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Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

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Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#111

Post by wccrawford »

sundvor wrote: post #60
skybrian wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it better?

I didn't say better, but they are different. It might end up as better though! I'm loving the 2D aspect which makes it easier to find stuff, and that pickaxes don't wear out - that sort of thing. Also the number of things to discover is greater. As an adult, combat mechanics are more interesting. You get to keep your character between games, so those rare items you find - you get to keep them. Additionally, it's supe…

https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/a+breath+of+fresh+air

That phrase is usually used on something that's positive, after something that's negative. Notice that most of the examples use the word "boring" for the former thing they're talking about.

The person that replied to you probably just assumed you were using it the same way. I don't think I've ever seen anyone use it on 2 things they liked before.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#112

Post by dmichulke »

aianus wrote: post #109
ascorbic wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My naive question is why so few governments or central banks tried implementing QE as helicopter money, rather than for bond purchases. It seems to my (undergrad-only econ) perspective that the person in the street is far more likely to put the money to use in the economy.

Bond purchases or helicopter money is essentially the same thing. 1) The government sprays more money around in welfare and salaries than they raise through taxes 2) The government issues bonds 3) The central bank prints money to buy those bonds It's equivalent to the central bank printing money to pay for welfare programs and salaries (which go to common people in the streets)

I disagree, buying bonds benefits above all bond holders, read funds and investment banks. The people only get the money way down in the food chain.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#113

Post by pdpi »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #77
bwang29 wrote: post #15

I definitely feel games like Sims and Simcity changed my perception of resource safety as a child. I played Sims/Simcity2000~3000/Civs for hundreds of hours as a kid, and I loved the "realistic" feels and setups of these games. When I started to play I always had later stage trouble when I'm overspending on building fancy roads and bridges in SimCity or buying expensive items up front. I slowly learned the way of set…

I play a lot of poker, and will risk hundreds of dollars on a single hand. All of my 401k is in money market mutual funds. I'm not sure that a straight up games-to-financial-decision type study would be useful, there are many different motivations between playing games or even gambling, and financial decisions.

I’d argue that, if you have a healthy relationship with skill-based gambling (i.e. poker, not roulette), you’re likelier to come out the other side with a clearer appreciation for risk and reward.

Or, more bluntly: There’s nothing like being acutely aware how easily you can lose your stack on a bad gamble to make you invest your savings wisely. :)

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#114

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

watwut wrote: post #93
hluska wrote: post #58

This article reminds me of playing Minecraft with my stepdaughter. When we got her a PS4, I have to admit that I had a bit of a fuddy duddy moment. Games weren't like they were when I was young, blah blah blah, NES, blah blah blah, the damned princess is in a different castle. And, when I firstlooked at Minecraft, I couldn't for the life of me, figure out what I was supposed to do. Then, my stepdaughter took over and…

Nobody knows minecraft intuitively. There are many children's games that you can figure out easily, but minecraft requires "a lot" lonely experimentation or reading or someone shows it to you.

> or someone shows it to you.

I heard there's websites with videos demoing game play.

(There was this youngster with an ipad that seemed to spend quite a few hours watching them. Perhaps more than playing the game.)

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#115

Post by dmichulke »

gowld wrote: post #89
ekianjo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> RTS and flight sim games were the domain people who could afford PCs. Not at all. You could play them on an Amiga or an Atari which were miles more affordable than a PC.

What games?

Kaiser and Defender of the crown were turn-based but I don't recall RTS or flight sim.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#116

Post by ProCynic »

jsemrau wrote: post #13

There should be more collaborative games rather than competitive games. One of my fondest memories is playing Quake 2 in COOP mode at a LAN Party back in the 90s getting stuck in a mineshaft with the group way past midnight. Extremely immersive and bonding experience. We still talk about this moment years later.

A lot of the really popular shooters out there now are collaborative, or have a strong collaborative element. For example, Destiny 2 can be solo, but really encourages you to group up with a couple friends to run 3 person strikes and other activities. Overwatch is a 6v6 game that is unwinnable without teamwork, and similarly R6 Siege requires advanced team collaboration. PUBG (2.2 million current active players at this minute) and Fortnite both derive a large part of their appeal from their very popular duo and 4 person squad modes. If you look at what people are actually playing right now, a huge chunk of it is largely collaborative games.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#117

Post by watwut »

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #114
watwut wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody knows minecraft intuitively. There are many children's games that you can figure out easily, but minecraft requires "a lot" lonely experimentation or reading or someone shows it to you.

> or someone shows it to you. I heard there's websites with videos demoing game play. (There was this youngster with an ipad that seemed to spend quite a few hours watching them. Perhaps more than playing the game.)

Lol, most kids who play Minecraft actually watch Minecraft videos a lot more then they actually play. So, you would not be out of normal.

However, fining good beginner videos is not that easy (how to move, set it on creative at first, look you can fly etc) and watching videos is time consuming for adults. The ratio of noise vs information is very very low.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#118

Post by teamonkey »

skookumchuck wrote: post #37
bwang29 wrote: post #15

I definitely feel games like Sims and Simcity changed my perception of resource safety as a child. I played Sims/Simcity2000~3000/Civs for hundreds of hours as a kid, and I loved the "realistic" feels and setups of these games. When I started to play I always had later stage trouble when I'm overspending on building fancy roads and bridges in SimCity or buying expensive items up front. I slowly learned the way of set…

I'd be very careful about applying lessons from a game to the real world. Lots of games designed by economists, for example, tend to validate the pet theories of the economists, despite not working in the real world. Real world economics is infinitely more complex than the handful of rules in a game.

> tend to validate the pet theories of the economists

I don't think that's really true. I don't think any game company or designer cares about forcing a pet economic theory to work.

More that game economies have a purpose and can be explicitly modelled to achieve that purpose, even if that means doing unrealistic things (such as conjure up resources out of nowhere). That's not too say that they can't be an effective test model for real world scenarios, if you bear those conceits in mind.

If an economy makes players have a bad time, they can jump ship in a way that they can't do in the real world. There is a financial incentive for game designers to build an economy that makes players satisfied. Strictly modelling a game on real life economic policies is usually not a good way to achieve this. Vast resource inequality between players is a good way to kill a multiplayer game, for example - unless you even the divide in some way, only those at the very top want to keep playing.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#119

Post by tajen »

bwang29 wrote: post #15

I definitely feel games like Sims and Simcity changed my perception of resource safety as a child. I played Sims/Simcity2000~3000/Civs for hundreds of hours as a kid, and I loved the "realistic" feels and setups of these games. When I started to play I always had later stage trouble when I'm overspending on building fancy roads and bridges in SimCity or buying expensive items up front. I slowly learned the way of set…

That’s why I never succeeded for long in Simcity 2000! I would buy the biggest items, because you know, you gotta invest, you gotta see big, so I’d buy the nuclear plant as soon as available because you know, availability makes businesses develop quicker. And I’d always fail because the slightest glitch (monster, earthquake, riot) would ruin the objectives!

Aside from being influenced by government advertising (“This airport in a no-man’s land is going to develop the no-man’s land into a city!”), it also influenced my entrepreneur life: Why see small when you can invest all you have and get increasingly more return? Why spend time debugging when I could have this other big feature on the marketing material? And that’s why I never went past a few hours in Simcity, and why my cousin, a less entreprising person, would succeed more! Ha!

What a cautionary tale.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#120

Post by bberrry »

skrebbel wrote: post #83

I tried Minecraft for the first time in my life a few weeks ago. Together with my 5 year old son. He loved it, and I liked it too, but we really didn't get very far - the moment night fell, we got brutally slaughtered by zombies or whatever. Respawning only made things worse, because later nights seemed to bring stronger attackers. I played some Quake back in the day, it's not like 3d games are totally new to me. Sti…

Find some sheep as quickly as possible, then you can construct beds and "skip" the night. You won't be bothered by monsters again until you venture into dark caves.
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