I often cope with the opinion, that playing computer games is just a waste of time. I don’t agree whit this. Whit my friends we made a survey to find out what do people think about values that are present in games.
Please help us by filling this form.
Also you can write your insights here - have you played some games that offer more than a lot of fun?
Fun is important and often it is good to play games just for fun… But when you spend lot of time playing, it is good when game offers you more just fun, maybe some improvements of your physical or social skills. Maybe some good principles, avoid the necessity of violence, highlight the importance of relationships, the beauty of the adventure 
That can help to sense these aspects in real life. I tink we need companies that focus not only on the money, but also on this…
I filled the survey, wishing luck!
There is a lot of value in having fun, otherwise no one would not buy a game at all. People only buy something if it has value to them.
I feel World of warcraft and other MMOs have helped millions of shy, disabled and injured (physically/mentally) people to recover. This is my belief, not a fact or a survey finding. I feel social games bring people together who otherwise would be suffering alone.
I only count social games as making a difference though, as essentially you’re playing with other human beings. I don’t think games in general are life-changing or important unless you’re comparing art or works of fiction.
Fun first, then story. Never push a value, but rather challenge values through situations and consequences that are realistic to the story world. If you break the 4th wall you’re likely going to be toast. And if the game isn’t fun or you try to push a value rather than the story, you’re toast. If you stick to those rules (and rules are made to be broken wisely), you might achieve a player rethinking some views or ideas… if you’re an absolutely master story teller. But it has to be fun and make sense.
Consider games like Heavy Rain, Mass Effect, and the tech demo “Kara” by Quantic Dream. Particularly the latter, so much is told in such little time. THAT is a story I would love to play with. Also looking forward to Beyond: Two Souls.
Games aren’t yet at the place like a movie, book, or work of art to the point of achieving something like inception of an idea. It can be done, but it requires a master story teller and a player/audience that is open to it. At best we can challenge through story. The moment we break one of the “rules”, generally it comes across as “preachy” or “teachy”. That breaks the illusion of the story world and gets annoying… not fun.
I mention this in another thread, but I think the archaic archetype of the game is one intrinsically intertwined with social instigation. Meaning, games for all of time have been used as central pieces of a community to create more social involvement, create a more unified community.
Hippocoder’s theory about WoW helping disabled people is an interesting take on the subject that I’ve never thought of before, and I certainly would not dismiss this notion in anyway. But personally for me, I ultimately think the greatest value of social interaction is done face to face, not through a computer. In this way I see video games as being of high value by fulfilling the archaic archetype of the game, of being something which draws people together into greater social interaction, dissolves boundaries between people.
I think if you removed all games from all of humans anthropological development, we would actually have a much less civilized human race today. Games are a force of inducing social interaction, community bonding and ultimate harmonization of groups of people.
I can attest to this.
I spent 3 years as good as bed bound at one point and my corp mates in Eve Online were one of the few things that kept me sane.
A game developer forum probably isn’t the best place to ask.
Do the people who express this opinion at you feel the same way about films, TV, or books?
How very puritanical. Anyhow, go play Rocksmith after some EA Sports Active and a few rounds of Brain Age and Duolingo and see if you can’t find an answer to the question.
Exactly I was thinking the same thing: That most people are going to be “unproductive” during their leisure time so it doesn’t matter what unproductive hobby that is really. It’s really philosophical and I certainly don’t think having a blast is a waste of time. It can be an imbalance of time expenditure if the fun hobby becomes an excessive addiction that causes you to neglect other important things though.
“Your main job in life is to enjoy yourself”…
I stand by that saying… for if you’re not enjoying yourself… what would the point of life be then?
If you enjoy playing games, hitting yourself on the head with a wooden spoon or running 80km marathons in the hot sun, then that is what you should do.
Aside from all the other spiritual teachings and deep thoughts and meanings of life… in it’s simplest form, it does really all come down to happiness.
@Meltdown : Well said man!
If you analyze it deeper.
The entire life is a waste of time! If you start from nothing and go back to nothing with actually adding nothing in this world, it’s a waste of time.
It doesn’t differ from playing a game in any way. So, have fun, that’s the point.
…robot getting philosophical at times.
If you boil it down, every experience consists of varying degrees of pleasure and pain. I would say that “success” is maximizing the first one for yourself and those around you. Obviously, if someone can’t relate to game playing as highly pleasurable, they’d think it was a waste of valuable life time. But each individual’s gotta figure out what “does it” for them.
Abraham Lincoln said it best: “Be excellent to each other…and…PARTY ON, DUDES!”
Why do you think? I think it’s the best place… And answers of you all are the proof. Really interesting reading for me.
There is a great book by Jane McGonigal, reality is broken
The book is mostly focused on the theoretic groundwork for game design, but she proves over and over again that games can have a therapeutic effect by providing players with satisfying work.
I work at a museum and we use Minecraft to educate kids.
You might be interested in this Unite 2013 Nordic presentation about Machineers by Henrike Lode. I found it hit a few chords with me, as I agree that most educational games for kids are simply NOT FUN and thus the bad rap.
I think there is still a huge untapped market of actual fun educational games that don’t feel like educational tools.
Though it’s not a formal survey, nor a large enough group to have any statistical significance, when we did a video interview with women to find out what they prefer in video games, one of our panelists was disabled. She stated almost exactly what you’ve said here Hippo. She felt strongly that people couldn’t help but pre-judge her because of her her disability in person (she’s confined to a wheelchair, and has a number of other physical limitations), which made her feel uncomfortable in social situations. However, in gamespace, she’s just another player and people would relate to her like they would any other person. For her games are more than just a fun pastime, they’re the only place she feels she has the potential to be viewed on equal terms with everyone else socially.
The interview is here The panel itself sparked some controversy the first time I posted it as many just flatly disliked or disagreed with what was said on it. Hopefully we don’t have to start that whole debate again.