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.

I work all day on the computer. Its been a long time since gaming took up the majority of my computer time.

I think the stagnation in graphics improvements, combined with the extreme costs of high end GPUs and the massive growth in the industry, is what changed the dynamic. Most gamers just don't care about the high end like they used to and now its corporate BS that has a more direct impact on their gaming experience instead of better hardware.

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.

I used to play a ton of games throughout my teenage years but fell off in my 20s. Now in my late 30s I still keep up with gaming news and discussion, but I rarely actually play through games anymore. I go through maybe one a year.

You're right that the discussion has changed, and that's due to a number of factors. Mostly, new games are pretty configurable and will run on pretty much any modern hardware. Long gone are the days where you simply couldn't play something unless you ponied up for a Voodoo 2. Add to that, that PC hardware is a lot more standard now. Gaming enthusiasts dont need to learn a bunch of competing hardware standards to keep up anymore.

And the other side is that with the introduction of microtransactions, keeping an eye on how companies are trying to monetize games is important. AAA games these days have Hollywood movie budgets and if they're not profitable, then hundreds of people are out of a job. Looking back, it's pretty amazing what 10-15 people could accomplish with a fraction of the budget and time that modern developers get(indie games notwithstanding)

Linux, emacs, Python, forth, microcontrollers, kicad, gimp, blender, FreeCAD, spice, and astronomy are my main uses in no particular order. I occasionally play Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead. I used to be a regular cafe gamer, but I expect a clear and strait forward transaction of ownership with all purchases. Renting something that cannot be owned and reading some long legalise nonsense are not at all interesting to me. Maybe one day there will be a game industry again, but as far as I'm concerned, the world of proprietary exploitation, subscriptions, and extortion is the same as nonexistence.

54M here. Rolled my first D&D character in 1978. Played GURPS, Twighlight 2000, Traveller, you name it I probably have at least dabbled in playing it.

Today I play D&D 2024 and 5e, Call of Cthulhu, Castles and Crusades and a few others. Some on Roll20, or Foundry VTT (which is awesome BTW.) My primary gaming group is all fathers and mothers spread out across the country.

As far as actual Computer games, I used to be into Flight Sims, but dropping $500 plus on JUST a graphics card is just not something that is going to happen. It's not the wife acceptance factor, it the sheer balls the graphics card manufacturers have charging that much for their crap. I still dust off MS FS 2004 and run it on my Dell Precision laptop, but my machine won't run the latest version. I would like to see if it would run Battlestar Galactica Deadlock though.

Otherwise, I have had a home server for many years. It runs Proxmox and I have containers running Plex, Homeseer, SMB (acts as my NAS), and it provides backup services for every other computer in the house.

For reference, I am an IT Professional, with about 30 years in the business.

I still play games but now I have more things to do with computers. I started helping out an open source software project learning how to code basic things in lua, how to contribute using git pushes. make art texture graphics in gimp, mess with sound effects in audacity, clip videos together using kdenlive. I hope to learn how to use blender and do modeling. I test and review fellow devs stuff to try helping them out. As long as I learn new things and contribute it helps me feel like my computer time is more productive.

Then I got in on the local LLM scene a year ago with the release of llama 3.1. I'm a science nerd who genuinely thinks the study of neural networks is cool. The idea of getting computers to simulate thoughts to help solve problems is a neat thing. Also I wanted to see how far we came from cleverbot days. It inspired me enough to dig out the old unused gaming desktop and really extract the most potential out of my old 1070ti.

Now I wish I had more vram not for chasing high end graphics in video game entertainment, but because I want my computer to simulate high quality thoughts to help me in daily life.

I have games installed but I mostly just write programs for fun now. I usually don't get a ton of time to play games, plus they haven't been as fun as they used to be as a kid.

I mostly use mine to program. I started gaming again after barely playing them for a decade, but that is not my computer's primary purpose. Otherwise, I do dumb online browsing, play D&D with friends (used to...), fiddle around with art (mostly do that on iPad), 3d printing or electronics related things. Random shit like that.

I am an adjunct professor. My evenings are taken for making slides and marking. I wish I had time for gaming.

Funny thing I thought about when coming back home..

My work laptop has been used more for gaming than my gaming pc has, and inverse of that my gaming pc has seen more work done than my work laptop

Why? I don't fucking know why it just is

I use mine mostly for work. But also games, music, and movies.

Technically for me it's work now

https://mastodon.social/@livelakemichigan/ https://mastodon.social/@livelakesuperior/ https://bsky.app/profile/lake-michigan.live https://bsky.app/profile/lake-superior.live

And if you dig hard enough you'll see I'm an app architect closing in on 20 years in the industry.

Xennial here. My non-admin use is probably split 60% learning, 30% programming, 10% gaming

I mostly use my Mac for business stuff, art and coding. The PC spends most of its time on offloaded AI tasks and rendering jobs. It was originally a toy for gaming but I’d rather use my Steam Deck for that now.

I do game, but I have a dedicated HTPC that I game on. My laptop is mostly for work, I own my own business so I do a lot of design, spreadsheeting, etc. I also write lyrics and prose for a hobby, so I use my laptop for that, as well as some light music production. I think the only game I play on it is the KDE minesweeper clone.

coding and other technical non-game stuff

What if I code games? Also: Photography, 3D editing, talking to friends.

I think the talk about games comes from the fact that a lot of people play them and it's exciting to talk about. No one is get's excited when I tell them how I made CPU colliders follow GPU particles around a physics body.

My partner and I have some high end gaming machines and play games maybe once a week or every other week. Our computers’ main use is downloading movies and shows and playing them for us!

I used to play 40+ hours a week, but that was like a half-decade ago.

I build my machine about 8 years ago and it is time for a new one. I use it mainly for coding and research but I do like the occasional game (even VR). I try to max out specs so the PC lasts a long time.

I do so many different things on my computers that I rarely have time to play. I do have four or five games (as in Steam bought), but all I get to play is a clondike solitaire occasionally.

I last launched Minecraft about 4 years ago. Before that, I don’t even remember what games I might have played on my computer. The last console game I played with any regularity was GTA 5 on console, and once I beat the single player game I pretty much stopped. I simply don’t have time to spend on games I guess. I do have both Cribbage and Sudoku on my phone. Probably play them a combined average of 2-3 hours a month.

My usage is a roughly even split between games, music, and all other media (including social media).

Programming and other digital projects used to be on par with music but back then games was a clear first place and social media use was a blip.

I mean, I play a lot of games, but the time I spend coding for work and coding for not work is definitely greater time spent gaming.

My main computer is a 500$ laptop that I use for writing, bills, shipping, etc. My gaming laptop comes out maybe once a week.

I rarely use my computers for games. Occasional bomb squad game with my wife. That's about it. I use it a lot for watching things, and coding a lot, related to work/personal projects and such. It was weird for me to find out most people that spend a lot of time on computers here are doing it because of games. Not because computers are fun to work with.

Yeah, I like gaming but lately I don't have the time for it and just like you I've switched to in person tabletop as it has the added benefit of interpersonal interactions face to face.

Anyway answering your question, yes I use it a lot, sometimes more or less depending on my job situation but mostly browsing, illustration, emails and 3D software make about 80% of my computer time.

Rarely. I barely have time to game, never mind do the other things like code or whatever. Had my gaming pc for only about a year though

The primary use of my computer is for work as I am a 3D artist. I also watch a lot of videos and it serves as my audio rig for my music and headphones.

Yeah. I don't play computer games, and the computer my kid plays games on? She uses it more for drawing. The kids (not little kids) have laptops and use them for school. So about 1/5 of the computer use here is games. Lots of music streaming. One kid has a PS4 though, so there is a lot of gaming overall.