I’m an older dude whose phase of staying up all night playing was back in the early console days. I prefer in-person tabletop RPGs like D&D, Traveller and Call of Cthulhu. Just not into computer games anymore, but that and social media seem to be most people’s primary computer activities.
Game chatter has changed over the years - I used to see a lot of talk about graphics quality and massively powerful hardware - maybe that was during a period when it was rapidly improving, I dunno. But the current focus seems to be more on game industry business decisions sucking.
Anyway I’m just wondering how common it is to use computers more for coding and other technical non-game stuff.
I mostly use my Mac for business stuff, art and coding. The PC spends most of its time on offloaded AI tasks and rendering jobs. It was originally a toy for gaming but I’d rather use my Steam Deck for that now.
54M here. Rolled my first D&D character in 1978. Played GURPS, Twighlight 2000, Traveller, you name it I probably have at least dabbled in playing it.
Today I play D&D 2024 and 5e, Call of Cthulhu, Castles and Crusades and a few others. Some on Roll20, or Foundry VTT (which is awesome BTW.) My primary gaming group is all fathers and mothers spread out across the country.
As far as actual Computer games, I used to be into Flight Sims, but dropping $500 plus on JUST a graphics card is just not something that is going to happen. It’s not the wife acceptance factor, it the sheer balls the graphics card manufacturers have charging that much for their crap. I still dust off MS FS 2004 and run it on my Dell Precision laptop, but my machine won’t run the latest version. I would like to see if it would run Battlestar Galactica Deadlock though.
Otherwise, I have had a home server for many years. It runs Proxmox and I have containers running Plex, Homeseer, SMB (acts as my NAS), and it provides backup services for every other computer in the house.
For reference, I am an IT Professional, with about 30 years in the business.
Wow dude, I probably started D&D a year or two after you. It was the summer the first DMG came out. Still have those original 3 hardbacks, Deities & Demigods, etc. The DMG is pretty tattered. I actually DM a weekly 1e game at my house with some friends I found on meetup.com before Covid. We’re all really into retro - I’m gonna see how they feel about Castles & Crusades, which I’ve never played in all these years.
Here are the older edition books I have. My 1e DMG and PH have been lost to time. That copy of the Monster Manual is one of the originals. The Deities and Demigods though is NOT one of the issues with HP Lovecraft’s monsters in it. I have seen one of those editions, one of my local games stores has one for sale for over $300, but that’s not what I have. Not shown are all the 5e stuff I have. In my youth it was a challenge to save up enough to buy material when it came out. As an adult, especially since I got the wife playing, yeah… I’ve indulged quite a bit.
Those are all in great looking shape. I didn’t have the “Cthulhu Deities & Demigods” either until a few years ago - it was in a box of D&D stuff my sister bought me at a garage sale for $30. There were 7 or 8 books and maybe 15 old modules - with a couple still in the plastic. Quite a haul it was. Dunno if I mentioned above but I worked for WotC for a couple years around 2010. There was a “free table” in the break room where people put books, minis, t-shirts, whatever was cluttering up their desks - it was a gold mine.
That’s awesome!
I live about an hour away from Lake Geneva, WI, which is Gygax’s hometown and the birthplace of D&D. I worked with someone that worked at TSR during the 2e days and he has a lot of stories. (The only thing he has to say about Gary Gygax is; “The guy owes me money.”) Last April I attended a conference in Lake Geneva at the location of the very first Game Con. The Wisconsin Historical Society sponsored it. It was a great time and will be going back again this year.
My books look in great shape… From that angle. LOL… They have thousands upon thousands of hours of playing behind them over the last 40 years. Every page has smudges on them from where they’ve been turned again and again.
gpu prices are wild, I think amds better ones are not too bad tho and can run vr flight sims fine, winwig dropped a good cheap (around 100$) my issue is warthundes the only arcadey pvp option, their next game might be good tho, I really want s good flight sim game to hop on and off, treat like cod, drop into a city to close quarter dog fight or be what I thought war thunder was (a massive war with servers for different eras you can drop in as any vehicle type lol, I was delusional)
the dopamine from vr dogfights in close quarters with buildings to fly around and use as cover is insane, I also like the landing to capture base domination mode, warthunder could be so peak if they werent abusive
I never play, i always code… And i am not even that good at it 😢
Practice makes perfect!
My primary use is photo editing for a photography hobby. I shoot wildlife and upload photos to iNaturalist. I shoot sports for a local junior college and an adult baseball league.
I don’t watch a ton of movies, but it also serves as my Plex server. I leave it off unless I want to watch something though.
There are games on it, but I rarely get that itch anymore. In my teens and 20s, 1000 hours a year would have been a slow year. It’s probably more like 0-100 a year now.
Linux stuff
this for me too
I use the crap out of my computer.
-Video editing -Music editing -Word processing -Spreadsheets -Microprocessor programming -YouTube viewing -Image editing -Shopping -Investing -Web surfing -3D printing -CNC Routing -Website development
- Oh and gaming.
Photo editing. As a helping tool for guitar with Guitar Pro and Songsterr and HX edit. I also spend a fair bit of time on my homelab, configuring servers, networks and maintaining my self hosted empire.
My main computer is a 500$ laptop that I use for writing, bills, shipping, etc. My gaming laptop comes out maybe once a week.
Mainly gaming but if I’m looking things up online and need multiple tabs. I won’t use mobile. Mobile sucks ass for that.
Multiple tabs and two monitors makes things much easier to do research.
Spreadsheet work for my business… on mobile?
I’m crazy not stupid.
I spend a lot more time coding than playing games. It’s not unusual for me to not be active on steam for a month.
I don’t use my computers for modern gaming. Like OP, I prefer tabletop games, though I do speed run crossword puzzles and play some PixelDungeon on my phone when I have spare time. I also built a Retropie, and play some old Atari and PS2 roms on a bored Sunday. My stuff can run Civ IV, which is probably the last title I bought.
My main systems are for work, or for supporting self-hosted services including local infrastructure, home lab stuff, email, blogs, home automation, media servers, etc, etc. Lately I’ve been getting into SDR projects using RPi or old laptops.
So, uh… Yeah. Fun stuff, but not so much gaming.
I’m not a gamer. Work at computer all day, only mobile (no games either) outside work.
I’m in my 40s and I sort of just dropped out of gaming on PC. I game on a console when I feel like I want to game.
My desktop rarely gets turned on anymore and I only use it for a cracked version of Wizards of the Coast’s 4E character builder because I play in a group that runs fourth edition.
My laptop is for learning things (IT related), general browsing, taxes, and whatever I feel like doing that feels cumbersome on a phone.
Technically my primary computer activities are gaming, but these days I game exclusively on the Steam Deck or the tablet (for mobile games)…
My most speced-out computer was actually purchased for work related reasons. I wanted a decent GPU because I thought I’d be working in deep learning. Well current job doesn’t require training models and I was required to use a dedicated work laptop so… This high-spec one I mainly use for just about everything else other than gaming
I mostly use my laptop for coding, language learning, and watching TV series. I do play games on it but rarely, I got enough consoles and handhelds and I prefer using them instead of the computer, I’d use the computer if I want to play a game for a console I don’t have tho.
