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If players dislike something about a video game story, there is sometimes extreme pressure on devs to change it. You don’t see this that often with books, movies, etc. Personally, I think this is rather ridiculous—creators make the products they want, market demand determines if it sells, end of story. Debates about story content are an issue of subjective values, not quality.

That's all I use it for. Do they just look for things to add onto consoles to increase price? I buy the system for games. Give me a choice to buy a standard system with nothing on it except the disc drive, and the rest can dig their forks deep into the cabbage of every other add on feature. Seriously, I have no use for anything but the gaming part. 

I want a far cheaper console, even if all it could do was play a game and save.

The disappearance of all these predatory microtransaction systems and games being completely functional on release instead of being patched after a buggy release.

if you could have one sweeping change in the video game industry, what would it be, and why? For me, it would be an end to high-pressure crunch time.

When I do play, which isn't as often anymore, I do sit still for the most part but I am also one of those 'leaners' lol It's like we are willing it to go faster when we use our whole body! I tend to be a leaner for TV shows as well.

@killamch89 and @Razor1911 mentioned in another thread moving around while playing fighting or driving games (i.e. leaning while driving) as an immersive thing.
Made me curious. How many people here tend to do this versus sit completely still while gaming?

Yes
Anna Ternheim via Alan Wake Garbage via Gran Turismo The Cardigans via Gran Turismo 2 Metric via Test Drive Unlimited  

Well, you don't want to be a one trick pony, I get that.  But perhaps the gaming industry isn't doing enough to keep us engaged anymore.

Or us gamers find certain games far more appealing and they hook us in to the point that we can't stop talking about it...

It's okay to talk about what you care about.  I used to work in a fascist part of Fairfax, VA and people were constantly trying to get me to change my beliefs on everything.  I quit that job when people kept threatening me with sharp objects and throwing things at my head.  People should get to talk about what they like so long as it doesn't harm others.

Nope - if that's all you enjoy, then you can share that with us. It's better than the person who seemingly enjoys nothing at all and only says gaming is trash.

Very true. But it can get annoying, not only to others but yourself as well, if that's the only talking point a person has. Especially if it's the only thing they talk about. I need to get back to raving about the classic games I play as well as RDR2.

It's okay to talk about what you care about.  I used to work in a fascist part of Fairfax, VA and people were constantly trying to get me to change my beliefs on everything.  I quit that job when people kept threatening me with sharp objects and throwing things at my head.  People should get to talk about what they like so long as it doesn't harm others.

The games I play never really encountered reality. I can't think of a single one on NES, SNES, or N64 that ever encountered reality with the exception of sports games and sims games. Just as a note, to me a sports game includes any form of car driving/racing game.
Games based off TV and movies (Bond 007, Jeopardy, etc.) don't count.
But to get back to my original point, I would have to try hard as hell, and do a lot of searching to find myself one game that even remotely seemed to relate to the human world or modern world in any way from any of those 3 systems. It would be fun, and interesting to do, but I know there are none in my library, with the exception of snowboarding games.

In Skyrim, I wish we could jump while attacking because it's stupid as hell that the character suddenly turns into a lifeless doll when they jump.

Something funny like that happens in RDR2. When you kill a muskrat, it sounds like a woman having an orgasm. The first time I heard it, I was sure it was a glitch. So I found a few more, and knew right away that it was scripted. That's when I started laughing.
I need to shut up about RDR2. It's starting to get to the point that it's the only game I talk about.

Here, here.
 
I think as with a lot of things, gaming can become an addiction which is obviously bad, but gaming in itself can be a stress-reliever and an escape from the goings-on around: I know during some of my darkest moments I've turned to games to take my mind off things for a while. Whilst I wouldn't advocate always doing that, it can be a great help sometimes, and even more generally if you're a bit bored/low during the day - especially with lockdown at the moment

Addiction is actually a disease and not a lack of self discipline. Many addicts aren't given proper help due to society's failure to see it as a disease and treat it. In the sense of gaming, porn, or anything people do that doesn't require putting substances in their bodies still needs to be diagnosed as a disease. A gaming addict may be sleep deprived, eat little, nutrition deficient, poor social life; can interfere with their work and they lose their jobs or career. It's the same for any addiction. Of course, every case is different. Last thing an addict wants to hear is lacking self discipline as if you really have a choice. In a state of full blown addiction, you no longer have a choice. They usually need medical or psychiatric help. But it's not like a gamer will have life threatening withdrawals, so they won't need medical help. A good psyche evaluation may help find the deeper problem that led to gaming addiction in the first place. It could very well be this pandemic as an example, and anxieties that has worked its way into a person's life. Maybe they lost someone and just wants to do nothing but play games so they won't face it. It just could be anything. Addictions are not normal unless it is a chemical itself inducing it from drugs or alcohol. Otherwise, it's a definite psychological problem that may be at the root of it. But know, it isn't necessarily the psychological problem that is the disease, it is the psychological problem that led to the addiction, where the addiction itself is a disease. Many of us may feel addicted to gaming at times. But if your gaming interferes with your wellness (just like anything else, not excluded to gaming) it becomes a diseased state. Sure, we had the choice in the first place to put something in our bodies or stay up late gaming, but not being able to break the habit is no longer a self discipline issue. If you are into prolonged gaming and consume your required nutrition and get required exercise, and keep your work ethics, social life, etc. then you don't really have an addiction problem. Addiction literally = disease. 

So true. Video games give you an avenue to help take your mind off things for a while or even work it out in your head. The only real downside to gaming is addiction and that isn't really a gaming related issue as it is a lack of self discipline which causes that.

I personally fired up games lot of times to get out of depression, you literally feel nothing once you're playing but better moral situation, it comes back less harsher than it was once you are in bed and overthinking but your console/PC is always there to fight it!

That actually is quite surprising to me. I play so many games that either let you choose your characters gender of have female leads that I'd even say for me it may even be slightly more in favour of female protagonists. I don't play so many games with female protagonists on purpose, there's jut a lot on female protagonists in the games I happen to enjoy like Tomb Raider, Horizon Zero Dawn or The Last of Us Part II. Of coerce, in the The Last of Us part one the protagonist is male, but that held no relevance to my enjoyment of the game. I suppose the survey will include a lot of sports games (like FIFA and Madden) and military shooters (like COD and Battlefield) that I don't tend to buy and they come out every year, and since so few of those games (especially historical ones) have female protagonists that could be part of the reason why the scale tops the way it does. Look at it this way, there has been 3 Tomb Raider games released in the same time period as 7 COD's. So as alarming as those statistics are, I don't think they are truly reflective of what gamers choose to play.  It's ultimately up to publishers/developers what gender they make thier characters, not gamers.
 
EDIT: I Just had a skim through my installed games on my PC and I genuinely do have more games installed from my library's than have female characters than male, but vast majority are games that let one choose or have a mixture of both. So whilst I can accept the survays numbers as real, I don't think it demonstrated what, in general,  gamer's attitudes tend to be.
 
 

I made a comment recently about the idea of using games to make a positive impact on people, and here we've got someone actually doing it!  Thanks for sharing this, I'm sick and tired of media constantly trying to convince everyone that "people do bad things because video games".  Yet these same assholes never mention "people do good things because video games".
 
It's a proven fact that video games and other entertainment media don't change people in such extreme ways as to turn them into killers, but it might dissuade people from drugs or other addictions.

Those of us that grew up on them that still play them talk about them often, and fondly. Classic gamers typically have no interest in going beyond a certain point, with an exception or two. People hear us talking about these games, and their curiosity gets peaked. Some check it out to figure out what the hell we're talking about. Others check it out to laugh at us for playing 2, 4, and 8 bit games. Whereas they're playing lifelike games. It's what brought out the flashback craze. Curiosity by modern gamers. The big 3 heard about the curiosity, made a mini system with roughly 30 games installed on it, and sold them. It's a shameful money grab, but it made them big bucks anyway. Obviously the NES flashback runs better than a 35 year old NES, but those of us that are 80's children and grew up on systems like Atari, Colecovision, and NES often prefer the old ones for nostalgic reasons. And the majority of us want to puke at the mere thought of a flashback console.
I'm a classic gamer because those are the games that I have always enjoyed and developers weren't afraid to be unique with their games. Games like A Boy And His Blob haven't been seen since. There is no game on any disc system where you feed a blob jellybeans to turn it into things you need (ladder, umbrella, etc.) to help it get back to its home planet called Blobonia. Blaster Master had a couple piss poor sequels that flopped miserably. There were the classic beat 'em ups like Double Dragon that you don't see anymore. They have largely (if not completely) gone the way of the dodo in exchange for games like Mortal Kombat and other fighting games.
The individuality and uniqueness is what made those games so special. Nowadays everything is a sequel. There's no individuality, and developers are scared to take a chance with something new and off the wall completely different and unique. That is largely part of the reason classic gamers are turned off by the new and current stuff. I won't lie, I play on my Switch constantly. It's great to have something that powerful that is portable. But I also play on my Game Boy. When I'm home I do play RDR2 a hell of a lot. But I spend an immensely greater amount of time on my NES, SNES, and N64 than I do on RDR2. That's about the only modern game I even play. I have 2 or 3 others that aren't on Switch that I play, but that's it. They're mainly system exclusives (GoW for example) but I will never give up what I grew up on. One thing that I look back on fondly is that I saved up literally every penny I could get to buy myself a SNES. I wanted one so desperately that I saved up for over a year. And when I finally brought that thing home, I couldn't get off of it.

You mean the red and black one that got banned for some reason? If I remember correctly it was 1997 right?
At least put some kind of narrator like the one they had in DBZ just to make it sound epic or something.