Pathogenic wrote:Nombringer wrote:Pathogenic wrote:Maybe people who play a lot of SupCom think of themselves as intellectually motivated because they prefer to think of themselves in flattering terms, rather than that of simple computer game addicts?
But why does "computer addict" have such a negative connotation?
It's okay to be a sports addict....
It's okay to be a chess addict....
It's okay to be a book addict...
But, it's not okay to be a computer addict...... Even though your using a lot of the same skills, and are more intellectually stimulated than you would be if reading a short novel.....
(Obviously making generalisations here... But you get the point...
It's a matter of degrees and how much you let it dominate your life.
If a person played sports for 30+ hours per week (for recreation, not professionally for money), to the detriment of the things which do earn a living/support a family etc, then being a sports addict would be bad. It has the upside of improving physical health though.
Chess addiction, same problem as computer game addiction IMO. I was an online chess addict at one point, and the consequences of that compared with a computer game addict on my life in general were similar. Chess is mentally stimulating and enjoyable, but taken to extremes can cause problems in other neglected areas of life.
Book addiction can also be a bad thing. Again, if you are reading all the time as an addictive behavior (not talking about reading as part of your line of work), then other important aspects of your life can begin to suffer. You would get the benefits perhaps of increased knowledge through reading books, offset by the fact that you are neglecting other important facets of life.
Computer games are fun. Playing them persistently, all the time, results in diminishing returns of enjoyment, making the player wish to play even more to get the same level of enjoyment that previously could be had only playing it a little bit. But when the computer game addict runs across the harsh realities of life that must be addressed (I am speaking for myself here), he retreats to playing more computer games in an attempt to avoid dealing with the problems of real life. Which in turn only compounds the real life problems, a vicious cycle. I am not saying computer games are bad, I am saying playing them to excess, and making them the focus of your life is bad. Unless you are part of the infinitessimally small number of people that can make a living playing in computer game tournaments, then playing computer games all day, every day can only have negative impacts on your life. Sure you might develop parts of your brain that would deal with stretegic thinking and spatial orientation, etc, but these small benefits would be vastly outweighed by the other areas of life being neglected.
I currently consider myself an internet forum addict, spending inordinate amounts of time at work and at home surfing and posting in forums, like I am doing right now! This hampers my productivity at work and future career development. I want to break myself of this habit and not surf the internet at all while at work, devoting myself solely to my professional obligations while at work, yet here I am, typing this... Repeated resolutions to break myself of these bad habits (forums and computer games), despite my best intentions, never seem to work out.
Ironic and sad.
Eukanuba wrote:I haven't made my point clear I think.
The human brain is hardwired to seek out pleasurable things, this is a natural product of the evolutionary process. We now live in a time of great abundance, every desire we have we can fulfil with a minimum of effort. Therefore certain things can become damaging obsessions.
Getting obsessed with exercising is overall a good thing, because you put in a lot of effort but you get a lot of reward that can be used in the rest of your life: you are more agile, quick-minded, attractive, healthy.
Nombringer wrote:I agree with your points, but comparing them to drugs is a bit far, if that was true I think their would be a LOT more players playing games like supcom
We are discerning computer game-players, we have been doing this shit for a long time and we only accept good quality entertainment. Facebook has brought a lot of previously computer-phobic people into the land of videogames and computer culture. In early 2010 there were
80 million Farmville players, out of a total Facebook userbase of less than 500 million. That's nearly 20% of the userbase hooked on clicking on fucking radishes every two hours.
We are psychologically predisposed to go for the greatest reward for the lowest effort, and this is what makes addictive drugs so attractive, and also what makes free-to-play iOS-style games so attractive. The fact that a new hat for our little cartoon hero objectively means absolutely nothing does not matter, our brains like novelty and they like rewards, and so people who are not trained to resist these attractions tend to fall for them.
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Regarding Flynn's comments about arcade games like Time Crisis - it's certainly true that arcade games are designed to keep you feeding in your coins, but arcade games have basically disappeared since around the time of the PS2 / original Xbox, because their unique selling point of great graphics and sound became surpassed in the home.
And as for the depth of a high from taking drugs? Well, it's bordering on breaking the forum rules if I go there, suffice it to say that ketamine makes Half-Life 2 look like walking through a pre-planned and fairly dull set of corridors.
Let me say this again: games like Half-Life 2 and SupCom are wholemeal bread, games like Farmville are white bread. The "white bread" games are the ones your vitrol should be directed to, not the good "wholemeal bread" games. Just like there are good fats and bad fats. There is a reason highly impressionable morons play games like Farmville and other socially engineered games.