How long "I'm bored, let's play" lasts
Say you're sitting around and looking for someone to play a game with online. Imagine you had an "I'm bored" button that would notify like-minded folks that you were up for a game. Two questions.
Given no further interaction, how long would you (usually) be interested in a gaming hookup? 10 minutes? 20 minutes? An hour?
When you're looking to play a game, do you usually have a specific game in mind, or do you usually not care much? Like, would you want to say "I'm playing these 10 games right now" and any of those is usually fine, or do you get it in your head that only X game will do tonight?
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Maybe a customizable time period of all of those options? Probably 20 mins if i had to pick one. Sometimes specific game, but probably generally good with "checkbox these games" or something.
Depends on the day, some days I'd say I'd like to play this game, and if no one wants in within 20 mins I'll queue myself. Other days I'll sit online doing random shit for hours while browsing my various friend lists to see if anyone is playing a game I want to play.
People get mad at me for my indecisiveness on this topic.
"What do you want to do?" "I don't know. What do you want to do?"
Typically I'm open minded about it and am willing to play anything. Along the lines of:
If I'm wanting to play with others, generally it's the companionship that is the hook, not necessarily a certain game in particular.
Except for Monster Hunter. When I'm in a Monster Hunter mood that series is the only thing that can scratch it.
Great idea, lot of potential here...are you thinking about making a widget for the forum, or a standalone app/service? what if it had a kind of "looking for raid" feel, but instead of pugs you would be playing with other icrontians.. like:
or a more specific ad,
and there could be a drop down for times like "start in the next 10 minutes" all the way to "Impromptu day off with nothing to do all day" or even a "lets schedule a game sometime this week" option.
EDIT: i got carried away with the possibilities and didnt really answer your question, but i feel like if you are "pugging" in as small a community as ours, you should pretty much expect to wait awhile for a response.
isnt ther an app for that?
wait.
i'm thinking of grindr, aren't i?
1 hour+. Typically if I sit down to game, that means I have time to play. If someone hits me up 30 min after I threw out the alert, they might still be able to join games whether I had found others or not. Rah also made an excellent point that the companionship outweighs what we are actually doing.
I am usually open but do sit down with a particular game in mind sometimes. Usually to check out a new LOL or Payday update.
I don't really GET bored, but I DO have an additional weakness that comes up whenever I use a service similar to what you're proposing.
When I was in college, I had the burning desire to go out often, but usually I would be disinterested in going out with certain groups of people. I would find that if I were to post on facebook or any other medium asking for something to do, that those uninteresting groups had things going on and would invite me. Obviously I was not in a position to say 'no,' having just made clear that I was free... which dissuaded me from using such services.
Food for thought.
I get bored constantly. If I am bored and looking for friends to play with, I in most cases really really don't care what the game is. I will sit and play Barbie Horse Adventures as a group for days if everyone else is willing.
I don't like to party, I don't really like to go out to bars, so gaming as a group is my socializing. Its like that stupid Bud Light commercial "If I give you a Bug Light (game), would you up for whatever happens after?" Yes, yes I would.
+1
I know that feel.
Man, I would really be interested in the data from an app like this. I can think of a few ways you could test it.
For me it would probably be about half an hour, +/- 15 minutes. If I'm bored enough to announce my boredom, I know I've got a stretch where I could be playing multiplayer. For me that means that my responsibilities are covered - if my kid is napping and I'm the parent-on-duty, I'm not going to play MP. So I have to have a bit of time ahead of me before I think about hitting the button, which means I can read reddit for 20 minutes waiting for someone to come online.
I usually have an X game in mind to play the night or til I get bored of X game then I am off to another game... I usually wait 10 mins for a game connection if I can't find none then I am off playing the game by myself or trying to a random party to join
I don't often look for new games to play when I'm bored anymore (which is pretty much a bad thing if you want to actually play new games). I have a list of 3-5 games that are standbys for me that I pick from depending on who I've got online to play with, and how we're collectively feeling. These days, it's very much a hive mind kind of thing for me when I decide what to play each night.
So right now, it's basically League of Legends, Mechwarrior Online, CS:GO, Battlefield, TF2, Borderlands. Depending on who I've got on mumble, that's what I end up playing. If it doesn't come down to one of those, then I likely just end up browsing the internet and not playing anything.
Regarding time, it's anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour, but likely no longer than that. After an hour, I've lost patience and likely moved onto something else with my time.