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Comment by kohanz | Hacker News Reader

It seems like an over-simplification/generalization to think that people who write software for a living/hobby share video game preferences. People are multifaceted with many different interests. Our professions do not define the rest of us.

I personally enjoy playing sports games (e.g. FIFA, NBA 2K) and action games (e.g. Red Dead Redemption), but I don't think those choices have anything to do with my profession.

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There's some truth to that, but OTOH programmers have a different mindset -- if you write software for a living/hobby, generally you'll have above-average intelligence and enjoy dealing with complex dynamical systems and elegant models of the real world.

This explains why so many suggestions in this thread are strategy games, roguelikes, and deep puzzle games.

Also, the HN demographic skews to a certain age range, so there's a lot of nostalgia for 1993-1999 games. (If this describes you, check out the site formerly known as Good Old Games [1])

[1] http://gog.com

I agree with original OP and think you're retrofitting your theory onto the data. Games like civilization 5, starcraft I/II, dota and minecraft are some of the most played games in general.

The fact that you're seeing them pop up here doesn't automatically say something about our demographic.

I agree. I abhor both of those genres, but I bet we'd get along plenty when it comes to programming(or not, who knows!) As you said, programmers are multifaceted, and video game preference is probably highly unrelated.

I haven't played sports games since Ice Hockey and World Cup on NES. IMO the entire sports industry is just a waste of time.

You can call any form of entertainment a "waste of time". Even say, video games.

Yeah, but games are INSANELY fun. Sports are just meh. It's more of a social activity I guess, and I'm kind of antisocial. I still enjoy hanging out with people and watching a game and especially live games, I just dont bother with the immense waste of time that is following it and playing the crappily made games.

Yeah, but games are INSANELY fun. Sports are just meh.

This is (and I assume you realize this) merely a personal preference. Like a taste in music or food.

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