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Passionate vs Obsessed
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Post by
821119
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Thror
Because gaming is stigmatised in the general society, duh.
Post by
Rystrave
My boyfriend used to call me obsessed with Warcraft, but after living with me and watching me play, he has said himself that I'm passionate about it.
But like Thror said, gaming is incredibly stigmatised in society. Since gaming doesn't involve any actual physical demands, it's considered something a lazy man/woman only does. Those who partake in physical sports are often times called passionate because they have to work their bodies to achieve a certain goal.
That KFC commercial comes to mind of a mid-twenty-years-old man living in his parents basement, playing probably some Xbox and eating some KFC chicken tenders. His mom and dad come down, and tell him basically to grow up and stop playing video games and eating chicken nuggets. Then the son goes, "They're not chicken nuggets, they're chicken tenders." Then everything was hunky dory after that. I
I'm not sure where I was going there... I had more to say but got interrupted.
Anyway, yeah.
Post by
Thror
Well at the very least you made me laugh a lot, Rystrave.
Post by
Rystrave
lol - Mission accomplished!
Post by
ElhonnaDS
As many of you know, sports players are often described as passionate and 'with a love for their game'.
With the rise of e-sports, not really WoW but to a degree with competitive raiding/PvP, more FPS, RTS and MOBA games, people that practice these games 6-8 hours a day are called obsessed rather than passionate about their 'sport' (debatable whether you call it that).
My question is, why are cricketers, football, and rugby players called passionate, whilst e-sport players are called obsessed?
I don't know a lot of people who play sports for the same number of hours per day that "passionate" gamers play video games, without getting paid for it. Most people who are into physical sports will play on weekends or evenings, but not every evening, or 8-12 hours a day on weekends, which many gamers clock easily. For non-professionals, competitive gaming takes up a much larger chunk of free time than competitive non-professional sports. Someone who is obsessed with playing football might play for 3-4 hours a day, a couple of times a week. A person obsessed with a video games could log 12-16 hours every day of the week.
When a child spends a good chunk of time practicing football, there is a possibility of a return on that in terms of a measurable reward. Professional sports is a sizable industry in most countries, where as competitive video gaming (not to be confused with video game production) is not. Someone who spends a lot of time getting good at sports might have a future in top-tier professional sports (which is a long shot, to be sure), but there are many more jobs involved in lower tiered professional leagues (which is still a living), as sports coaches for schools or private kids sports leagues, sports writing and reporting (which has far more venues than video game reporting), etc. The odds of getting a job as the payoff for long hours practicing a sport is much more likely (or seems to be) than getting one for long hours playing video games. Even if they don't go pro, many college students will be able to earn scholarships through athletic accomplishments, so their skill might be the means to a successful career in a different field. There's no similar benefit for video games. While someone could be working towards a career if they were spending hours a day programming, or doing graphic design, just playing games- even playing them very well- doesn't correspond to practicing a skill set required for the industry.
In terms of related benefits, real sports help keep you in shape and help you stay healthy. Exercise has decided benefits for peoples health, and people who are passionate about playing sports get plenty of exercise. When they play 3-4 hours of football a couple of times a week, they are building muscle, improving cardiovascular health, keeping their metabolism high, etc. There aren't nearly the same types of advantages from the actual act of playing video games. There are various studies that say they may or may not improve various aspects of eye-hand coordination, or other traits, but it's not nearly as apparent or definite as the exercise benefit of sports.
Finally, there is a segment of the extreme gaming population who do develop a real issue with addiction, which is NOT something you hear about with people who play too many sports. I could name several people I knew directly whose gaming addiction cost them semesters in school they had to retake because they failed or had too many absences, who have had relationships that ended when gaming took too much time from the partner (granted, it may have been a symptom rather than a cause, but it's still an association that people have), etc. There is a thing called "gaming addiction" that people struggle with, and I don't see much of a corresponding segment of the sports-playing population who have trouble meeting school, work or relationship commitments because of their desire to play sports.
Clearly, it's not ALL, or even most gamers who would be obsessed rather than passionate. But there are significant differences between the two activities that make hours spent playing sports more productive than playing video games, and create real educational and career opportunities for people who excel at sports. Both are recreational and social, but sports is also exercise and pursuing a career or path to college. Combine that with the fact that "extreme" sports players devote much less of their time to playing than extreme gamers (comparing both groups when not being paid) and so are much less likely to have it interfere with other responsibilities and obligations on a regular basis, and you're looking at two different animals.
I agree that gaming is stigmatized, and people don't really understand it and so might have a poor ability to assess it. However, there are real measurable differences that have nothing to do with perception between the two.
Post by
HiVolt
I think that it's because while playing most video games, you're not moving a whole lot. Whereas while playing most sports, you move quite a bit. Therefore- to the outside observer- when you're gaming, you're not doing anything; but, when you're sporting, you're doing something. To those outside observers, it's easier to call someone passionate when they're actually doing something and it's easier to call someone obsessive when they don't really seem to be doing anything.
Of course, this is all going on the idea that these judgments are based solely on the level of physical activity. The same could be applied to reading versus sporting, or even to watching sports versus playing sports. Players are passionate and watchers are obsessive. It's the same idea.
I think what it really comes down to is that different people like different things. With things that they enjoy and understand, it's more satisfying for them to say that people are passionate about them because they want to cast those things in a positive light. However, with things they don't enjoy or understand, it's more satisfying to say that people are obsessive about them because they want to cast those things in a negative light, thereby drawing attention away from the things they don't enjoy and toward things that they do enjoy.
But, since context matters, one could easily be called passionate about something bad or obsessive about something good. When taken out of context, words don't matter; the intention of the speaker, however, always matters.
Also, words are fun. :D
Post by
Squishalot
I don't know a lot of people who play sports for the same number of hours per day that "passionate" gamers play video games, without getting paid for it. Most people who are into physical sports will play on weekends or evenings, but not every evening, or 8-12 hours a day on weekends, which many gamers clock easily. For non-professionals, competitive gaming takes up a much larger chunk of free time than competitive non-professional sports. Someone who is obsessed with playing football might play for 3-4 hours a day, a couple of times a week. A person obsessed with a video games could log 12-16 hours every day of the week.
I think that's the big difference. Pro-gamers aren't obsessed, they're passionate. Amateur gamers are the ones who are stigmatised as being obsessed, and that's because they're not getting paid nor are they near being rewarded. Just like the football fans who go to every single game they can - they're equally 'obsessed', not 'passionate'.
If I can draw a parallel - if a footballer was nowhere near competent enough to be considered for a major team and turning pro, and he played and practised every day of the week without getting any closer to that goal, would he be considered passionate or obsessed? Would people be telling him to go find a new hobby, a new goal, a new job, to go do something more with his life? Absolutely.
Another analogy - if a computer programmer quit his job and tried creating a new game, and spent 12-15 hours a day on it, if we saw no commercial hope in his efforts, we might say that he's obsessed. However, if we can see a successful reward at the end, we would be calling him passionate.
If we saw someone spending 8 hours a day, every day, on something they're not getting paid for, I'd generally feel very comfortable calling them obsessed.(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##Squishalot##DELIM##
Post by
Magician22773
The issue is, is that there are "sports", and there are "games". And you can have professionals, and you can have casuals in each. But just because you have professionals playing a game, does not make that game a sport.
Post by
Squishalot
But that's not the issue, I think. The stigma associated with 'obsessed' is that there is nothing to be gained from undertaking the task. You can have people obsessed with sports, just as you can have people passionate about gaming.
Post by
557473
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
331902
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
gamerunknown
I largely agree with Elhonna and Squishalot. The disparity is pecuniary.
There are two minor points of disagreement with Elhonna. First, there's almost a teleological tone to how sports will yield more money. Sports are not a productive industry, the revenue associates with sporting is derived from advertising. If video games capture a greater proportion of the public attention, the focus of advertisers will switch to video games. Expect more product placements, giveaways and shilling in general from streams.
The other is that exercise is an inherent benefit for sport. While sports players do have increased lifespans compared to the indolent public, no study has been able to account for general strength training.If sponsors mandated strength training for gaming competitors (something Lore has discussed) the disparity would begin to fade (though there is some degree of specific transfer from strength training to other sports that isn't present for esports).
Post by
Skreeran
I don't mind the stigma associated with obsession, really, so long as it's not destructive. I have a naturally obsessive personality. I remember I used to be obsessed with Bionicle, the Lego line. I read ever comic, bought my favorite figures, watched the movies, played the online game, knew all the lore... It was my passion.
After that it was Metroid. My friend showed me Metroid Prime, and I thought it was so cool I bought the game myself, and then was soon after writing fan-fiction and buying all the games. I read the obscure Manga that had been released in Japan alonside Super Metroid. I had my own Mary-Sue OC, S'kree'ran the Half-Pirate, a human who had been kidnapped as a boy and had his genes spliced with Space Pirate DNA (and also the inspiration for my screenname). The Metroid board on the Nintendo NSider Forums was my first regularly used message board.
After Metroid, it was Runescape. I became obsessed with the lore of Gielinor (the Runescape world), and actually completely all but 9 of the quests at one point. I got in touch with a group of likewise obsessed fellows on the WOMDA (Wise Old Man Detective Agency)
Board
, and would rabidly discuss personal theories and speculation about the future of Runescape.
And after I lost my taste in Runescape, I moved to WoW. Ask anyone here who knows me from the L&RP board, I was (and still kind of am) obsessed with WoW lore.
I took a nearly two year hiatus from WoW, though, in part because of my joining the Army. During that time, I grew obsessed with My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and that world. I've spent hours thinking through different theories on how or where things in that universe come from, and what might happen in the future. I write fan-fics, I buy the toy versions of the characters I like, I visit Equestria Daily every day, and most of the music on my phone came from the Brony community.
My point is that obsession is not something I feel to be wrong, bad, or unnatural. There are certainly obsessions that can be dangerous (see: stalkers), but when it's something like video games or fantasy fiction, I don't think it's always a bad thing.
TL;DR: Obsessiveness is just a part of who I am, and I refuse to accept that it's a bad part.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
@ Gamer- I do understand what you're saying, but under that argument if they could get enough public interest in watching me brush my hair, then I'd attract advertisers and spending 4-5 hours a day brushing my hair would be equally lucrative. Any activity COULD be lucrative, or grounds for being granted a scholarship, if society would agree that it was. The fact of the matter, though, is that right now sports IS both of those things, and video games are not (at least in most countries). Whether or not it has intrinsic value because it's a sport, it does have societal value as part of the tradition of our educational institutions, and it does have a large associated industry, making knowledge of the game and skill in the game a much more likely to be lucrative skill set than the same kind of expertise in video games is. It's a real difference, regardless of why the difference exists.
Also, the actual act of playing a sport is exercise in and of itself, and most video games (especially competitive ones) are not. In a hypothetical situation where people had to exercise to play video games, then video games would have the benefit of being a form of exercise. But again, you're asking us to take into account situations that could possibly exist if there were significant changes in gaming, vs. situations that already exist in sports and compare the two, and that's not really a legitimate comparison.
I understand that if large segments of the population suddenly wanted to watch competitive video games, that would become a career path, but right now it isn't. If educational institutions wanted to develop competitive video game leagues for students and use them to generate income and publicity for the school, then they would become a path to a scholarship- but right now it isn't. If they somehow found a way to make you have to exercise while playing video games, so that the health benefits would be forced into an arena where they were equal with the exercise you get naturally by playing and practicing sports, then they would be good for your health- but that's not realistic at all.
It's not really viable for someone to claim that because something could, with sweeping societal changes and artificially enforced physical training requirements, become equal to sports in terms of benefit, that they should be viewed as having equal benefit currently. As it stands now, you're weighing a purely recreational activity, against a recreational activity with health benefits, and with a set of observable career and scholarship paths that it can lead to.
Post by
334295
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
gamerunknown
Points well expanded. I didn't mean to deny that performing sports are healthy in and of themselves, just that it's difficult to account for how many health benefits are conferred by each individual sport and how many are due to training in general.
Edit: Oh and I should point out (though I think you probably remember) I'm one of the people who played WoW to the exclusion of very reasonable things like brushing teeth, attending lectures and exercising. Managed to make a clean break from it though.
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