Anybody here whose main use of computers is NOT games?

A lot of people in IT, especially programmers I have met, are completely uninterested in gaming.

To be sure, there are PLENTY of gamers in IT, but many people I have met are done with computers once they get home.

My main use is for porn.

Yes

i dont really game. my hobbies are more self-hosting, service related stuff. giant media library.. distributed av system. lots of docker, server stuff.

the selfhosting communities have some interesting traffic

I'm a recreational coder first and foremost. Sometimes I play games, but rarely all the way through

I never play, i always code.. And i am not even that good at it 😢

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

Linux stuff

4 hours and 52 comments, and not a single mention of what we all knew even before Avenue Q:

The Internet is for porn. Everything else is just what happens between porn.

More seriously, my desktop is where I do larger research that will require more than a couple of tabs. Little to no gaming there. Other PCs are mainly for videos.

Audio! I'm a hobbyist musician.

Gaming is a close second.

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 use the crap out of my computer.

-Video editing -Music editing -Word processing -Spreadsheets -Microprocessor programming -YouTube viewing -Image editing -Shopping -Investing -Web surfing -3D printing -CNC Routing -Website development

• Oh and gaming.

I pretty much stopped gaming when I started working serious jobs after college. I was a designer and front end dev, then design lead for a startup (where I allowed myself to be overworked, especially around deadlines). It’s a lot of screen time and playing games when I got home lost it’s appeal. Plus I’d switched to Macs, and my favorite multiplayer games were being over run by cheating (mid 2000s).

I do play games, but I also work on creative projects and watch shows/movies on my computer. I use Illustrator to create typeface designs, graphic design for laser cutting or stickers, 3D modeling and slicing programs for my 3D printer, Google Docs for writing, coding for Raspberry Pi and Arduino projects, et al.

No games here, I never have found them interesting for whatever reason. Because of this my laptop is a 2018 Chromebook with reflashed BIOS running Ubuntu. It has significantly less processing power than my phone but is plenty sufficient for everything I ever need a computer to do.

Technically for me it's work now

I do 3D animation and illustration. Fortunately, running games requires the exact same kind of hardware so my workstation doubles as a playstation

I spend a lot more time coding than playing games. It's not unusual for me to not be active on steam for a month.

I don't game very much (just recently I started playing outer wilds though a few times per week). I feel like I probably enjoy tweaking my laptop more than actually using it.😆 I dont even code much. I like finding open source alternatives to software and generally improve my laptop. Spent about 4months learning nixos:)

I don't know, at least I might be able to help others improve their pc's too

Anyway I'm just wondering how common it is to use computers more for coding and other technical non-game stuff.

I'd estimate gaming is <5% of my use, probably lower.on my PC

Id say maybe <10% on my phone

I have no console. I had a WiiU as my last one and sold it during Covid as I never iswed it.

Have been thinking aboit a Steam Deck

Am old as fcuk, used to wrote my own games in machine code on my Commodore 64.

I rarely play games on my computers, coding is the bulk of what I do, the rest is data analysis, email and research.

Hmm it's difficult to quantify. On workday I spend an average of probably 6-8 hours on a computer with job related tasks. Not really coding most of the time, since we're maintaining and building a network, so it's more configuration, planning, coordination, and documentation work. Some days we're out to actually deploy hardware, or run around and debug stuff, so it's hard to estimate the average screentime.

My free time involves a lot of computer time too, but it is split up into more smaller categories, either on the desktop computer or the smartphone computer. Manga, Games, Youtube, Movies, Anime Series, Lemmy, Pornography, News, Banking and Investments.

In the end I think my job is the biggest unified chunk of time, but that's kind of arbitrary, if I started subdividing it into different tasks maybe gaming would become the biggest chunk.

I'm not a gamer. Work at computer all day, only mobile (no games either) outside work.

I use an HTPC that happens to be powerful enough to be a gaming PC, I also have a media server facing the internet for use on the go.

Most of my pc use nowadays is for media consumption and analog to digital conversion for backups (VHS to HDD and eventually M-Disc for long term storage).

I do a bit of emulation, most of that is done with an ARM handheld PC but it's an SP form factor and I don't really think it counts. I do a bit of PS2 emulation as well on my HTPC but mostly just to verify good rips of my physical games which I have backed up.

I use online games as a way to hang out with friends. Usually it's about an hour or two a day. The rest of my computer time is spent coding or doing work stuff.

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 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.

What’s a computer?

• I work with computers, so: work
• I mainly consume media (tablet, phone) or read (e-ink) these days.
• Raspberry Pi handles my home automation, and I’m always futzing with it
• my laptop plays games about once a month or taxes once a year

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

Does making game code count? I like making game things and binning them before they resemble something playable! :)

Besides that... I mostly... no that's it, I rarely play things, unless that time every 6 months that I get really into a top-down RPG. For a weekend, my main use is exploring a colorado wasteland or a small town, but it's followed by me starting to make a game aaaand giving up again... but it's fun! :)

I really should make music, I sometimes feel the spark went and it's sad. :(

I still game on my desktop. But it's never been the primary use.

Graphic Design, video editing, 3D modelling, etc... has been the reason for my upgrades over the years. The fact that each of those upgrades allowed my games to perform better was a side-effect instead of being the primary reason.

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 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 used to use mine for games but I don’t really play games any more. So for the last year or two my PC has been mostly dedicated to CAD, PCB design, coding, et cetera.

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.

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’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.

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.

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.

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.

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'm a sysadmin, so non-game stuff is my entire day job.

When I use my PC at home, it's a variable split between internet, media and gaming, depending what I damn well feel like at the time :D

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.

My gaming PC became my self-hosted server around 5 years ago. Now it runs 24/7 serving up media through Emby, providing backup/cloud/vpn services to my mobile devices, DNS adblocking for everything on the LAN/VPN, password manager syncing, and whatever else I feel like playing with :)

Time, energy, and willpower just never seem to come together for gaming anymore. And on the rare occasions it does, that PC still games just fine; even after making the move to Debian last year.

I don't even really have a computer.

For games, I have a switch or Xbox, and everything else I use my phone or iPad.

I don’t use my laptop much anymore (don’t have a desktop either): Some modeling, accounting, spreadsheets, or doc composition; things that are cumbersome to do well on a tablet. General browsing and videos are on my phone, tablet, or cast to the TV. When I want to game it’s usually on my switch.

It’s The laptop is really my device of last resort. I know it will do exactly what I want it to do, but I have to dig it out, clear space for it and usually plug it in if it’s not a quick job because the thing is old and an energy hog. My tablet is newer and I got it a convertible laptop-like keyboard case. The battery lasts so much longer and it’s just easier to lug around to where I need it for whatever.

Same for me. Coding, 3d modeling (for fun), lately some fpv simulator to get better with drones before I shred a real one. I even worked in the gaming industry, but it just doesn't keep me interested for long anymore.

Same as you. I used to game a lot (too much) in my younger days. Now I use the computer to support my tabletop gaming hobbies, 3d printing, a little coding, and streaming.

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.

Love setting up servers and home labing. Working on setting up a Pixelfed server now

I do love games, but most of what I do at my computer is maker projects. CAD, 3d printing, electronics design, coding. Lately I've been building a puzzle box for my niece's birthday.

Interestingly, I did upgrade my GPU a year and a half or so ago (to a used 3070, I'm not made of money) and since then the main thing I've used that GPU for is actually AI experiments rather than games. E.g. for the puzzle box, I got Stable Diffusion to generate images for a puzzle for me. It's four images, and when you combine them in the right way they reveal a fifth image. I don't think I could have done the same puzzle without AI.

I do still play games, though. I'm just kind of off the big budget stuff these days.

I havent been gaming lately, I like playing with 3d software like blender, messing around setting up websites with vps and learning to setup my own fediverse instances, might go into local webdev or do some dropshipping, might do nothing with it, just fun to learn.

If I can find the time I use my home computer for gaming and watching torrents, but most of the time I spend using computers it's at work, for coding (hopefully, if there's any time left after all the daily bullshit), answering emails and whatnot, and swearing at while trying to get them to work.

Don't know if that counts.

So I do all my software development on my work pc at the office and the one at home.

My personal computer, which is heavily over specked, is used to play Minecraft, Factorio, and RDR2. I do use for non gaming stuff too though, but that’s mainly 3D Printing.

I really don’t game a lot as don’t feel like using the computer when I’m off work and I’m into rock climbing in free time.

I have my primary daily driver laptop running Arch for web programming and writing, my side laptop running arch for monitoring services and writing, my server computer running (again) arch that I use for web dev and jellyfin streaming, and my work laptop running Ubuntu for server management. Not to mention my chromebook for paper weight, and my wife's laptop on Win10 she uses for design stuff. Nobody running games outside of my xBox One.

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 know you said you’re not into games much anymore but If you’re into D&D you might like Baldur’s Gate 3. I also know of a group for older gamers if you’re ever thinking of dabbling again.

I mostly use my computer for:

• CAD (both 3D modeling and circuit board design)
• Programming (mostly embedded firmware in Rust lately)
• Chatting because doing that on a phone is too slow and autocorrect sucks.
• Work (remote desktop, mostly)
• News
• AI tomfoolery with stuff like Stable Diffusion and LLMs.

Every now and again I'll get addicted to a new game and use my PC for that too. My latest addiction was Baldur's Gate 3 when it came out 🤷

I don't use my computers for modern gaming. Like OP, I prefer tabletop games, though I do speed run crossword puzzles and play some PixelDungeon on my phone when I have spare time. I also built a Retropie, and play some old Atari and PS2 roms on a bored Sunday. My stuff can run Civ IV, which is probably the last title I bought.

My main systems are for work, or for supporting self-hosted services including local infrastructure, home lab stuff, email, blogs, home automation, media servers, etc, etc. Lately I've been getting into SDR projects using RPi or old laptops.

So, uh... Yeah. Fun stuff, but not so much gaming.

My job is coding so my primary use is doing that stuff. I do game an awful lot though.

I think, here on Lemmy, there's relatively many folks who use their computers for other things, given there's so many techies here...

Programming, research and education would be my primary computer uses.

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.

Does collaborative writing for fun count as games? The communities involved call them games, but there's no thoughts about control schemes or graphics, and no need to do anything outside your browser. That, chat, social media, reading (both for work and personal time), and the like take up the bulk of my PC time.

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)

I'm mostly using my PC for photo work, drawing, writing, and programming.

Most of my game time is on consoles (Xbox Series X and Switch).

I rarely play PC games, and they're usually PC-friendly by design (e.g. heavy use of keyboard/mice, ready availability of neat mods) or distribution (weird indie shit®).

Oh and emulators. Recently started dumping all of my GameCube and Wii games, and I have to say Dolphin is just bloody incredible.

I game a decent ammount, but else I use my computer to organize my photos, do some web design, research stuff, test the odd thing a VM.

I need to get a NAS...

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.

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.

Photo editing and uploading, maintaining my sports club's website, video calls to family members, watching films and TV. Do word puzzles count as gaming? I do Quordle and Octordle every morning. I also have an ancient laptop running Linux; I'm trying to work myself up to switch the computer over come October.

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

Photo editing. As a helping tool for guitar with Guitar Pro and Songsterr and HX edit. I also spend a fair bit of time on my homelab, configuring servers, networks and maintaining my self hosted empire.

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.

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

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

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

Technically my primary computer activities are gaming, but these days I game exclusively on the Steam Deck or the tablet (for mobile games)...

My most speced-out computer was actually purchased for work related reasons. I wanted a decent GPU because I thought I'd be working in deep learning. Well current job doesn't require training models and I was required to use a dedicated work laptop so... This high-spec one I mainly use for just about everything else other than gaming

My primary use is photo editing for a photography hobby. I shoot wildlife and upload photos to iNaturalist. I shoot sports for a local junior college and an adult baseball league.

I don't watch a ton of movies, but it also serves as my Plex server. I leave it off unless I want to watch something though.

There are games on it, but I rarely get that itch anymore. In my teens and 20s, 1000 hours a year would have been a slow year. It's probably more like 0-100 a year now.

Work: Video editing. And browsing the web! Andddd a lot of video games lol

These days, my home PC is mostly used for consuming media, editing my own media, and (at least this time of year) business and tax paperwork. Games are definitely not my primary use.

I mostly use my computer for Discord, watching videos, and just generally browsing the web. I'm not a huge gaming person, although I was as a kid. I don't know how to code or anything, though...I have a healthcare related job.

My computer isn't good enough to run a lot of games anyway. It's a laptop from around 2018 that I have hooked up to a keyboard, mouse, and second monitor.

I'm 54 and don't game at all on my PC, it is used only for coding, a Beelink SER5

Check out https://lemmy.world/c/selfhosted

Main uses for me are coding, bookkeeping, email, office apps, and general web browsing. I haven't played games in years. Not how I prefer to unwind these days anyway.

I mostly use my laptop for coding, language learning, and watching TV series. I do play games on it but rarely, I got enough consoles and handhelds and I prefer using them instead of the computer, I'd use the computer if I want to play a game for a console I don't have tho.