Reading, or gaming?

[Goenitz]

Different answer for different situations. If im watching a shity movie or sporting event on TV, then ill usually break out the DS, but if Im just hanging out outside on the dock, or Hammock then a book is the way to go for sure. Also, books while im trying to fall asleep, works everytime.

 

[Alex_P]

When people say "books" they usually mean "novels." I hate those.

Pretty much every novel I've ever read is too long, over-detailed. Most could be squished down into a much, much better short story. Most of the canonical works one would study in a literature class aren't immune to this criticism, either. I love anthologies of speculative fiction but absolutely abhor the 500-page trilogy books that clutter up the fantasy and sci-fi sections of any bookstore.

In a written work, where all you've got are words on a page, devoting any space to some trivial side thing necessarily means emphasizing it. Your Tom Bombadils and wordy histories and long-ass asides about whaling choke up the actual narrative. In a video game or movie, you can toss details in somewhere on the sidelines and they sit there quietly unless the audience specifically wants to pay attention to them.

I like short stories. I'll gladly read long-form non-fiction because the "detail" stuff is usually actual information. But novels? Very hard to find one that doesn't suck.

(On the flip side, though, I have put down games that have started to bore me without ever finishing them. And I usually don't give a rat's ass about game sequels because I've already played out the idea's potential the first time around.)

-- Alex

 

[RetiarySword]

With the choice there, probably games, but I do enjoy a good read! Problem is with books, I can never find the start button!?

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Usually I give up Reading for Gaming, but if the book is REALLY good, I'll often read instead. As well, often I will "abstain" from gaming to get more reading done.

 

[Captain_Ne-San]

Depends on the mood, like a lot of other people have said, or on how bad my ADD is acting up at that time. Cause sometimes you need to have a twitchy kill things moment.

 

[Llasnad]

Reading is more immersive then gaming, it draws upon your imagination, creating the world within your head. Gaming is fun, and makes for great entertainment, but you will always have things that break immersion, reminding you that this is just a game. Nothing beats a good book, even though I find myself playing video games more often then reading.

 

[Andalusa]

i like reading but i usually read just before i go to sleep, i game when there's literally nothing else to do,

 

[StarkRavingSane]

Currently I spend more time playing than reading but while I can imagine my life without gaming I can't imagine not reading any books (fiction or otherwise).

When people say "books" they usually mean "novels." I hate those.

Pretty much every novel I've ever read is too long, over-detailed. Most could be squished down into a much, much better short story. Most of the canonical works one would study in a literature class aren't immune to this criticism, either. I love anthologies of speculative fiction but absolutely abhor the 500-page trilogy books that clutter up the fantasy and sci-fi sections of any bookstore.

In a written work, where all you've got are words on a page, devoting any space to some trivial side thing necessarily means emphasizing it. Your Tom Bombadils and wordy histories and long-ass asides about whaling choke up the actual narrative. In a video game or movie, you can toss details in somewhere on the sidelines and they sit there quietly unless the audience specifically wants to pay attention to them.

I like short stories. I'll gladly read long-form non-fiction because the "detail" stuff is usually actual information. But novels? Very hard to find one that doesn't suck.

(On the flip side, though, I have put down games that have started to bore me without ever finishing them. And I usually don't give a rat's ass about game sequels because I've already played out the idea's potential the first time around.)

-- Alex

Agreed, in part. Personally I believe that a few lines of good prose, content-wise, are worth more than a few chapters of not-so-good prose and that it's more difficult to write a good short story than a decent novel.

Also I agree that spewing chapters of Behold-the-Epic-Lore is a waste of paper. We've had hundreds of years of that stuff, let's move on.

However I would not dismiss attention to details so easily. Sometimes they're there not just to give questionable "depth" to the reality of the story but, for example, to detract the reader's attention from something else or to give the reader a false sense of security. Yup, confusion, some writers make use of what can simply be called "deliberate mindfuck", which seems to work better in longer works of fiction. And, personally, when I read a book, I enjoy getting my mind fucked sideways. I'm strange like that. Also sometimes the writers, instead of saying something up front, prefer to create a side plot or something to express whatever it is they want to express, and leave making something out of it to the reader. Or just for the giggles; a writer comes up with something funny - but not essential to the plot - why not write it down and put in a funny novel?

 

[Fraught]

I pick both. If you have a wild imagination like me, you'll easily like books. Well, when you're playing games, you can make your own decisions, and you see a real world before you, but when I read a book, I imagine the whole world in the book by reading the book. I guess I just have either eyes filled with acid, or just a super power. But still, it's usually hard to find a good position to read in, because usually my legs start like, tingling inside, again something I do not know the cause. I mean, they both are immersive. Books are good, because you can read them anywhere, and no one fucks about books destroying your life. Fortunately, not the case with me. But yeah, both. I can't seem to think of a reasonable argument why one destroys the other.

 

[OurGloriousLeader]

I only read decent stuff, but play all kinds of crap. Because crap computer games, you know, the old button bashing mindless violent ones, are still awesome fun, but books aren't for that kind of thing.

So books are lot more strenuous for me, they often require a lot of mental work. I'm reading Guns, Germs and Steel just not, which attempts to track why human development was so different in different regions of the world. It's really interesting, but really dense.

So books for learning, games for entertainment, as only the really, really good games I would say are good for learning.