People who smirk at gaming usually have little to say when you point out at the time they spend watching TV. What's the difference ? If anything, gaming can be more stimulating. But then of course if you compare 2 hours of watching Silence of the Lambs to two hours of camping a level 34 Green Maggot of Doom, the opposite is clearly true. On average, I think, it evens out. Leave alone my games, and I'll leave alone your TV.

It is not without dangers however, as an unprepared person can start liking their virtual self (a mage that looks like a WWF wrestler and can blast fire-breathing wizards into oblivion) more than their real self. Thats when the sh*t can hit the fan. You don't get this with TV, not to this degree.

Thats why, in view of this not-at-all-humble observer, one has to keep their physical self on its own treadmill of leveling, the most obvious of which would be martial arts/dancing/yoga (++ to health/spirit), working out at gym (++strength), or say, jogging (++mana). The physical self is the primary character, and all the others are "alts".

I'm the alt?! noooooooo! C'est moi l'original! C'est moi!

"What do you mean, you want me to come home after a hard day at work and THINK or READ? I want my entertainment spoonfed to me!"

Gaming is interactive, it requires active neurons to properly partake in. When was the last time you saw a TV show that came on more than once a week that actually required you to employ more than your basic reptillian brainstem to keep you breathing?

People don't want to think. Gaming makes them think. Ergo, people will watch Yet Another Sitcom and pretend that their life has meaning.

Meanwhile, we will learn and grow.

Who do you want to be?

This will probably get me coughed, but PA had Greg Costikyan's blog archive linked to a rant he had that followed Pyro and Elysium's trend of thinking on the subject. By that, I mean that any more growth in the industry is bad and innovation is squashed as a result of said growth.

Link

I have to agree with SlyFrog. Gaming is entertainment, as is reading for pleasure or watching TV. I happen to like gaming and reading just because it's a more interactive experience, but it's still only entertainment. I actually feel bad if I game too much, as I realize that I was screwing around instead of working on something useful. I also feel the need to exercise on my recumbent bike while I game if at all possible so I feel like I'm not totally wasting my time (it should probably be noted here that I don't really relax all that easily... ). I still like to binge-game from time to time (wife is out of town-- time to play for eight straight hours!), but I don't confuse it with anything other than entertainment.

No wonder I feel played my entire life.

Well thats a depressing way to look at entertainment.

You mean Mother Teresa ? I don't know, I haven't talked to her personally, either alive or through a medium.

Everyone tries to do some good in their life, but that doesn't mean that they can't entertain themselves, be it by playing games, getting wasted at a bar or watching TV. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

Let's not put guilt trips where they don't belong, shall we.

Damn, I must've completely missed the point, because I took something entirely different from the article than the others.

Oh well, nothing new here.

you rang?

First, I wasn't responding to Pyro, I was responding to shihonage. I should have been clearer.

Second:

You should have read what I wrote, rather than assuming it fell into your common worldview understanding of what I should say in response to your statement.

You were the one who said:

I didn't say that your gaming should cause you to feel guilty; I said that it is a bullsh*t comparison to make when you compare gaming to TV. You can do what ever you want, but don't compare sh*t to sh*t with peanuts in it and pretend that somehow makes either a package of diamonds wrapped in sable.

People who say gaming is a waste of time may choose to engage in their own hobbies that are wastes of time. That does not answer the question as to whether gaming is a waste of time. Because someone else is doing something dumber than me, doesn't mean that what I'm doing isn't dumb. I happen to believe that gaming pretty much is a waste of time. It's entertainment, of a fairly low form. It's how I choose to waste my time, however, so f*ck anyone else who doesn't like it.

I really have no idea how you got to your response from what I said. How do you go from my concept of:

1. Rather then compare gaming to tv watching to determine whether it is a valuable hobby, why don't you compare to a host of other activities in which you could be engaging (which does not even address the question of whether, regardless of value, you can do what you want, have a bit of entertainment, etc.); to

2. Get off my back!!! Everyone's entitled to a little entertainment, no one is perfect, asshole.

Helping build homeless shelters is work, not entertainment. In the realm of entertainment, TV watching and game playing are a valid comparison, while building homeless shelters vs. game playing is clearly an invalid comparison.

When we use another one of your suggestions - playing with your kids... the focus starts to blur... what was it we were talking about in the first place ?

Ah yes. When someone looks down on you because you play games and they have some "stereotypes" associated with it, pointing out their TV watching, which is a similar activity, is a perfectly valid way to get them off their high throne.
The farther we get away from this basic point (that I made in the first post) the more muddled things become.

But... if you want to start building a scale of beneficial effects of different ways of entertainment, be my guest. It would be interesting to see. Of course you may find yourself asking questions such as "how do you determine the beneficial effects?" and "how much of it is preferential?" as well as "beneficial for who?".
Not to mention of course, that it would be an entirely different, albeit interesting topic.

The puppy wants you to remove the link to this image.

If I'm interpreting this correctly, I think you guys are arguing *around* each other, rather than *at* each other. (EDIT: SlyFrog's last post has done much to address this fact.)

It seems that SlyFrog believes that a given activity, whether gaming, watching TV, or otherwise, should be considered for its own merits and faults, rather than simply being compared to one or more other activities.

Shihonage seems to think that if some asshat challenges the benefits of gaming by negatively contrasting gaming with another, similar activity, then it is acceptable to point out that that contrast is unjust. Doing so will not tell us anything about the merit of gaming in and of itself, but it will serve to defuse the opponent's argument, which itself is predicated upon the assumption that Activity X is a more worthwhile endeavor than gaming.

These are not mutually exclusive viewpoints. I think you're both right.

That's why I play games and watch tv at the same time!

a) I didn't say that TV was worse than gaming, I said they're equal. A scale cannot be built out of equal values.
b) I didn't say that doing something "bad" can be justified by referring to someone else who is doing something "worse".
c) I didn't say that "gaming" or "TV" is "bad".

All the while you kept putting words in my mouth, while projecting your own anger and guilt about your gaming or TV watching habits into every word. Gaming is "sh*t", it is a "waste", it is "terrible", etc etc.
That's all fine, you're entitled to your own opinion, but don't drag me into your mud slide.

If your entire point was that saying "hey I can do heroin because look at that other guy, he does COKE !" does not justify the use of heroin, then rest assured, it is a pretty axiomic truth that usually becomes evident to most people at a young age. I don't see how it applies to games however as it stems from an assumption that games are somehow "bad" which is purely subjective and is in fact your own projection, not mine.