Am I the only one who intentionally avoids buying games?
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That's a life saving gift from the binary gods. Rejoice. :)
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer
Writing apps? Developing sites? Hate marketing? We can help. -
I was watching The Guild a while back (web series) and part of the back story is that Felicia Day wrote it after a two year WoW addiction. While I tire of the medical industry defining a gazillion "addictions" so that they can bill your insurance company to treat them, this one struck home. Back in ancient times, before Windows ruled the earth, I encountered a primitive DOS based game called Digger. I recall going several nights without sleep, hammering away at the game. Just one more round! You know the story. Sometime thereafter, I realized that any cool game was going to be trouble in this fashion and ever since I have studiously avoided buying any computer or console games to keep my life from disappearing down that particular little rabbit hole. Of course, I don't know how much good that did me since immediately after that first gaming encounter I became a programmer. :rolleyes: Hey, one out of two ain't bad. Anyone else avoid games because you know they'd suck too many hours out of your lives?
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer
Writing apps? Developing sites? Hate marketing? We can help.modified on Friday, December 31, 2010 4:09 PM
When game companies hire psychologists and deploy obvious intermittent reward systems to train users like rats, it's time to steer clear. They are spending big bucks to make games addictive, to suck money from your wallet. Last game I played through was Halo. I'd blink, and 3 hours had gone. That was before I had kids. I don't have three hour chunks of time to invest in something with no payoff nowadays. Our monkey brains aren't evolving fast enough to escape well-designed addictions. Eventually there will be laws to limit too-well-rafted video games, junk food, etc.
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I avoid MMOs now... I escaped from WoW after about 4-5 years (Beta until last July), then tried Champions Online for a few months (Boring)... Now I only buy games that I can play if and when I want to, without being penalized or "falling behind." Don't even get me started on Zynga games (Farmville, etc)... No. Just no.
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels) -
I was watching The Guild a while back (web series) and part of the back story is that Felicia Day wrote it after a two year WoW addiction. While I tire of the medical industry defining a gazillion "addictions" so that they can bill your insurance company to treat them, this one struck home. Back in ancient times, before Windows ruled the earth, I encountered a primitive DOS based game called Digger. I recall going several nights without sleep, hammering away at the game. Just one more round! You know the story. Sometime thereafter, I realized that any cool game was going to be trouble in this fashion and ever since I have studiously avoided buying any computer or console games to keep my life from disappearing down that particular little rabbit hole. Of course, I don't know how much good that did me since immediately after that first gaming encounter I became a programmer. :rolleyes: Hey, one out of two ain't bad. Anyone else avoid games because you know they'd suck too many hours out of your lives?
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer
Writing apps? Developing sites? Hate marketing? We can help.modified on Friday, December 31, 2010 4:09 PM
I managed to stave off buying New Vegas, but unfortunately I received as a Christmas gift. My time is now GONE.
"Sir, I protest. I am NOT a merry man!"
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I was watching The Guild a while back (web series) and part of the back story is that Felicia Day wrote it after a two year WoW addiction. While I tire of the medical industry defining a gazillion "addictions" so that they can bill your insurance company to treat them, this one struck home. Back in ancient times, before Windows ruled the earth, I encountered a primitive DOS based game called Digger. I recall going several nights without sleep, hammering away at the game. Just one more round! You know the story. Sometime thereafter, I realized that any cool game was going to be trouble in this fashion and ever since I have studiously avoided buying any computer or console games to keep my life from disappearing down that particular little rabbit hole. Of course, I don't know how much good that did me since immediately after that first gaming encounter I became a programmer. :rolleyes: Hey, one out of two ain't bad. Anyone else avoid games because you know they'd suck too many hours out of your lives?
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer
Writing apps? Developing sites? Hate marketing? We can help.modified on Friday, December 31, 2010 4:09 PM
Your post raises three questions: (1) Did you actually buy Digger? I was given it - my first pirated software, before I even owned a PC. That meant I could only play on a PC at work, during my half-hour lunch. (2) What was your high score? Somewhere I have a 5 1/4 inch disk showing my score as about 106 000. (3) Have you played Digger recently? If not, have a look at http://www.digger.org/[^]. It matches my fond memories of the original version.
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I was watching The Guild a while back (web series) and part of the back story is that Felicia Day wrote it after a two year WoW addiction. While I tire of the medical industry defining a gazillion "addictions" so that they can bill your insurance company to treat them, this one struck home. Back in ancient times, before Windows ruled the earth, I encountered a primitive DOS based game called Digger. I recall going several nights without sleep, hammering away at the game. Just one more round! You know the story. Sometime thereafter, I realized that any cool game was going to be trouble in this fashion and ever since I have studiously avoided buying any computer or console games to keep my life from disappearing down that particular little rabbit hole. Of course, I don't know how much good that did me since immediately after that first gaming encounter I became a programmer. :rolleyes: Hey, one out of two ain't bad. Anyone else avoid games because you know they'd suck too many hours out of your lives?
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer
Writing apps? Developing sites? Hate marketing? We can help.modified on Friday, December 31, 2010 4:09 PM
No, you're not. I get mine for free. :) Just got "Assassin's Creed: Brotherwood" this Christmas and my birthday is coming up soon. (still haven't finished one of the games I got last year) And of course, there's plenty of little free games around the web. It's funny how most of the games I've ever bought were for someone else.
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Ahhh! Why did you have to bring that up? Now I'm humming the music to that game again! I used to play that all the time... I have OpenTTD installed on all of my home machines now. Such a great game, and so intricate.
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels) -
I was curious what you were talking about...... I've been playing the game for about.... 16 hours out of 22 since last night when I read this thread... I did get some sleep though :-)
Addicting, isn't it? :)
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels) -
Addicting, isn't it? :)
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels) -
I was watching The Guild a while back (web series) and part of the back story is that Felicia Day wrote it after a two year WoW addiction. While I tire of the medical industry defining a gazillion "addictions" so that they can bill your insurance company to treat them, this one struck home. Back in ancient times, before Windows ruled the earth, I encountered a primitive DOS based game called Digger. I recall going several nights without sleep, hammering away at the game. Just one more round! You know the story. Sometime thereafter, I realized that any cool game was going to be trouble in this fashion and ever since I have studiously avoided buying any computer or console games to keep my life from disappearing down that particular little rabbit hole. Of course, I don't know how much good that did me since immediately after that first gaming encounter I became a programmer. :rolleyes: Hey, one out of two ain't bad. Anyone else avoid games because you know they'd suck too many hours out of your lives?
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer
Writing apps? Developing sites? Hate marketing? We can help.modified on Friday, December 31, 2010 4:09 PM
Christopher Duncan wrote:
Anyone else avoid games because you know they'd suck too many hours out of your lives?
I know the feeling. Sometimes the game is sitting there and I think: "I'm gonna like this!". And then: "I'm gonna waste a lot of time on this.". Sometimes it's really difficult to make the right decision and occasionally I buy the game just to regret it later (when I have to wake up for work 2 hours after going to sleep). I prefer not to buy any game, but sometimes I fall into temptation.
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I was watching The Guild a while back (web series) and part of the back story is that Felicia Day wrote it after a two year WoW addiction. While I tire of the medical industry defining a gazillion "addictions" so that they can bill your insurance company to treat them, this one struck home. Back in ancient times, before Windows ruled the earth, I encountered a primitive DOS based game called Digger. I recall going several nights without sleep, hammering away at the game. Just one more round! You know the story. Sometime thereafter, I realized that any cool game was going to be trouble in this fashion and ever since I have studiously avoided buying any computer or console games to keep my life from disappearing down that particular little rabbit hole. Of course, I don't know how much good that did me since immediately after that first gaming encounter I became a programmer. :rolleyes: Hey, one out of two ain't bad. Anyone else avoid games because you know they'd suck too many hours out of your lives?
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer
Writing apps? Developing sites? Hate marketing? We can help.modified on Friday, December 31, 2010 4:09 PM
I play a lot of games. Right now Fallout: New Vegas (PC) and Call of Duty: Black Ops (XBOX) are sucking some of hours out of my life. Mostly garbage time between doing stuff after work and bedtime. I originally got into the XBOX because all the "cool" (read younger) developers in the office had one and I wanted to stay in the social loop. Then I found that XBOX live on the console is a viable social networking tool (not into Facebook or Twitter). Now I hook up with former co-workers and friends around the country I don't see enough and chat up whats going on. Like in the old days when mom would call aunt Gladdis and talk for two hours. Thing is for a lot of people Games are just another vice like smoking, drinking, drugs, and food. The important thing, like with any vice, is to be able to walk away.
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Your post raises three questions: (1) Did you actually buy Digger? I was given it - my first pirated software, before I even owned a PC. That meant I could only play on a PC at work, during my half-hour lunch. (2) What was your high score? Somewhere I have a 5 1/4 inch disk showing my score as about 106 000. (3) Have you played Digger recently? If not, have a look at http://www.digger.org/[^]. It matches my fond memories of the original version.
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I managed to stave off buying New Vegas, but unfortunately I received as a Christmas gift. My time is now GONE.
"Sir, I protest. I am NOT a merry man!"
But how did they know that New Vegas would make a good gift??? I was skidish about getting it because of the bugs but by the time I opened up that familiar package at Christmas they had rolled out a patch and I was on my way. Currently delivering new security codes to all th ranger stations.
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I was watching The Guild a while back (web series) and part of the back story is that Felicia Day wrote it after a two year WoW addiction. While I tire of the medical industry defining a gazillion "addictions" so that they can bill your insurance company to treat them, this one struck home. Back in ancient times, before Windows ruled the earth, I encountered a primitive DOS based game called Digger. I recall going several nights without sleep, hammering away at the game. Just one more round! You know the story. Sometime thereafter, I realized that any cool game was going to be trouble in this fashion and ever since I have studiously avoided buying any computer or console games to keep my life from disappearing down that particular little rabbit hole. Of course, I don't know how much good that did me since immediately after that first gaming encounter I became a programmer. :rolleyes: Hey, one out of two ain't bad. Anyone else avoid games because you know they'd suck too many hours out of your lives?
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer
Writing apps? Developing sites? Hate marketing? We can help.modified on Friday, December 31, 2010 4:09 PM
I grew up playing games like "Chuckle Egg" and "Daly Thompson's Decathlon" on the old BBC computers. I’d play them all day and night. The last game I bought and played to death was "Phantasy Star" on the SEGA Master System; I stopped playing on computer games soon after that fearing I’d never find a girlfriend! Back then, they told us: “if you stare at a screen too long, your eyes will turn square” and we believed them!