

Why don't more people play video games? - hhorsley

Why aren&#x27;t video games as mainstream as TV or movies? Where does the social stigma come from? Is it just the social stigma, or are there other reasons?
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lgieron
I think most people associate video games with games based solely around
reflexes and (shooting, jumping) accuracy. When you think about it, these
games are just more advanced variants of throwing rubber ball against the wall
(or whatever prison inmates did in their cells to kill time before they got
TV). They provide no way to enrich or better your life whatsoever (well, ok,
better reflexes) and can be even thought of as detrimental - while playing
these games you're not excercising your social skills, your intelligence and
judgment, not to mention your body.

TV or movies on the other hand, even the most stupid and superficial ones, put
you (virtually) in a social context, where you can observe other people, think
about their actions, think about how you would've reacted etc. Stories or
characters in TV movies can be inspiring (meaning can influence your
goals/actions in a positive way) or can be a cautionary tale. While it's
theoretically possible for a game story to achieve the same, in practice the
stories and the execution ("acting" by 3D models) are too weak for the
positive effects to kick in. The models are probably a lot to blame there -
since it's been shown that various facial expressions are one of main ways to
estabilish empathetic communication, faces of in-game 3D model are just too
fake to trigger the right neurons.

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hhorsley
I think these are interesting points.

Two clips you might find interesting: \- Brian Wong of Kiip talking about how
Counter Strike made him good at photoshop (I don't think this is a serious
counter arguement to your point):
[http://youtu.be/BAx7Npsrin4?t=4m40s](http://youtu.be/BAx7Npsrin4?t=4m40s)

\- Gabe Newell (Valve) and JJ Abrams (Lost, Alias, Star Trek) talking about
similarities/differences between narrative in video games and movies, and at
the end announcing that they're working together on one:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7mihllgiro](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7mihllgiro)

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tarun_anand
Definitely social stigma attached to it... when people think of their kids
playing video games they extrapolate that to them flipping burgers at local
joints as opposed to studying or watching TV that can still not come in the
way of getting respectable jobs

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hhorsley
Where did that stigma come from?

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ghostdiver
It's not a social sigma at all. Most of video games are just boring and
tiresome. I used to play a lot, but now it's just pointless, playing modern
games is not fun.

Prices for AAA+ titles are also ridiculous. Experience went down the toilet,
but prices are the same or even higher, something is wrong.

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hhorsley
Why do you think games are unable to stay interesting even though Chess has
never had to change and the movie industry finds a way to be interesting every
year?

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mjn
Mobile games seem to be getting close to ubiquitous. Angry Birds has more
active players than a typical Hollywood blockbuster gets viewers.

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hhorsley
Good point

