I don't know why but I seem to enjoy more making games than playing them. Of course there are times when programming games can become frustrating, especially when your game doesn't do what is supposed to do, but nevertheless the feeling of completing a game no matter how small or big it may be, and show it to other people is much bigger than beating the final boss of your xbox360/PS3/Wii game. Well, that is my case. What's yours?

I like playing games, sure, but I also get some of my kicks trying to mentally reverse-engineer the various graphics and AI techniques used in the game and additionally thinking about ways to improve them. So, I'll have to throw my lot in with the 'making' crowd.

Also depends on how immersive the game is, too.

Yeah I seem to analyze games when I play them. I beat Dark Messiah: Might and Magic yesterday and that was the first game I've played in 6 months other than flash games. I found myself running into the cloth in the game sometimes. It has a horrible lighting system on the cloth for some reason. It's hard to say, but I often enjoy programming more than playing games.

I havent bought a game in months, i have been way to busy programming mine and continuing to learn C++.

I'm not so sure.

The number of times I've cracked open an IDE and thought "I'm going to make a game" and fallen flat with a can't be bothered attitude is quite something. Mind you, my programming has fallen by the wayside and professional software development in industry pissed me off far too much to even consider recreational coding anymore.

However, I'm getting bored of the derivative shovelware that passes for "games" these days, and it's been truly ages since I last played a game that grabbed me and didn't have me bored after three seconds, or indeed found a game that wasn't identical to its prequel released almost a year to the day earlier. If I can get excited over Guitar Hero 7: Kula Shaker or CoD 14:Oh No Not More Russians then I'll be surprised.

So I can't really answer the question accurately, I'm afraid.

I think the fact that I have a copy of Psychonauts sitting on my shelf gathering dust speaks for itself. I really enjoy platformers, and I would highly recommend that game to anyone who's even remotely interested in computers. Sadly though, I'm too busy coding.

And damn it I can't stop.

EDIT: The fact that Psychonauts is also the most recent game I have, also speaks volumes :).

I like games so I makes games, I don't like one over the other, they are the same to me. In general I get short term joy from playing them and long term joy from making them.

I guess it's the same difference than between reading a good book and writing it.

I tend to spend a lot of time just programming, but every once in a while I'll take some time out to play some games. At the moment I'm programming for a day or two outside of work, gaming for a day or two, and so on. Seems to break up the action nicely [smile]

I find it depends what mood I'm in. Lately I haven't been doing much of either (making or playing games). The only two games I have played in the past week was a flash game that was related to a Dell contest and Magnetic Butterfly.