You have a huge commute, right? Full-time job? Wife, kid? No time to spend working on your craft of writing?

How many hours do you spend gaming compared to writing?

Nothing wrong with gaming, but it does tend to suck people in and EAT time. Don't we all have better things to do?

Videogames are art in my opinon. It's not all just shooting games you know, in fact that's a HUGE misconception. Chrono Cross, Skies of Arcadia, and countless other games not only illicit emotion but show an amount of character development greater than a lot of books and movies I've read. Hell, there are also a lot of great puzzle games which don't involve characters but stimulate problem solving and abstract thought. Posting on interenet forums eat time too, there's ALWAYS something better to do no matter what you're doing. Besides, videogames help me to relax and relieve stress which is invaluable.

At this point in my life, i spend less than an hour every 2 weeks playing games. I spend a ton of time writing between programming and writing my fiction. But i definately see your point with that one. it is a very time consuming form of entertainment

i'd certainly rather play a video game than watch boxing on TV :p

Agreed 100% to the title of this thread. Nothing beats plugging the console in and grabbing the controller for some much needed stress relief.

Lemme tell you, intriguing oneself with stuff from a fictitious environment engages the brain cells in activities which take it away from the hammerings of common, daily hing-a-ding. Not necessarily grabbing a BFG and blasting the living shit off CGI loaded graphics, but racking the brains puzzling over imaginary mysteries also helps heaps.

Be it aliens, humans. puzzles or rivals, here I come! :cool:

How about the fact that video games are just plain fun. Just another form of entertainment....some people will think nothing of sitting on the couch for 4 or more hours watching a football game or watching movies.

Different strokes for different folks. [ I just made that up ]

Wow, that's catchy. You should copyright that light Paris Hilton tried to do with "That's hot."

You're lying.

I wanted to mention virtual pinball games, also. I used to love going to the arcade and playing pinball machines. Now it's hard to even find these machines. Playing on a real, physically solid machine is cool, there is nothing quite like that...especially in the environment of an arcade with all the noise, people, flashing lights and so on...pure joy. But those arcades are vanishing and those pinball games going into the homes of collectors. Virtual pinball games, however, are still very much available, as retro as they may seem.

Yesterday I got the "Avengers" pinball game for next to nothing, and it's not bad. It has soundbytes and video clips from the show--even a full-screen opening title sequence that introduces the game. Only some kind of fogey would remember "The Avengers" but this was a neat show and they made a neat pinball game out of it.

Hey,they used to show it on A&E all the time 10 years ago... Even before that attrocious movie...

And who can forget that Mrs james Bond had a leading role in the show?