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Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

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Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#191

Post by conductr »

spicybright wrote: post #89
Random_BSD_Geek wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I misread "Minecraft" as "Minesweeper" and was briefly bewildered by the idea of Minesweeper VR. Kinda want to play that now.

I feel like there's so many games that can be VR-ified like this. Even if it's just a first person, point to a square on the floor and click, sort of game, I feel like more innovation can build on top of traditional games like minesweeper starting with that.

Not a bad idea to refine your VR mechanics, after all, word is that they were added to Windows originally to help people refine their mouse skills

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#192

Post by myle »

gingerlime wrote: post #189

As someone who doesn't play any games at all and looking for a new hobby, would you recommend picking this up as one? if so, which platform/games would you recommend? (something light/fun) some background: I'm 45, I don't think I can handle anything too intense (even watching TV gets my heart pounding, I get too immersed and don't exactly enjoy too much adrenaline); I used to enjoy the Atari console in the 80s and th…

Try chess. Lichess.org is good place.

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#193

Post by conductr »

spicybright wrote: post #87
reificator wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Beat Saber and Minecraft have little in common. They're both high profile VR games.

Missing the point. Minecraft started as a creative style game that hit massive popularity in all age groups, and encouraged players to build to their heart's content without much of a goal. It didn't start in VR as well. Beat Sabor is one of the first "killer app" VR games, with a clear goal with emphasis on reaction time and immersion using the VR tech behind it. Both are played very differently, the former a game y…

> using reaction time to score better

Having never heard of Beat Sabor, this made me think it sounds like Guitar Hero. YouTube confirms. I really did not ever get the appeal of GH, but BS looks pretty fun.

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#194

Post by squeaky-clean »

yumraj wrote: post #157
sumedh wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get the PS4 Pro and a 4K TV/Monitor with HDR if you have the money, you wont regret it.

Question: buy ps4 pro or wait for ps5 and be done for 4-5 years?

I wouldn't be surprised if console revisions/upgrades begin coming out with even more frequency. There was only a 3.5 year gap between the PS4 and PS4 Pro. Only a 2 year gap between the Nintendo Switch and the revision with vastly improved battery life (not as big a deal as PS4 to PS4 Pro, but still a big deal for anyone who uses their switch on the go).

Personally I think I'm going to wait until the PS5 releases and then see if I can find a secondhand PS4 pro at a good price.

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#195

Post by unicornporn »

gingerlime wrote: post #189

As someone who doesn't play any games at all and looking for a new hobby, would you recommend picking this up as one? if so, which platform/games would you recommend? (something light/fun) some background: I'm 45, I don't think I can handle anything too intense (even watching TV gets my heart pounding, I get too immersed and don't exactly enjoy too much adrenaline); I used to enjoy the Atari console in the 80s and th…

If you want a new hobby and not a new time drain I recommend installing https://openemu.org/ on your Air and download some roms. Watch some videos on YouTube going through the best roms for SNES and NeoGeo. So many nice games from that era you can just fire up and play for 30 minutes and have a great time. I find that many modern games require hours and hours to give something back.

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#196

Post by TotempaaltJ »

gingerlime wrote: post #189

As someone who doesn't play any games at all and looking for a new hobby, would you recommend picking this up as one? if so, which platform/games would you recommend? (something light/fun) some background: I'm 45, I don't think I can handle anything too intense (even watching TV gets my heart pounding, I get too immersed and don't exactly enjoy too much adrenaline); I used to enjoy the Atari console in the 80s and th…

There are tons of non-intense video games! It's not all shooters, thankfully. Especially building/management style games, turn-based games, and role-playing games can be calm.

Personal favorites: FTL: Faster Than Light. Not turn-based, so can get a little heated every now and then but generally pretty calm ime. https://store.steampowered.com/app/212680/FTL_Faster_Than_Li...

The Civilization series is all turn based and as long as you play against the computer you get to take as long as you like for each turn. https://store.steampowered.com/app/289070/Sid_Meiers_Civiliz...

Cities: Skylines! Love trying my hand at infrastructure design. https://store.steampowered.com/app/255710

Prison Architect https://store.steampowered.com/app/233450

I've heard good things about Factorio. If you want to dip your toes into first person games you should try the Portal series, which has a bit more action but not too much imo.

These all will work fine on your Macbook Air!

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#197

Post by Shacklz »

throwaway3699 wrote: post #141
maroonblazer wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that 1/3 of the population suffer from motion sickness, so for them (I'm in this group) VR isn't an option for the most part. Of course if this is a solvable problem - those who otherwise suffer from motion sickness are symptom-free in any VR application - then I agree VR could have a bright future.

With modern VR techniques (teleportation) and hardware (Vive/Rift hardware or later), this is no longer a problem.

Wouldn't generalize this; I think there are also factors like game performance (FPS) that are at play. I can play Beat Saber and HL:Alyx just fine on the Vive without any issues whatsoever, but whenever I want to give 'Blade & Sorcery' another try I feel absolutely terrible after a few minutes of gameplay. I do think it's poor performance (low FPS and 'location stutter' where the game seemingly can't decide where to place me exactly) are the cause, but I could not place a finger on when/where exactly the threshold is where I start to feel sick.

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#198

Post by as1mov »

cgrealy wrote: post #183

That 3 billion people play some sort of games (particularly on mobile) is not at all surprising to me. I would guess that number correlates to “90% of people under a certain age (50??) who have access to a device”. That 1.5 billion play games on PC is shocking to me.

I think's that number is reasonable considering any PC can be used for gaming with a small investment. Just adding a $100-$150 GPU can make any old PC from the last decade capable of playing games. That's how gaming has usually worked in third world countries at least.

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#199

Post by squeaky-clean »

gingerlime wrote: post #189

As someone who doesn't play any games at all and looking for a new hobby, would you recommend picking this up as one? if so, which platform/games would you recommend? (something light/fun) some background: I'm 45, I don't think I can handle anything too intense (even watching TV gets my heart pounding, I get too immersed and don't exactly enjoy too much adrenaline); I used to enjoy the Atari console in the 80s and th…

I'd recommend maybe some strategy games that are turn based or slow in general. Here are my 2 current favorites, they both run well on a Mac.

Civilization 6 is a turn based, hexagon grid, strategy game where you build an empire from the ancient era, researching pottery and animal husbandry, an so on, all the way to the future with satellites and rockets and war robots.

It's all turn based, so it's not particularly intense, however it can be infuriating (usually in a good way) when another civ nukes you because you wouldn't trade with them.

Cities Skylines a city builder. (The most famous game in this genre would be SimCity which is also great fun but can feel quite dated nowadays.) You can either play it traditionally, managing your city budget, revenue, taxes, milestones as your small town grows into a metropolis. Or you can play in a sandbox mode where money and all supplies are infinite and you're mostly dealing with infrastructure and zoning.

Note, while they both run well on a Mac, Cities Skylines can get very laggy when your city reaches the hundreds of thousands of citizens.

I can also second the suggestion for chess, or maybe digital versions of other board games.

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#200

Post by fendy3002 »

as1mov wrote: post #198
cgrealy wrote: post #183

That 3 billion people play some sort of games (particularly on mobile) is not at all surprising to me. I would guess that number correlates to “90% of people under a certain age (50??) who have access to a device”. That 1.5 billion play games on PC is shocking to me.

I think's that number is reasonable considering any PC can be used for gaming with a small investment. Just adding a $100-$150 GPU can make any old PC from the last decade capable of playing games. That's how gaming has usually worked in third world countries at least.

And people usually already have pc for activities outside of gaming. And it's very easy to play any games on pc, and some are free such as open source games and abandonwares (CMIIW).
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