Leasing the Living Room
The door cracks open.
"Why do they have to make those horrible noises when you kill them?" she asks. "All that squelching and roaring and hissing. It's noisy!"
I'm not really sure how to answer, but try anyway. "They're zombies. That's what they do. I'm in the middle of fixing the problem. They need to be shot in their stupid zombie faces. See?"
I point to a zombie hanging out by its lonesome on the helipad, and shoot it right in its stupid zombie face.
She grimaces. "Yeah, see, that's the other thing. So much shooting. Can't you find silencers for your guns? It's really loud, and I’m trying to sleep in here."
"No silencers in this game. Maybe in Left 4 Dead 2, if you're lucky. Haaa!” I stop there, frozen like a tongue-snagged Survivor by the glint of homicide in her eyes. I drag myself backwards, away from the edge.
"You know what, maybe I'll just play Puzzle Quest instead—the wonderful blend of puzzle and RPG that knows when to shut the f*ck up."
She smiles and goes back to bed, just one thin wall away. The uproarious undead are safe—for now.
Sony may boast that they own the living room, but more likely it is the living room that pwns the console. The living room is generally understood as a shared place, an area set aside for social gatherings and relaxation purposes. It's a high profile space that sees a lot of traffic flow. People gravitate towards plentiful seating and the usual abundance of entertainment options and, of course, they default to the assumption that this is where they 'should' spend most of their time at home: living, in the living room.
When this busy, centralized area houses a medium that is intensely insular, perhaps the most selfish screen-god of the media ecology pantheon, there may be conflict.
Many of the charms of video games are reserved for the player or the player-in-waiting: gamers who see and understand the system of challenges and skillful manipulation underlying the on-screen carnage. In the best of circumstances, players experience a sense of flow—a de facto definition of the 'immersion' or 'engagement' felt when walking the rewarding tightrope between challenge and ability, frustration and boredom. Player and game have merged into a delicate cycle of action and consequence, fingers and controller wired directly into the brain’s impulses. External concerns drift away.
Non-gamers, conversely, are only privy to the flashier half of the feedback loop in the room: the visceral collection of audio-visual output (squelching and roaring and hissing). They experience grating, repetitive sound bytes, gore-drenched acts of violence, and terrible Japanese voice acting. Unintelligible icons and numbers pepper the screen like buckshot. Things explode and then they explode again for no apparent reason. The game turns into a movie for a brief moment, tells a strange little story, and then returns to being a game.
These cues do not make a good backdrop for social occasions. Traffic flow to the living room often collides with the player-game flow already in progress, and there is a real art to weaving the two together into some semblance of coexistence. Sometimes concessions must be made, such as muting the volume to make the game less obtrusive. Sometimes it’s amusing to experiment, to watch the game impose its will on the living room.
The best example of this was Hyper-Violence Week, where everyone who set foot inside our apartment was subjected to a demonstration of MadWorld. "I need to jam this street sign into his eye socket," I explained. "It's important to be a stylish murderer." Reactions ranged from active participation ("Can you eat their skulls?") to eyes-closed revulsion. Many people beat a hasty retreat to the door, leaving me to my dark work. Hyper-violence 1, friends 0!
Sometimes the game seduces the room, a tactic I like to call the Peggle Derailleur. When my girlfriend invites friends over to chat, I innocently sit down in the middle of their conversation and start playing Peggle. I have a 65% success ratio in stealing attention away from wine or failed relationships or whatever, and convincing the friend to try the game. All I have to do is play until they bite the bait. "It’s so easy!" I tell them. "Just use the little stick thing to aim and press this button to shoot. Also, try to get all the pegs so I can unlock stuff."
Hours later, they exit the building as seasoned pros. "I know what you're doing," the lady of the house told me with a scowl after one especially sneaky Derailleur. "Stop getting my friends to farm achievements for you."
Sometimes the living room will oust the game which, to be fair, is part and parcel of the whole 'shared space' thing. This is often the result of JRPG Embarrassment Sad-Time, where people arrive at the apartment to find me watching an already-uncomfortable cut scene featuring anime folk talking about the nature of the universe's life force. An unskippable cut scene. I don't care to discuss this further.
Just as the game impacts the atmosphere of the living room, the environment pushes back: It dictates what kind of games I can play. If powerful rays of sunlight are pouring through the bay window, washing out my TV screen, I stay away from games featuring dark, twisty labyrinths where I'll be blinded and lost. If a game's noisy gunfire wakes up my girlfriend late at night, I play something quiet instead. I have been dancing around Oblivion for years, loving the epic fantasy premise but knowing that my environment lends itself far better to quick snippets of play than marathon grinds.
Video games are never experienced in a hermetically-sealed space. Play is subject to contextual influence, and game flow is a privilege which is constantly negotiated and renegotiated. The console does not "own" the living room: It rents time there on a day-to-day lease.
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Just get some headphones and let the woman sleep man.
--
Come Play Team Fortress 2 with the cool kids! GWJ's Stan's Lounge Pub: 63.209.34.11:27015
7-8pm central time, every day. It's free! =D
Crappy old receiver = no dice.
It doesn't really have a setting between 'nothing' and 'jet plane', either. One day I will hurl this monstrosity from the balcony and start anew.
XboxLive: Clemenstation
That was the first thing I thought as well.
Edit: oops a bit late.
"Don't take life too seriously, nobody gets out alive anyways!"
xbox live = breander
steamid = breander
Or better yet... sleep with her.
(@)
Done and done! I imagine she will appreciate the sympathy. For a non-gamer she is surprisingly cool and savvy about games.
XboxLive: Clemenstation
I hear you. Fortunately, all my video games are in the basement, so I don't usually have this problem. The only times my wife joins me for a gaming session is either for Rock Band (Beatles or otherwise), or most recently, watching me play through Batman: Arkham Asylum. As a fellow Batman fan and lover of the animated series, she can appreciate the game almost as much as I can.
Hilarious Clem, picturing you being walked in on mid-awkward Anime cutscene.
PSN|Steam - FSeven
seth wrote:
My gaming rig was setup in the basement for a long time. My wife finally objected one day, saying that spent too much time not-with-her, and I agreed. I moved the computer out of the basement and into a nice little niche in the living room. It promptly melted after being exposed to sunlight. Wait - that didn't happen.
What did happen was we had kids. With one 2-year-old and one 3-month-old, I'm thinking of moving the computer back to the basement so that I can have a haven again. Not that they won't find me there, too, but at least it'll take longer, and I can kill a few more guys as they walk downstairs.
SallyNasty, on inappropriate Godwinning wrote:
"No, she's not a 12 year old girl- She's a 700 year old elf, I swear!"
Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/id/biginjapan/ | XBOX: BigInJapanGWJ
My wife is very much the same way. Her eyes can't handle playing games at long stretches (which is probably why I have glasses and she doesn't), but she enjoys watching them from time to time. Particularly Street Fighter 4, she gets a kick out of rooting for me. Good times.
Beware of False Messages
XBL/PSN/Steam - Ahrezmendi
Great god damn article.
Why should the zombies STFU? The god-damn world should STFU - this is quality "Dysplastic and Zombie" time, and the world, quite frankly, is pretty rude for interrupting it.
I've never lived alone in my life, and probably never will. A lot of the joy I get from videogaming is that of the intensely private variety, where I'm not interrupted and I have no distractions. This is, as you've pointed out, patently impossible on a console attached to a TV. It got to the point where even playing videogames in the living room late at night when everyone was in bed felt wrong, like I was using the space in a bad way and that all that emptyness around me was being put to bad use.
The PC, on the other hand, is MINE. It's in MY room, on MY desk, and I can use MY headphones or whatever without any concern. Even though I grudgingly share an office with my grad-student girlfriend who's probably in there more than I am, I still refer to our shared office as MY office, in which she's renting a desk. I refuse to give up that conceit.
The notion of "leasing the living room" is probably the main reason, over customizability and interface, that I've remained primarily a PC gamer through all these years, and why I will never understand why people insist that playing on the couch is superior than sitting on an office chair. A couch could be shared by someone else at any time who would insist to put that couch to some other use - that is simply unnacceptable.
My 360 still sees a lot of action - happily plugged into my 24 inch monitor, at my desk, where it belongs, while the GF watches buffy to her heart's content.
Mine.
Steam: Dysplastic
The stereotypical gamer is a nerd, and the stereotypical nerd has no significant other.
This is not because they're socially awkward and smell funny. It is because they know how to prioritize.
NOTE: Not a doodle bug.
Steam-XBox-PSN: Lobstermancer
The FEAR 2 guns were really bad for noise disturbance. Waaaay louder than everything else in the game because it's "closest to you." I'm a big fan of shooters, and personal gunfire is always a little bit louder, but the disparity was too great in that game as far as noise is concerned. I never tried this game because my husband liked to play this one late at night. And seriously...FEAR2? At least zombies are awesome.
"And thus did it come to pass, as was foretold, that the picture thread became like unto the spider thread...there was much gnashing of teeth and lamentations. Dogs lay down with Cats. Bears began riding sharks and lo, there was war." -Oilypenguin
Great article!
When my son was born and I saw his beautiful face, I was so happy that it wasn't made with Bioware's character creator.
I play Left 4 Dead with headphones but I scream into voice chat a lot so that doesn't really help. I often wonder what impression this leaves people within earshot when they get it out of context. The nice older couple that lives next to me gets to hear something like this just about every night: "f*ck! I shot that goddamn witch in the f*cking head but she didn't f*cking die! HEEEELP! Someone kill this bitch OH MY GOD she's coming after me AHHHHH!"
One of these days they'll take action and I'll get hauled off to jail.
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Haha, thanks for the laugh. I think about this too at night when I play games.
NSMike wrote:
BNice wrote:
Nice article, this is why PC gaming will never go out of style for me, as much as I also dig consoles - I can't dominate the living room with my gaming whenever I want, since I share it with my wife and kids, but I can always go lurk on the PC and put on some headphones and not bother anyone.
Live: AcidCat
PSN: AcidCat-
Look, stone-washed black jeans never went out of style for some people.
Regardless, the loudest game I play is Rock Band. No quarrels with the missus there, just the occasional noise complaint from neighbors.
Pyroman wrote:
Gravey wrote:
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While I still have to learn how to reach for the lights in the dark in the new apt, I've quickly learned the noise-retention quality of the walls between my computer haven (my wife actually calls it my Studio, I can't help but smile at this) and the rest of the house.
Since I'm still a smoker and in the interest of feigning some interaction with the rest of the world while I play on the PC, I keep the door to my Studio open. It's been more than once that I've been called out with "Will you turn that down!" just to realize that my level of immersion had faded away to sounds of the TV.
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I wonder the same thing about my neighbours. For all they know I'm some crazy guy who yells at himself about tanks and pills and hunters.
Steam id: muttonchop
My wife came into the room the other day, "Are you ok?", when I asked why she said "You haven't yelled "Spy! Spy! Spy behind you!" in about an hour!"
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When we moved into our new place, I made a deal with the miss: she can have every room in the apartment the way she likes it, if I can set up the all the tech/entertainment pieces the way I want them. That meant I got part of the guest room/den and living room. Of course the TV and consoles and plastic instruments dominate the living room.
There are plenty of quiet evenings when we're both home and count myself lucky enough to live with someone who is happy hanging out on the couch, me with the TV and controller, her with her laptop, book, or nail polish (of course that's not every evening). Maybe I'm lucky in that she grew up with three brothers, and actually enjoyed watching them play and seeing the story. But I think I'm too fitful and jerky in my FPSs, which she says gives her a headache. But she's pretty good at solving the puzzles before I do, which gives me a headache (the headache of wounded pride).
We also play plenty of Rock Band together, and I do ask her from time to time if she wants to try out new game x. She says no. She says, can I paint your nails while you play? I say no.
But still, it is very much leasing the living room. I've got a lot of leeway, but if we're both home I usually don't turn on the Xbox etc. until I've established that we don't have anything else to do or watch. And it's much easier to get in the flow of playing a game and keep playing than get in the flow of... not playing a game... and wanting to do something else.
I haven't been embarrassed by anything that's happened in a game so far in her company. In fact, I was a little proud of the twist in BioShock, or the end of Far Cry 2, when those happened. She's a little embarrassed of the plastic instruments. I tell her we have no room for them elsewhere, and anyway she plays them happily, so be proud!
I'll also add that my girlfriend works crazy shiftwork, so that's another benefit in the gamer-non-gamer relationship. And I won't forget how she monopolized the TV when Super Paper Mario came out.
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"When Gravey wins an internet argument, it's like the whole internet wins." - oilypenguin
"I love you, Gravey, you taffer." - Clock
Though there are many, many times where it seems my game of choice turns the livingroom into Nerdvana, it ultimately reverts back into the multi-use hub of life that a good livingroom should ideally be. It should be somewhat insulting to the poor livingroom that I use its space to sometimes read or write, instead of engaging in escapist funtime.
But... Having to block time to play was a concern when I was rooming with people, though. I just happened to buy a nice 52", so when sports games were scheduled, I could pretty much count on writing off 4 hours of game time.
Similar pain is felt now that I'm living with my girlfriend, as our bedroom TV doesn't have cable. Regularly, I ask myself "If I tell her that I just want to play videogames for the next 6 hours, will she get upset that I'm exiling her to the bedroom?"
In other words, I can relate to the idea of renting the room very, very well.
On the other hand, some of the most magical gaming moments are when a small crowd gathers over what was previously a solitary act. One minute I'm flinging StarBits across the screen, the next, I've got a roommate playing as my Starbitch, his girlfriend is giving us pathfinding suggestions, and someone else is making drinks.
Revel in the sheer improbability that in a universe of such mind-shattering emptiness, you have someone to love...-Coldstream
They stopped being meaningful to me as devices a long time ago, and now they've stopped being meaningful as things-ClockworkHous
If I ever needed confirmation that I'm the weirdest person in the room, it's articles like this that give it to me.
At my house, there are no "non-gamers". It's me, the kids, their SO's, and all their friends milling around in a glorious whirl of pixellated and printed cardstock mayhem. The "big" consoles (the 360, the PS3, and the Wii) all vie for the big TV, rotating in and out as the flow of "whose turn is it now?" decrees.
Especially right now, with three big new games in the house and a passel of others people are catching up on, the real ruler of the living room isn't the consoles but the wall clock above the bookshelf. The sweeping circles of it's iron analog hands are the arbiter of all.
Since they're working odd shifts, I'm the one with the supposed 9 to 5 tied to the East Coast schedule and the attendant need for going to bed. I usually fail, but I do try. Once I toddle off to my room at some dumb hour of the morning, they stay up all night as their schedule drives, switching every half hour just as they've done all their growing up years. Last night it was between my eldest son on Arkham Assylum, the younger son on either Rock Band guitar or ODST, and my daughter using the PS3 browser to read her scanlations or use the 360 to backup her brother on ODST or play Beatles: Rock Band (if anyone's wondering why I seem to have an unholy fascination with "Eight Days A Week", well, it's her fault).
It's not just digital games. There's a glass chess set with pride-of-place on the coffee table that sees heavy use when there's something they all want to wait for their turn to play and it's someone else's turn. When my brother-in-law and his SO come over, it's hardcore Calvin Ball-style Texas Hold' Em or Madden. When the girls have a friend over overnight, it's Munchkin and munchies until some crazy hour with a few breaks for Kingdom Hearts. There's the occasional random bout of Acquire or Monopoly (with Slumlord Rules or without).
Broadcast TV rarely gets into it. Every so often, someone gets a yen to get a season of "House" or "M.A.S.H." on DVD and then I slog through the Fountain of Smart Ass until that wears off. There's a lot of streamed anime that comes in through that PS3 during my younger daughter's turn, but I everyone's watching. They just don't want to admit it.
I'm supposed to be able to have my turn at the top of the batting order, but it seems rare that I get a chance to actually take it these days.
It may seem like a little bit of Nerdvana on earth, and maybe it is, but it has it's drawbacks. Even with the limitations their non-gamer-ness may put on you, the level of competition for the hardware's time in my house means I bet you get more time with your systems than I do.
Maybe this issue is best debated amongst the people who need to get off my lawn. - JoeBedurndurn
I *feel* this post. But as with everything, there are solutions.
When the wife (then-girlfriend) moved in with me, we both had a TV. Given that I've been a multi-console player for years, I hit upon the bright idea of putting the two TVs right next to each other. A quick purchase of an AV splitter/switch, and we've been set ever since.
Current set-up is a 37" main TV, with a smaller 24" right next to it. The smaller TV has a nice pair of Sennheiser headphones hanging off it. The couch is in front of the big TV, and there's a chair in front of the small TV.
The 360 is routed through an HDMI splitter, so it can display on either or both TVs (having it on both is especially useful for Rock Band parties, when the small TV can be set up as the drummer's monitor). The Wii and the cable box are routed through an 4x2 A/V matrix switch so both can likewise be on either or both TVs.
Advantages:
(1): There's never any arguments about who wants to watch/play what.
(2): When TV preferences collide, there's an out. She's a nanny, she loves to watch nanny shows. I think the idea of watching someone else's children scream for an hour for fun is abominable. The Sennheisers are nice enough that I can drown out whatever she's watching.
Disadvantages:
(1): Usually, it means I'm relegated to the small TV. Solution - buy a bigger 2nd TV!
(2): Online gaming is less acceptable. If she's watching TV, having me shout SMOKER SMOKER SMOKER BOLLOCKS after several minutes of silence is offputting to say the least.
(3): Stupid cheap big TV doesn't have a headphone output. So, if I'm playing late at night, I end up with both TVs on, watching the big one, listening to the small one.
(4): The introduction of Netflix streaming on the 360 means that sometimes we both want to use it. Solution - leave cables to plug the laptop into the big TV plumbed in.
To-Do list:
(1): Add a decent audio system to the mix, with everything plumbed into it.
(2): Replace the wired Sennheisers with a wireless set of headphones. Currently looking at Turtle Beach X31 or X41's. Maybe I'll treat myself this Christmas.
(3): Long term - once we buy a house with a basement / spare room, replace the small TV in the lounge, and put the surplussed one in the basement. Put a second power brick and HDMI cable there, so I can unplug the 360 and move it into a different room for private gaming, without having to rummage around the rats nest of wires.
XBL: Spiffing Wotwot
LarryC wrote:
This could be written about me as well with the added complication of kids and the extra degree of freedom afforded by working from home.
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"Publishers still speak in hushed tones about el bunny de la muerte." - *Legion*
To be able to claim PS3 rights at my apartment you must best your competitor at a match of Soul Calibur IV.
Coincidentally, I am undefeated when using Yoshimitsu.
pretend boogle wrote:
I confess that I've never had this problem, either. When I'm at the living room, I play games that are spectator friendly or socially open. That would be games like Tekken or Wii Sports Resort, depending on present company. It's always struck me as a little rude to intrude on social conversation with game noises or even video, even in my own home. If I or any of my household have people over, I always take it upon myself to entertain them, as the host of the house.
I suppose it's not that much of a coincidence that I have Wii games more than for any other platform, and that it sees the most gaming use in the house. Local multiplayer action is a big deal to me because that is usually the only way I'm going to see a user-view of the controllers.
maybe I am evil...
In the beginning, my girlfriend would question my habits, "Whoa, games are 3d?" she would ask just hovering over my shoulder enthralled by the moving color. At some point later, she let fly "can I try?" right as I was amidst a clan of murlocks in pursuit of causing grief.
"sure!" Said I, thinking my chance had come; sell her on this now, and I can excuse my future gaming at any cost or sum.
So a marriage, a year or so later, and another PC in the home, I just sit and wonder, "where did that character blunder?"
Silly me, I must remember, its sitting in between that Priest in tear nine and that scary Druid near double the levels of mine.
Now shorn from my character list, I mull over my decisions. Was it wise to offer that taste? Of a fruit so delicious...
This brings me to now, do I have an issue where my loved one craves sleep while I play on?
No, but I cant help but think I created a monster that now keeps me short on winks.
where I write, where I take pictures, where they meet
I have yet to find a girlfriend that can handle my main hobby of gaming as much as I can. The closest I got was an avid Halo 3 player, which I guess is why I go through relationships like chips from a bag of delicious Doritos. Or maybe it's because I smell weird.
Steam | XBL | Backloggery | PSN: VrikkGWJ