Always struck me as hypocritical that watching movies was always put on a pedestal as if sitting around for 2 hours mindlessly consuming the latest Tom Cruise flick is any more productive than playing a video game. At least there is brain activity involved with gaming.
At least in my experience, parents seem to criticise their children playing video games, whilst watching TV themselves. In fact I’d rather my children play video games than binge Netflix or mindlessly scroll TikTok or watch YT etc.
As a kid I’d use that against my parents when I had to get off my SNES. They’d be all like, “quit playing games, you’ll rot your brain”, and if be like, “How is this any different than watching TV?”. It never worked but today I feel a little vindicated.
Sort of ironically, my first real world full time job, when I got hired, the owner had asked if I played video games, and he was then later telling a bunch of people that he thought I’d be smart and good with computers, drawing a correlation to gaming. Idk if his thought process was correct, but I am decently bright and I am pretty good with computers, so that’s something.
There’s brain activity involved in watching movies too*. Just because you’re not changing it doesn’t mean that you’re not emotionally and intellectually engaged.
You’re right that gaming as an art form and pastime doesn’t get the respect that it’s due compared to the ones that were already popular when boomers were kids, though…
*even if it’s one that stars Kevin James, Rob Schneider or Adam Sandler in his signature role “Angry Dumb Guy”
Calling film watching mindless consumption shows you’re missing the point, perhaps the same way your parents are missing the point of video games. Hell even Tom Cruise is working on a level of craft that no one else in the industry is doing as consistently as him.
Each medium has their strengths and weaknesses. I love video games, I was born in 85, the year of the NES so I lived my life with controller in hand. I do however recognize games still struggle to keep up with story telling in other mediums, mostly because gameplay and story telling are frequently at odds with eachother. And yes of course I know there are games with good story but rarely to they ever stick with me the way multiple films and shows do every year. Even a story like Last of Us was simply told better as a show. The best part of that show was the Frank and Bill episode, something that simply won’t translate back to a game at all. The only game to really stick deep in my soul was What Remains of Edith Finch. So often I’ll pour hundreds of hours into a game with nothing lasting on the other side. It’s why I’ve given up on grindy games all together.
Games also have a barrier for most people on the outside. It’s tough to look at an Xbox controller and not get a little daunted by the buttons, sticks and triggers. Credit to Nintendo for historically finding ways to bring the whole family together for a game night. There’s a reason grandma was playing Wii Bowling.
Honestly I would argue that the quality of film and television stories has plummeted in the last 15 years to the point of them being a shallow husk that has been gutted by marketing and greed in the film industry.
Most films nowadays are glorified celebrity commercials with more product placements and wanky pop references than story beats.
Being directly in control of the main character puts you in a position to be more immersed in the world and more invested in the characters and story.
Not that the game industry is perfect but it has more going on than just the grids games. That’s the gaming industry’s greed. Live service games are a plague and the artificial padding is designed to sell you their micropayment currency. It’s a scam.
There are tons and tons of highly diverse games for many different skill levels nowadays that will introduce modern gaming concepts slowly and build up a players skill level. Not like the nes and arcade days of them wanting your quarters and making impossible to beat games.
If you need some recommendations on games with an impactful story or that give you an experience impossible with movies I can highly recommend these:
Journey, Outer Wilds, Spec Ops the line, Toem, Unravel, Kena bridge of Spirits, Night in the woods, Hifi rush, Donut County, Firewatch, The unfinished swan, Jusant, Gone Home, Venba, Dordogne, Hollow Knight, Knights and Bikes, Gorgoa, FAR: lone sails, a short hike, shadow of the colossus, bioshock, Spiritfarer
Great recommendations, I’ve only played about a third of these, I’ll dig in a bit!
Being a huge Movie and TV buff I’ll definitely push back on movies being shallow husks. The year is only half over and we’ve already gotten a bunch of exellent original movies. Love Lies Bleeding, Last Stop in Yuma County (favorite movie of the year), I Saw the TV Glow, Problemista, Challengers, Ricky Stanicky. Even the franchise stuff has been pretty good, Dune 2, Inside Out 2 and Bad Boys Ride or Die was tons of fun. Last year was even better, I think it was one of our best movie years in a long time. Oppenheimer, Past Lives, Killers of the Flower Moon, The Holdovers, Zone of Interest, Society of the Snow, All of Us Strangers, The Killer, Iron Claw, Boy and the Heron, Elemental, American Fiction. All original or adapted from a book. The earlier 2020s were a little softer because we stopped going out in public but even still we got Everything Everywhere, Aftersun, the start of the X/Pearl trilogy, Talk to Me, Bodies Bodies Bodies, Worst Person in the World and my favorite movie of the 2020s Pig.
TV as well. I feel like there’s constantly something well worth my time. In the same year (2022) we got some absolutely top tier television The Bear, Severance, Andor, The English, SAS Rogue Heroes and House of Dragon. Once again the past year has been full of excellent stuff Beef, Ripley, Shogun, Sugar, Bodkin, Baby Reindeer, The Gentlemen, The Curse.
I could go on like this for hours but the point I’m trying to get across is there’s a huge supply of good eating but if you only look to the biggest budget commercial products, you’re going to get big budget commercial products. I guess for me watching everything at the Summer Games show left me feeling a little bit empty. Except for Mixtape, that looks fucking sick.
I don’t mind playing but watching sports is boring AF.
I agree that just watching a random sport or 2 random teams can be boring. It becomes interesting when you feel a connection to the team or athlete. If you go and watch live, it also becomes a community thing.
Personally, I used to train football (soccer) in my local team in a small town and everyone basically knew all the players.
Football becomes more interesting when you throw a beer can at a player, who also works at a pizzeria, and he takes a sip and throws it back.
I’m the opposite. All the focus on the people and the random facts of their lives and trying to constantly manufacture some sort of sob underdog story around various players is boring.
I can appreciate a good game, one that’s close and exciting and played with skill, but the whole sports culture and focus often feels like celebrity gossip, but for men.
Which is also why esports are boring to me too, despite my love of video games (and even watching people play video games, like let’s plays). Esports just brings that whole sports culture and it’s a huge turn off for me.
I’m not a sports guy but I can agree with this. I’m active (rock climbing and part time work on a ranch) but I don’t personally enjoy doing or watching sports. No hate, it’s just not for me.
That being said, I’m totally with you on the community aspect. I will go watch pretty much any sports live and I get way into it. It’s less about the game and more about the people around you. I like going and watching both the Astros and the Texans play occasionally and I know nothing about the players or the standings of either.
I’m really sad we don’t have a hockey team. I don’t care about hockey but my intensity in the stands works really well with hockey.
Same here. I never got the appeal either.
Of course it’s been a major popular interest during a lot of human civilisation (chariot races in the roman world werea huge thing), so we’re visibly not in the majority.
Yea but most of human civilization didn’t have easy access to futa porn, so it’s not like they had anything better to do with their time.
I’m not into sports or futa porn. What can I do with my time? :(
Stare at the wall like usual, I guess
I am a sports fan, so take my opinion with the bias it deserves. I find that sports have a decent learning curve, understanding the rules of the game and how players and teams are doing things within those rules is fun and interesting to watch. Sports is also based on a foundation of vested interest. For me, my vested interest is watching teams whom I have grown up supporting, for others, it’s gambling and having a win case to cheer for.
If you don’t know much about the sport and have no reason to cheer for something, I can absolutely see why people would find sports boring.
I played football 🏈 in middle school and high school. Watching it is okay to me but I won’t do it voluntarily.
Even worse, if I’m forced to watch sports too many times I go crazy wanting to play. In my 20s , friends were into World Cup ⚽️, and day off, sunny outside, cool breeze, and we’re in a bar watching a game on TV. I snap and start going to pickup soccer games in the city. Same thing in my late 30s: my sons peewee football games drive me crazy, and I have to start joining local rugby league practices.
Finally, in my early 40s, I had the money to do a dream: motorcycle racing. But it’s so hard to get to do it even with enough money: join club, wait for track day and so on. I was still trying to lose weight to buy one of those back-protector suits when I discover Moto GP. And suddenly, something clicked. I finally understood how some people can watch sports. I never did made it to the track, but I can watch a motorcycle race on TV and really enjoy it. Without going crazy.
Let other people enjoy things.
My 5 years old can make 100 push ups, if nobody looks.
I’d rather play (the real) football, than watch it, and I don’t even like it.