Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode 312

WoW: Mists of Pandaria, Tokyo Jungle, Orc Must Die 2 DLC2, How Gaming Fits Into Our Lives, Your Emails and more!

This week Shawn, Julian, Sean and Cory talk about how gaming fits into their day to day lives and ravenous Pomeranians.

To contact us, email [email protected]! Send us your thoughts on the show, pressing issues you want to talk about or whatever else is on your mind. You can even send a 30 second audio question or comment (MP3 format please) if you're so inclined.

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Audible

Chairman_Mao's Timestamps
00.02.18 WOW: Pandaria
00.16.29 Tokyo Jungle
00.25.37 Orcs Must Die 2 DLC: Family Ties
00.29.38 Graham Rowat's reading of Sean Sands' Whims of the Father
00.35.49 This week's topic: Our relationship with games!
00.50.57 Donation Drive update!
00.52.05 Your emails!

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Show credits

Music credits: 

Alpha - Workbench Music - http://workbench-music.com - 29:10

Seeing the Future - Dexter Britain - http://freemusicarchive.org/music/De... - 29:38

Backup - Workbench Music - http://workbench-music.com - 50:27

Intro/Outtro Music - Ian Dorsch, Willowtree Audioworks

Comments

Gravey wrote:

I'm giving this week's discussions of Tokyo Jungle to Idle Thumbs, which managed it with about 98% less snorting and "Oh my Gods", and 100% more actual, you know, discussion. Sorry you were talking to the wall, Certis.

I just stared listening to this week's Idle Thumbs and when they mentioned desperate dogs to mate with I was waiting for one of them to shout, "Hooker Dogs!"

I may be biased, but GWJ wins every time.

TheHipGamer wrote:
rabbit wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:

In no other hobby does a person identify so strongly with the hobby, except maybe cosplayers. A guy who goes fishing every Sunday doesn't call himself a 'Fisherman,' maybe an angler if he's a douche. A person who builds models isn't a 'Modeller' or reads books isn't a 'Reader.'

Wow. Not my experience. I know lots of bikers, surfers and snowboarders who deeply, culturally identify with their hobby. I think Nerds by their nature tend to go deeper into things, thus you get perhaps a higher density of really into it folks in gaming, computers, anime, comics, dr. Who, whatever.

Even so, I've never heard someone say "I'm a gamer" at a cocktail party. Instead, three minutes into a conversation when someone asks "what do you do for fun" games might come up. Try might not.

Interestingly, I don't think most anglers have a crisis of identity if they decide to spend less time fishing. I currently find that I spent a lot of my time woodworking; if I get busy for a while and don't power up the table saw, I don't feel guilt over that, or wonder why I've changed.

I feel significantly more guilt over how long it's been since I've written, drawn, painted or drummed.

rabbit wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:

In no other hobby does a person identify so strongly with the hobby, except maybe cosplayers. A guy who goes fishing every Sunday doesn't call himself a 'Fisherman,' maybe an angler if he's a douche. A person who builds models isn't a 'Modeller' or reads books isn't a 'Reader.'

Wow. Not my experience. I know lots of bikers, surfers and snowboarders who deeply, culturally identify with their hobby. I think Nerds by their nature tend to go deeper into things, thus you get perhaps a higher density of really into it folks in gaming, computers, anime, comics, dr. Who, whatever.

Even so, I've never heard someone say "I'm a gamer" at a cocktail party. Instead, three minutes into a conversation when someone asks "what do you do for fun" games might come up. Try might not.

Honestly, neither of those really occurred to me as a hobby. They seem to be something far more enmeshed into the lifestyle of the practitioner, but I guess that's the case with gaming as well.

I know that surfers seriously jones when they can't get into the water, the same with bikers. (Snowboarders I have no idea)

I guess there are different types of hobby, and they way that people tend to identify makes gaming, in the main, more like surfing than reading. Which is a weird thought.

I guess there are different types of hobby, and they way that people tend to identify makes gaming, in the main, more like surfing than reading. Which is a weird thought.

I've never thought of it that way either, but I think in many cases you're right. I don't think there's any doubt that a large segment of "gamers" actually carry that as an identity component. It's a little undervalued to call gaming only a hobby -- whether it should or should not be, it is for many people something far beyond that.

A person who reads books casually isn't really a bibliophile, or book-lover. They're readers in the same way that people who play Angry Birds or Farmville are gamers. Yes, they read, too; but it's not something they identify with and it's not a lifestyle.

A person who's seriously into books identifies with their hobby and will probably have large, extensive libraries at home. These libraries often only represent a fraction of the books they own, since many of them will, of necessity, be stored en masse in storage spaces.

LarryC! Dropping the Sciense!

The conversation of gamer's guilt and father guilt this week was interesting and personal to me, but I think missed some important elements. In particular, how pre-teens and adolescents especially can be susceptible to intense gaming "addiction" (for lack of a better term) which can be a serious detriment to their personality development, school performance, physical health, imagination, etc. Sean's piece touches on this a bit, and I empathize with him as he struggles to figure out how to teach moderation to his son - an absolutely critical lesson. I'm not trying to be a troll here - I'm a gamer at heart and have been since I was 7 years old - but I think we need to acknowledge that games *can* be detrimental to the intellectual development of a lot of kids. My wife works in a psych hospital and *most* of the teenage boys there are absolutely infatuated with video games and little else. I'm definitely not saying video games cause mental illness - but I am suggesting that video games can be powerful routes of escapism for teenagers at a time in their life when they need to be developing personality, social skills, and enthusiasm about learning/reading/thinking. Can video games enhance our imagination? Absolutely. Can they serve as a crutch and inhibit creative development? I think so. As parents, I think we need to be very cautious about how we talk about games with our kids - esp. boys. Video games are insidious and ubiquitous in our culture, like the internet, and can be a psychological hazard like nearly anything else taken to an extreme. Kids just don't have the prefrontal capacity to inhibit their own addictive behavior, so it's up to us to make sure they develop other interests and skills. It's definitely something I worry about, and somewhat taints my absolute love for games and gaming.

Hey y'all, I'm just getting into this episode now and I love the topic, might I steal it for my own blog if I give y'all credit?

Veloxi wrote:

Hey y'all, I'm just getting into this episode now and I love the topic, might I steal it for my own blog if I give y'all credit?

By all means!

Certis wrote:
Veloxi wrote:

Hey y'all, I'm just getting into this episode now and I love the topic, might I steal it for my own blog if I give y'all credit?

By all means!

Awesome, thank you. Loving the podcasts by the way, thanks for all the hard work y'all do on them.