Recent thoughts on videogaming

[xghstst0riesx]

I've been thinking about a lot of things lately and just going on these boards sometimes makes me a little sick. We are a privelidged bunch here. There's people starving everywhere, people struggling to survive, and we sit here playing games. I'm generalizing here because I know not everyone on here is like this, but don't you think you can use your time a little more productively. You know instead of spending hours in front of a tv doing nothing maybe getting out of the house and volunteering somewhere. Instead of spending hundreds of dollars on games you won't even play but just to have them look nice sitting on your shelf, you could donate that money to charity. People post on here saying they've spent years accumulating games to complete a collection like they've actually accomplished something. What have you accomplished? Congratulations you have a lot of stuff. Is this what life is about? Acquiring a lot of things? I've started selling a lot of my collection away. I don't want to waste my life away. I don't want to look back and see I have only lived for myself. I know people will disagree with me and I want to hear what others think. That's what forums are for.

[Cmosfm]

Hi, thanks for trying to tell me how to run my life, now how about pulling that silver spoon out of your ass and finding the exit.

[ClubNinja]

Not only is my collection absolutely fantastic and full of posh things, but also my life is consumed with doing, achieving, creating, helping, and ultimately, accomplishment. Video games and collecting are a hobby, not a life. My work and my family are testament enough that I can accomplish a shit-ton of good things and *still* buy games that I'll never play.

[Vroomfunkel]

Collecting games doesn't necessarily mean that you don't care about these things. Or that you can't also put time / effort / money into all these things. I have always done a lot of voluntary / campaigning / charity work in addition to game collecting.

Coincidentally I have recently sold off the vast majority of my collection of games - but not because I thought that they somehow degraded my commitment to social justice and making the world a better place. Mainly because I didn't play most of them at all, and I decided I would rather just keep the few that I did and cash in the rest!

But everyone is different - if it will help you to commit more money and time to the things you mentioned, I can only encourage you.

Vroomfunkel

[Haoie]

OK, so Buddha says existence is suffering, and the cause of suffering is desire.

But hey, it's capitalism at work!!

Now I don't have formal training in philosophy, but I believe some people are just born into a certain type of existence. Our namely being rather affulent. And I'm not the type of person to try and defy fate and such.

If it were up to you, would you have us all sell off all of our world belongings to help the needy?

[XxMe2NiKxX]

Nice try on a cogent guilt trip, but I don't think that there's a single person here who devotes all of their money to a hobby. Maybe it's just you.

[xghstst0riesx]

I'm not trying to tell anyone how to run their life. I'm just thinking and hopefully making you think too. And I didn't really mention videogames as a hobby in my first post. I think its fine to have fun and have a hobby, I just think if you let it overwhelm you too much it can be a bad thing.

[Cmosfm]

Not only is my collection absolutely fantastic and full of posh things, but also my life is consumed with doing, achieving, creating, helping, and ultimately, accomplishment. Video games and collecting are a hobby, not a life. My work and my family are testament enough that I can accomplish a shit-ton of good things and *still* buy games that I'll never play.

Yeah, see, that's what a lot of closed minded jackasses like the OP don't understand. Obviously since we buy video games all day we MUST just sit around and play them, all day.

I own my own store, I am successful, I work almost everyday, I have a social life outside out work and home, I spend time with my family...but of course, OP doesn't understand that, that can't be, how can I do anything other than sit around all day when I own nearly 3000 games?

Well, you can.

EDIT: I barely squeeze 5 hours of gameplay a week into my busy schedule, and from my "more than 40 posts" experience, there are an overwhelming amount of people who are the same as me who post here. I'm posting from my store, as I always do, FYI.

[rbudrick]

Dont you know that every one of us is donating our collections to charity when we die? We are just waiting until they are more valuable and can help more people.

Damn...you really don't know shit about collectors.

-Rob

[suppafly]

I've been thinking about a lot of things lately and just going on these boards sometimes makes me a little sick. We are a privelidged bunch here. There's people starving everywhere, people struggling to survive, and we sit here playing games. I'm generalizing here because I know not everyone on here is like this, but don't you think you can use your time a little more productively. You know instead of spending hours in front of a tv doing nothing maybe getting out of the house and volunteering somewhere. Instead of spending hundreds of dollars on games you won't even play but just to have them look nice sitting on your shelf, you could donate that money to charity. People post on here saying they've spent years accumulating games to complete a collection like they've actually accomplished something. What have you accomplished? Congratulations you have a lot of stuff. Is this what life is about? Acquiring a lot of things? I've started selling a lot of my collection away. I don't want to waste my life away. I don't want to look back and see I have only lived for myself. I know people will disagree with me and I want to hear what others think. That's what forums are for.


I agree with you. However this isnt the best place to talk about gaming that way. I respect your opinion though. Good luck!

[Haoie]

Dont you know that every one of us is donating our collections to charity when we die? We are just waiting until they are more valuable and can help more people.

Damn...you really don't know shit about collectors.

-Rob

Well I haven't thought that far ahead, but I guess I'm not exactly going to take everything to my grave. But yeah, that sounds like, if I keep stuff that long.

I can picture my will: "I leave my Lunar Silver Star Story Complete to the Red Cross"

[xghstst0riesx]

If it were up to you, would you have us all sell off all of our world belongings to help the needy?
That wouldn't be a bad thing. Obviously not a lot of people would do that though, including me.

[kirin jensen]

You know, it's not such a bad thing to ask ourselves once in a while "What am I doing to make the world a better place?", but it really seems that the folks here are politically/socally/charitably active. Doesn't hurt to stop once in a while and remind ourselves of our good fortune and the value of sharing it with others.

[suckerpunch5]

Well, any hobby can be similarily vilified. No person works toward the "greater good" every waking moment of their life, no matter how pasionate they are. Every person must have some hobby, something they do to relax and recover in their down time. For some it is reading, or art. It just happens video games are that for us.

Anything can be taken to unhealthy extremes, but just because something can be taken to that extreme doesn't make it wrong for people to enjoy it responsibly. This boilds down to a matter of personal convictions. In the end, only you can decide if your efforts would be more worth while if devoted to something else.

At one point I felt my collecting had gotten out of hand, so I sold a rather extensive collection (for a nice bit of money, I might add), and drew up some new collecting "rules" for myself. I have loads of fun with it, and it doesn't pain my conscience. So I guess I'm saying, each person has to do what they are comfortable with.

[Aussie2B]

I find it amusing how at this board you can be both criticized for playing games too much and not enough, owning too many or too few, and being too heavily into games or not enough. :)

It's all about having balance in your life, and I'd guess that most people here do. And while pretty much all of us are rich by third-world standards, not all of us are rolling in it. For every spoiled kid and adult with a well-paying job, there's a college bum with not much spending money, like myself. In anything, we all should be proud of the fact that we value our money and try to get the most out of it. Just because I got 500+ games doesn't mean I'm any richer than another college kid my age with 50 games. Chances are he paid $50 for each of his games brand new, while with that same $50 dollars I can get dozens more games, each of which I'll enjoy just as much as one brand new game.

However, while some balance in life is needed, it's not necessarily a bad thing to live your life devoted to video games. It's not as if it's some kind of evil. Sure, if your whole existence is about acquiring and playing, then, yeah, get your ass outside and contribute something to the world, but I personally dream of the day when I can get work in the game industry and hopefully create something that will bring just as much happiness to people that certain games have brought to me. Who knows, maybe someday I'll contribute to the creation of a game and that game will become cheap after some time has passed, and some kid from a poor family will come along and buy it for a buck or two, the kid will bring it home, and he or she will enjoy it so much that it'll help him or her forget about the troubles in their life for a little while. Sometimes you can help people in much greater ways than just emptying your pockets.

[Goodwill Hunter]

By shopping at Goodwill (Thank you for supporting the Goodwill mission!), I'm helping to employ people who couldn't otherwise find jobs.

By buying up old video games and systems at garage sales, I'm preventing them from entering the waste stream, keeping them out of landfills where they would never biodegrade, and where carts with battery backups would eventually release toxic chemicals into our precious ground water.

By using a TV screen, instead of real life, to satisfy my irresistable urge to run through shopping malls and parking garages with a bazooka, randomly blowing thing up...I'm daily saving countless lives and preventing millions of dollars of property destruction.

Aside from collecting spent nuclear fuel rods, I can't think of more socially responsible hobby....game on, fellow inhabitants of spaceship earth!

Rich

P.S. The Meseta generated by this thread could help power a third-world arcade for a week.

[Gamereviewgod]

You get one life. Do what you enjoy.

[NE146]

Fuck that I barely get any time to play games as is! LOL If I can get 2 hours in sometime I consider it a miracle. :P I aint gonna volunteer for anything unless there's a large $$$ sum of money involved :D

[Cleveland Jr]

I've been thinking about a lot of things lately and just going on these boards sometimes makes me a little sick. We are a privelidged bunch here. There's people starving everywhere, people struggling to survive, and we sit here playing games. I'm generalizing here because I know not everyone on here is like this, but don't you think you can use your time a little more productively. You know instead of spending hours in front of a tv doing nothing maybe getting out of the house and volunteering somewhere. Instead of spending hundreds of dollars on games you won't even play but just to have them look nice sitting on your shelf, you could donate that money to charity. People post on here saying they've spent years accumulating games to complete a collection like they've actually accomplished something. What have you accomplished? Congratulations you have a lot of stuff. Is this what life is about? Acquiring a lot of things? I've started selling a lot of my collection away. I don't want to waste my life away. I don't want to look back and see I have only lived for myself. I know people will disagree with me and I want to hear what others think. That's what forums are for.

Man, my balls itch, seriously, ouch!!!

[boatofcar]

I find it amusing how at this board you can be both criticized for playing games too much and not enough, owning too many or too few, and being too heavily into games or not enough.


Thank you for my new signature.

[Slimedog]

Aside from collecting spent nuclear fuel rods, I can't think of more socially responsible hobby....game on, fellow inhabitants of spaceship earth!

Rich



Well said. Spending on games contributes to the economy. Specifically classic game collecting gets money to to other non-rich people (flea markets, indie shops, yard sales) in a more direct way than, say, buying a sports car. But I sure can't say anything bad about Buddhism. My friend's recent conversion prompted him to gift me a large portion of his collection. It honestly seems to have helped him too. God bless those heathens.

Seriously, all we can do is treat each other as we would want to be treated.

[Graham Mitchell]

If you're looking for an excuse to get off your butt and and do some volunteer service, fine. Go and do it. You shouldn't have to post here about it. You don't need to verify with us whether or not you feel guilty enough to make a change. If you think you're wasting your time, make a change. Only you can monitor yourself with respect to this.

[Mr.FoodMonster]

Basically, its like this.

Nobody can constantly do good for other people, gamers or not. Also, just about everyone (well, I would hope) has some kind of hobby or expertise that they deal in, and it makes them happy and brings some happiness into their life. For some people, that is donating and voluteering and all that stuff, and for others it isn't. Do you eat every piece of food you are handed? Do you work somewhere where all, or most, of your income is directly donated to a 'greater cause'? I think people spending money and helping the economy is just as important as donating to the less fortunate. If there is anyone you should be bitching at for not helping out the poor is people that have lavish mansions, CAR (not game) collections, rich and famous people, not (what I imagine just about everyone here is) the average joe who has some intrest in something.

[Graham Mitchell]

Ooops...

[mjluther]

There's people starving everywhere, people struggling to survive, and we sit here playing games.

Do you have a gram of body fat? Then you're eating too much. Why not donate your excess to the impoverished?

Do you have two kidneys? Lots of folks on waiting lists, why not donate one?

Do you devote every non-vital ounce of energy, time and material you have to helping those less fortunate?

Perhaps, then, you're unqualified to insult us.

[Yago]

Why are you sitting around "Thinking" about things when you should be doing them? Practice what you preach brotha! Or are you one of them hippies that cry wolf, but when the wolf comes around you run away with your tail between your legs? I have a very small side company doing web development. I barely make an extra few thousand a year. Last year half of what I made for the entire year was spent on care packages for the men/woman in Iraq. What have you done to help people? I love my game collection, it keeps me occupied with the little extra time I have each week. It help relieve stress, far better than smoking. I don't play games that often either as I am involved with way too many other things in life. You are questioning the WRONG group of people anyway. You should be questioning be the white collar group that make millions a year sitting on thier fat asses doing absolutely nothing. They are the first people who are Me Me Me as they own million dollar houses, the most expensive cars and everything else. We work hard for our money here, what little we make and we should take every chance we get to make ourselves happy. That does sound selfish, but if I did donate more, I would make other people happy and I would be miserable, that's not right.

[suckerpunch5]

Perhaps, then, you're unqualified to insult us.

I don't think he was insulting us. I think he was just having a "why do I value the things I value?" moment.

[mezrabad]

Reality is a crutch for people who can't handle videogames.

Hmm, there was going to be a point to this and now I forget what it was.

This isn't a "me too" post, it's more of a "me . . . uh . . ." post.

[bauerda]

Hey, buy buying games to put on your shelf, you are helping somebody somewhere. By purchasing the games, helps somebody make a living, so they can buy food and spend money and maybe even buy something you create. What goes around come around.

[pragmatic insanester]

guess what everyone!? its time for a dose of reality!

those people in poverty? what happens when we aid them in living through another day? they get to reproduce and consume more of the non-humanized enviroment with their lengthly lines of offspring!

barely anyone on the planet has a real contribution worthy of their existence! now, i understand that sometimes the unfortunate may habor these skills while the pampered and spoiled are far greater magnets of waste - but..

the odds are, that only those with the power and resources to control their destiny will beget true sucessorship! it may take longer to regain lost skills on the other side of the metaphorical tracks, but in the end, the random factors are again aligned!

i'm sterilizing myself to prevent any of my descendants from dragging down the evolution of mankind! i have a better chance of doing that than some curr without a containable further and no goals other than simply surviving!

what have you done that can live up to that?

[xghstst0riesx]

There's people starving everywhere, people struggling to survive, and we sit here playing games.

Do you have a gram of body fat? Then you're eating too much. Why not donate your excess to the impoverished?

Do you have two kidneys? Lots of folks on waiting lists, why not donate one?

Do you devote every non-vital ounce of energy, time and material you have to helping those less fortunate?

Perhaps, then, you're unqualified to insult us.
I'm not trying to insult anyone. And I'm hardly qualified. I just thought this would make for interesting discussion.

[DCVision]

The majority of the time I donate a $1 to whatever cause that K-Mart, Meijer or Wallyworld may be accepting money to go towards.

I also see a lot of people that just don't want to help themselves so they 'bank' on someone else to help them.
I went downtown for the first time in like 6 months the other day with a buddy and I bet we got stopped about 14 times asking for spare change. Talk about hell. I can't even enjoy myself without someone else wanting to take what little B.S. amount of money I have left over out of my lousy check every other week (what? $30 or so) to enjoy a meal downtown and the scenery (also known as construction).

This sounds bad because your talking about "Hey, don't buy that game... instead, take that $40 and donate it" What-ever!! Even Bill Gates couldn't take care of all the problems out there in the world today if he wanted to do so. I'll continue to donate my $1 because they pester the hell out of me to do so now and then but I do what I do to get by.

As far as wasting money on games or "stuff to collect / show for?" it sure does beat the hell out of shooting up for $200 doesn't it? Game Over.

[Vroomfunkel]

Blah blah blah ....

I hope that your post was some kind of sick attempt at humour, because otherwise you just achieved position no.1 in my unofficial league of wankers ... but don't worry, I am sure George Bush will rack up enough points to overtake you again soon enough. We've got the G8 summit in a couple of weeks .. if he manages to get through that without regaining the pole position, I'll be very suprised.

Vroomfunkel

[Snapple]

The best thing anyone can do with their life is to live it the way they want.

If you deny yourself the ability to enjoy life in order to help one other, you have defeated your own purpose.

Everyone has the right to enjoyment.

I think it's great to help out the less fortunate, but barking at other people, trying to make them feel guilty for enjoying themselves, is not what I would call "helping." In fact, I would call that the opposite of helping.

[Cauterize]

We are a privelidged bunch here. There's people starving everywhere, people struggling to survive, and we sit here playing games.

Count me out of this one!

Ive played Gigs/Concerts to raise cash for charity!
I donate old unwanted clothes/toys/anything to charity
Gamewise, Ive given some games/consoles away to people who dont have one/cant get hold of one!

Sittin on my Ass playing games all day!?!?!

I WISH! Im too busy to even consider that!
But when i do have time to play games, i will, like all of us here will!

We are "Collectors" and that is what we do!

I think that your statement is a bit prejudgeamental
(is that even a word!)

So How do you know what everyone here does!?

[Porkchop]

By shopping at Goodwill (Thank you for supporting the Goodwill mission!), I'm helping to employ people who couldn't otherwise find jobs.

By buying up old video games and systems at garage sales, I'm preventing them from entering the waste stream, keeping them out of landfills where they would never biodegrade, and where carts with battery backups would eventually release toxic chemicals into our precious ground water.



Well said, this is an Earth friendly hobby.

Spending our money on classic games mean fewer new games must be produced. Buying used games saves the lives of many round plastic disk (DVDs) so that they can go on to have fuller lives as movies or perhaps AOL CDs. LOL

[xghstst0riesx]

We are a privelidged bunch here. There's people starving everywhere, people struggling to survive, and we sit here playing games.

I think that your statement is a bit prejudgeamental
(is that even a word!)

So How do you know what everyone here does!?
Read the next sentence in the post.

I'm generalizing here because I know not everyone on here is like this