h a l f b a k e r yClearly this is a metaphor for something.
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The Watching Game
A computer game where users compete to sit in front of the computer. | |
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.
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]
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Annotation:
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You blinked, you lost. Sorry sleepy. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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You can always join in, Chauncey Gardiner. |
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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. |
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The last watcher in the series has to make it. |
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<shuffles off to the kitchen> |
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Yes, the sea certainly, but the Sea of Nazis. |
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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. |
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Watching people watching the watching game really
does cause existential crisis. |
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what is more or less than a periodic keystroke? |
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Watching the category choice...other:general |
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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. |
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Hey, now it's culture:game... |
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You're cheating, you're not actually watching all the time, you're going away and then coming back. That's just not cricket. |
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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 .... |
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<other needed periodic keystroke> |
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[AusCan531], your algorithm has chaotic periodicity. Or is it
random? |
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<waves from upside-down land> |
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This game is slightly boring and doesn't offer enough instant
gratification, for my liking at least. |
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// 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. |
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Oh no! You looked away and
didn't do a periodic keystroke in time! |
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+++))) G A M E ~ O V E R (((+++ |
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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 |
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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. |
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