Couch (Social) gaming in the modern era

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Alucard1191
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Couch (Social) gaming in the modern era

Postby Alucard1191 » July 21st, 2021, 10:17 am

I have a question for those of you that, even with marriages and kids and businesses and life stuff, manage to have couch gaming time.

How do you manage it? How large of a group of friends do those of you who can meet up for a smash tournament or retro gaming parties have? Is your group of friends left over from your youth or have many of you made gaming friends with Co-Workers and what not.

I think part of it is where I live, small town (population under 2k) that skews much older, very religious, and without going into detail... very political. So in literally 9 years of trying to find a social circle to play games and I've found nothing. The only 2 (up from 1 since Corona!) people I've ever met that are into retro gaming out here are very different from me personality wise and none of us want to interact with the others, and I'm fine with that knowing those 2 people like I do now.

But seriously, I'm 37, I have a very large amount of fun multiplayer games going from the SNES to the Switch, and no one to play them with. My wife plays WOW and I can play that with her, but that is the extent of my in person social gaming. And in person beats online any day of the week IMO. How do those of you with a relatively stable social circle manage it? Where do your gaming friends come from?

Anyone want to fly out to Washington to play MvC2 or Turtles in Time? :lol:

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ActRaiser
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Re: Couch (Social) gaming in the modern era

Postby ActRaiser » July 21st, 2021, 12:53 pm

I've been very blessed with meeting a great group of friends up here in Minnesota. I think I moved up here in 2002. I was lucky to get in with a great group of guys. It all spawned from working together or friends of friends. One of the guys ended up hosting Halo LAN games out of his garage in 2003 or so. We still meet weekly or try to. We don't really play anything other than Halo: Reach at this point. Frankly, it's more of a meet, eat, drink, hang out activity at this point. When we started we'd sometimes get together twice a week and play until 3 in the morning. Now, we're all much older and have other responsibilities. Either way it's a fun activity.

The other thing that's helped with the social/couch gaming has been getting my daughter into gaming. I started by getting an arcade through Extreme Home Arcades. She really likes Feeding Frenzy on it so we'll play that together. I tried getting her into Mario Bros but that fell flat. She likes Bubble Bobble 2 as there's a pink dinosaur.

So...couple of options...come visit me in Minnesota...get a kid...or make a few new friends.

On the make a few new friends front the guy that hosts the Halo LAN games out of his garage is 62...he's 20 years older than I am. So, you might consider befriending younger folk that might dig playing the classics if it were. Now, how you meet the kids without coming across creepy, I got no idea. You could always get a van and offer them candy. <kidding, of course, it was something Sheldon said in a Big Bang Theory about starting a comic book store if I recall correctly that I was kind of funny at the time>

Voor
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Re: Couch (Social) gaming in the modern era

Postby Voor » July 21st, 2021, 2:21 pm

My brother and I will play together in person for a few hours once or twice a year, but that’s it. And they aren’t planned, if just randomly happens.

But I will say that Have enjoyed playing some NES/SNES games together online via the switch’s online deal. Those are fun and it works surprisingly well.

But couch play today exists only with one of my kids. Which typically means a platformer or puzzle game of some sort. Or Mario kart. Always Mario kart. Lol.

Good luck! I agree that this is the highlight of gaming, but it gets significantly harder as you age. Thankfully, online gaming helps fill in the gap some.

Herschie
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Re: Couch (Social) gaming in the modern era

Postby Herschie » July 21st, 2021, 3:02 pm

Man you ain't kidding! When I was 17 I'd have six people just show up at my front door and we'd roll a blunt, put on some house music, and get some Mario Kart 64 going.

Nowadays I don't have any friends who game, my wife doesn't play anymore, and it's just difficult. It takes three weeks of planning to get together for a glass of whiskey and then when the time comes I'm too darn tired to even want to go anymore.

I do get invites from time to time at work but it's typically to some club or concert with a bunch of 20-somethings...and no just not my idea of fun.

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VideoGameCritic
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Re: Couch (Social) gaming in the modern era

Postby VideoGameCritic » July 21st, 2021, 5:29 pm

I still have a few childhood friends but not many still want to play games. Fortunately I've made a lot of new friends from work over the years.

Occasionally I will host an after-work event which is more like a happy hour with games. Sometimes I might throw some dogs on the grill, or drag a TV onto the deck. That's convenient for the guys because they can swing over on their way from work and still eat dinner with the family later on if they want. Some of the guys aren't really gamers but they'll still pick up a controller and have a good time.

My regular game night was originally a Monday Night Football thing where we'd go out to a different bar. We'd play a few video games first and eventually that took over. But now most of the guys I know can't stay out that late!

Herschie
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Re: Couch (Social) gaming in the modern era

Postby Herschie » July 21st, 2021, 6:35 pm

VideoGameCritic wrote:Fortunately I've made a lot of new friends from work over the years.


Working from home does not facilitate this very well, but yeah I'd always make friends whenever I worked in an office. On the other hand I'm closing sales between pitches in MLB The Show so can I really complain?

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JustLikeHeaven
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Re: Couch (Social) gaming in the modern era

Postby JustLikeHeaven » July 22nd, 2021, 8:53 am

I find it’s totally random. Still all you need is one or two friends for some solid couch gaming. I’ve got three that I’ve meet at different points in my life that are into retro gaming. Problem is they all have kids now and the pandemic meant absolutely zero in person contact with them.

Right now with them having young children it requires getting a babysitter or to have me go to their house instead. It still works out…just requires a touch more planning.

Also, gaming until “oh crap…what time is it?” is no longer a thing with them. Still I’m grateful that I’ve found some people in my life that love the dumb stuff we played as kids. The worst was in my 20s, just out of college and was back at home with my parents for a couple of years. Felt like Will Ferrell in Wedding Crashers…

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Matchstick
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Re: Couch (Social) gaming in the modern era

Postby Matchstick » July 22nd, 2021, 10:02 am

Alucard1191 wrote:Anyone want to fly out to Washington to play MvC2 or Turtles in Time? :lol:


ME, ME, MEEEEEE!! But only if you let me be Raph :P

In all honesty, the closest I've come to replicating the couch gaming of yesteryear was when me and my two oldest friends got together online in 2019 to play Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 on the Switch. We were huge into the X-Men Legends / Marvel UA series years back, and would regularly stay up all night plowing through the games until we all had to go to class / work the next morning.

When we heard a Part 3 was coming out, we all got a Switch, set up a three-way speakerphone call, and made it happen. A minor miracle, considering we're all in different time zones now, but for those few weeks of game time, it felt just like 2005 all over again.

Nowadays, my wife and I move around so much, we just don't have any friends that live nearby, anymore. We just bought our first house and have had infrequent visitors, but usually, we're too busy catching up or showing them around town to get around to game time. I keep games such as Tecmo Super Bowl and Turtles in Time around in hopes that, some day, my old friends and I might get together again, but reality is starting to sink in that that's probably just never going to happen.

Personally, I'm set. I've had so many good times with buddies on the couch over the years that I don't really feel the need to add to it much. I had myself a time twenty, twenty-five years ago, and I'm thankful for that. If I have a few more experiences scattered around in the years to come, great! But given how much fun I've already had with my buddies over the years, I feel like I really couldn't ask for any more.

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VideoGameCritic
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Re: Couch (Social) gaming in the modern era

Postby VideoGameCritic » July 22nd, 2021, 5:11 pm

It just occurred to me that between covid and working-from-home, couch gaming is quickly becoming an endangered species! That's kind of sad.

Herschie
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Re: Couch (Social) gaming in the modern era

Postby Herschie » July 22nd, 2021, 6:19 pm

VideoGameCritic wrote:It just occurred to me that between covid and working-from-home, couch gaming is quickly becoming an endangered species! That's kind of sad.


Yes but so are things like traffic, commutes, and excess wear and tear on your call. And I've never played Mariokart while I'm on the phone with prospects until I started working from home. Often I'll end up taking a nap on my lunch. Or knocking out my chores so that I have more free time after work. So there are pros and cons.

Overall I'd much rather forego all the hassle of working from the office.


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