:09AM (#548674) Homepage

    I'm not really surprised. While I was growing up my Mom and Grandma would play all sorts of board and crad games (backgammon, hearts, canasta, etc.) At holidays it would always be aunts and female cousins that would play the more social games.

    Well now it's almost 2001 and even my grandma has cable modem and one of the first things she did was get on the MSN Game Zone to play with my Mom. It's the same as it's always been it's just going over packets now.

    I actually think that it's really good that this is happening. It's easier for everyone to at least stay in touch and do the things that they would have done if they were actuall there in person. If my Mom lived more than a few blocks from my grandma I would think that it is even cooler.

    This is going back to some of the things brought up during the "Voices from the Hellmouth" series about the net "alienating" youth. It can only alienate you if you want it to. I'm sure that there are people that this does happen to, but I also know a lot of people that have a richer social life from the net, either clubs (LUGs are good), chatting, emailing, or (on topic) online gaming.

  • Ultima Online got me kicked out of college (Score:5)

    by pezpunk ( 205653 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2000 @07:50AM (#548675) Homepage
    it was the first mainstream MMORPG, and i can tell you it hooked a HUGE number of people .. half my Guild failed out of college, primarily because we HAD to maintain our grandmaster skills in magery, macefighting, wrestling, and uhm cooking.

    it's open-ended games like this, with no story other than the one you make for yourself, that are often the most addictive. how many times can i kill Diablo before i get bored? "Not even death" .. can save me from you, Diablo, yeah yeah, i know. especially since i'll respawn in town and come back to try to kill you again.

    but see, in UO, if you were killed, any random newbie or PK wandering by could take from you what it took months of hard labor to accumulate. today's MMORPGs are so wimpy by those standards .. there's no risk, nothing to lose of any real value.

    that, among other things, is what made UO so compelling. i don't think a game will ever match that level of sheer EMOTION involved. other UO players will remember hacking trees in the woods, making logs into shields to sell in town, every UO player remembers the SHEER DREAD they felt the first time a PK appeared out of nowhere and began attacking them. or the RAGE at being stabbed in the back by some low life while you were fighting a lich .. standing there screaming "ooOoOOooOoO" in your death shroud as he looted your corpse of everything that was important to you...

    nope, today, you lose a little experience, oh well, whatever. off to fetch my stuff off of my corpse. UO players didn't have that luxury .. they're stuff was GONE. today, it's a much safer gaming world, much tamer, more mature. i miss the old days.

    i could live a little longer in this prison

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