The Lone Gamer

[Rogmeister]

We talk about games a lot but perhaps not how we play them...do we have weekly gaming parties, do you play with neighbors or family members a lot or what?

Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only guy around who plays alone. I used to have friends who played some but they seemed to lose interest very quickly. One friend bought a Super Nintendo and a Game Boy, we had a handful of gaming parties (with a few others joining in) but that seemed to end fairly quickly.

These days I just play by myself as I rarely even see those friends anymore (one has passed away) and I've not met any other gamers in the meantime. So I just play whenever the mood strikes me and I tend to play baseball games (maybe a bit of football) and some fighting games, FPS and adventure and platform games. Somehow, I don't see that changing anytime soon.

[demen999]

Damn same thing here. I hardly have friends that play lol And now that I moved to Clifton in jersey, its even harder to get wih my friends that live in NYC.....sucks. Also my fiance doesn't like playing hardly. :(

[MegaDrive20XX]

I'm a loner gamer around here as well, I never have company. My best friends are too far away.

Back in 1997-1998, I used to have huge get-togethers to just play Saturn Bomberman back in High School.

Now, it's just a memory.

Normally I just buy games for 1 player, yet I have to make a few adjustments just in case a cousin of mine drops by (which happens like once every 3-4 months)

[downfall]

For the most part, I'm a lone gamer - we have the occassional get together (once a month or something), but it's usually only a few people at the most. I usually have fun, but for the most part, the games I enjoy are either 1-player games, or games that most people I know consider too hard (Gradius/Contra/etc.).

Used to play a whole lot more 4-player stuff back in the N64 days though. We've all gone our separate ways since though.

[digitalpress]

I'm definitely the other kind of gamer. For the last few years the vast majority of my play time is when I've got friends over. When I'm solo my time is usually spent on one of my way-too-many-to-manage projects.

We do "entertain" quite a lot though. So there's really no *shortage* of gaming here. It just rarely happens solo.

[Damaramu]

I do lots of one player type games, but so does my wife......however, we do occasionally whip out Tetris/Dr. Mario and go head to head!!

We'll also play lots of Baldur's Gate and Hot Shots Golf. She really likes those. She's not really into fighters but have expressed interest in Tekken and DJ Fight For NY. LOL

[suppafly]

I play alone, I´d rather play with friends, but most of them play only ps2 and xbox games..

No love for the good old nes, snes and genesis :S

[Lady Jaye]

I definitely play solo more often than not... But when my best friend Julie comes over, we usually do play something (she discovered Katamari Damacy, so that one gets a lot of play when she sleeps over).

Incidentally, I found out this weekend why it took so long for my parents to get me a videogame console: they felt that if they got me a console, I'd never leave home and would always play it alone, instead of socializing by having to go to my friends' homes to play.

I guess they were right, although I'm still a loner by nature anyway...

[pacmanhat]

When I have extra time, it's usually devoted to school related things, so the only time I ever have to play games anymore is when I have people over.

Or when I'm in class..... 8-)

[Putney]

Chalk me up as another who ends up playing alone most of the time. Most of my local friends here aren't gamers at all (to play on stereotypes, most are female and fellow PhD students), so if anyone's using the 2p controller, it's my wife.

At least with Xbox Live I'm able to play with an old high school friend, which is usually just Halo 2, but it's better than nothing.

[RetroYoungen]

I'm a lone gamer. I don't play much with other people at all, as most of the stuff I play is only for one player anyway, but no one I know plays much of the stuff I like anyway.

[Funk Buddy]

I used to go to my pal Rich's place once a week to play. We did that every week for a year or two from 89' - 91'. Then it changed a little and it was every month or two, then I moved and now am strictly a lone gamer. I've been in Missouri for four years almost and don't know anyone here besides co-workers. They're all older than me and not the least bit into games, unless cards counts. :)

[stonecutter]

Mostly I play with my son ( soon to be 8), my daughter likes some as well ( soon to be 4, and she is pretty good for her age lol). I also play alone, and have about 4-5 buddies that I play with occasionally. They usually come to shoot a few darts, and then we end with some vide gaming. So I am lucky, lots of variety.

[Dire 51]

Lone gamer here - I've found no one else around to game with. Besides, I have to admit I do prefer it that way.

[Lemmy Kilmister]

Naa.. other people just end up ruining my rhythm when things get heavy.

[Pantechnicon]

I'm pretty much a solo gamer here and it doesn't really bother me. There just simply isn't anybody in my present social circles that plays or collects. Even my closest friends have never been gamers at all, save for one, and he and I don't have good luck with scheduling.

Sometimes I'll play a fighter or something like Gauntlet with with my 7-year-old, but he tends to like the newer stuff. Can't get him to dig on the good ol' 2600 enough when that shiny Gamecube and PS2 are in the next room. Actually he's more of a social gamer than I am so that's good. Nothing quite as fun as watching him and three buddies play Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee.

[squidblatt]

Always been a lone gamer. I even played D&D alone :/

I feel like I'm kind of wierd because I pay attention to games like a hardcore type, but I don't take them very seriously. I'm also not very good at most games for which multiplay is possible, and competing isn't exactly fun when you're constantly getting your ass handed to you. Co-op is pretty fun though. I had some great times with my brother playing Twisted Metal, Jackal, and Lifeforce, but these days I just play by myself. I did try Everquest when it was brand new, but it was just too boring. Some people were nice and others were jerks, but I just never got into it.

I've got a job, a one year old, a somewhat needy wife, and the demands of graduate school to divide my time between before I can even think of loading up a game.

[bargora]

So is playing on Xbox live (while you're the only one in the room) "lone" gaming?

[Windy Miller]

Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only guy around who plays alone.

Nope, I'm another one. :/ I used to spend hours playing on my ZX Spectrum with my best friend 22 odd years ago, but when we both left school we went our different ways & that was that. Since then, no-one I've physically come into contact with likes games, except for games' shop staff.

[Rogmeister]

So is playing on Xbox live (while you're the only one in the room) "lone" gaming?

I hadn't even thought about that but I don't do online gaming either. I guess that's not really being a lone gamer in a manner of speaking.

[thegreatescape]

I play online regularly on random servers or with my clan, and I have friends over for a marathon lan party every few months. Add to that regular matches of NHLPA '93 and that co-op star-wars Rogue Squadron game on GC with a mate.

Im not sure i could do the career solo gamer thing.

[bargora]

So is playing on Xbox live (while you're the only one in the room) "lone" gaming?

I hadn't even thought about that but I don't do online gaming either. I guess that's not really being a lone gamer in a manner of speaking.
I suppose that it could depend on how much you actually communicate with the other players. The only Xbox Live game I currently play is Steel Battalion: Line of Contact. You join a lobby and wait for it to fill up. During the fill-up time you BS with other players. Once the lobby fills up and the match begins, your success depends heavily on your ability to communicate and act as a team. People who refuse to talk are quickly shunned. So while you may be alone in your game room, there is human contact, sorta.

Now I've heard that playing Halo 2 with your headset on is simply asking for a constant stream of abuse from adolescents (and pre-adolescents). In which case it would be significantly worse than playing alone.

Not that there's anything wrong with playing alone. There's rarely ever anybody else in the room when I game.

[PDorr3]

All of my friends play games, but are not into them as much as I am, so most of the time it is just me playing. Thats why I love online games, always someone to play with.

[Jumpman Jr.]

I always play by myself. Whenver I start a new game that I will be playing for a while (any Zelda's, RPG', or the newer Mario games), this is what I do:
Wait till nightime,
Turn off the lights in my room,
shut the door,
and start playing.
I love getting right into a good game by myself, it really makes me feel like I am part of the game.
Yes, I am a loner.

[RJ]

You may find this interesting if you havent read it yet:

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=57930&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Because of this, I'm pretty much "All By Myself", though my wife's a worthy PS2 Trivial Pursuit opponent.

JFTR, I havent seen/spoken to that group of friends since the "incident".

[Melf]

I play alone, I´d rather play with friends, but most of them play only ps2 and xbox games..

No love for the good old nes, snes and genesis :S

I have this problem too. No one around here cares about anything made before 1996, the oafs. I'm like the old hermit who lives in a cave. They marvel at my "museum" when they come over. x_x

[slip81]

I'm kind of in the middle. I play a lot of single player games, but I often play games with my girlfriend and other friends. When I move in with my GF and best friend later this summer there will most likely be a lot of multiplayer fun happening :)

[Aussie2B]

I guess I'm pretty fortunate in that I always have my boyfriend to play with, his brother and sister live with us and want play often, and our buddies are all gamers too. And all of us are open to any games, regardless of how old, of any genres. Nothing beats getting 3 friends with you to play some Anticipation on NES in frickin' 2005, haha.

It think it sort of counterbalances the fact that before I met my boyfriend in 2001, I had virtually no multiplayer experience in my entire life. I just had no one to play with. However, I don't think we take advantage of our situation as much as we should, though. We used to frequently play 4-player Super Monkey Ball and Mario Kart 64, but we haven't done that in quite awhile. Since my favorite genres are platformers and RPGs, I don't tend to play many games with multiplayer options that often. Also, I think I kind of have issues with playing with other people, probably because of the fact that I didn't ever play games with other people when growing up. o_O I sometimes get a little sensitive about it, and I feel embarrassed if I suck badly.

I will say, though, that there are some games that I pretty much never play unless it's with other people. The aforementioned Super Monkey Ball and Mario Kart 64 are a couple (although, in the case of MK64, I played the heck out of the single player back when it was new). I only tend to play Mario Kart: Double Dash when I do co-op with my boyfriend.

[doomedpeasant]

When I was younger me and my neighbor always used to play together, then I moved and I stopped going over there. For the longest time its been primarily just me playing solo, although recently me and my uncle have been playing some two player action/rpgs and halo of course. Ive never really thought about it but now when i look at the games in my collection that I actually play most of them are one player games. Of course I have some racing, FPS, fighting games mixed in there, but i rarely play those anymore. Man writing this makes me sound like a loaner, but I guess in a way I am.

[Tatsu]

I'm also a lone gamer most of the times. My gf is also a gamer but we're playing mostly one person games (like Ratchet & Clank and I enjoy RPGs a lot) so if we play together it's one person playing and the other is just watching. We talk about games and stuff like that and I enjoy that but I still play alone most of the times (about 99% of the time). When she's working full-time she's not really interested in playing and it's been months since I last saw her playing.

[Pedro Lambrini]

I play alone about 50% of the time these days. I spent years being a lone gamer but I have recently moved into a new flat wiwth a friend who plays a lot of games and I have just got xbox live for the first time - now I play my xbox owning friends at Halo 2. It's a good time for me to be gaming :)

[kainemaxwell]

I'm definitly a solo gamer also. On occasion when I go see friends or friends come over we play some fighting games or whatnot, but the majority of the time I'm gaming alone.