Be 80 and play FIFA, it’s fine. There’s no age where you are obliged to put down your controller for the last time. But it shouldn’t be your first answer while you’re dating, and definitely not your only one.
Being a gamer, as an identity, has a lot of baggage.
Having gaming be your only interest or hobby is associated with being an unambitious self-interested person who intends to do as a little as possible, as long as possible. The recognisable games are marketed towards kids/teens with time to burn.
Imagine your date’s interest was “moderating Reddit”, “watching TikTok”, or “reading Instagram”. That’s what ‘gaming’ sounds like: your hobby is media consumption.
There’s no age where you aren’t allowed to consume media; but it’s worrying if that consumption is your identity, if consumption makes up your routine.
So it’s not actually about age - it’s about maturity and goal-setting.
When we’re younger, most of us live moment-by-moment. Media consumption offers no future, but it has a pleasurable present.
But as people age, people develop goals and interests that require more investment and focus, and they’re looking for people that are doing the same. A cutthroat economy demands people develop goals for financial stability, even if they still otherwise like games.
As we age, we stop looking for somebody to hang out with, but to build a life with.
So once the people you’re talking to have interests for the future, “I enjoy my present doing my own thing” doesn’t offer them anything. If they don’t play games, they don’t even know what games are capable of. Maybe one day they’d enjoy playing Ultimate Chicken Horse with you.
But right now, they just see the recognisable titles that want to monopolise children’s time, and assume you’re doing that. They picture you spending 20+ hours a week playing Fortnite. And there is an age cut-off where it’s no longer socially-acceptable to be a child.
It’s not that video games are bad, but they’re a non-answer. They want to know what you do that’s good, and a non-answer implies you don’t have a good answer at all, and that makes video games ‘bad’.
That’s what ‘gaming’ sounds like: your hobby is media consumption.
It’s really weird that people who have “reading books” as their main hobby are not as stigmatized as their digital media counterparts. Is it the digital aspect that turns the hobby into weirdness?
Maybe - certainly generations always assume anything that younger people do is somehow worse than what they did, and the digital landscape is a part of that. When writing slates became accessible, the old guard complained it was ‘lazy’ because they didn’t have to remember it anymore. Any music popular among teenagers (especially teenage girls) is mocked as foolish, cringe, etc.
But I suspect like most hobbies, it’s mostly the following that determine our assumptions:
history of the media and its primary audience (digital mediums are mostly embraced by youth; video games initially marketed to young children)
accessibility; scarcity associated with prestige (eg: vital labour jobs are not considered ‘real jobs’ if they don’t require a degree)
the kind of people we visibly see enjoying it (we mostly see children, teenagers, and directionless adults as gaming hobbyists)
You’re right, reading is not somehow more or less moral than video games. Many modern games have powerful narrative structure that is more impactful for being an interactive medium. Spec Ops: The Line embraces the players actions as the fundamentals of its message. Gamers are hugely diverse; more than half the US population actually plays games at this point, and platforms are rapidly approaching an almost even gender split. (Women may choose to play less or different games, and hide their identity online, but they still own ~40% of consoles.)
Games as a medium is also extremely broad. I don’t think you could compare games to ‘watching anime’ for example, so much as ‘the concept of watching moving pictures’, because they can range from puzzles on your phone, to narrative epics, to grand strategies, to interactive narratives.
So a better comparison for video games isn’t ‘reading books’ so much as reading in general, and are you reading Reddit, the news, fiction, or classic lit? What does your choice of reading mean?
So for your suggested hobby of ‘reading books’, one might assume any (or all) of the following:
they are intelligent and introspective (or pretentious),
they are educated (or think they’re better than you),
they are patient and deliberate (or boring),
they’d be interesting to discuss ideas with (or irrelevant blatherers).
Assuming everybody who reads is ‘smart’ is as much an assumption as assuming everybody who games is ‘lazy’, and the assumptions you make about the hobby are really assumptions you make about the typical person who chooses it. It may not be a guarantee, but its a common enough pattern.
TLDR: Ultimately? I think books have inflated status because it’s seen as a hobby for thinkers; people picture you reading Agatha Christie (but you could be reading Chuck Tingle, or comic books). Games have deflated status because it’s seen as a hobby for people who consume mindlessly - the people who know what games are capable of are the ones playing them, too.
Don’t think about the speeds advertised by providers, you’ll never come close to them. You seem to require a media server, so give more importance to storage.
From my research comparing HostingBy, SeedHost and Ultra.cc - HostingBy has the highest €/TB rate except for the 1TB box which is ironically the highest €/TB rate
I will add on more providers at some point, but these 3 are the big names with decent prices and support.
As for your other problem of app selection, I don’t think you’ll find any of those in most providers natively (except for Transmission). You can request them, but its not a quick process. Instead of that, try installing them yourself. Even without root, it shouldn’t be impossible, the only thing that may be annoying is you may not be able to setup reverse proxy so you’ll need to access those services with ip:port
While I will always mention how much I love my Steam Deck, I will say having a console you can buy physical discs secondhand is quite nice. Sure the PS5 is a lot of power just to run something like Bugsnax, but I can’t buy a physical copy for my Steam Deck, which I know I really own.
You could even go into a retro game store and see what you walk away with, games you never heard of or just a stack of cheap former AAA games. You could also go on Itch.io and just poke around for any obscure indie that sparks your interest. Once you get away from the glitz and glamour of AAA hype, you’ll get excited about sharing games people haven’t heard about or discovering something you wouldn’t find walking into a GameStop.
To me, having an SD card with DRM free games is even better than physical copies for switch and such. I’ve bought switch games before that aren’t actually on the cartridge and you have to download a bunch of stuff to get it running.
Not only that, but files can easily be transferred and copied wherever you’d like.
Well I can tell you that a PC is definitely in your interest because not only is there access to great indie games and modding, but it acts less like a subscription service and you get to keep the games on steam forever. Unlike PlayStation, your games won’t be obsolete and you can run them on newer hardware to enjoy them all over again. Want to play Morrowind at 4k, you bet.
That being said, here’s what I would do in your shoes. I wouldn’t invest in a steam deck up front. I think the deck is great for a lot of gaming experiences, but if you’re used to a Ps5, it’s not going to satisfy you probably. Too little power for more complex games isn’t enough for me as my only console.
I would get a cheap computer. Learn to build one yourself if you can, it’s not hard and can be a fun community effort to get parts in your price range. Consult forums for the individual parts. Sounds hard, but it’s not that bad.
The next part will sound weird because subscriptions are bad buuuut I recommend anyone new to Pc games go look at humble bundle and especially at their subscription. They usually provide a good value for games while also donating to charity.
But yeah overall, you should probably take a break after selling your Ps5. I think it’d be a good opportunity to see if gaming still feels right for you.
I think I’m also in the boat of moving into PC gaming soon. I would be interested in doing a cheap build, but I don’t know much about good components and wouldn’t be sure where to start my research. It would definitely be a good project and I would feel more invested with a build I put together and can upgrade over time.
I do think I need a break from the PS5. The thing is that I’m a college student and just started my summer break, so I didn’t play the PS5 for about 6 months. Now that I have time, I pick it up again and quickly feel drained or uninspired by what there is to play. Even going through the store I struggle to find anything worth my time. So my thinking is that if I already need a break again, then it might just mean that I have outgrown the console gaming life and would benefit from moving onto PC or simplifying my gaming to lighter titles that are more story rich.
I think I’m going to take some time to evaluate the PS5 more. Probably if I don’t use it much before Christmas, then I can look to offload it.
Ah, I have more advice then. So most people build their PCs on PCPartPicker. Other than that you can find or make posts on Toms hardware, the LTT forums, the Reddit pc gaming sub, or even probably here. There are plenty of people much more skilled than I at picking parts. It’s somewhat of an art but you have to start somewhere. Also just consider your upgrade paths. Don’t buy a motherboard without knowing that there is a better CPU for the same socket. Stuff like that.
The college life is rough. I do it myself so I’d just keep in mind if you’re moving around a lot, you’ll need to be okay with moving the pc and it’s components. I move mine around often in a large case with a big monitor. It’s a task for sure. So consider building in a smaller case, it’s harder but may be worth it in the long run.
Not sure what kind of games you enjoy but steam loves their sales. Both the sales and humble bundle are a good way to try games for really cheap. Also steam let’s you refund games with less than 2hrs played. So trying things out for a bit and returning them is a very good deal. Also no subscription for online so that’s cool.
A few years back I tried playing the original Halo 1. It gave me headaches and my brain simply couldn’t enjoy it.
On a similar note: a lot of modern games using Unity or Unreal seem to be magnets for mouse delay and filtering; which makes me very uncomfortable when playing. Those that have bought Killer Frequency: does it have any of this?
I mean, I've never really liked consoles, but it doesn't sound like the console itself is the issue here. Most of the indies I play on PC also have a PS port, so you should be able to find a lot of non-AAA and non-overhyped titles on the PS platform.
I suppose there's also the matter of weighing the prices too; for me I always need a pretty beefy PC to begin with so having a console is just additional expense for a worse experience, but that's for me. You might have to pay quite a bit more and get a lot more games for PC's cheaper games to break even on the decision to move.
I mean, I've never really liked consoles, but it doesn't sound like the console itself is the issue here. Most of the indies I play on PC also have a PS port, so you should be able to find a lot of non-AAA and non-overhyped titles on the PS platform.
I suppose there's also the matter of weighing the prices too; for me I always need a pretty beefy PC to begin with so having a console is just additional expense for a worse experience, but that's for me. You might have to pay quite a bit more and get a lot more games for PC's cheaper games to break even on the decision to move.
I mean, I've never really liked consoles, but it doesn't sound like the console itself is the issue here. Most of the indies I play on PC also have a PS port, so you should be able to find a lot of non-AAA and non-overhyped titles on the PS platform.
I suppose there's also the matter of weighing the prices too; for me I always need a pretty beefy PC to begin with so having a console is just additional expense for a worse experience, but that's for me. You might have to pay quite a bit more and get a lot more games for PC's cheaper games to break even on the decision to move.
I have a beefy PC because it plays nearly everything. I have a Steam Deck because it plays most of that stuff when I'm on a train. My favorite games of the past few years run the gamut when it comes to system requirements, and since about 2017 especially, I have largely not been impressed by AAA games, with some exceptions. There are some genres that see more love than others, but chances are whatever type of game you enjoy most is out there and just not getting the most marketing. I've found some of my favorite games ever by just checking boxes for features that were important to me in Steam's advanced search. You have no commitment to buy the biggest games just because they've got the most hype.
I think that is something I have been experiencing too. Recent AAA games have failed to impress me. I am someone who likes story, so I’ll always appreciate clever dialogue or a well thought out story over flashy graphics or an open world.
I would be interested to know some of the gem games you found using the steam advanced search
Vagante is the one I remember most clearly for that example. I really loved Streets of Rogue, and I wanted another 4-player, online and local multiplayer, action roguelike.
Dead Cells was billed as a metroidvania roguelike, but it's more like a Castlevania roguelike; pre-Symphony of the Night. So I searched for metroidvania roguelikes and came across A Robot Named Fight. You get a new version of Super Metroid every time you play. It's phenomenal.
I got really into Fantasy Strike one summer and finally understood what made fighting games tick. I looked for other fighting games that worked on Linux. Today, the only fighting game I know that doesn't work on Linux is Dragon Ball FighterZ, but at the time, there was literally only one other fighting game that worked on Linux short of emulation, and that was Skullgirls. Skullgirls is now my favorite game ever.
I got a PS5 and built a Linux gaming PC. I have them both connected to a big TV and game on my sofa now. I figured that I should be able to play just about anything that comes out. I don't think the next Elder Scrolls will come to the PlayStation. And I am gaming more and more on my PC. Baldur's Gate 3 is preordered for the PC. I plan on exploring Faerun on my comfortable sofa and using my Xbox controller.
And Steam/Linux works very well. And know Steam has sales all the time.
I have nice PC and ps5. Ps5 games are too expansive so it is used like media player with few exceptions like shooters that don't work on Linux and Hogwarts for gf
I’m also really liking it so far. Probably would have never tried remnant 1, but got it for free from PS plus. So far I think my favorite part is the exploration and puzzle aspects. It’s been great to get on the mic with some good friends and ask “is it open now?” “No?” (Pull lever) “how about now?”. And while the story isn’t particularly cohesive, it is at least interesting. I look forward to seeing what builds we an create.
Yeah I would be down for that. I also play mostly in the evenings or weekends. My time zone is EEST. Also this is my first game in the series, but I have played the previous larian games.
I’ve been a Nintendo gamer most of my life and recently got a Steam Deck.
I’ve never really played or seen much of an appeal with most US studio games.
With how much many companies are trying to take power away from us, it does feel very satisfying when you find a game that’s available under a free, redistribution-permissive, license that you find very fun. Sadly, those are very few.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne