Ask Slashdot: How Do I Get My Spouse To Start Gaming With Me? 550
x_IamSpartacus_x writes "I've been a gamer for a long time (started on Nibbles in MS-DOS) and enjoy pretty much any good game. I can enjoy side-scrolling relics (original Prince of Persia, Win 95), to modern MMORPGs (stopped playing my 85 lvl Mage on WoW just recently, read on to see why), to a good sports game (Madden series are a blast) and many more. I've been married for 4 years now and have hardly touched my games since being married and starting having kids. My wife and I are Americans but live overseas and have little access to new movies/entertainment and, from experience, I know that a good game can provide much more entertainment than a good movie. My question is, what are good ways/good games that I can use to get my wife into computer gaming? We both have good laptops that I'd love to get her interested in using to do co-op or combative games with me. Because of my long experience, gaming comes naturally to me and so even on a game I haven't played I would probably be much better than she. Is there a game or idea that would take away the embarrassing factor for her of being much worse than I am while still being enjoyable and worth spending a lot of time on with me? Do any other Slashdotters struggle getting their spouse to game with them?"
Simple: (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Either she'll game differently/better than you and you'll regret it.
Or all your time becomes gaming time when your together and you don't end up enjoying it.
This is a box you dont want to open. (Score:4, Insightful)
Why game? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not do something active?
Why not get out and explore the country that you are in with your wife and kids?
Start socially and cooperatively (Score:5, Insightful)
Get friends together so she's not the only inexperienced person, and so she can take a break when she wants. Do stuff like Rock Band that is cooperative and easily adjusted for new players.
Re:You don't.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Either she'll game differently/better than you and you'll regret it.
Or all your time becomes gaming time when your together and you don't end up enjoying it.
djsmiley know of what he speaks.
You will regret getting your spouse to game with you.
Oh, you've got kids too? You will DEEPLY regret getting your spouse to game with you.
Your perspective is wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. Accept that she has the freedom to have other interests.
If my Significant Other started making demands like that, I'd have to wonder why she wanted us to break up.
Guess it depends on the girl (Score:5, Insightful)
Some girls don't like games but here are some to try that the female population seems to be more receptive to in my experience:
Party Games: Guitar Hero, Mario Party, Wii Party, Scene It, Monopoly Streets
Multiplayer Platformers: Mario Kart, New Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong Country, Little Big Planet
Puzzle Games: Bejeweled, Peggle, Hidden Object Games like Mystery Case Files
Adventure Games: Back to the Future (big hit with my fiancee, we played through the whole thing)
For the more girly girls, you might need to go with something with the "cute" factor. Little Big Planet is especially good at this one. You can put stickers on stuff and dress your sack boy/girl. It's also multiplayer. Co-op is usually a plus.
Re:Grow up (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate to break it to you but she grew up and you didn't.
I hate to break it to you, but it's not elementary kids feeding the gaming industry to the tune of a billion dollars a year. Adults game, and there's not a damn thing wrong with it unless you allow it to become one.
Hell, I'd rather find a fellow adult co-worker who games to blow off steam than wonder when that quiet shy guy in the corner cube is gonna suddenly snap one day and murder the entire office because he can't seem to find an outlet to deal with adult stress.
Gaming does have its benefits for all ages. True, it also has its downsides, especially for those who become addicted. But when is that not true for anything in life.
Easy: you don't. (Score:5, Insightful)
You make time for gaming, and for doing stuff both of you like.
I don't know what he/she likes that you don't, but what would it take for you to take THAT up ? Nothing doing, right ? same here...
Let Me Explain (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me explain a little bit more...
You know those hours that you spend alone, immersed in a game while you own n00bs in BF3 or while you wage some pathetic WoW or LoL quest? What is your wife doing while this is going on? Is she cleaning, making dinner, keeping the kids occupied or watching a movie, leaving you uninterrupted for your fun?
Now, imagine she's gaming, spending hours immersed in a WoW or LoL quest, or worse still some ridiculous hours long farming stint. Imagine she's as addicted to that crap as you are. Who's cleaning, making dinner, watching the kids? I can tell you who won't be playing games for long stretches. I can tell you who won't be enjoying the fact that their spouse is gaming. You won't.
The proper course of action is for you to spend a little less time gaming and a little more time doing group activities with your family. Then you can enjoy your uninterrupted game time.
Regret, thy name is x_IamSpartacus_x
GF is a gamer (Score:5, Insightful)
My SO is a gamer, but a different sort from me. She likes Xbox games, mostly shooters and RPG titles. The only PC game she'll play is The Sims 2. I primarily play role playing and real time strategy games.
We found our crossover points in a couple different ways:
1. We compete on silly casual games on our phones and tablets. Superiority in Bubble Shooter or figuring out a new way to make pictures of dicks relevant in Draw Something is treasured gaming experience.
2. The PC gaming experience for games like Skyrim, Fallout 3 and Dragon Age is better, so we kind of play and make decisions together. I'm more of an explorer and she's more of an action junkie, but in practice this means that if one of us can't do something with our normal approach, it's time for the other to take a crack at it.
3. Sometimes I suck it up and let her kick my ass in some kind of console shooter or Kinect title. I'll also sit out with her and read while she leans on me and plays Borderlands or something. It's kind of passive/introvert together time.
4. We experimented with MMO-playing, but the MMO I actually like closed and she's not into WoW any more, so the motivation for that just evaporated. That actually worked pretty well.
Mostly, though, we play different games and it's FINE. I do my thing and she does hers.
Re:Start socially and cooperatively (Score:5, Insightful)
I second that. MMOs have big cult followings among women.
Women are just different. They are social beings. They want to integrate people and technology into their already existing lives. Not use it to get away as a stress reliever like men. The fact you need downtime makes them resentful. However if sheis included like in Wow has an appeal.
Have to be computer? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does it have to be computer games? Especially "real gaming" which is usually defined as boring WWII FPS sequels?
You're overseas? Invite friends over to place some kind of euro board/physical game. Yes yes agricola takes 45 minutes to set up all the counters but there's plenty of lighter fare. Settlers of catan? Carcassonee? How about Dominion (a euro-card game)? Or strip-Dominion? Pretty much anything in the Rio Grande catalog?
How about paper and pencil RPG? Yeah if you're overseas in Saudi Arabia they might get nervous about "magic" or whatever fictional religious aspects, but if you're in a civilized part of the world it should be no problem. Pathfinder or classic DnD?
Plain ole card games? You're overseas so invite several locals over for poker night. Better yet if it works out rotate to each players house.
There's a certain theme to the above... yes you can play all of the above "on a computer" but it works just as well in person and that's probably the way to pivot into "computer" gaming if you're the type where the UI matters more than the gameplay or if its occasionally just more convenient to play on a tablet while traveling or whatever. Example: if she likes playing euro-resource-type-games in person using cardboard like "powerline" or WTF its called, its a pretty short jump to Civilization / Simcity.
Re:Simple: (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm in much the same boat looking for a game both my girlfriend and I would enjoy. She's open to the idea of it, we just haven't found a multiplayer game we're both into (although there are a lot of single player games we both enjoy, especially the Sim- and Sims series).
Same as for sex (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe you haven't run into this one yet, but the advice I'll give you (based on nearly 20 years of happy marriage) is the same I give to newlyweds:
(1) Housekeepers are significantly cheaper and more effective in promoting marital harmony than marriage counselors, and far cheaper than divorce lawyers. That's where your first discretionary dollars should go.
(2) New activities are most interesting with friends. That is, if you want her to enjoy getting into skiing, gaming, whatever, with you, then find a couple also interested in getting into it, and make it a group thing.
Re:Why game? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Simple: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Let Me Explain (Score:5, Insightful)
The proper course of action is for you to spend a little less time gaming and a little more time doing group activities with your family.
As a married guy with two kids under five I would largely agree, but I also think to some degree it depends on how much sleep you and your spouse need at night. My wife and I both need eight hours to survive, so between family stuff, cleaning, meal prep, bath time, bedtime stories and all that there's no time for games, other than 10 minutes of Angry Birds here and there. However, if you do fine on six hours (and by do fine I mean wake rested, ready to take on the day, not hitting snooze eleven times and then mainlining espresso just to stay alive) then I'd say that you probably have time for some gaming when the chores are done and the kids are asleep.
Re:Simple: (Score:2, Insightful)
Charming. I'm sure you'll end up with a very quality woman. Or at least a very desperate one.
Re:Clueless (Score:5, Insightful)
This. A thousand times this.
I used to work for NGOs in India, China, and Vietnam. While the marriages lasted when the women also worked in development, not once did I see a marriage last in rural Asia when the woman was a SAHM or a teacher.
Try thinking about it from a different perspective for a minute. Would you want to game if you had, essentially, two jobs -- yours and housework/childcare? How would you have any energy for it? Keep in mind that living overseas tends to be much rougher on Western (and particularly American) women than on men. This is triply true if you're in a non-Western country. People in all the non-Western nations I've worked in to view American women as the women from SATC and harass us whenever we leave the house by ourselves. It's unpleasant, dangerous, and emotionally draining.
And remember, doing twice as much work as your father does not equal doing the same amount of housework and childcare as your wife. If you want her to game, try actually doing the same amount of work as she does. Then maybe she'll have enough energy for it.
You may actually save yourself money on a divorce in a few years, too. I've heard the OP's story dozens of times, and marriage does not sound like it's in good shape and the OP's not understanding what's really going on -- at all. He doesn't need to play games with his wife -- he needs marriage counseling. Back in the States.
Re:Simple: (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Insightful)
"I've been a knitter for a long time (started with wool on wooden needles) and enjoy pretty much any good game. I can enjoy crochet (original doilies, place mats), to modern patchwork (stopped sewing my 85 patch quilt just recently, read on to see why), to a good sweater (cardigan series are a blast) and many more. I've been married for 4 years now and have hardly touched my needles since being married and starting having kids. My husband and I are Americans but live overseas and have little access to new movies/entertainment and, from experience, I know that a good stitch can provide much more entertainment than a good movie. My question is, what are good ways/good patterns that I can use to get my husband into knitting? We both have good tables that I'd love to get him interested in using to do pattern or cross stitch with me. Because of my long experience, knitting comes naturally to me and so even on a pattern I haven't made I would probably be much better than he. Is there a pattern or idea that would take away the embarrassing factor for him of being much worse than I am while still being enjoyable and worth spending a lot of time on with me? Do any other Slashdotters struggle getting their spouse to knit or sew with them?"
Exactly - this is an experience problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
The submitter might as well be David Beckham asking how he can get Victoria Beckham to play soccer with him.
Look, the fact of the matter is, you've been playing video games most of your life, so there's few things that are true for you that are never going to be true for your wife:
1) You started when you were very young. Very young is when most people pick up new interests, and one of the things that makes that interest interesting in their adult lives is that it was part of their young lives. No matter what you do, video games are never going to be a part of your wife's young life.
2) You have tens of thousands of hours of experience. That means even when you encounter entirely new games, you get to apply that experience to the new game. Your wife will have no frame of reference. For example, let's say you tried to introduce her to WoW.... you know what a character level is. She has no idea. You probably played RPGs at some time in the early 90's (or a bit earlier or later depending on your age), she's done it... never.
3) When you're playing with her and your skill level is going to be much higher than hers is. EVEN if you're playing cooperatively, that's going to be frustrating. We're talking basic skills here, like even manipulating a controller, or precise mouse use. Doing activities with someone who is at an entirely different skill level than you - even the simple version of that activity - is rarely pleasureably.
4) Because of 3) your wife is going to have a bit of a learning curve before she can really enjoy a game. That might be OK, *IF* your wife wasn't married with kids. And I imagine at least one of you has a job. By the time she spends an hour or two working on that learning curve, it's going to be time to put the kids to bed or go to bed yourselves and she's just going to think the activity stinks if she never gets past the learning part to the fun part.
And, the laptop is the LAST place you should attempt this. There is nothing that requires a laptop to play that you should try and get a novice gamer interested in. If you can't play it on a phone, it's almost certainly too advanced.
The reality of this is, if you dated this girl before you got married (and I hope you did), and she didn't pick up an interest in video games during that exposure to you, it's not going to happen now.
Maybe you two can play words with friends together.
Re:Let Me Explain (Score:4, Insightful)
My wife isn't much of a gamer (aside from a few of the IOS variety), but she took interest in the New Super Mario Brothers on the Wii a few years ago and has also enjoyed it on the Wii U, which has a few extra features to involve a 2nd person if you aren't playing in full co-op mode. She also starting getting into Mario Galaxy 2 as long as I was around to help her through some of the more challenging levels/bosses. About the only other game she showed any interest in was Plants vs. Zombies, which she has played on both the iPad and PC.
Something else you might want to consider (if you haven't already) are board games. We got a few that we could play as a family, focused around games my 6 year old could play and surprisingly the wife really enjoyed Castle Panic. I think she likes the co-op and strategy/thinking aspects of it. She didn't care for Castle Keep and we haven't had a chance to break out Catan: Junior yet. You'll have more variety to choose from since you aren't looking for something that a young child grasp. I went this route as I was tired of playing Monopoly, Sorry, etc, "classic" board games.