Has adventure gaming had an aggregate effect on your life over time?

[Akatosh]

(that didn't belong here, sorry)

[ManicMatt]

TWO? Are you sure about that? Did you actually play games or just suck on the joystick? 

[Janik]

I started playing adventure games when I was like 7 or 8 (making it like 18 years), when my parents bought Kings Quest 3 and 4 for my sisters, and Larry 1 for me (no, I had no idea what was really going on ).

First of all the games helped me learn english, (I'm from Quebec) - I remember looking through the dictionnary and everything for a long time to read a dialog that just said 'you can't look under the carpet because you're standing on it'. 

Second, I was attracted to the puzzle-solving part of it and I think that kind of skill-building did transpose to regular life. I'm a physics student now, and when something breaks, I go into 'adventure gamer mode' where I have to figure out how to improvise a solution with what's at hand. For instance we have to manipulate samples in an ultra-high vacuum chamber, and we have various manipulators that can move remotely but usually only have 1 or 2 axes of freedom. When something is about to fall off or we need to do something unusual, we have to think outside the box to do it, because we can't just reach in there and fix it

As far as escapism goes, for me it was (and still is) just fun, not so much an escape from something bad.

[FamousAdventurer77]

A huge collective thanks to everyone who participated and sent me their input; I got this freakin book of a term paper/research project all finished.

There were countless points to go off on for the project; but I decided the main one to be driven home is that the gaming market sure has changed, and why not compare my personal and demi-personal interviews with various adventure gamers, to the big researchers who've done aggregate studies on this new generation with a love of violent reflex-based strategy/war/shooter games? And compare types of players while we're at it too.

The aggregate effect of the latter from braod university studies seems to be that almost 50% of them while boasting advanced hand-eye coordination also appear to have been fairly desensitized to blood and acts of intended violence. Age range appears to be from 15 to 25, predominantly male players. I think they were also predominantly American but can't determine this.


Aggregate effect of the former: Sharpened deductive reasoning. Enhanced interrogation skills. Enhanced resourcefulness. For the people in my age bracket, considered prodigies as children especially if English was not their primary language and used old school adventure games as tools to help them learn English. (Especially since this was all prior to the days of dictionary.com and billions of translation sites [all in varying levels of innaccuracy but good to look up a word or two sometimes. Or, just plain asking a member of the forum or in a chat room if they spoke a certain language to help them translate it properly!]) Highest aggregate effect was that games in general were seen as a form of escape namely from peer and/or family trouble; that those who trod on them in real life could be easily forgotten when you're a strong and powerful Hero kicking goblin ass and breaking enchantments or an intergalactic janitor trying to save the universe. RPG's have a higher escapism factor for this reason than adventure games do. But of all game types, they are fairly predominant for escapism themes.

Basically though, of my 24 interviewees, 65% said that indeed adventure gaming over long periods of time had a great impact on them. 27% feel neutral, that while they miss old-school gaming, it was just part of what they did but definitely didn't deny that it helped shaped who they became. 8% said they felt no effect-- just thought-provoking entertainment, no more no less. Age range was varied; youngest interviewee being 14 and oldest interviewee 43. Diverse nationalities of gamers as well-- mostly from Americans and English gamers but also got replies from other nations of the UK, Canada, and various European nations. Interviewees predominantly male but a significantly higher number of females than that of the new-school gaming data, better yet to boot my research was a much smaller scale. Us female gamers and game developers are rather hard to find for sure but it looks like we definitely favor adventure games over the 3D kill-everything-in-your-way action of today.

If you read this far in the rant I totally applaud you.

So anyone who's replied/PMed/followed the discussions in this thread, you're now wondering what did my study boil down to?

You pretty much have to be smarter, and around in the golden age of point-and-click adventure games (especially if you were around to appreciate the big technological advance of text parsers to PNC interfaces, and CGA to VGA graphic imaging...oh remember when it was a HUGE deal to use photos in the games and how it seemed like a near impossible task?) to really appreciate them but the overall effect is that they seem to have made people smarter and more resourceful. Creativity seems to be stunted with this new generation...action and reflex-based games, including non-violent ones, just don't seem to inspire people and let creativity flow through as much as adventure games do. When one sees a story unfold and they have a strong creative thread in them: Well, it just makes them want to tell a story too! And eventually make their own game. As cool as shooting 50,000 3D lifelike rendered zombies before they drain all your health points sounds, it doesn't really seem to be as much a creative outlet as unfolding the colorful humor and drama of a classic like LSL5, or solving an old-fashioned mystery like the cases of Laura Bow. Basically, there is living proof that intellectually stimulating games like these really seem to have a beneficial effect on people whereas the new generation's games pretty much don't. I'm not saying you're going to turn into a violence-desensitized sore-wristed dumb drone by playing them: but as much as I love freedom and expression and the occasional bout of VGA-rendered blood for drama purposes, it is something you might want to take into account if you have children/people close to you have children. I mean, I described the aggregate effects long-term adventure gaming had on me since childhood as did a majority of the people I interviewed: sadly this next generation or two down from us won't really be saying the same things with that type of gaming. But violence and desensitizing is a whole different topic that can generate a lot of conversation and controversy as well and this thread/topic isn't the place for it. I've written papers on video and computer game violence and how I namely stick up for the game developers and players rather than the coalitions who want to ban the games so I'm always game for this topic. But yeah, this thread isn't the place for it.

But whew, this was a project well finished. One down and two to go.


Once again, many thanks to those who replied to this thread either publicly or through PM, you not only enabled me to produce a smashing final exam project but also made it something I actually liked working on for a change (anyone who's currently going through Finals Week right now, good luck to you. I'm almost through with mine and would love nothing more to stab myself in the brain with a rusty fondue fork to make the studying-induced hallucinations stop. But usually the subject matter for exam-term papers is duller than watching paint dry.) and could offer lots of input and life experience on, including the stories, opinions, and achievements of other gamers from all walks of life.

Even though my project's done with, the topic is obviously still open for discussion.