Topic: Not talking about games.

[Chedney Honks]

One of the most peaceful things I've done over the last month or so is not talk about games.

I'm sometimes enjoying playing bits and bobs here and there and then turning them off and not talking about them with anyone. It's really nice to just play a game without reading or listening to anyone else's opinion. I don't mean that this colours my own opinion, I just mean that I'm bored of gamer chat and the tone of gamer chat.

I've concluded that apart from the top tier stuff, I was often more interested in discussion around games than playing them. The overwhelming majority are not bad but mindless and joyless,  so without the extra level of discourse, they have very little to offer.

I found from writing for a few sites last year that while I enjoyed a couple of pieces, I loathed the feeling of having to say something about a game I didn't really love or find inspiring, which is almost all. I mostly enjoyed the articles, but reviews and buyer's guides are less than bogroll, for the most part, undignified little PR cogs. I wrote for a national paper in my 20s and sacked it off after six months for the same reason. That constant churn of nothingness, other people's agendas.

It's a good feeling to conclude that, overall, most games do nothing for me so I won't buy anything now unless it seems right up my street. It's interesting though that my enthusiasm for playing games has gone up the less I've engaged in the gamer discourse.

I should say that this is not directed at this forum or anyone here, more just a reflection that engaging in the gaming 'community' itself puts me off playing games, and having withdrawn, I've rediscovered an ember of passion for it.

[bgmnts]

Returned my xbox last week, have been quite peaceful and my sleep pattern is much better.

[samadriel]

I don't play any recent 'AAA' games, all the top-of-the-market games I play are at least ten years old (Last night I clocked Splinter Cell Conviction; awful campaign, but I was tired of playing and replaying the good Hunter missions, so I played through the story).  I would've bought Cyberpunk, but apparently that's shit, so no.  I definitely don't read any games 'journalism'; this forum is pretty much all the game-related reading I do.  Gaming is a poisonous landscape, it's best to stay away from the bleeding edge if one must play anything at all.

[MoreauVasz]

I should say that this is not directed at this forum or anyone here, more just a reflection that engaging in the gaming 'community' itself puts me off playing games, and having withdrawn, I've rediscovered an ember of passion for it.

I think this is true of most areas of interest. The Internet seems to channel attention into this really narrow range of subjects expressed in a narrow range of tones and I feel that keeping up with that discourse is almost a separate thing from the interest itself?

Like photography is all about gear. Nobody buys photobooks or thinks about art, they just argue about gear. Photography forums? Gear. Reddit? Gear. I even discovered that 4Chan has a photography forum and it is identical to other forums except that people use slurs.

I play games and take pictures but the discourse seems to have completely left me behind. There's just nothing there worth paying attention to.

[Zetetic]

As with games, I think there's actually quite a broad "range of tones" and ways of talking about games, so long as you aren't entirely focused on the few major channels that - naturally - appeal on a broad and impersonal basis.

We had a YouTuber thread recently, but I'd highlight Noah Caldwell-Gervais and Chris Franklin as quite different[1] and clearly utterly detached from the mass-entertainment industry itself, and both as gateways to other people discussing games in different ways (like, maybe, Soft and Hollow talking about horror games). These are people that I'll listen talk about games that I'll probably never play myself, because they'll still help me think about other games.

1.	Not least in length of output!

[ImmaculateClump]

I've always been the exact opposite.
I like playing games in my downtime, but I find all the discussions around any game to be utterly mind numbing.

Any time I try to say something about a game, it's like pulling teeth and I just find myself explaining the mechanics and trying to say "it woz fun" in a way that I haven't 500 times before.

The facile shite that your average gamer prick thinks is worthy of discussion. My god, I can't abide to spend time with any of those cretins.

Nobody in my life is interested in gaming (apart from my nephew, but he thinks the shite I play is sad old man garbage :D ) so it's nice to have a few people to chat to about it now and then.

It's nice when you've got a little niche community of people all playing shmups, for example, and they can keep on top of the new releases and recommend games and compare scores and things.

Those little niche threads you see, always joyful, full of kind, generous people helping each other out and lifting each other up.

That's a gaming community to me, the rest of it is just a dumpster fire, a load of 40 something, thin skinned social retards having slap fights about which console is better or kicking off because they take everything as a personal attack.
Constantly trying to wind each other up or having sour grape meltdowns when one of their number stops farting for a month enough to channel their "brainpower" into booting a computer without it catching fire.

You see the regulars on those forums, they're posting all day. When do they get time to play games never mind live the rest of their lives?
Just bickering, spouting ill informed shite and wasting their lives.
Awful, cowardly, spineless motherlovers as well. Some of the worst bullying I've seen in my life happens in those god forsaken shitholes and then they're all unironically patting each other on the back like they're a bunch of saints. Deluded.

I'm sort of glad you talked me into signing up here and at that other place again, it definitely helped with my sanity during lockdown, but aye, it's all pretty pointless.

edit: Just saw your last post.
So it's not one of your hilariously brief mini flounces then?
The forum equivalent of Limmy's "I can't take this any more. I'm leaving social media to spend more time with my family, that's me back."
That's you done with the other place?
Mate. I only signed up to talk to you about shooting aliens :D

[Bazooka]

We've reached a point where mechanically the strides made in the format are no longer as large as they once were. When I play a game I can pre-determine exactly how it is going to play, what games I've already played it will emulate, and what the buttons will do. Watching a YouTube video of a game provides a pretty accurate scope of the whole package without needing to read about it.

Single player games can no longer draw me in for as long as they once did, I'll play maybe 45 min max, get to the next check point and auto save and then leave it, to usually load up Battlefield 1,4 or 5 and play that for an hour or so.

The Last of Us 2 was the last game to really pull me in and want one load that up everytime.

[Chedney Honks]

I think this is true of most areas of interest. The Internet seems to channel attention into this really narrow range of subjects expressed in a narrow range of tones and I feel that keeping up with that discourse is almost a separate thing from the interest itself?

Like photography is all about gear.

The very very few times I've dipped my toe into the photography community, I've recoiled for the exact reasons you mentioned. It's one of my main hobbies but I never talk about it online. I think because it's always seemed like a pretty awful, competitive, unsupportive community, to be honest. I've sold some stuff over the last nine months which was really nice, but the second I started too think about selling or promoting my 'work' seriously, it killed my interest for a good couple of months. Now I just do it and if someone likes it and wants to buy a print, great. I've no interest in promoting myself. It's something to get away from all that shite.

I've always been the exact opposite.
I like playing games in my downtime, but I find all the discussions around any game to be utterly mind numbing.
...
That's you done with the other place?
Mate. I only signed up to talk to you about shooting aliens :D

You nailed it about the niche community, and I really enjoyed the one big Shmups thread we had going way back when. Lots of suggestions, some great laughs, plenty of enthusiasm, nice bit of healthy competition, good dose of unhealthy competition, smashed controllers, broken hand, uhh...But I really mean it, as you know. That was just good fun for quite a long while. Easily the most I've ever enjoyed 'gaming discussion'. Beyond that, yeah, I don't really want to say much more than I did in the OP. Abandoning gaming discussion and gamer community stuff has perked up my interest in gaming, for several reasons.

[Lemming]

Yeah, I'm out of most gaming discourse these days too. Used to really enjoy online gaming culture back about 10 - 15 years ago, because most of it really was just a bunch of horrible people with the mentality of 12 year olds ripping the absolute piss out of each other. It was worth keeping up with new releases just to stay atop of the latest laugh-out-loud melodrama.

Nowadays the world is different, the internet is very different, and being online is already exhausting enough without drama over videogames, of all things. Plus - as physically painful as it is to say this stupid phrase in 2021, there's no way around it - Gamergate changed things. A lot of gaming communities are very heavily politically charged now with "culture war" stuff, often from some kind of batshit far-right perspective, and it's unbelievably tedious to have to filter out all kinds of bizarre gibberish bullshit while just trying to read about games.

The other thing, I suppose, is that gaming - especially PC gaming - felt like a niche subculture over a decade ago[1], whereas now it's undeniably integrated into mainstream popular culture. There's no longer any appeal in getting together with a bunch of internet people you can't stand but have a shared interest with, since every other person you meet online has some level of interest in gaming these days. Gaming culture also used to be woven into a wider internet culture which doesn't really exist anymore.

That said, the Cyberpunk 2077 disaster made me remember how much fun it can be when a gang of disparate internet strangers all gang together to take the piss out of the latest triple-A fuckup. Some of the biggest laughs of the year from that.

1.	though obviously it was breaking well into the mainstream by that point

[ImmaculateClump]

I don't really want to say much more than I did in the OP. Abandoning gaming discussion and gamer community stuff has perked up my interest in gaming, for several reasons.

Aw man, you'll be missed.
I'm glad you're actually enjoying gaming again though!

I don't even know if I'll bother making the effort to engage now myself.
I'd trade in the whole sorry lot of the pricks for half a honk :D

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I'm just too poor to buy games at full price, so I'm constantly lagging behind when it comes to talking about them. I'd like to discuss games more but, by the time I've played most of them, everyone else has usually moved on.

This is also the only forum I'm on (unlike some of you forum philanderers) so I'm spared the worst excesses of the discourse.

[madhair60]

I actually am a games journo so I have NO CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOIIIIIIIIIIIICE

[petercussing]

I'm not talking about games right now! Be part of the solution guys.

I hope not talking about games make them be very nice to play for you again.

[Thursday]

I actually am a games journo so I have NO CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOIIIIIIIIIIIICE

You don't need to do podcasts that aren't tied to any paid work though do you.

Sorry I don't know why I'm insulting you when I like them.

[madhair60]

You don't need to do podcasts that aren't tied to any paid work though do you.

Sorry I don't know why I'm insulting you when I like them.

yeah we're DONE cunt.

[Chedney Honks]

Aw man, you'll be missed.
I'm glad you're actually enjoying gaming again though!

I don't even know if I'll bother making the effort to engage now myself.
I'd trade in the whole sorry lot of the pricks for half a honk :D

Yeah, I'd much rather miss out on the chode chat than the fun bit. You've got a good thing going with that thread, though. Loads more interest there than anywhere else, I reckon, and more enthusiasm/less weariness than the shmups forum. Some real good guys, but the overall place isn't for me any more.