The other night I was at my good friends for her 22nd birthday party. It was fun, drinks to be had, pretty typical. THEN someone broke out the N64 to play mario kart 64. I love that game and I love playing it, and I enjoy playing Beer-io Kart (i'm sure most of you have played and/or heard about it-- basically you drink a beer before you finish the race). But i have to say, pulling out the games in this scenario killed hte mood.
It ended conversation, and people were just staring at the tv, watching us play games, or playing the games. I ended up tossing the controller after two races because I wanted to be social.
I thought thatd be the end of the videogame killing the party, but then people whipped out their iPhones to play cuberunner. So then I started chatting with people who were staring at their phones. It was pretty whack in my opinion.
I was wondering if anyone else has had this dilemma of video games ruinign social interactions party or other wise?
As a side not though. One party I was at was themed mario party party, in which my friends made a real-life mario party drinking game. It was awesome. THink of it as a combo of beer pong, with minni drinking games and other fun/weird shenanigans.
Yeah, I've experienced similar situations. I've also had conversations with people where they're playing a game and don't bother putting their phone away to continue talking. That makes me feel like Angry Birds has higher priority at that moment, though I sometimes do the same thing with texting. Anyways, games tai us away from reality. Let's all just go back to playing with sticks and that ball tied to a wooden cup.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed6Yr81jZ6g#t=0m44s
I'm a little fearful of the concept of Nintendo drinking games but I've also been places where games on screen=end of conversation. I've found one needs more patience with watching people play than I have in those kind of settings.
ReplyDeleteOn the up (or maybe down) side, once you are at parties where your friends' kids are around 4 and up, watching them play games is *totally hysterical*, esp. if the host has a game that the other kids haven't encountered before.
I heard people like to play Tekken before they drink. Any thoughts on this? Maybe it gets the blood pumping and ready for some alcohol.
ReplyDeleteI've actually never been to a party where video games were taken out. That's so interesting. So are you saying that although some video games promote gameplay with others, they don't necessarily promote social interaction?
ReplyDeleteI've hung out in dorm rooms and played video games, and i've also been at parties where games were part of what we did. I think it really depends on the group, because most of the times I've experience this, the noise level has gone UP, everyone is yelling at each other and engaging with the screen. Also, in my language in society class, we had to do a project where we recorded speech interactions and wrote a paper on them, and I wrote about me and my friends playing Super Smash Brothers Brawl. One of the things I noticed a lot of was that in games like this, people generally pick a character onscreen and identify with them, use the first person, talk to other characters as if they were real-world interactions.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, drunk mario kart is super fun.