/int/ – No shittings during wörktime
„There is no place like home“
File (max. 4)
Return to
(optional)
  • Allowed file extensions (max. size 25 MB or specified)
    Images:  BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG, PSD   Videos:  FLV, MP4, WEBM  
    Archives:  7Z, RAR, ZIP   Audio:  FLAC, MP3, OGG, OPUS  
    Documents:  DJVU (50 MB), EPUB, MOBI, PDF (50 MB)  
  • Please read the Rules before posting.
  • Make sure you are familiar with the Guide to Anonymous Posting.
No. 14412
reading_vs_g[...].jpg
27 kB, 620 × 413
27594
denkvogel.jpg
8 kB, 203 × 125
8081
advocatus_di[...].JPG
27 kB, 500 × 243
27283
Imagine a situation where you have to argue either for or against the assumption that reading books is the superior pastime in comparison to video games, which side would you pick? At first it seems kinda obvious because reading is the ultimate pastime of the educated, while videogames are for nerdy kids with attention deficit disorder. But on second thought I can't find any argumentation to back this up. The argumentation usually comes down to two points which can be rebutted, for example:

>books stimulate imagination, because you have to imagine the things described
You can argue for the exact opposite: Books are completely static and you have no means of influence on the progress, so there is no imagination involved, while in games you have to find solutions for problems the game presents to you, even choices depending on the kind of game, you have to act resourceful, and you learn to act ith precision during stress situations, which is also a good practice for life. Also: Let's say this is true: Then I suppose the best thing to do is to put even the book away, because then you have to imagine everything, which is... good?

>books are pieces of art and represent some of the finest works of human civilization (a.k.a. the Goethe argument). This can't be said of video games.
Yes, maybe. But this is only valid for a small fraction of books, while the large remainder is trivial stuff. Also: It is kinda safe to assume that computer games will also be recognized as art in the future, just as every other medium has its highlights. Like every other new form of art, the best will stand the test of time and will be remembered for being the masterpieces they are. The fact that this is not already the case can be related to gamers not being around for long enough yet. The oldest ones seem to be in in their 50s now, and it's been maybe 25 years since video games became a widespread phenomenon, so it's just a matter of time when this will change.

I for one am neither a dedicated reader nor a dedicated gamer, I enjoy both casually, so I hope I'm not biased. I just noticed that the public opinion heavily leans towards reading. To make things worse, there seems to be the kind of reader who reads just to appear intellectual and to be able to look down on others - luckily there's not many of them, but you probably know what I mean. Even if it still is the case that the average reader is more educated than the average gamer (which I doubt, since both media offer entertainment for every possible customer group, so I assume the average reader and the average gamer are about equal), I still think it is more reasonable to assume that people who enjoy reading high quality literature might have been on the smart side of humanity before, so it's merely a correlation, not a consequence.

I'd like to hear the arguments you'd bring up in such a discussion, no matter which side (if any) you prefer. Maybe I missed something really obvious, but for me this topic seems to be prejudice-infected, and people tend to feel personally attacked when it comes up, so I'd rather avoid the topic in real life.
>>
No. 14414
>Books
>Reading
I'm going to throw down a truth-bomb, at least I think it's a truth-bomb. You decide.
Reading alone doesn't make you smart. Not all books are "holy" and valuable.

I'd say reading a pulp-novel or playing videogames hardly makes a difference. Maybe you'll pick up some vocabulary, but let's be fair, 99% of books are trash, and you are better off not reading them.

Now if you are reading books with artistic value, vision or usable information (not pop-sci and pop-economics or self help), then that's another case. Of course you are better off "studying" in a way than smashing buttons as a leisure activity.

But no, reading sci-fi adventure #345 or Tolkien copy #629 won't make you smarter, more informed or cultured. It's just a leisure activity then.

No I'm not saying everyone should be a stakhanovite, but taking pride in your leisure and feeling superior for it while saying you are just like all the "big brained people" with the "long books" with "big words" is just stupid.

Strangely enough, I've encountered this more with young women reading their 600 page long romance novels and then claiming they like literature and shit.

/rant
>>
No. 14429
>>14414
I completely agree with that. And there's nothing wring with doing that stuff at recreational level. I enjoyed Silmarillion, Hitchhikers Guide and classical stuff like Faust or Macbeth, but I know it's reading lvl1 (lvl 0 is probably 50 Shades of Grey-tier). From my point of view, there shouldn't even be a need for such a discussion, but it seems to be there, and the public depiction of gamers as either lonely virgins or latently violent potential serial killers doesn't help very much. Especially when the "lonely nerd / escape from reality" argument applies to readers as well.
>Strangely enough, I've encountered this more with young women reading their 600 page long romance novels and then claiming they like literature and shit.
Strangely enough, I had exactly that in mind, when I wrote about annoying pseudo literature lovers who scoff at gamers. I just didn't write that out because I felt it might discredit the rest of the post as a rant about women, which it isn't. It's just like the people I had in mind were grills complaining about their boyfriends who enjoyed gaming. It was then when I recognized that women judge their BFs much harder that the other way round, really, it was scary.
>>
No. 14441
So I abandoned games years ago and only when I'm at a friends place there might be an occasion I pick up a controller againduring the last two years I installed Sim City 3000 again and played for 2 days tho, but I read a lot instead and it's basically no trivial stuff. I've gained quite a bit of knowledge and improved my methods of reading heavily, and I really mean HEAVILY. But that's also a big part thanks to visiting university.

>Books are completely static and you have no means of influence on the progress, so there is no imagination involved

I would say it's the cases for games. Since books give room for imagination whereas a screen/computer presents everything to you already: visuals, text and audio alike. There is little room for imagination.

Tbh the medium is a totally different one and I' don't know much of theory about that. But the medium in itself makes a difference in how it effects us and our media consumption. A computer or games satisfy the click drive, which is rather mindless. Maybe most games just seem trivial to me, I haven't seen a real artsy game, where is avantgarde gaming, what has been there for films hundred years ago?

The point why I see gaming as a huge waste of time is because most of them a rather trivial. CS...you just shot other people...in other games you collect stuff or send troops here and there. and so on... mediocre hollywood stories etc.
I know the virtual world can be an escape room and a place to be someone different it sounds like a clichee but deep down it's still that to an extent

Many books are trivial as well, but there still exist thousands of books that are not and they still keep em coming. I don't know how the gaming scene is set up in that regard.
>>
No. 14442
I personally believe that to each his own, but being that I were in an imaginary situation - and from personal experience as a non native English speaker - games played a huge part in my education, they taught me part of the English as a language and a WHOLE lot of vocabulary that gave an edge more than studying the traditional novel back in school. Games can convey information in a fun, interactive and exciting setting that would be also beneficial to people with short attention spans, may it be fast paced like action games, or slow paced like adventure and strategy games. Games also taught me a bit of western history - and to the some of you who might know what am I talking about, I am talking about games like Civilization and Colonization. They also taught me about supply chains, some economy basics, mass production, the importance of science and knowledge. And also the importance of turning your enemies into fajita using the biggest damn gun you can find, but I kid.

But going back to the real world a little bit, and again from my personal experience, gaming alone was not enough for me, I always had a Merriam-Webster dictionary at hand to translate what is being displayed to me on the screen. I then proceeded to read that dictionary because for some reason I thought it was fascinating and it suggested me new worlds via new words.
>>
No. 14443 Kontra
>>14442
and this post has some grammar mistakes that I am too sleepy to correct. Excellent stuff. Polite kontra. Words.
>>
No. 14444
>>14442
Honestly that's actually a pretty dangerous way to try to learn important actual facts like history, which is different from culture and yes vidya is probably pretty good for learning culture. But learning history from vidya is like trying to learn things from Hollywood.

Although regarding all else you are saying yeah I am going to start to learn Russia through things like music videos and shit talking with Russians online and especially in games. I am finding that gaming in particular is forcing me to actually try to learn Russian, not just ape it when I see someone in a game, the only downside being I don't want to talk like some retarded yoba tier gamer retard around normal Russians (if such can be said).

I also lament the fact that seemingly few game devs are actually coming out of anywhere except USA and occasionally Western Europe, but Poland at least gives me hope (since a surprising amount of games I've seen/played are actually done by them). I feel like Middle Easterners could make some of the most ebin games if there were some MENA game studios.
>>
No. 14446
>>14444
>Honestly that's actually a pretty dangerous way to try to learn important actual facts like history, which is different from culture and yes vidya is probably pretty good for learning culture. But learning history from vidya is like trying to learn things from Hollywood.
I see your point and I do agree on it, but for modern games only. Games like Civilization 1 and Colonization gave small bits of actual history on key people, monuments, advancements...etc.

>Although regarding all else you are saying yeah I am going to start to learn Russia through things like music videos and shit talking with Russians online and especially in games. I am finding that gaming in particular is forcing me to actually try to learn Russian, not just ape it when I see someone in a game, the only downside being I don't want to talk like some retarded yoba tier gamer retard around normal Russians (if such can be said).
Regardless of the fact that this is one of my many gripes with multiplayer gaming, but my advice to you is if you want to learn interaction with Russians via gaming, I would suggest choosing the game. Yoba tier games bring yoba tier people of all nationalities. I wish I would directly recommend you a game that would have the proper crowd, but I would stay away from CoD, WoW, Fortnite...etc.

>I also lament the fact that seemingly few game devs are actually coming out of anywhere except USA and occasionally Western Europe, but Poland at least gives me hope (since a surprising amount of games I've seen/played are actually done by them).
True. Poland has been shining in the last ten years or so. Russia had a good chance to shine as well, they released some entertaining games and some very new ideas, like this one game from 1C that took place in Chechnya.

>I feel like Middle Easterners could make some of the most ebin games if there were some MENA game studios.
Oh how I wish. The middle east has a lot of interesting history milestones and stories that would make great games. Sadly 90% here are busy with FIFA, PES, Fortnite, PUBG and the like. Rarely you might see someone with a PS playing other "non social" games. They exist, but not as abundant as westerners.
>>
No. 14448
assburger_beard.jpg
68 kB, 1346 × 1056
69150
>>14446
> CoD, WoW, Fortnite...etc
Luckily I play no such thing. Mainly I see them in Crossout, or online poker.

As for the Russia they have a couple games I've been looking at
https://store.steampowered.com/app/552620/ATOM_RPG_Postapocalyptic_indie_game/

And I plan on using this one to learn Russian whenever I am not broke
https://store.steampowered.com/app/214730/Space_Rangers_HD_A_War_Apart/

>They exist, but not as abundant as westerners.
I wonder why this is. Could be a cultural thing, or the fact that we have much higher autistic tendencies. I mean, you have Germans releasing things like farm tractor simulators and the most colorful being Tropico which is a building and city management simulation, or Cities Skylines which is basically city zoning autism simulator that I also enjoy which was made by Scandinavians.
>>
No. 14450
>>14448
>Luckily I play no such thing.
Good man.

>Space Rangers
Hey, that's a fun game. I had the first one (I guess?) and it was a lot of fun. It was a clone of something else (GalCiv maybe?) But I forgot what it was.

>I wonder why this is. Could be a cultural thing
In my opinion, this stems from the fact that game development is not properly taught here (as no one from the older professors believes that games are a serious job) and focus more on enterprise programming and basics. If you want to learn game development then sure, do it yourself. No one has time for that, it's either business applications, mobile applications (and that's recent), go learn somewhere else or shift your career into commerce.

>Tropico 3
Best soundtrack in the last ten years. The game was very good too, but I stopped at 3 because 4 did not really grab my attention.

I absolutely enjoy BlueByte games, may it be Settlers or Anno. Settlers is one of the few games that actually makes you more relaxed. Everything is so nice and calm, even the battles are just...nice.
>>
No. 14451
dawkins_jrpg.png
226 kB, 720 × 479
231545
gamer brains.png
2,1 MB, 1920 × 1080
2153774
Okay, so if we're just talking about the superior pastime, I'll bite the bait and say that it's video games. Because pastime implies that it's an activity done for fun and reading (the right) books should rather be approached actively as part of one's education.

By body of work as a total medium literature obviously wins. Text is a rather efficient way to encode information and has been around so long that it developed a lot into many different genres etc.

>>14442
You can certainly learn some things from games, but that knowledge is usually more shallow than even reading a Wikipedia article and much more time consuming to attain.

>>14441
>Maybe most games just seem trivial to me, I haven't seen a real artsy game, where is avantgarde gaming, what has been there for films hundred years ago?
So there are games that are more like conceptual art, e.g. something like https://guzey.com/x/ (I'm sure there are more impressive examples)

You can always appreciate games for their artwork or music. But it's the same as with any medium, you get the most out of it only when you deeply engage with it. So for example some games that can be considered avantgarde are games that break with tropes or conventions established by previous games.(e.g. Undertale).

With video games there is always this dilemma between interactivity and narrative. It's hard to combine both in a meaningful way.

In my mind, I categorize games like this:
1) Games which might as well have been a book/movie: VNs, anything (mostly) linear & story driven
2) Games that are "fun": most games really; mindless mobile games, MOBAs, shooters, action games, ...
3) Sandbox games: Minecraft etc.?

For me category 1 is the most interesting but it's also the most conservative. Category 2 is too big to talk about. Category 3 I never was able to get into but I suspect there is the most potential to get creative and create something yourself as there are few rules.

I'm tired of thinking about this topic and my conclusion is that in any case what matters most is the attitude with which you engage in the medium.
>>
No. 14453
>>14451
>You can certainly learn some things from games, but that knowledge is usually more shallow than even reading a Wikipedia article and much more time consuming to attain.
I see your point, but you have to remember that back then in 1993 we did not have Wikipedia nor internet (for myself, at least), so I had to rely on what was presented to me. But then I even kind of knew that games weren't enough, so I had to cross check with the encyclopedia my father had in his library.

Granted, right now Wikipedia has a "faster" offering to current games, my point was gaming can actually convey information in a fascinating way. The current state of gaming is a whole other story and will get me into a one hundred and something walls of ranting text, but I will leave that to another time.
>>
No. 14454
Cliff Empire[...].webm
7,1 MB, 640 × 360, 1:12
7437538
>>14450
Have you tried Cliff's Edge yet? Visually at least it looks quite noice.

Also this reminds me I should try finishing Warshift
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MoPVfbYRmw
>>
No. 14456
I play video games more than I read but in a practical sense reading is the more useful past time as you can learn a lot doing it, games can be more enjoyable on average, they can be more engaging on average but they offer no real practical benefit.
>>
No. 14460
There is really no discussion there if you consider applied politics and hands-on diplomacy that can be found (and are to be pursued) in proper MMOs. You might think of "true" modern games as something along the lines of Detroit: Becoming Human, but in fact the cherry on the cake is leading your men to victory.
>>
No. 14461
depressed2.png
129 kB, 274 × 220
132455
Videos are the most 'fun'. A combination of art, music, gameplay and sometimes story. In a whole you can say that video games are deteriorating on your attention span and suck away your time, such in the case of shooter games and other, popular fast-paced games, I'd say even Minecraft can be put in that category. The intense stimuli put on all your senses and 'mentally being sucked into the screen' fucks your joy perceptions and normal life will feel dull and meaningless, pulling you back to get your high on video games, addiction, like drugs. Of course there are also more refined, slow-paced games such as strategy or board games that aren't as stimulating on your senses and are more demanding on your thinking skills. In the land of books, it is tough to find any good entertainment books, so it's best to stick to the classics like Tolkien and whatever else. A good book should leave you with the feeling of the book and something to ponder about, if there was a major distinction between videogames and books it would be that when you're done with playing videogames, you won't think about it any longer, whilst with books you will think back on them even hours after you're done reading. On the other side, I am also of the opinion that books should only be made for the purpose of sharing knowledge, and that anything else is heresy. I mainly read books for their knowledge, but when I read good entertainment ones, I was also left with a sense of calm and satisfaction. I think whether it's books or games, you should always pick the more refined options to preserve your mental health, and that all in all refined books trump videogames. Books are more satisfying, and whilst you don't feel the same 'fun' or 'rush' as in videogames, that doesn't matter in the books, as you are immersed in the world within.
>>
No. 14462
depressed.png
33 kB, 350 × 350
34031
Here is a different question: Are image boards or books superior?
>>
No. 14559
>>14454
This satisfies my autism. That, or I am extremely thirsty for gaming, and the aesthetics are very pleasing indeed.

I'll download it and archive it like all games I have right now give it a try.

sucks having a damaged PC, Ernst.