The Answer To Life, The Universe And Everything
by Lee
Apparently women think about shopping every 60 seconds and guys think about sex every 53 seconds. Personally, I think that’s rubbish but it was in a newspaper and everything,
so with that in mind I thought I’d conduct a very sciencey type experiment thing and try work out how often gamers think about games. First thing I need is a gamer. Now, I’m not paying one to conduct my experiments on so I guess I’ll have to do them on myself. Now I need a brain reader thingy – woa! Those CT scanner things are expensive maybe I’ll just use the notepad on my iPhone. So on to the experiment. My aim is to find out how often gamers think about games, so I’ll write down the time and the thought in question. Non gamers beware this is, well as best as I can tell, what your gaming friends are thinking most of the time.
Today is the Friday before Mass Effect 2.
Thoughts occur in real time…
Waking thought
BBC should make a live action version of Peggle, players could be in teams of two, one answers questions and aims the other is trapped in a zorb ball. They could put it on before the lottery, Brucey could present or maybe Vernon Kay. It would be like bulls eye – they could have a proper gamer come in to raise money for charity half way through and the trophy could be a bendy Bjorn The Unicorn.
9:45 am quick flick through joystiq.com while the computer dispatches the orders at work. This story caught my eye maybe Eidos should make a game where you play a disgruntled CEO of a games company who lost everything because of the bad press his game got and you have to stalk and kill the employs of a TV news station. It would be like a shot across the bow of the news corps. They’ll think harder before slamming games they haven’t played like Mass Effect and the whole sex scene thing.
9:58 am I hate Bobby Kotick
There's an easter egg later on where it opens up a level where you get to play as Victor singing "Some Might Say". Apparently.
10:28 am Checked my email. My brother has been inspired my brilliant journalistic skills and has submitted an article: To Beta Or Not To Beta. I’ll read it later.
10:29 am Lol, he forgot to attach it.
11:00 am Victor is trying to justify his Hannah Montana gaming by suggesting it’s for an article. I do wonder why he’s posting it on the Gaming Lives account and not his own – I think he doesn’t want people to know what he’s been up to – Vic man I love you, you’re the John Shaft of the internet but seriously there’s no going back from what you did.
11:26 am Just did my follow Fridays on twitter they are very gaming related today.
http://twitter.com/justbiglee/status/8065784484
http://twitter.com/justbiglee/status/8065889498
http://twitter.com/justbiglee/status/8065916655
http://twitter.com/justbiglee/status/8065949310
http://twitter.com/justbiglee/status/8066058296
12:16 pm I don’t like secrets what’s the big secret? I wonder if it’s an iPhone app? that would be cool. Think I’ll see what today’s post is.
12:17 pm Lorna doesn’t like avatars on the Xbox, I like mine. I look cool but I did have to buy the top and eye piece and in real world money I have no idea how much they cost.
12:19 pm I bought the Sims 3 for some odd reason, I made an exact digital copy of myself in every single way, I even recreated my flat as accurately as I could. Then when I started the game up, mini me walked in sat on the sofa and fired the games console up, he forgot to eat and then fell asleep on the sofa – I found it scary that I am living my life as intended and to my potential, but I haven’t played the Sims since.
Dozens of uses, honest.
12:21 pm You have to pay for stuff on Farmville?
12:23 pm Nobody’s made a good steam punk game (except BioShock).
12:24 pm Lol, rubber chicken with a pulley.
12:59 pm I want an Isaac figure from Dead Space.
13:39 pm Game’s shop window is all Mass Effected up, man I want that game.
13:49 pm EA made an Army Of Two comic?? Is there anything they won’t make into a comic? I hate that game.
13:55 pm I bought the Isaac figure, he’s cool.
14:10 pm The army are recruiting for cannon fodder in town, if it was the UNSC I’d sign up like that.
14:54 pm Can’t wait ‘til I get home going, to get Isaac out the box….
14:55 pm OMG he lights up, that’s awesome I must tweet this and tell all.
15:41 pm Another flick round joystiq. Ohh DLC for Assassins Creed 2. 320 points is cheap – it must be short or crap, or both.
15:42 pm I hope EA don’t cock up this DLC thing for Mass Effect 2
15:44 pm Oh balls! Dads got my copy of Assassin’s Creed 2 no DLC for me 
17:11 pm Talking with Kev at work about how cool it would be to play Dead Space for the first time again. I wish I could play loads of games for the first time again.
17:54 pm Ohh what’s the super secret thing on Gaming Lives gonna be? I hate not knowing things. Maybe we are going to do Gaming Lives branded tablet PC, they are all the rage at the min. Or cake, there was an icing comment earlier.
18:10 pm Ohh a forum, shiney – still it’s not cake though is it?
18:11 pm I still think Ben owes me a cake.
18:53 pm I’ve got no games to play.
20:25 pm Think I’ll put it the Xbox on anyway.
20:30 pm Talking to my friend Pete about The Saboteur, I’m not sure if I’ll like it might wait for it to hit the sales.
Darksiders... exciting new minigame where you have to try and swear as often as possible within a few minutes.
20:36 pm Gonna try do this bit on Darksiders again, I think I’ll end up losing my temper and end up killing another polar bear.
20:39 pm Attempt one killed by two ghost witch things.
20:43 pm Attempt two killed the first two, then a big bloody red thing showed up, then two more witches and some flying buggers – I died again.
20:45 pm Attempt three. Rinsed by the first two witches again.
20:47 pm I won’t type what I screamed this is a family place.
20:48 pm Gorrammit!
20:53 pm Garrrhrr!
21:00 pm Rawwwwwwrrr!
21:15 pm Thank frak for that, I’m not going to write how many times I failed, I was so close to trading this in.
23:22 pm Bored of Darksiders tonight now.
23:35 pm Oh, GamesTM I forgot I bought that.
00:37 am I could be a space marine.
Saturday
09:49 am Wonder if this weeks invisible walls is up yet? Yay it is. Oh bloody hell it’s about Mass Effect 2, there’s a new bonus round up too I’ll watch that later. Think I’ll just have a look at what else is going on while that downloads.
10:06 am More politicians sticking their nose in our games again, except this one chickened out of a debate.
Eidos' Ian Livingstone breaks out the big guns
10:08 am Upon further investigation he was up against Eidos’ Ian Livingstone, the same guy from yesterday’s news story. Maybe he heard about Eidos’ other new game where you play a disgruntled CEO of a games company who lost everything because of new laws on violent games and you have to stalk MP’s and pick them off one by one slowly working your way up to Gordon Brown. Like Assassins Creed except not as good.
11:06 am Invisible walls was good this week looks like they are finally getting hold of losing Marcus beer. I’m also getting much love on twitter and the site for my Army Of Two review – I was nervous about that one.
11:16 am I just YouTubed the Hannah Montana game – wtf is victor doing playing that, I had to stop the video after 14 seconds it drove me crazy!
12:02 pm Oh the BBC want to get back into games – oh it’s not proper games, Facebook ones and that crap.
12:05 pm A Stig game would be cool it could be like Halo except with cooler cars and he’d be white or maybe a Lego Top Gear game where the studio is the hub like in Star Wars and you replay the challenges but in Lego form – it could be four player online co-op with Stig, Hammond, Clarkson and Captain Slow. Actually I’d buy that – that would be a really good game. You could have online leader boards shared with your friend’s lists for the star in a reasonably priced car section and the cool wall could be where you pick to reply levels. Jeremy’s special attack could be hitting things with a hammer.
12:25 pm Argh my Xbox Live is due to expire better get up town.
124:3 pm Oh no it’s not I just remembered I had a 12 moth card I registered last year, I hope it’ll kick in automatically, I can find it on the Xbox site anywhere.
13:20 pm Think I’ll pop Darksiders in again, I can’t decide if this is a bad game or a rubbish one.
14:45 pm I think it’s both, don’t think I can be arsed with it anymore- I’ve not played Forza in ages I’ll play that.
16:50 pm Man, I’m hungry and bored of Forza again, it’s a good game just in small spats, my brother has coined a good phrase for what I’m going through – “disc twitching” is where you can’t play anything that isn’t the game that’s not out yet. In this case, Mass Effect 2.
16:51 pm These two planks on sentuamessage do my head in, do people really ask these questions? What I think happens is that plank A and plank B want to tell us something and they just look for another plank (plank C) who happened to ask the question.
16:52 pm With this games room thing, why do we have to pay again for games that are probably out of copyright anyway?
16:53 pm Nobody asked that Halo question anybody who like Halo bought ODST and would have the maps. Kane and Lynch looks rubbish. I’m not going to play it because I love Geoff Gurstman.
16:54 pm God why do I watch this every week? They should just put aceybongos on punching small children who keep asking about chocobos.
17:10 pm I wonder what happened to the pretty lady off sentuamessage.
At least if Hammond crashes they can always use Superglue
17:11 pm I might send them a message asking when the Top Gear Lego game is out, or the one where you play as a disgruntled CEO of a games company and go around stalking news presenters and politicians.
17:14 pm Haven’t played Portal in ages, I might just pop it on so I can watch the end.
18:33 pm This was a triumph. I’m making a note here, huge success…
18:35 pm Portal is one of those rare games that have a soul. I love this game.
18:40 pm Bored again now.
19:00 pm Doodle Jump on the iPhone is the most addictive game ever, except maybe Peggle.
19:45 pm I’m worried BioShock 2 could be rubbish that games had like five dev’s – too many cooks and all that.
20:30 pm Maybe I’ll finish GamesTM
22:49 pm I hope this article for Gaming Lives doesn’t get boring. Maybe I’ll go bed and end it here.
22:50 pm Wow, I’ve written a lot I can’t believe I was entertaining the thought of doing this for a week!
So there you have it. The average gamer thinks about games on average every 42 minutes and you also have the inner workings of a gamers head, not every gamer though. an MMO gamer will have completely different thoughts across a day, they would be things like “I’m gonna be the first to kill the Litch king” and casual gamer would think things like “ohh but if I have this slice of cake my fitness age will go up” but they would all be about the same, well except the casual gamers they tend to think about real world things too like shopping or sex.
Games featured in this article
For more information on any of the games featured in this article, click on any of the links below
Last five articles by Lee
- Skullgirls - Preview
- Darksiders II - Preview
- Resistance 3 Interview with Jon Pacquette
- Ridge Racer Unbounded Hands-on Preview
- Forza Motorsport 4 Preview: Better with Kinect?
@Markuzr- tell me you didnt build a lego topgear set for that photo
Hee! Very funny! I’m trying to write your comment but I keep thinking about shopping – argh! What if I’m thinking about shopping for games? That means I’m thinking about games twice as much. I’m not sure how much I actually think about gaming in reality. Probably a lot more than I think I do!
@Lee… actually sir, I was surprised to find that image on Google, so I can only assume that Top Gear did actually throw in a little Lego skit at one point or someone else just has far too much time on their hands!
I loved this article though – I found myself reading it properly when I was supposed to just be editing it (I know what I mean, honestly) and was quite surprised at how the mind works. The day you sent it over though, I did mention how Lorna and I had been in the city on the train a few days beforehand and it rekindled my interest in Fallout 3 as we passed a particular section of the mainline track from Lanark to Glasgow that looks remarkably like Meresti Train Yard and this time we paused there for a few moments. Later on, when we had to make the return journey, we were standing in the low level area and I immediately found myself looking for railway spikes again as I’d previously mentioned in the Overspill article (http://www.gaminglives.com/2009/12/18/overspill/) as well as imagining ghouls racing up the tunnels towards me.
On reflection of that day, I counted several references to gaming (some of which I’m sure Lorna herself will mention) and a lot of the conversations on the train ended up veering towards games. It was just fascinating to read it from someone else’s perspective though, and I agree with you… Victor is hiding his love for the Montana for sure
Really enjoyed this piece, it was unusal and quite scary because I hate to think what mine (or indeed anybody else’s) would be like.
You seem to spend as much time thinking about cake and extorting cake as about gaming, but damned if I didn’t laugh at this several times… it’s an interesting experiment, and either you’re nuts or should have been a comedian. I’m kind of annoyed I didn’t think of this myself.
I’m glad to know I wasn’t the only person amused and freaked out in equal measure to log into Live in the middle of the night and see Victor playing Hannah Montana. Of course, I told him that Darach could play it better than he could and would have gotten all the achievements, so that’s why he spent longer on it than he might have otherwise done. Not very good friendly of me, but it sure was entertaining to watch.
Still trying to figure out what the hell made you think of the rubber chicken with the pulley in the middle…
@the preacher i think lorna mentions the rubber chicken and the pully in her article, that said theres not a week that goes by when i dont try and jam “rubber chicken with a pully” into a converstation.
glad you all liked it, i knew it was either going to work or it wasnt, I get nervous handing stuff in for marking. Some credit should go to MarkuzR though, he tidys up all the words I throw at the page and makes it readable.
and come on who wouldn’t buy the lego top gear game?
Excellent Lee
*goes to look for a Lego Top Gear set*
I had to laugh. This article is great. I am trying to decide what I think about more. Gaming, debts, sex or my job. I can’t quite decide. I wonder what that makes me. But kudos on a unique perspective to an popular topic.
Was Beneath A Steel Sky a steam punk game?
@mrcuddleswick i dunno, i dont think so
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