Iris Wants to Know: When You're Not in Second Life, Where Do Your Gaming Hours Go?

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

I love games -- I adore them, really -- and I've been very fortunate that Hamlet's gladly let me write about them here. I've covered some of the biggest releases of the past few years longside some of the most under-the-radar independant ones. I've written about everything from screenshots to social issues in the gaming world nd loved almost every second of it. But...

It's occurred to me that, because of this, you probably know way more about my gaming habits and history than I do yours, and personally I'd like to rebalance those scales just a little bit.

So here's what I want to know: When you're not keeping busy in the metaverse, where do you spend your gaming energy? Can you claim roots in Mobius or the Mushroom Kingdom? Are you a master of the console, a ruler of handhelds, a maven of mobile games, or PC/Mac through and through? Do you lean Indie, or are you AAA all the way? Do you slay dragons, or do you prefer to puzzle them? Sandbox or sandshrew?

Let me know! Share your gaming habits in the comments below.

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Iris Ophelia (@bleatingheart, Janine Hawkins IRL) has been featured in the New York Times, and has spoken about SL-based design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan and with pop culture/fashion maven Johanna Blakley.

Comments

[2014]

zero, I haven't played a game outside of SL in 6 years, in the early days of GTA.

[Pathfinder]

I swing between MMOs, single player FPS, and first-person adventure games. I also always play on my PC.

And for anyone involved in analyzing games, I highly recommend playing The Stanley Parable. ;)

[Shug Maitland]

"Gaming Hours" - - what an interesting concept. I assume you mean do I spend time gaming outside SL?
No, SL is the only virtual environment I am involved with and the 3 or 4 hours a day I spend there leaves no time for any Gaming.

[zzpearlbottom]

Same here, shug!

[kitty revolver]

Sometimes I play GW2 (Thank you for the recommendation) and EVE, but considering how school has been going I haven't been gaming very much. I do love independents, Papers, Please! is a particularly fun game.

[Veritable Magic]

Currently floating between Civ5, Everquest Landmark alpha and Titanfall Beta. And thinking about trying to mod Skyrim and play it again.

[Cube Republic]

I used to really love being absorbed into a game such as farcry, assassins creed and the ilk. Now I just feel nauseous if I game.

[Roslin Petion]

I tend to prefer co-ops, but have been known to play MMORPGs on occasion. Lately, I've been doing Starbound and Borderlands 2. I tried EVE for a second time, the learning curve makes SL look like a preschooler's game. Guild Wars 2 in the past and I'm looking forward to the Diablo 3 expansion. I find that with some rare exceptions, you really do have to choose between SL and other games because SL is just such a HUGE time drain if you want to 'play' it properly and leaves little time for anything else.

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Pre-SL, July 2006 for me, I had more time for gaming. Now, not so much. Though I have been setting aside time recently for games.

I'm primarily a console gamer, so If I'm not in SL during what would usually be my "SL-time" I'm probably playing something on the PS3. Currently it tends towards PS3 Diablo 3 (I LOVE a good ARPG and I've had the PSone port of the original since 1998), and Minecraft, though I do play other games now and then. I recently installed Bioshock Infinite (thanks to your articles about it) but an early grapple hook sequence caused my acrophobia to kick in hard and I had to stop playing. I've got a ton of unfinished games thanks to SL, that includes Oblivion (i've got hundreds of hours in that), Skyrim, Fallout New Vegas, Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age 1 and 2, the Original Bioshock, Sacred 2, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, etc etc. Though I have far far fewer PS3 games than PS2 ones. I have a strange attraction to Fallout 3, I've finished it, and got the Platinum Trophy but still get the jones to play it again every now and then. Finished up "The Pitt" yesterday in another save. It's one of my favorite games ever. I do the same with some of the Squaresoft games (specifically Final Fantasy VII and Chrono Trigger), Super Metroid, and Castlevania: SOTN.

Yes, I still pop in a PS2 game now and then (I have a deluxe model CECHE backwards compatible PS3). I still haven't finished some of my favorite PS2 games, Final Fantasy XII, I'm looking at you.

I do play MMO's now and then, either DCUO on the PS4, FreeRealms on the PS3, or Star Trek Online, one of the few "PC games" other than SL I play. I did play EQOA and FFXI on the PS2, but that was pre-SL. I have done Sl/Blue Mars-ish "Home" on the PS3.

I have a launch day PS4, but it sits mostly idle except for a very occasional DCUO or "Don't Starve" session. That'll change once some RPG's come out for the thing...and the PS4 versions of Minecraft (I prefer Minecraft to Don't Starve) and Diablo 3.

I have a PSP, but not a Vita...yet, I portable game on that, every now and then but not all that often. Currently I seem to be gravitating towards the PSP re-make of the orginal Persona 1. But I've got a few Squaresoft classics on it, namely Final Fantasy VI, FF VII, and Chrono Trigger.

I have a few tablet games, but I find them annoying do to improper controls. I can tolerate Minecraft PE to a certain extent, but it amazes me at it's lack of features even compared to the PS3/360 version...which are amazingly enough based on the PE editions codebase! Mojang competency at "follow-up" and "finishing or polish" as a developer is lacking, IMHO. They should just hand the PE over to 4J or somebody to do it right.

I haven't touched Pokemon since Gen 2 (Gold/Silver) added that clock (annoying to adult players), and the fact that the GBC annoyed me with not having a backlight. I should try to pick me up two GBA Advance SP+ with a backlit screens...it didn't come out till AFTER the PSP, so I can play the GB, GBC, and GBA pokemons. While I do have the first Invizimals game for the PSP, it's not quite the same, and also has an annoying clock feature.

And yes, my "nerd nick" CronoCloud is a reference to Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VII. I didn't know about the existence of SL fashion before SL and I joined SL to take part in a tech vodcast related event in SL...so I used "nerd nick". I would have chosen something different, had I known about the shooooes.

I've been involved in a few Beta's over the years, mostly in the PS2 days, apparently SCEA doesn't like me anymore ever since I started not playing games enough :-(. I was in the SOCOM II, Killzone, and SLAI Beta's. I was also in the "Home" Beta.

You may have noticed no mention of "dudebro games" like Halo, COD, Madden, etc etc or the Xbox. The CC does not do Microsoft and tries to keep her residence as free of the Dark Lord of Redmond's influence as possible.

[Damien Fate]

RPGs and MMOs for me mostly :)

[Alisha]

Candy Crush

What? Someone had to admit it. =P

[Iggy]

What's a "computer game," sonny?

My gaming consists of three hours weekly at "Nerd Night" where we are OLD AND OLD SKOOL: Savage Worlds system, two GMs, with home-brewed SF, Fantasy, Horror and Steampunk (Space 1889!!!) campaigns.

We plan to continue rolling the bones and talking in stupid accents until senility carries us off. We entered the 21st century, however, with 1) our first female player in 20 years and 2) same woman joining us via Facetime from Atlanta.

[David Cartier]

World of Tanks and Civ 5.

[Vaki]

My very, very limited gaming time goes to GW2 lately. And Triple Town. Let's be honest, it's mostly Triple Town.

[Strider]

It's either State of Decay or GTAV( previous it's Skyrim and Fallout NV but i got bored with them over the years)

[Ada Radius]

Kitely; much more than SL, now. Maybe once or twice a year I go to other grids in the OS grids. When Kitely enables hypergridding, which will be soon, I might hop around more for specific events.

[Dreamin22]

First multi-player online game experience was SL. Still pop in once in awhile to explore. I've played Entropia, Blue Mars, and DragonNest. Main staples now are GuildWars 2, Final Fantasy XIV, and Skyrim. I dabble occasionally into Aion, Rift, Oblivion and Fallout 3. Always love your "other games" reviews, Iris!

[Mikyo]

Left 4 Dead 2. All zombies must die!

[Hera]

It is Skyrim and Sims 3 that I return to after breaks, regularly (mods have a great part in their long-term playability, so, as Rod Humble phrased it, they are more "toys" than "games").

As a break, I play games (and not "toys") like Bioshock, Dishonored, sometimes Sherlock Holmes adventures, GTA San Andreas and GTA IV, now I'm looking forward to Watch Dogs! and hoping for GTA V for PC. I can see the intriguing factor in DayZ too, but I'm afraid it becomes repetitive so soon that I haven't given it a try yet.

As a feedback, thanks for some game review posted here by you, for example, I tried Dishonored because of your recommendation, and I enjoyed it very much, it was a great gaming experience.

[Bixyl Shuftan]

The Sunweaver/Angels community which I'm a part of (technically two, but more than half of each are on the other) has it's own World of Warcraft guild, also called Sunweavers. An Alliance guild, membership and activity jumped after the Cataclysm update, and it's Worgen characters. Minecraft has seen the building of a few "Angels Village"s in both the official and the "Feed the Beast" versions.

Eventually Nydia Tungsten started a group, "The Furry Gamers", which has a "SLFG" clan in World of Tanks, a "Vixen Steel Angels" in War Thunder, and players in many different games. Many are found on Steam, so we made a group for ourselves there, playing games such as Borderlands 2, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress, Civilization V, and more. More recently, we've been going about on the Rust survival MMO.

We haven't neglected games in Second Life. Some of us have taken part in New Bastogne battles, and others we've taken part in include the Trade Winds Pirate vs Navy battles, RacerX Gullwing's Snail Races, and of course Tiny Empires.

[Adeon Writer]

Team Fortress 2, Minecraft, Myst Online, and various indie games on Steam.

[Shockwave yareach]

I play some in inworldz. But mainly I build in RL as well; making bright lights, Halloween and Christmas shows, and more.

[Paypabak Writer]

Out of SL, I play tabletop-oriented games: Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Mech Attack, and poker.

[Kirstenlee]

TF2 (fps), Blacklight Retribution (fps), Forsaken World (MMO), TERA (MMO), Elemental Kingdoms (Phone TCCG), Fortuna (Web Based Game CIV,MMO), Planetary Annihilation (RTS), Space Engineers (Voxel Sandbox type game), EuroTruck Sim2 (Simulation),
Silent Hunter 5 (Simulation), Proteus (Not sure) oh and occasionally SL...

PS: Upcoming wastes of time ELITE , Wildstar (MMO) and if it ever happens Soul and Blade (MMO)

[Val kendal]

electronic games (not board or card), in the last few years, in no order - Bioshock 1,2,3, Portal 2, Skyrim (meh), Dragon Age 2, World of Goo, Machinarium, Words with Friends, WELDER, Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, Tomb Raider reboot

[Ciaran Laval]

Well I'd like to be playing The Secret Of Monkey Island and Baldur's Gate because those were awesome games.

However currently I'm playing Skyrim, Football Manager and the odd return now and then to World Of Warcraft.

I've had a look at quite a few free to play MMO's but these days I don't seem to find the time to stick with them.

[Jess]

Project Spark & Patterns(@_@) ..Smiles

[phantom Yue]

Well before SL the only "game" I'd experienced was Myst and its follow-up titles - I loved all of those. I've been active in SL since 2006/7 and it wasn't until Portal and Portal 2 that I discovered mainstream gaming. I still prefer indie puzzlers (eg. AntiChamber, Qube,Kairo etc) but was quite recently persuaded to try Skyrim, and much to my surprise I'm really loving it. I thought I would miss real people and resent the NPC substitute, but I have adapted. I find that interesting because for me the big value proposition of SL has always been that the people I interact with are real (anonymity isn't really a factor for me - some people are and some are not).
Good question Iris...

[Cyberserenity]

Still in World of warcraft.

[elizabeth (irihapeti)]

Minecraft, AuroraSim and Cube 2 Sauerbraten

and Tetris. yes I know but anyways (:

[jmf2525]

I go to post-apocolyptia: Fallout 3 or New Vegas, or underground in Metro 2033 or Last Light.

[Veritable Magic]

In answer to the survey. Top games i like: Mass Effect 3, Skyrim, and Diablo 3.

[don'trememberwhattoputhere]

Wow, I post infrequently. But, out of interest of what SLer's seem to be into I will read a bit and might as well post something. I really don't address or talk to you or anyone specific, so this is a bit strange. Um. Hi author lady!

Well, quick answer: Old ones, adventures over destroy things every second. Simulators may be fun, but been a while and I rarely complete stuff. The Longest Journey was not long enough, silly name for such a short game. Ironically I frequently don't complete them.

If I had my choice, I would be trying these new movie like games. The ones people hate lol, well not all. Cutscenes are neat, the story is a good addition. Needless to say I have a book stack to read and study to keep me busy so gaming happens rarely. Worrying is like a hobby these days, yay woohoo back to worry and confusion.

[SSteamweaver]

No games. It's SL and OpenSim for me.

[SSteamweaver]

Wait, does chess count? No online, the old school kind with a board and pieces. So it's just SL, OpenSim and chess.

[Oink]

Millions balk Second Life and Opensim, there is merely an audience of "die-hards in-the-box" playing in SL and Opensim.

Concurrent Users in the Steam Community range between 3-7 million online.
http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

[Oink]

Making Virtual Reality Less Virtual > From Real to Virtual to Real

A decade ago, the dream of a separate, virtual world didn’t seem so far-fetched. Second Life, a digital world where people could create and interact with human-like avatars, seemed poised to blow up. A magazine wrote a cover story about a Second Life millionaire. Politicians made policy announcements in the virtual world. Reuters, CNN, Wired, and other media outlets built bureaus there.

Second Life never took off as predicted. Despite many efforts at overhaul, founder Philip Rosedale and his company, Linden Labs, couldn’t get the user base to grow.

Culturally, the virtual world has become a bit of a joke: References in The Office, The Big Bang Theory, and even the occasional Disney show make the site seem like a refuge for creepers and only the dweebiest of dweebs

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/making-virtual-reality-less-virtual-183300242.html