Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure • Hacker News Board

Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

#161

Post by volkl48 » Thu, May 24, 2018, 6:23 PM UTC

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #28

The argument essentially seems to be this: Some people are making substantial amounts of money from activities that we traditionally associate with leisure, in the example given, videogames. This devalues gaming as a leisure activity for the rest of society. This is a bad thing. This is an indicator of a broader trend of the monetization of all forms of leisure. This is bad. Consequently we should find ways to redist…

I'll point out that there's always been a big class of hobbies where average people make a few bucks here and there, but money is not the focus and doesn't really detract from the enjoyment of it as leisure.

For example, everyone that likes DIY/fixing things/tinkering. Will I fix something little for my buddy for a case of beer? Sure. Will I do the brakes on his little sports car for a few bucks, him providing the parts, and letting me take it for a drive up in the hills? Sure. Will I work on his daily driver with him needing it for work on Monday? Nope. It's a hobby, not a job. It's enjoyable to do in my spare time, relaxed and with a beer in hand, the moment it becomes a source of stress I'm not interested.

Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

#162

Post by pucke » Fri, May 25, 2018, 4:18 AM UTC

Vaskivo wrote: post #156

cirgue wrote: post #39

> passive consumption over leisure This is the money quote for me. We somehow managed to convince an entire generation of people who were skeptical of the passive consumption of television that 'Hey wait, this other form of manufactured entertainment is entirely different and not at all bad for you because we're the tech industry and we aren't the people in suits."

I grew up with videogames. My whole life, my mais sources of entertainment were books and video games. I find that whant attracts me to them is the control I have of my experience. Specially the pacing. With books and game I can take a breather, explore/reread a portion and progress as fast as I want. In the television, cinema and music media I don't have that control. Therefore I don't like those media as much. I'm…

Re: the last paragraph; judging something for what you want it to be rather than for what it is defeats the purpose of engaging with those media.

Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

#163

Post by davidjnelson » Fri, May 25, 2018, 5:08 AM UTC

malloryerik wrote: post #141

FooHentai wrote: post #129

I'm currently going through a phase of setting up a games room, and acquiring a bunch of slightly older video game consoles and games to populate it. I've settled on PS2 and PS3, and Xbox/360 as the sweet spot for this. Partly due to price (they're not old enough to be worth much, but not new enough to be hawked at retail prices). But a factor just as big as price is how, from about mid-360 and PS3 onwards, gaming st…

What do you think are the best games for modding? Of course Minecraft. What else? I'm thinking especially in terms of modding as a way to get into programming.

Skyrim VR on PC is absurdly beautiful fully modded. The vortex mod manager along with the nexus mods community are great.

Edit: In terms of getting into programming, you can create mods with custom scripts you write to change the behavior of the game.