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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21116544

It is predicted that by the end of this year, female gamers will outnumber men for the first time.

However computer games are also increasingly being seen as a way for older people to keep mentally active.

Check out the video in the link. I don't really have anything to say other than: "86 year old woman plays GTA 4?! Wow... never thought I'd see that."

If I didn't have games i'd get bored really quickly...
Some games are great mental exercises...

I watched it earlier, thought she was awesome. If I make it to 86, I'll hopefully be doing the same.

 purplefood wrote:
If I didn't have games i'd get bored really quickly...
Some games are great mental exercises...

Agreed. Keep your mind healthy by keeping on gaming!

I thought that there were already more female gamers?

I think the last percentage I saw was 43%

I suppose it depends on what you count as 'gaming'.

Palindrome wrote:
I suppose it depends on what you count as 'gaming'.

This is the proper answer. When you include everything, including little games like Farmville, Bejeweled, etc, there are a lot of women. When you cut it back to more traditional console and PC gaming the number is apparently more around 25%-30%. Which is still a lot of women but not quite a majority. But then cutting out games like Farmville and Bejeweled is kind of arbitrary

But yeah Video Games can be very mentally stimulating. Especially puzzle games and games that don't take a dead brain to play

Actually, I kind of feel as if games dumbed me down a little, but that's only because they've largely driven me away from stuff like reading, or writing things myself, all of this requiring a greater degree of mental focus than most games these days. Let's be honest, games today are rarely about thinking (though there are some notable exceptions!) but more about reflexes, and whereas there's certainly some overlap, I believe we know what GTA is about.

On the other hand, reading, writing, etc are things that I would imagine people simply not to pursue beyond a certain age range anymore, and playing games is surely better than just watching TV all day long ... if only because they put more requirements on active participation rather than just sitting there, consuming. So the idea certainly has merit, although I think it should be compared to the things we would otherwise do, and not be thrown into the room as a general statement.

 LordofHats wrote:
When you include everything, including little games like Farmville, Bejeweled, etc, there are a lot of women. When you cut it back to more traditional console and PC gaming the number is apparently more around 25%-30%.

More ass-pulled numbers, yay.

*shrug* If you want to start arguing about what makes a "real gamer", I'd exclude the Madden and Call of Duty players more than I would the indy game players, myself, but then again I'm apparently a troll

 Skarwael wrote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21116544

It is predicted that by the end of this year, female gamers will outnumber men for the first time.

However computer games are also increasingly being seen as a way for older people to keep mentally active.

Check out the video in the link. I don't really have anything to say other than: "86 year old woman plays GTA 4?! Wow... never thought I'd see that."

Are we considering extremely casual games like 'angry birds' and possibly 'plants vs zombies' or even 'bejeweled' as games? I never really counted those as gaming. Meh it'd just be nice to know what's considered gaming here. Statistics and certain definitions for words are misleading at times.

Whoops guess it was already asked. That's what i get for not reading all the posts.

@melissia: It all depends on the indie game i suppose. If we're talking 'bejeweled' i don't consider that a game but if we're considering platformers that have more depth and level to them then i consider it gaming. Course i suppose 'tetris' used to be a game so in a sense it's as much of a game as 'bejeweled'.

Whatever happened to adventure games btw? My sister and i used to play them all the time and then they stopped making them and she lost complete interest in gaming. That's like one of the only gaming genres the majority of girls seemed to like that i also enjoyed. More 'donkey kong' and less 'call of duty' would be nice. I wish girls didn't enjoy nerdy things i don't really care about like rpg's (specifically jrpg's), anime and their p*rno yaoi fan-fics (or twilight and 50 shades of grey).

The company you're looking for, Flamingkillamajig is Telltale Games which are pretty much THE name in 'adventure' games nowadays. Their Walking Dead game series has had pretty much massive critical acclaim.

"Do you want to have to do this bad thing, that bad thing, or this way way worse bad thing?"

 Compel wrote:
The company you're looking for, Flamingkillamajig is Telltale Games which are pretty much THE name in 'adventure' games nowadays. Their Walking Dead game series has had pretty much massive critical acclaim.

"Do you want to have to do this bad thing, that bad thing, or this way way worse bad thing?"

I remember playing part of 'the walking dead' game. Believe it or not what little of it i played and enjoyed was the relationship you have with the little girl you look after. Maybe it's just me but it pulled at my heart-strings a little. Maybe it's the fact that even after losing all that's near and dear to you that you were still by the passing of fate kind of put into caring for a little girl. Maybe i just felt that with all that loss having her with you somehow made everything that happened somehow bear-able. Didn't play much of it but i could imagine the two of you walking alone after everybody you saw gets torn apart by zombies while the both of you are unsure about your future and you just try to give her some small hope that maybe you'll just find something or someone even though you're fairly certain you are dead or would otherwise without her probably give up hope.

I probably have to mention i was probably hungry and more importantly lacking sleep when i played the game and i tend to be more emo when i'm in that physical state. I also even as a guy wanted to have a kid at some point though i probably couldn't take care of one. I'd prefer one that isn't off-the-wall hyper and probably more toned down though. I suppose people can joke that i wouldn't want a kid that's like me if that's the case.

As far as the game went i only played a little at a friend's house and i wasn't sure how i felt about the dialogue all being timed. I guess it kind of makes sense but not everything is in a time crisis so in the case of a normal conversation it makes less sense esp. how in the real world you can just bring up a conversation just a few seconds before anyway if somebody skips over it. Just a small problem with it.

That said as far as choices in stories go i still prefer the first 'dragon age' game to most things. Sure there were bad choices but if you worked your *ss off you could make reasonably good choices for everybody rather than screwing one group or another. It wasn't always the case but it often was. I also really liked 'deus ex: human revolution' (i made an actual thread for it). The 2011 deus ex game is one of the better games i've played in years and though i don't play too many different games it is definitely well thought out and thought provoking. It's also kind of depressing. The mention of 'illuminati' (which was more of a name the main character gave them) was ridiculous but i heard it was based around the original game so it's not that bad. Overall deus ex is one of the best games out there as far as story goes. I recommend it.

Sorry for going way off topic there but i was just replying to your post.

See my sig:
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw

It's the state of mind, more than what is being played.
Being too uptight or serious will wear anyone down.

 Melissia wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
When you include everything, including little games like Farmville, Bejeweled, etc, there are a lot of women. When you cut it back to more traditional console and PC gaming the number is apparently more around 25%-30%.

More ass-pulled numbers, yay.

*shrug* If you want to start arguing about what makes a "real gamer", I'd exclude the Madden and Call of Duty players more than I would the indy game players, myself, but then again I'm apparently a troll

Check my addition to my post I realized after posting that I should mention the arbitrary-ness of 'real gamer.' Developers care I suppose cause you gotta know your target audience, but for us that's less important.

Whatever happened to adventure games btw?

They mostly got killed by the market. The market moved towards a much more action focused style, so the pure adventure games like Myth just started dying off. There's still a few around, like Ico and Shadow of the Collossus (and the company that made those is working on something new if I remember correctly). Zelda and Mario games have a very light adventure feel to them as well.

Skinnereal wrote:See my sig:
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
It's the state of mind, more than what is being played.
Being too uptight or serious will wear anyone down.

Love this statement. +1 to you, sir.

LordofHats wrote:They mostly got killed by the market. The market moved towards a much more action focused style, so the pure adventure games like Myth just started dying off.

I suppose that's a generational thing - the more I look at recent movies, TV series, games, it just seems as if culture has "evolved" into a throwaway elbow-society where gratuitious violence is prized above all and too much thinking "makes peoples' heads hurt".

By that statement, the oldest person in the world is Batman

As for "making peoples heads hurt", go easy on the "I'm old and that means that my stuff is better than yours" routine. Mindless action fiction has always been popular.

 Melissia wrote:
By that statement, the oldest person in the world is Batman

As for "making peoples heads hurt", go easy on the "I'm old and that means that my stuff is better than yours" routine. Mindless action fiction has always been popular.

Ai, and sometimes it wasn't even fictional.
See : Gladiatorial combat. The Romans came up with those, and they were a fairly sophisticated people.

It just feels as if it has been getting even more mindless and more popular. As if looks are more important than content these days. Lensflares! Explosions! Fast pace! Simple dialogue and reduced interface!

Maybe I'm just turning old and started to unintentionally/subconsciously adopt the cliché old people routine, or I just have the misfortune of only the genres that I am interested in being affected, but I do perceive notable differences in design between "stuff back then" and "stuff today". One of the reasons for why I really like to browse the 80s/90s section on Netflix.

As for gladiatorial combat - yeah, but we kinda outlawed that in the past couple centuries. The way things are going right now, I could actually see it get reintroduced in a few decades.
... I do see your point tho.

For something more recent, don't forget where the term "pulp fiction" came from-- it wasn't originally the name of a classic movie. Mindless action has ALWAYS been this popular. You're just being exposed to it more because you're immersed in a relatively new medium (in comparison to just about everything, video games are basically in their infancy).

Nice story but what was up with the bit in the middle? Did they not think that people knew what videogames are?

It's the BBC, they probably don't! The one thing you can never really accuse the BBC of is being up to date.

 Melissia wrote:
By that statement, the oldest person in the world is Batman

As for "making peoples heads hurt", go easy on the "I'm old and that means that my stuff is better than yours" routine. Mindless action fiction has always been popular.

Everything becomes so ridiculous after a point. I even noticed it myself that we basically are bound to make fun of every attitude after a point. There's d*uches, *ssholes, hipsters, goths, emos, geeks, dorks, otakus, hippies, etc. We make fun of most if not all of those. Then there's popularity for hating a particular thing and even people that hate haters. It reminds me of when cartman talks about fast passes in amusement parks being lines for more lines lol.

Batman probably had more secrets than just being batman. He probably had a BDSM set-up and liked to dress up like a woman. Even just by being batman you can't help but think the guy is at the very least eccentric in real world terms.

I'm not entirely sure if mindless action is always super popular. This isn't the 80's and 90's with stallone and arnold killing everything and video games at times catering to this market. I mean 'the expendables' has every action movie actor that made a name for themselves and people probably make fun of that. It is true that though action is at times popular it gets made fun of if there's no substance. I honestly was more angered by movies like 'avatar' netting in so much money. I heard claps at the end of watching that movie and i was utterly p*ssed by the simplicity of the storyline.

I know it's become a thing to hate 'avatar' just like 'justin bieber' or 'twilight'. I honestly think robert pattinson or whatever his name is (the male vampire lead in 'twilight') actually isn't that bad of an actor for romance movies but twilight was probably a huge pile of crap. Something about him reminds me of leonardo di caprio for some reason. Everybody guy hated leonardo di caprio and having to sit through titanic and then after a while he became a really insanely good actor that stars in AAA movies. Maybe i'm overstating myself with this but from what i saw in 'water for elephants' (admittedly a chick flick that was sort of a bit predictable) he did throw emotion into the movie and did at times seem charming (though i'm not gay ).

Going off topic but even going beyond that it's a bit popular to hate 'mat ward' and i'm sure dakka is no different than any other warhammer forum with that. I dunno about fluff but i still think there are codexes that are far more stupid game-wise than ones he's written (space wolves and imperial guard supposedly). I haven't read much for the longest time but i remember i was actually somewhat amused by grey knight jesus christ and draigo. To be fair mat ward had to work with the daemon-hunters codex and that needed a serious re-working no matter what anybody says. I mean it's pretty sad when a grey knight force had no real good way to handle vehicles without using vehicles themselves. The grey knights were basically worse than the normal space marine codex before mat ward revised their codex. I know he added inquisitors into their codex as a mere footnote which is very sad but grey knights also deserved to have a decent stand-alone force. Also he didn't really have a hand in how the dreadknight's look turned out. I haven't read the re-worked necron fluff but i hate the change. I might reconsider it but for now i hate it.

------------------

Anyway movies i tend to enjoy tend to be more psychological. I heard 'shutter island' is a good movie for that type of film. I think it's important to note i didn't say horror i just want something that makes you think esp. if it's scary on a real level or gets you at your very core primal instincts. I only watched part of it but stephen king's 'misery' looked like a really great movie. I felt a bit tense and uneasy with some of that. That's something horror movies need more rather than the f*cking jump scares and massacres of hapless 2 dimensional idiots. Anyway for me one of the best psychological films was 'the manchurian candidate' and i only watched the remake which i heard was very much inferior to the original movie. Hehe probably doesn't help that my half sister is about as controling and sometimes crazy as the mom was in that movie (i.e. the bad guy manipulating everybody).

Anyway sorry my structuring of paragraphs, sentences, etc. sucks and that i go off-topic but i had several topics i felt i needed to cover. Anyway i'm not expert and i don't claim to be but these are my thoughts.

there was a funny story arc in the boondocks comic strip about riley and grandad playing gta

 Lynata wrote:

Skinnereal wrote:See my sig:
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
It's the state of mind, more than what is being played.
Being too uptight or serious will wear anyone down.

Love this statement. +1 to you, sir.

LordofHats wrote:They mostly got killed by the market. The market moved towards a much more action focused style, so the pure adventure games like Myth just started dying off.

I suppose that's a generational thing - the more I look at recent movies, TV series, games, it just seems as if culture has "evolved" into a throwaway elbow-society where gratuitious violence is prized above all and too much thinking "makes peoples' heads hurt".

Most movies and TV shows that are popular tend to be simple stories or ideas, for example the three stooges is not high-brow entertainment.

I cannot thank video games (by which I mean all the people involved in making them and bringing them to market) enough for expanding my imagination. I hope I will be able to play them throughout my whole life.

Contrary to what fancy artists will tell you, most people don't want a story to beat their face in with complex 'themes.' They just don't want to think about work, or taxes, or their daughter that sneaks out at night and does drugs, or their son who gets into fights at school. You know. That stuff that makes life sucky

We certainly don't live in a low-brow society. If anything, the video game market tends to show the opposite. A lot of popular games tackle complex themes and even allow players to engage with them in different ways. What earlier video games did for the visual imagination, some of the video games of today are doing for the moral imagination.

Then why do country singers that sing about al lthat get so popular?

[/notentirelyserious]

 Manchu wrote:
What earlier video games did for the visual imagination, some of the video games of today are doing for the moral imagination.

Problem is that the time would better be served reading a book if one is seeking moral imagination. For every game I can think of that tackles complex things (lets just throw in ME3), I can think of one that pretends to do so but doesn't (Halo 4), one that tries but botches the job horribly (DA2), and a half dozen that don't deal with any complex themes at all and the people who say they do, and there are such people, have clearly never read any books or watched any movies that weren't B in quality (Call of Duty, Bullet Storm, Tomb Raider, Gears of War, Space Marine, Darksiders, and I'll throw in Need for Speed for fun cause they don't get mentioned anymore).

If anything, the market shows that games are still largely about spectacle or game mechanics, but then the former's not much different from the rest of popular culture so we can at least revel in the later XD

Its not to say that games tackling complex themes don't exist, just that we shouldn't pretend their anywhere near the majority of the market or that the market favors such games. I can certainly see, especially among younger people that a video game may well be the first time they'll encounter ideas, but if one really wants that aspect of their imagination explored there are far better avenues than video games, which offer juvenile levels of these things at best.

[/maybesomewhatseriousperhaps?]


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Melissia wrote:
Then why do country singers that sing about al lthat get so popular?

[/notentirelyserious]

For the same reason than reality TV shows about vapid people are all that MTV shows anymore