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The Watching Game

A computer game where users compete to sit in front of the computer.
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The Watching Game was originally a one player game, but as players became more popular based on some aspect of the game and others began to watch a second set of controls was made available on the keyboard. This development was based on a growing number of user comments that others grew impatient watching the Watching Game being played, and that watching people watching the Watching Game causes existential crisis. What's interesting about the watching game is that not much user input is required except for periodic keystrokes to affirm the user is watching.
rcarty, Feb 13 2013

Let's Play Archive http://lparchive.org/history
Watch others play video games - including old classic games [AusCan531, Feb 22 2013]

real google search terms online http://trends.google.com/trends/topcharts
never believe the internet [pashute, Jun 23 2014]

The watching game .... People_20Watching_2...nger_20Hunt_20Bingo
[normzone, Jul 21 2017]

[link]






       You blinked, you lost. Sorry sleepy.
blissmiss, Feb 13 2013
  

       Who's got first watch?   

       <periodic keystroke>
AusCan531, Feb 14 2013
  

       ie. Facebook lurkers.
RayfordSteele, Feb 14 2013
  

       Who's on first?
UnaBubba, Feb 14 2013
  

       I'm generally not in favour of bringing about existential crises, tending to leave that to the motion of the universe, but I do think that the sort of person who might even consider taking up the Watching Game is ripe for such a crisis, and (importantly) that their life would likely be such that any change brought about by that crisis would be for the better.   

       On further consideration, if the keypress requirement is removed, and replaced with a webcam/software check to see if the player's eyes are engaged in watching, this becomes sufficiently passive that it might engender a trancelike or meditative state. Again, a plus.
calum, Feb 14 2013
  

       Yes it is a trancelike meditative state. This idea is really a poorly executed comment on having to watch friends play computer games and not getting a turn, but also pointing out that these games are essentially watching games yet the degree of separation from the user interface drastically changes the experience.
rcarty, Feb 14 2013
  

       You can always join in, Chauncey Gardiner.
UnaBubba, Feb 14 2013
  

       <periodic keystroke>
AusCan531, Feb 14 2013
  

       <periodic keystroke>
AusCan531, Feb 22 2013
  

       I remember sitting in my mate's house, sometime in the early 1990s, watching - endlessly watching - him playing Wolfenstein 3D, and even with a pre-teen's capacity for vacant goggling, I remember reaching such a level of boredom that I found myself dislocating my gaze a little, watching not the game being played but the shapes sliding ever so smoothly across the screen, the perfect rigidity of the game geometry warped by the curve of the monitor, really not considering much but feeling a little dislocated myself, perhaps even psychically vulnerable. These moments came upon me only when my friend was concentrating that he fell from his usual stream of mild profanity into the thrumming silence I didn't know again until I started hanging out with programmers. Such silences were rare, and so were the trancelike states. Nevertheless, there is an opportunity here, for those that would want to exploit it.
calum, Feb 22 2013
  

       [linkey]
AusCan531, Feb 22 2013
  

       //Do we get popcorn ?//   

       The last watcher in the series has to make it.   

       ... crap...   

       <shuffles off to the kitchen>
FlyingToaster, Feb 22 2013
  

       Yes, the sea certainly, but the Sea of Nazis.
calum, Feb 22 2013
  

       That's the experience, likely encountered by countless numbers of idle youths and hangabouts, of whom I count myself, at least in the early days of computer gaming, when one sat transfixed and mesmerized by cathode rays, somewhere just outside the peripheral vision of your friend, taking a back seat to the computer terminal, likely feeling somewhat insecure about this dubious location in the social pecking order. Nobody's friend ever offering to let the other play, because then that most mundane of situations would be reversed, and that same offer would likely not be reciprocated, for it is a position that once taken is forsworn, but in the indeterminate way of idle youths, without resolve, and one which was invariably repeated upon each visit, for the friend was captivated by the audio-visual violence that could not be matched by the egalitarian alternative of bipartite endless street wanderings that were the recreational occupations for youths of yore.
rcarty, Feb 22 2013
  

       <periodic keystroke>
AusCan531, Mar 27 2013
  

       <periodic keystroke>
AusCan531, Apr 24 2013
  

       <periodic keystroke>
AusCan531, Aug 13 2013
  

       <periodic keystroke>
AusCan531, Apr 06 2014
  

       Watching people watching the watching game really does cause existential crisis.
rcarty, Apr 06 2014
  

       <periodic keystroke>
AusCan531, Jun 22 2014
  

       what is more or less than a periodic keystroke?
pashute, Jun 23 2014
  

       <periodic keystroke>
AusCan531, Oct 23 2014
  

       Watching the category choice...other:general
normzone, Oct 23 2014
  

       <periodic keystroke>
AusCan531, Sep 01 2015
  

       At the end of time, [AusCan]'s automated script finally gets the last dying <periodic keystroke> to beat [wjt]'s script before the lights dim and the silence befalls all.
wjt, Sep 02 2015
  

       Hey, now it's culture:game...
normzone, Sep 02 2015
  

       <periodic keystroke>
AusCan531, Oct 21 2016
  

       <periodic keystroke>
AusCan531, Jul 21 2017
  

       You're cheating, you're not actually watching all the time, you're going away and then coming back. That's just not cricket.
pocmloc, Jul 21 2017
  

       Well, if my idea " All Along The Watchtower " was still here we could tell if he was really watching or not. But it was deleted ....
normzone, Jul 21 2017
  

       <other needed periodic keystroke>
wjt, Jul 22 2017
  

       <periodic keystroke>
AusCan531, Mar 11 2018
  

       <periodic keystroke>
AusCan531, Aug 13 2019
  

       <periodic keystroke>
AusCan531, Nov 25 2019
  

       [AusCan531], your algorithm has chaotic periodicity. Or is it random?
neutrinos_shadow, Nov 25 2019
  

       <ekortsyek cidoirep>   

       <waves from upside-down land>   

       This game is slightly boring and doesn't offer enough instant gratification, for my liking at least.   

       Happy T-Day USAians.
blissmiss, Nov 28 2019
  

       <periodic keystroke>
AusCan531, Jul 09 2020
  

       <periodic keystroke>
AusCan531, Jan 18 2021
  

       // existential crisis // with // periodic keystrokes to affirm the user is watching //
[+] for an excellent summary of internet imageboards in general and the "QAnon" movement in particular.
sninctown, Jan 18 2021
  

       Oh no! You looked away and
didn't do a periodic keystroke in time!
  

       +++))) G A M E ~ O V E R (((+++   

       HIGH SCORE TABLE
1 .... AusCan531 .... 19 POINTS
2 .... .... 0 points
3 .... .... 0 points
4 .... .... 0 points
5 .... .... 0 points
6 .... .... 0 points
7 .... .... 0 points
8 .... .... 0 points
9 .... .... 0 points
  

       PLAY AGAIN? {YES} {NO}
pocmloc, Mar 31 2021
  

       Nice score [AusCan531]! [calum] also deserves tabling for //the thrumming silence I didn't know again until I started hanging out with programmers// which on poetry alone, is enough to grant at least 20 points.
zen_tom, Mar 31 2021
  
      
[annotate]
  


 

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