If gaming didn't exist (Hypothesis)

[Social_Outlaw]

Hello Tempers, I got a good question to ask you all. Hypothetically, If gaming didn't exist at all, what do you think you would possibly be doing, instead of gaming as your primary or secondary thing to do when your bored or not?

 

[grossaffe]

murdering, probably.

 

[Zeliga]

Omg thats a really good question... It would just be like in the 18th century, every kid or teen is playing outside xD

 

[Social_Outlaw]

Omg thats a really good question... It would just be like in the 18th century, every kid or teen is playing outside xD

The real question is who really plays outside nowadays?... There are so many alternatives that Kids, Teens, and Adults would do instead, so I just wanna know.

 

[Zeliga]

The real question is who really plays outside nowadays?

I do sometimes with my friends, but I dont know maybe little kids?

 

[Smuff]

When I was a kid we were out all day with our bikes and footballs meeting up with our mates all over the place. It was all so spontaneous - no mobiles or forward planning of any kind. Just turn up and see what the day had to offer.

I realise this makes me sound like a sad wistful old fart - but that's exactly what I am I guess

Nowadays, if it wasn't for 30 odd years of gaming I would :
a. Have a lot more money
b. Have a lot more room
c. Have a much nicer house as I would have cracked on with all the little odd jobs I keep putting off for another round of BF4 or match on FIFA.

 

[Social_Outlaw]

I do sometimes with my friends, but I dont know maybe little kids?

You play outside sometimes with your friends, and of course little kids, but it is very rare nowadays. I know little kids want to do other stuff, also I was specifically targeting Teens, and Adults only.

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

Well when I was really young, I remember people did a lot of other things before the 2600 came out...

Models where far more popular back then, electronics kits where pretty fun, chemistry sets, GI Joe's, toys, cartoons, movies, playing outside was fun.

Of course there where down sides to all of this stuff... Lawn Jarts/Darts where considered evil, but here have this bow and arrow... and this BB gun! and this wrist rocket!!! lol Good times...

Bowling alley's and pool halls and roller rinks where more popular too.

(Trying to remember the crap that was popular when I was like 4 is tough... I was barely able to read for crying out loud...) I seem to remember frisbies being pretty popular too.

Oh and Yo Yo's everyone was always trying to learn some sort of trick like "walk the dog" or something... Records and 8 tracks oh yeah those where popular too.

Hmmm butterfly collecting? Catching snakes and other reptiles?

On the down side huffing gas was more popular back then as it contained lead and didn't have some additives we have now to keep people from doing it? Sniffing glue and cocaine and pot and women had less rights, racism was tolerated, some other drugs where popular too, oh and you where considered cool if you could smoke a cigarette and not cough up a lung! lol

Tonka trucks!!! Those where cool!!! All metal and you could hit your friend with them and they would run home crying to mommy!!! lol Take that you sissy!!! Oh shit he's bleeding.... Totally gonna get the belt for this one!!! lol

So yeah not all the changes to life from electronic entertainment are bad... Some are but overall I would say it's a positive change.

 

[Clydefrosch]

pretty much gaming analoguely?
we'd be playing much more board games and card games, probably reading or poetry and such.
literally, think how people spent their time 70 years ago.

 

[emigre]

I would have graduated with a 1st from University rather than my 2.1.

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

pretty much gaming analoguely?
we'd be playing much more board games and card games, probably reading or poetry and such.
literally, think how people spent their time 70 years ago.

Oh yeah board games where way more popular in the late 70's, UNO and Monopoly and Sorry and Life (I hated life....lol) Chutes and Ladders. Some of them where not too bad to be honest.

I remember one I had was called Garfield lol pretty fun to me but I was a kid... but I think that one came out when I was like 7 or something.

 

[DAZA]

thinking about that sort of scenario... i grew up with games and consoles its always been a big part of my life so if they never existed i would have ended up watching a little bit more t.v / films and just going out more often with friends... maybe find god...or satan, started to read more books on history, try and create my own army to take over the world.... endless possibilities... but in a parallel universe it may have already happened. so a message from myself to you all from an alternate reality... bow down to me I AM YOUR GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[WiiCube_2013]

There's still the board games but those things only seem to work for more than one player and it's not my kind of gaming.

I'd probably stick to listening to music, watching series or going out.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I'd probably just be watching even more TV and spending even more time on the internet.

 

[FAST6191]

Alas I can not really shut off science mode and thus this is a fairly silly what if

Play has been seen in countless longer lived species and is an evolutionary asset. Some might say it is more of an adolescent thing but they would be wrong, especially in humans.
Things like chess are often said to have sprung from war simulation/retelling methods. Abstraction is also a fairly necessary thing (see also language) and that is the root of games.
Gaming is tied to a very useful area of maths (see game theory), such things also have an incalculable influence over the stock market.

This then leaves me either being in some puritanical state or without several modern inventions. However most puritanical environments tend not to be the best for scientific development so they might be one and the same. Most such states really aren't though and I would like to believe I would be one of the fight the power types there.
I suppose there might be another one where there is no excess resource creation (probably through famine or something), however one of the most famous gaming stories in history (or perhaps legend) comes from such a period, see knucklebones.

Still if computer games had not caught my interest.... probably not learned computers beyond "how to word process", probably not learned electronics, in turn not cared as much for maths and done whatever the maths equivalent of learning word processing is (no job in finance or anything). It would have also impacted upon my desire to do anything science or engineering related..... even the desire to learn history would have been impacted.
I would probably have been and English language student or linguist of some other form.... however being a boring bastard for not knowing any of the above there would be precious little I could do with it. That might even be a stretch and all I would have done was stack shelves.
I can not picture a greater horror.

Fortunately I was given a NES, a toolkit and one of those little electronics experiment kits with the springs when I was very young.

 

[ilman]

I wouldn't be a programmer, that's for sure...

 

[Social_Outlaw]

Alas I can not really shut off science mode and thus this is a fairly silly what if

Play has been seen in countless longer lived species and is an evolutionary asset. Some might say it is more of an adolescent thing but they would be wrong, especially in humans.
Things like chess are often said to have sprung from war simulation/retelling methods. Abstraction is also a fairly necessary thing (see also language) and that is the root of games.
Gaming is tied to a very useful area of maths (see game theory), such things also have an incalculable influence over the stock market.

This then leaves me either being in some puritanical state or without several modern inventions. However most puritanical environments tend not to be the best for scientific development so they might be one and the same. Most such states really aren't though and I would like to believe I would be one of the fight the power types there.
I suppose there might be another one where there is no excess resource creation (probably through famine or something), however one of the most famous gaming stories in history (or perhaps legend) comes from such a period, see knucklebones.

Still if computer games had not caught my interest.... probably not learned computers beyond "how to word process", probably not learned electronics, in turn not cared as much for maths and done whatever the maths equivalent of learning word processing is (no job in finance or anything). It would have also impacted upon my desire to do anything science or engineering related..... even the desire to learn history would have been impacted.
I would probably have been and English language student or linguist of some other form.... however being a boring bastard for not knowing any of the above there would be precious little I could do with it. That might even be a stretch and all I would have done was stack shelves.
I can not picture a greater horror.

Fortunately I was given a NES, a toolkit and one of those little electronics experiment kits with the springs when I was very young.

Not to insult your intelligence, but just a question, how is it silly? I was just seeing what people has to say about the response, since this is a gaming forum. I highly doubt that there's any thread like this on any gaming forum, so it would be quite interesting for people who love games has to say about this. Also what you said at the top, I would've thought gaming/video games would be separated from that you mention above, since they did separate it by definition. While the root of gaming probably did come from chess, there's a way different new term for it, which was video gaming, but each was divided into its own meaning, so really I'm talking about another thing.

 

[FAST6191]

It was mainly that I have trouble shutting off science mode in my head and gaming is something of an inevitability; as long as electronics exist in anything resembling as accessible a form as they do then it is an inevitability for it to go electronic as well (memory, randomness generation and maths/logic potential guarantee it). I had similar problems with that invention of lying film a while back.
Not so long ago I was reading a book where it was religious taboo to try to predict the future, this had an impact on the games that were played and made for an interesting hypothetical.

If something physically can not happen or is bound to happen then debating otherwise seems kind of silly. Thus my only sensible answer was to wonder what would happen had I not got into them and how that might have occurred.

 

[FireGrey]

What if we're already in an alternate reality where something like gaming doesn't exist?

 

[Cyan]

you can't answer something like that, because you are already doing things "if something else didn't exist" without knowing you are doing them to replace something which doesn't exist.
What would you do if traveling to other planet wouldn't exist?... hum you would do what you currently do and it would not miss you to not do the thing you don't know! You won't be bored of not doing it.

gaming is everywhere, not only video games. "If gaming didn't exist" is not possible.
if video games didn't exist, people would still be gaming, even a very easy thing like action/reaction is gaming. Press a button to do something (guess a number, go out of a maze, etc.), and if TV/monitor didn't exist people would play that on paper, or even with their hand (guess how many fingers I have in my back?), or with speaking (find a work which starts with the last letter of the previous word) or memorize a sequence of sound with adding a note each time etc.

if "video games" didn't exist, I would watch TV and read a lot.