I know what the internet says about games, and to that effect I'm not even sure what the "designated" sources are for gaming news. It seems they all share the same space, between reddit, facebook, twitter, instagram, google-news, etc., they are all have the same news within minutes/hours/days of each other. But as an adult now(28) I no longer know what the water-cooler talk is for gaming, and I mean for the people who really game which I'm imagining are teenagers and kids still, right? Maybe that's my first real inquiry...

After that though, how does internet/social media exposure of today's gaming differ from what people actually talk about and discuss in person? For example, when I was in school there was clearly a smash-phase where that was all anyone talked about, then a halo-multiplayer-phase, then a pokemon-phase, and I remember Loz-WaterTemple discussion was really big for a month or so when that came out.

The Switch just came out, but as most people can agree it feels a lot quiter than the Wii and maybe even the Wii U. VR was all over social media for a while, but now...quiet. Are these actually dominating conversations around the watercooler in your opinion?

Gaming is pretty widespread. Mostly adults video game it seems these days. It's not specific to any age group anymore. As for me, I read things on the internet and consistently talk about them in person. Especially in the millenial age group, we seem to be up to date on most news. I'm able to talk to complete stranger's and we know a majority of information. If that's what you're asking.

Everyone just shows off there mad fidget spinner tricks these days

I don't understand this thread? you want to think the Switch isn't popular even though stock of it which comes into stores is sold out in minutes? Why would you possibly think that, like what are you basing this on?

Not asking whether it is popular or not. Not implying it was or wasn't popular. Mentioned nothing about stock.

I talked about "who plays games?" and "what do people talk about when they talk about games" How has it changed since 10-20 years ago? These conversations used to be relagted to schools and revolve aorund singular games. Given all the expansion and diversity of the medium how has all this changed.

Today's "watercooler talk" was pure Tekken 7 hype. But usually it's about game announcements & reveals. I think hardware came up last when one coworker had previously declared he was getting a Switch, but otherwise it's rare.

Pretty calm, where I'm at. The Witcher III still get's brought up most often, along with Skyrim SE.

For my group of friends it's very much about E3, what the Scorpio is going to be priced at and who is the potential customer that MS have in mind for that system... basically will it be DOA based on those things lol

Bolded: that's what I am finding more and more. Social Media really highlights the reveals, and hardware is a more general topic that doesn't exclude people in a group setting who may not have played a specific game...but that could be because we're in a hardware release phase at the moment.

I don't know your age but for me it revolves more around hardware discussion as I was somewhat reminded of by u/arcaneguyver since everyone kind of knows that from social media highlights and ads.

Majority of information on specific games? Or on generalities like game trends, ads/highlights/reveal, nostalgia? This thread is making me realize that for me it's mainly the latter wherease when I was younger it was more the former. I don't know if it's my age or the culture...probably both.

It mainly seems like the PS4 is popular to me, that's what most people what talk about. As to the games, I guess Overwatch is the most popular game, but Rainbow Six Siege seems to be big too.