I dunno. I can build a CPU from a bucket of transistors, design an ISA for it, microcode it, and write an OS for it in assembler. But games bore the shit out of me.
Except flight simulators. They're great as long as they have realistic physics.
The older I got, the more games just seemed like pointless wastes of time. Makes me sad to think back on how much time I wasted. I still fire up an old game or emulator out of nostalgia occasionally, but the time before I turn it off gets shorter and shorter.
Same. I grew up with computers. I wrote games on my Oric like my life depended on it (well, it was because that was the only way to get any games on the Oric..)
I stopped playing video games after a stint at a popular video game company, where I realized that the purpose of the company was basically to trap teenagers in a box, like rats, and watch them try to get out.
Flight sims are about all I can be bothered to invest in, time-wise these days. Oh, and I love my retro- collection. I frequently find myself MAME'ing out, just for the nostalgia. Crazy Climber and Scramble and Juno First and Defender, in case you're wondering.
Synthesizers, on the other hand - I just can't get enough.
Not all nerds are gamers. Some of us are knob tweakers too.
I'm in my mid 50s and don't agree. Maybe they were for you, but I have many fond memories of games and gaming. There is a balance, of course, and maybe you spent way more time than I did, but even now I think they can be a great thing to do. All the fantasy/sci-fi reading I did? I kind of regret that time though. Definitely regret most of the time I spent just channel surfacing back in the "corded" TV days.
I honestly wish I had more time to play different games.
You ten years ago were not you today. I’ve played a ton of games when I was younger and I firmly believe at least some of them were helpful in life and it was passion for games that got me into IT and software engineering in the first place.
> Except flight simulators. They're great as long as they have realistic physics.
I'm quite fascinated by the huge overlap of flight enthusiasts and computer nerds. Any discussion on HN even tangentially involving flight will have at least one thread discussing details of aviation. Why planes, and not cars or coffee machines or urban planning?
Funnily enough there are multiple games where you do logic design now. Though if I had to recommend one game for you to try, it would have to be Factorio.
Except flight simulators. They're great as long as they have realistic physics.