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MikeyChaz [none/use name] @hexbear.net

My girlfriend brother got made at me for saying video games aren’t a hobby

My girlfriend is really close with her siblings and every second week of the month she always has all of them over to have dinner at our apartment so they can get together. It’s a large group of 5 other siblings so it gets loud but it’s all fun and they’re very nice people and we all get along. Her brother is really cool and builds computers for fun and I think that takes a level of knowledge that I don’t really posses so I’m like very happy for people who do things like that and I do see building computer is a hobby because it takes skill determination and a lot of time to do and there’s a healthy component behind I think. I think I see it as a puzzle.

He got upset at me though when we were talking about some computer parts, he was saying how one computer part is running very hot that it burns the cables and breaks the computer and even though this happens he says it’s rare and he still wants one. I asked him how that happens and he said it’s usually because the parts are put under a lot of pressure when they’re being used and sometimes they get really hot and they break and he said it’s usually because of a video game. I laughed a bit and said something like “breaking a computer over an video game lol” but I don’t think he got it and he said “well that’s the whole point of the parts to play video games.”

I laughed a bit but he wasn’t laughing and looked like a said something rude. I apologized for not knowing about the computers and he said it was okay. I told him that I only play Mario kart every now and then and that it’s my favorite game because me and my gf play it every now and then and that’s when he said “that’s a good hobby for you both” and I got confused and said “it’s not a hobby just a bit of fun.” He said hobbies are supposed to be fun and that’s why games are hobbies because they take a lot of time and energy. I frankly disagree with this so I told him “people put time and effort in work but work isn’t a hobby” and he got mad again and said “you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I think I upset him over the computer parts so I tried to make it up to him by saying “I think building computers is a hobby and that takes time and effort” but then he said “don’t patronize me I know what you’re doing” so things got really sour. He left the dinner table and went to watch tv.

After driving him home my sister told me that he spent a lot of money like thousands on online card games and that it was a sensitive topic for him. I didn’t mean to offend I really like him but now I feel like he probably thinks I’m some condescending person. Is there any way I can make it up to him?

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  • I asked her which game and she said it’s called heart stone and he spent a few thousand on the game. He still lives with mom and she says that he stomps and yelps a lot. I don’t think this is healthy.

    I am happy that he knows a lot about computers I respect him for that but spending so much on gambling games is addicting I don’t think I’m wrong here. I care about him

    • oh okay, yea i'd probably agree with that, but i doubt that that's the entire hobby, so i wouldn't be dismissive of the whole thing. would prob be more productive to pick at the heartstone addiction specifically

      she says that he stomps and yelps a lot

      yike, yea def not healthy. actually reminds me a lot of my abusive ex, that kinda addiction where you get really mad at competitive p2w games is really not great

    • Hearthstone is pay2win af, but I wouldn't call it gambling just like I wouldn't call dumping a shitton of money on Warhammer 40k figures or Magic the Gathering cards gambling.

      • What is hearthstone?

        • An electronic trading card game (TCG) by a terrible game developer riding on decades-long nostalgia because they made a couple of good games more than two decades ago. TCGs like Hearthstone and Magic the Gathering were the blueprint for much of what plagues modern gaming. Lootboxes and gacha games wouldn't exist if it weren't for MtG.

          And they're pretty much gambling because the way TCGs work is you have to build a deck of cards, but the cards themselves are only available in booster packs and not all set of cards within those booster packs are created equal. If you're lucky, your booster pack will have OP cards, but if you're not lucky, your booster pack is filled with complete trash and completely worthless. Lootboxes are just those booster packs applied to gaming and gacha games are an entire genre of gaming build around opening booster packs and the highs from getting what you want/the lows from getting worthless garbage.

        • An free to play online collectible card game by Blizzard. I've only ever dabbled in it years ago, but it does the usual free to play thing where it's technically possible to build a good deck through just playing the game normally but practically impossible to make something cool without dropping money. They also do the thing where certain old cards not admissible in certain game modes after some time, encouraging users to keep buying new cards from new expansions.

          • Ohhhhh I thought it was a gambling game because I just think all “card” based games involved gambling. More you know! So I guess I’m happier knowing it’s not gambling but how does someone spend so much money on this if it’s not gambling

            • It's still pretty much gambling. Like buying shitloads of booster packs for a tabletop trading card game I'd and the game is designed so it's pretty much the only way to do well. It's gambling with groucho Marx glasses and a trenchcoat

            • It's not gambling in the usual sense since, as stated earlier, it is possible to play free to play games for little to no money. However, it's common for unscrupulous game publishers to design their games in such a way as to make normal progress slow to the point that some users will want to skip the grind by just coughing up the cash. It sounds like your girlfriend's brother is what people call a "whale", a user who dumps ludicrous sums of money into skipping the grind in a f2p game.

              Since we live in capitalist hellworld and game publishers need to turn a profit, and since the player doesn't need to spend money to start playing the game, they need to get money from somewhere. Making games with dark patterns to entice players to spend money they otherwise wouldn't to improve their experience is how they go about this. Most players of these kind of games spend little to nothing to play them, but it only takes a small part of the playerbase spending large amounts of money to keep these games afloat. These players are the aforementioned whales.

            • It is gambling in the sense that opening any trading card game pack is a gamble. You spend money on the pack of digital cards and are unsure of what you just purchased inside. Might be something rare and powerful, might be garbage you already have multiple duplicates of. Like Pokemon or YuGiOh cards if those are relevant references.

130 comments