# Is this sad?



## HareBrain (Feb 15, 2018)

I've led a reasonably rich life so far, but when I was thinking the other day about my richest experiences, the one that came top, because it was so involving and intense and sustained, was ... playing Final Fantasy VII.

That game was amazing, especially for its time, and nothing I've seen since has matched it in terms of story and emotional impact. It also had a superb soundtrack, which must have made quite a difference. But is it inherently sad for playing a videogame (a solo game, mind) to be one of your most treasured experiences? Does anyone else want to confess to something similar?


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## HoopyFrood (Feb 15, 2018)

Dude, if you had fun and enjoyed it and it had an impact on you, who cares what other people might think.


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## Boneman (Feb 15, 2018)

Well... seeing The Who at the Windsor Jazz and Blues Festival, that day in 1966 when England won the World Cup... the music was overwhelming, the visceral excitement of the performance shook up your mind and body. The intensity of that day has stayed with me. 

Note to self: play Final Fantasy...


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## HareBrain (Feb 15, 2018)

HoopyFrood said:


> Dude, if you had fun and enjoyed it and it had an impact on you, who cares what other people might think.



I don't, but the realisation surprised me, because I would normally have thought the real world ought to trump an invented digital one, no matter how good.


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## Luiglin (Feb 15, 2018)

HareBrain said:


> I've led a reasonably rich life so far, but when I was thinking the other day about my richest experiences, the one that came top, because it was so involving and intense and sustained, was ... playing Final Fantasy VII.
> 
> That game was amazing, especially for its time, and nothing I've seen since has matched it in terms of story and emotional impact. It also had a superb soundtrack, which must have made quite a difference. But is it inherently sad for playing a videogame (a solo game, mind) to be one of your most treasured experiences? Does anyone else want to confess to something similar?



Why should this be considered sad just because it's a game?

Would you think the time wasted reading a book that moved you or watching a film or going to see a play?

Anything that positively enriches anyones life is good.


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## Jo Zebedee (Feb 15, 2018)

What they all say.  I’m trying to think of my most vivid day and two contend - a Duran Duran concert when I was about 16 and giving birth. I know which one i’d prefer to recollect endlessly  (oh and Goran Ivanisevic winning Wimbledon - that was tremendous!)


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## Mouse (Feb 15, 2018)

Yes, that's tragic. Especially when you consider how awesome the natural world is. But whatever floats your boat, innit.


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## Ursa major (Feb 15, 2018)

Jo Zebedee said:


> a Duran Duran concert when I was about 16 and giving birth.


There's multitasking and then there's multitasking....

​​


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## HareBrain (Feb 15, 2018)

Mouse said:


> Especially when you consider how awesome the natural world is



The natural world would be much more exciting if it had Sephiroth in it. 

In terms of richness per minute, nature experiences definitely top the list. But it's hard to think of a natural experience that builds over sixty hours. What concerns me a bit about this is that if digital experiences can be so great compared to natural ones, where's the incentive to save nature? (Except for our own self-interest.) Okay, that's not a new point, I admit.


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## BAYLOR (Feb 15, 2018)

HareBrain said:


> I don't, but the realisation surprised me, because I would normally have thought the real world ought to trump an invented digital one, no matter how good.



The beauty of a digital world is for a while, you be somewhere else that isn't the real world . Nothing wrong with that.


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## Mouse (Feb 15, 2018)

HareBrain said:


> ...where's the incentive to save nature? (Except for our own self-interest.)



Cos we share the planet, not own it? Other beings might like/need the nature. Eco, not ego.

Peace and love, peace and love.


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## Lumens (Feb 15, 2018)

It's all life, whether imagined or real. And even "real" life is hampered by our narrow frame of reference. Life experience is so much more than what we think, and even remember. Reading stories, playing games, watching movies - it all puts you in someone else's shoes, enriching your life and giving you a new perspective. Why wouldn't it?


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## Vladd67 (Feb 15, 2018)

HareBrain said:


> But it's hard to think of a natural experience that builds over sixty hours.


I understand giving birth can feel like it.


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## The Big Peat (Feb 15, 2018)

No. Reaction to art should be a rich experience. Interactive art that spans days and weeks, even more so. I have similar sentiments about Morrowind and I never even finished it.



HareBrain said:


> The natural world would be much more exciting if it had Sephiroth in it.
> 
> In terms of richness per minute, nature experiences definitely top the list. But it's hard to think of a natural experience that builds over sixty hours. What concerns me a bit about this is that if digital experiences can be so great compared to natural ones, where's the incentive to save nature? (Except for our own self-interest.) Okay, that's not a new point, I admit.



The incentive to save nature lies in the fact that a rich life is built up of multiple varied experiences. The digital world no more makes the real world obsolete than vice versa.


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## Parson (Feb 15, 2018)

@HareBrain .... It is a little sad, but the truth is that our experience is our experience and our recollection of it changes over time. I've had occasion to do a timeline of my life at many different times and no two of them are exactly alike. Memories, emotions, and context always combine to make them come out different. The same thing for the "greatest thing" in your life. If I rely on the emotional hit to determine it, that greatest thing changes over time. Relying on logic produces a little more consistency, but its results are not always the same either. 

One of Parson's Maxims:  "Feelings can lie."


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## J Riff (Feb 15, 2018)

Games, games... well, there was The Qix. That was fun. I also played 'NightStalker' when Intellivision was all the rage. Before that - Pinball. Ohh, so much pinball. Can't even find one now. 
 But, when you get on the subway and 17 of 20 people are doodling at cellphones, when there's no wifi reception... then... are they playing Minefield, is it, or Pokiman? They must be. All day every day, dullest bunch ever, they are. They are all going to need glasses before long. )


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## WarriorMouse (Feb 16, 2018)

I can"t give just one but...
Being able to take my old 6 cyl pick up truck onto a road course race track with a race driver as passenger. He showed me when to brake, when to turn in, where to hit the apex , when to come off the brake and onto the gas for every corner on that track. He then hopped out and sent me off on the track with these words "Have Fun"

Watching an 18 yr old in a Maclaren 8C sports race car wait till the back stretch of the last lap of the last race, to completely dominate a wealthy blowhard in a lite weight Porche 911SC that had been diss-ing he and his fathers racing capabilities all weekend at a Vintage car race event.


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## Bugg (Feb 16, 2018)

I had a similar experience with Witcher 3, so I know where you're coming from.  I got so caught up in the story and characters - it was just like reading a great novel and not wanting it to end.  I found it incredibly immersive.


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## The Big Peat (Feb 16, 2018)

Bugg said:


> I had a similar experience with Witcher 3, so I know where you're coming from.  I got so caught up in the story and characters - it was just like reading a great novel and not wanting it to end.  I found it incredibly immersive.



I think that in the next 10 or so years, we might start considering computer games as arguably the greatest medium for storytelling.


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## HareBrain (Feb 16, 2018)

They certainly have the potential to be, because they're a more active experience than reading (and far more so than TV/film). The trouble for me is, I've become far too impatient to be doing with all the fighting, wandering cluelessly about, side-quests etc -- and yet without those elements, the scale of the experience would be lessened.


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## Danny McG (Feb 16, 2018)

Hitting the ton for the first time on a Kawasaki in 1978


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## AlexH (Feb 16, 2018)

I don't think it's sad at all...maybe because I'm sad. 

Some of my favourite childhood memories are from computer games, especially RPGs. I had a tear in my eye at one pivotal moment of Illusion of Time (AKA Illusion of Gaia) on the Super Nintendo.

Terranigma (also SNES) is my favourite game of all-time, and that was largely down to the story.

Riding Epona (the horse) across Hyrule Field as the sun rises in Ocarina of Time. The music is so beautiful too. Sometimes games are better than real life!

I've also had a lot of fun playing multiplayer games, particularly battles on Tetris Attack (nothing like the famous Tetris) with my brother. Co-op on another SNES RPG, Secret of Mana. Endless summers in a friend's bedroom - that was painted black with the curtains drawn while the sun beat down outside - playing Olympic Summer Games (1996) and others. Multiplayer till the early hours on Goldeneye, then Perfect Dark, WWF No Mercy.

The Curse of Monkey Island on PC was hilarious at times. Guybrush Threepwood was one of my favourite characters from game or film, and it was funny that the skull was called Murray, the name of my driving instructor at the time.

Winning the Champions League with Rushden & Diamonds on Champtionship Manager (back in 00/01) with a star player called Lorenzo Tramarin - an Italian footballer I Googled who didn't make it professionally.

I still remember the exact moment I first played Mario 64.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - I never thought stealing cars and running people over could be so much fun. And Blast Corps, where the aim is to demolish buildings by doing things like swinging the back of a dump-truck into them.

Pikmin - I want to cry when I accidentally kill them off. How do Nintendo do that???

Some of my favourite pieces of music are from computer games, or remixes of music from games.

So there's my short answer. 

I don't play games so much anymore, only with friends really.


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## Luiglin (Feb 16, 2018)

I remember a wet Sunday afternoon playing PlanetSide - the original, a large scale world based Sci fi FPS. It was a special event day and I was a member of a small clan. There was ten of us on voice ranging coming from UK, Sweden, Portugal, Holland and Japan.

Now PlanetSide has three factions and the other two had thought that the faction we belonged to had cheated - we hadn't, we'd just been damn lucky. But for 3 to 4 hours we defended an in game base against their combined players (bases usually fell in around 30mins). At one point the server was at it's max limit for players in one area.

It was the most fun, most exhausting and best bit of team work I've ever experienced online. I play online games regularly and have never experienced this since and unfortunately don't think I ever will again. 

I never diss anyones hobby and never feel 'sad' at any of mine.

If we were all the same it would be a very boring world


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## Lumens (Feb 16, 2018)

“Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.”

- John Lennon


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## Edward M. Grant (Feb 21, 2018)

HareBrain said:


> Does anyone else want to confess to something similar?



It was years ago, but scribing my Mage epic spell in Everquest and showing off the sparkly stick to my guild. So many people involved in getting me that darn thing over the course of a year or so, even though I got lucky on the drops.

Followed by giggling for an hour as I went back to a zone where I'd had troubles a week before and Fluffy was tearing the monsters apart without breaking a sweat.


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## Overread (Feb 21, 2018)

I think one of the dangers in life is living life by the expectations of others. For sure expectations and standards of others DO shape and influence our lives; indeed to try and deny that totally is often not healthy. It's part of our make up as a social creature and part of our society and interaction with each other. Indeed there is great richness to be had in allowing the ideas of others to influence our lives.

But we have to be careful; as we mature we have to learn where to draw our own lines. To agree and disagree with those viewpoints and to also be mindful not to let those that disagree with us to destroy us. 



I know people who cannot understand, let alone appreciate how a computer game could, in any way shape or form, be inspirational, fantastic, great, or moving. Some don't like or get games at all, but others are avid gamers; but their interaction with the game is different, what they draw from it and gain is different. 
To YOU and YOUR standards that game was a fantastic experience. To YOU it was outstanding at that point in time of your life; and its lasted. Something that had countless hours spent on it by a huge team of people has touched a part of you. That's not a waste of life, that's just part of YOUR life. 
It is only a waste if you choose to allow it to be. 

Though, of course, through time you might change, but you should always remember that it was never a waste for you in that moment of time. 




Also I think the other side of life is that one of the richest things is that we can draw inspiration and have wonderful interactions and experiences that don't compare. A game, a film, a walk, a sports match, a highly complicated stock management excel document, a multibillion £ company deal, a painting, a religious text, a split second photograph........

There's so much no one person can appreciate it all and, really, no one person can define what should be best for all reasons and what should dominate your life.


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