I’m an older dude whose phase of staying up all night playing was back in the early console days. I prefer in-person tabletop RPGs like D&D, Traveller and Call of Cthulhu. Just not into computer games anymore, but that and social media seem to be most people’s primary computer activities.

Game chatter has changed over the years - I used to see a lot of talk about graphics quality and massively powerful hardware - maybe that was during a period when it was rapidly improving, I dunno. But the current focus seems to be more on game industry business decisions sucking.

Anyway I’m just wondering how common it is to use computers more for coding and other technical non-game stuff.

  • andrewta@lemmy.world
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    5 minutes ago

    Mainly gaming but if I’m looking things up online and need multiple tabs. I won’t use mobile. Mobile sucks ass for that.

    Multiple tabs and two monitors makes things much easier to do research.

    Spreadsheet work for my business… on mobile?

    I’m crazy not stupid.

  • Hemingways_Shotgun@lemmy.ca
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    1 hour ago

    I still game on my desktop. But it’s never been the primary use.

    Graphic Design, video editing, 3D modelling, etc… has been the reason for my upgrades over the years. The fact that each of those upgrades allowed my games to perform better was a side-effect instead of being the primary reason.

  • WindyRebel@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    I’m in my 40s and I sort of just dropped out of gaming on PC. I game on a console when I feel like I want to game.

    My desktop rarely gets turned on anymore and I only use it for a cracked version of Wizards of the Coast’s 4E character builder because I play in a group that runs fourth edition.

    My laptop is for learning things (IT related), general browsing, taxes, and whatever I feel like doing that feels cumbersome on a phone.

  • zlatiah@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    Technically my primary computer activities are gaming, but these days I game exclusively on the Steam Deck or the tablet (for mobile games)…

    My most speced-out computer was actually purchased for work related reasons. I wanted a decent GPU because I thought I’d be working in deep learning. Well current job doesn’t require training models and I was required to use a dedicated work laptop so… This high-spec one I mainly use for just about everything else other than gaming

  • iowagneiss@midwest.social
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    3 hours ago

    My primary use is photo editing for a photography hobby. I shoot wildlife and upload photos to iNaturalist. I shoot sports for a local junior college and an adult baseball league.

    I don’t watch a ton of movies, but it also serves as my Plex server. I leave it off unless I want to watch something though.

    There are games on it, but I rarely get that itch anymore. In my teens and 20s, 1000 hours a year would have been a slow year. It’s probably more like 0-100 a year now.

  • Blastboom Strice@mander.xyz
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    8 hours ago

    I don’t game very much (just recently I started playing outer wilds though a few times per week). I feel like I probably enjoy tweaking my laptop more than actually using it.😆 I dont even code much. I like finding open source alternatives to software and generally improve my laptop. Spent about 4months learning nixos:)

    I don’t know, at least I might be able to help others improve their pc’s too

  • qaz@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    I spend a lot more time coding than playing games. It’s not unusual for me to not be active on steam for a month.

  • Nollij@sopuli.xyz
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    13 hours ago

    4 hours and 52 comments, and not a single mention of what we all knew even before Avenue Q:

    The Internet is for porn. Everything else is just what happens between porn.

    More seriously, my desktop is where I do larger research that will require more than a couple of tabs. Little to no gaming there. Other PCs are mainly for videos.

  • SpikesOtherDog@ani.social
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    17 hours ago

    A lot of people in IT, especially programmers I have met, are completely uninterested in gaming.

    To be sure, there are PLENTY of gamers in IT, but many people I have met are done with computers once they get home.

    • Matriks404@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      I think people generally nowadays care more about their health (physical and mental), and spending whole days in the front of a computer screen is not a good idea.

    • SanguinePar@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      I work from home, but yeah, as soon as the day is over I kind of need to get away from the PC for a bit.

      Which is a shame, because I also love (or loved) PC gaming, and have a bunch of great games which I never feel like playing because they’re “at work”.

      • Longpork3@lemmy.nz
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        5 hours ago

        For me it’s the amount of debugging it takes to get new games to run. Most games these days come with some sort of third party launcher or drm that takes a lot of work to kill in order to get them running.

        I just spent 12 hours debugging because of shitty-closed source software that i have to work around, i dont want to do it again.

        • SanguinePar@lemmy.world
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          4 hours ago

          Yeah - that and family time too of course, bit anti-social if I head straight back to the office after dinner 😁

    • undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch
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      11 hours ago

      I’m a developer and games are a snooze fest in my book. I’m just always frustrated and think too much about how it was programmed and want to change stuff; I never get into the world of the game.

      When I first got into VR though it was mind-blowing. I’m an on again, off again VR user and haven’t thrown any more money into it but it’s a great way to exercise.

    • MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net
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      15 hours ago

      many people I have met are done with computers once they get home.

      This is me. After 25 years in corporate IT, I have little to no interest in sitting down at a computer anymore. My personal box only gets turned on a few times a month. Casual browsing and such is done on mobile, gaming on console. Once upon a time I spun up VMs for fun and knew everything that was running on my system. Never had the patience (or desire) to go full Linux, and between work sucking out the joy and enshittification overrunning modern commercial OSes, I just stopped having the energy to get excited. So the box only get used when I have something to do that’s more involved than light spreadsheet work etc.

      I am very much a Lemmy outlier lol.

    • LovableSidekick@lemmy.worldOP
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      17 hours ago

      My friend, a longtime Java dev, hasn’t written a line of code since his last day at work. I do lots of hobby coding and will probably die at the keyboard lol.

      • SpikesOtherDog@ani.social
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        5 hours ago

        I learned this early on in my career, when I was in college actually. I wanted to talk with a coworker who was already in IT and found he had zero interest in memes, games, or anything ‘nerd culture.’

  • Professorozone@lemmy.world
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    14 hours ago

    I use the crap out of my computer.

    -Video editing -Music editing -Word processing -Spreadsheets -Microprocessor programming -YouTube viewing -Image editing -Shopping -Investing -Web surfing -3D printing -CNC Routing -Website development

    • Oh and gaming.
  • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
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    17 hours ago

    i dont really game. my hobbies are more self-hosting, service related stuff. giant media library… distributed av system. lots of docker, server stuff.

    the selfhosting communities have some interesting traffic

    • Oisteink@feddit.nl
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      16 hours ago

      And home automation! Microcontrollers! I do try to game, but its just not that fun anymore. Nothing beats 8vs8 quake on school lan anyways

  • Mechanismatic@lemmy.ml
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    17 hours ago

    I do play games, but I also work on creative projects and watch shows/movies on my computer. I use Illustrator to create typeface designs, graphic design for laser cutting or stickers, 3D modeling and slicing programs for my 3D printer, Google Docs for writing, coding for Raspberry Pi and Arduino projects, et al.

    • LovableSidekick@lemmy.worldOP
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      17 hours ago

      3d modeling and printing are major things now. I’m into that as well, and also playing with Arduino and ESP32 for home automation and building little robotic tings. Writing code has always felt kind of like a game to me.