How many of your friends actually play games?

This post by David Brevik reminded me of how few of my friends actually play PC/video games nowadays. I seem to remember from my high school/college days 20 years ago there were only a few of us actually talking about games. Now at work I'm quite sure in my team of 15 no one except me plays games, and we're all 30-40 year olds. Strangely I would think there would be more of us, but people either don't want to admit it or other hobbies & real-life get into the way. Their kids seem to spend much more time behind screens though and don't seem to go out more except on weekends.

Depends on the definition of games I guess. My peers generally do not RPG, but there is a high percentage that like sports games on consoles or phone games that center on learning-ish.

I'm also guessing a group of 15 30-40 year olds wouldn't naturally bring up gaming as a topic. I'd guess secretly about 1/2 do, it just doesn't happen organically in conversation.

If you have working friends that are engineer or developers, just wear a factorio logo shirt or kerbal space program Tshirt. I have both and its a great conversation starter at boring conferences. One of our groups of 'non-gamers' exploded into funny conversation with someone put the KSP logo on a dress shirt (generally none of our developers ever dress up, so it was a 1-2 punch of funny)

Hard question for me to answer as it can be contextual. For example right now all my friends are online and live away from the area, 3 in Germany. I met them through gaming (shared hobby) so … means they all play games. Before some locla friends had moved away 1 was a heavy gamer, one only liked MMO games and only because they enjoyed the social aspect - more than the gaming itself. The last doesn't play games out side of cards and a few board games.

I am sometimes surprised, however, when a gamer comes out of hiding. I have this great t-shirt that has a red hand-print on it and the words "We Know".

I work at a University and one day a large group of parents and kids were following a tour guide. As I walked by she waved and said "Sweet Mother that is a nice t-shirt".

Another time at a meeting at work with a lot of high level managers I made some comment about "oh I understand that as I meet a lot of international folks playing games" and after the meeting one guy came over and started a conversation about world of warcraft with me.

Also a co-workers husband is a big gamer.

Originally Posted by kazga
David Brevik

Neverheard…

Originally Posted by kazga
How many of your friends actually play games?

All!

Originally Posted by Wisdom
Depends on the definition of games I guess.

True. If I remove cowclickers and lootboxes scams from equation as neither are games… It's still - all. Sure some do let to be scammed sometimes, but also play proper games.*
But if I add acquaintances that aren't really close with me enough to call them friends, then sadly the number of people who play actual games I know would at least halve.

Originally Posted by wolfgrimdark
I have this great t-shirt that has a red hand-print on it and the words "We Know".

I'm buying as soon as I see something like it somewhere!
My clothes are already mostly gamesbased, so there. And yes, I do meet new people thanks to those "rags".

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* Note that I have a friend who plays cstrike only to get lootboxes. But there is a catch, he sells boxes and their content if opened on the market and with that $ buys and plays proper games!

Computer gaming has been a normal pastime since the early 80s at the very least, why wouldn't practically everyone who grew up from that era onwards not enjoy the concept of playing computer games?

The only people I know who are still "what? You play computer games? Why?" are all invariably 50+ years old.

…you guys have friends???

I'd say roughly half my friends play games, either computer or consoles.

Yeah, old people don't usually play games. Myself, I didn't even start playing until I was over 50 so as you might expect, no one I personally know plays.

Not the way I do. I have some friends who dabble, usually because they bought their kids a Switch or something. I do have a bunch of friends I play paper and pencil RPGs with (and board games when we get together, but they live all over the place)

Originally Posted by lackblogger
Computer gaming has been a normal pastime since the early 80s at the very least, why wouldn't practically everyone who grew up from that era onwards not enjoy the concept of playing computer games?

The only people I know who are still "what? You play computer games? Why?" are all invariably 50+ years old.

You must live in a wondrous land, unlike the one I live in where the majority of adults either a) play no digital games at all except with their kids or b) only play dumb games on their phones

Originally Posted by fragonard
Yeah, old people don't usually play games. Myself, I didn't even start playing until I was over 50 so as you might expect, no one I personally know plays.

Do you mind if I ask how you got into games at such relatively late date?

Originally Posted by joxer
I'm buying as soon as I see something like it somewhere!
My clothes are already mostly gamesbased, so there. And yes, I do meet new people thanks to those "rags".

I seen someone wearing a bare footprint (instead of the elder scrolls classic handprint ) with the caption "We don't have a clue" (or similar, don't remember exactly). We had a great conversation about it and turned out she was a total skyrim and ESO junkie.

Originally Posted by joxer
* Note that I have a friend who plays cstrike only to get lootboxes. But there is a catch, he sells boxes and their content if opened on the market and with that $ buys and plays proper games!

I dunno… that sounds like addiction reasoning talking. I only drink for the children. I'm not a coke user, I am a coke connoisseur.
I used to tell myself that when I sold UO items on ebay for absurd amounts. In reality it wasn't for the $

Morning debates in my company always seem to revolve around 1) cars, 2) home improvement, 3) taxes. Even mentioning games would imply you are waisting your life. Years ago a co-worker said he used to own a commodore (and forgot whatever games he was playing back then), another one mentioned he learned what Kerbal space program & Minecraft was from his kid, but that's it.

As mentioned before: Depends on the definition of games.
And it depends on the definition of "friends".
But for me it's pretty much 100% if you aren't too strict in both questions. Both of my parents as well as my brother are playing games on the PC (not all to the same degree of course). Regarding friends/peers: All of them play some games on the PC.

Ofc that also depends on you personally, how focused you are on games and how outgoing you are. And with that, what type of people you surround yourself with.
I have hardly any interest besides of games, I basically do not come in contact with "random people".
Therefore there is hardly any chance to actually talk to a non-gamer on the one hand, and on the other there wouldn't be much to talk to talk about if this person had no interest in games at all, which in turn is a bad basis for a friendship.

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
Do you mind if I ask how you got into games at such relatively late date?

Simple. There weren't many CRPGs (or even computers) back then. I started with Doom and went with the development of modern games. In that respect at least, we've grown up together.

Yeah, this is an interesting topic. I have a few friends which play console games. Very few are interested in PC games. Only one who also has an interest into RPGs, tho mostly the more popular stuff (Mass Effect, Witcher, Diablo, that kind of stuff). He's the only one I can at least sometimes discuss this hobby with.

And then I have that one friend who only talks about video games when he's drunk.

Video games are still something like the black sheep of hobbies. At least in my generation.

Many play games on consoles, but they don't count do they? My brothers are a bit more proper, they at least use a PC. But they mainly play competitive games like DOTA. I know no single person outside of this forum who enjoys the same type of games I do. I had one brother who did but he passed away last year, so now the Watch is the only place I know of where people get what I'm talking about.

"Oh, you like RPG's? Like Assasains Creed?" No.
"Oh, you like Strategy titles as well? Like SC2? No.

One of my brothers works at Paradox. Perhaps I should start bothering him at work and make some new friends. HIS co-workers are apparently all geeks. Mine are…normal?

Originally Posted by TomRon
One of my brothers works at Paradox. Perhaps I should start bothering him at work and make some new friends. HIS co-workers are apparently all geeks. Mine are…normal?

Or maybe his colleagues are normal and your co-workers are boring.
But if you are looking for other similar-minded people, facebook groups might actually be a good idea. E.g. I am in a facebook group called "Dungeon Crawlers : RetroGaming" which also gives a glimpse behind just forum avatars. Pretty sure there are other groups in that direction, maybe even something for local gatherings.
If you are interested in lokal meetups it might actually be a good idea to look for retro hardware groups. Ofc it depends on whether or not this is really a thing for you, but there are lots of Commodore 64 / Amiga Conventions and Mixed Retro Conventions in Europe, where a decent amount of people meet up talk about hardware and old games.

I cannot speak from personal experience there, but I follow these communities rather closely. If you happen to be in Germany for example, there is actually a retro event location where you can meet other like minded people and play some retro games (open once per week).
Ofc these are less RPG centric, as RPGs just don't lean towards short fun sessions, but it might lead to some connections. For example Oliver Lindau, who worked on the C64 conversion of Eye of the Beholder was a visitor there as well (and is a regular part of their (German) podcast).


Pic source: https://imagedatabase.de/gallerie/

Less than half. Some were gaming when they were younger (on C64, Amiga, and perhaps Doom and Duke Nukem on PC) but have lost interest in it. Some never played and never understood what's fun with it. Some will play socially, but not something they'd do on their own. My closest friend here is a Padadox fan, plays everything from them..

Some of the younger folks play but, basically, once they have kids, it's Game Over. Heck, it's hard to even keep them as friends once that happens.

Retirement should change that. My grandma was playing computer solitaire until she was 101!