Questions to Ask a Gamer
31 questions for talking with someone about the games they play, written to work whether or not you play yourself. They go past ranking favorites and into what they are playing now, how much time they actually get, who they play with, what they quit and why, what a game once did for them, and the one they keep meaning to start.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
What are you playing at the moment?
Why ask it
The best opener because it is current and specific, and it does not ask anyone to rank their entire life. Whether they name one game or five also tells you whether they are deep in something or drifting between things.
How did you get into it? What was the first game that felt like yours?
Why ask it
First games are attached to a house, a sibling, a hospital stay, a friend's console. The answer is usually a story about a person rather than about a game, which is why it opens a conversation where a favorites list would close one.
What are you playing on, and is that a choice or just what you have?
Why ask it
Platform is partly money and partly where your friends are. Someone on a handheld is playing in twenty minute gaps; someone with a built PC has a different relationship to the hobby entirely. The second half of the question sidesteps the tedious console argument.
How much time do you actually get in a week?
Why ask it
Available time shapes what a person can enjoy at all. Somebody with five hours will avoid anything with a slow opening, and knowing that stops you recommending a hundred hour game to someone who has not finished one in years.
Do you play with the same people every time, or whoever happens to be online?
Why ask it
Multiplayer covers two opposite things: a settled group who talk about their week while playing, or matchmaking with strangers. Which one they have tells you whether this is where their social life lives or where they go to be left alone.
What have you put the most hours into, and do you still enjoy it?
Why ask it
Hours and enjoyment come apart more often than people admit. Long-running games slide into obligation, daily tasks, and habit. If they describe logging in without wanting to, that is the most honest thing you will hear all evening.
What is a game everyone loves that you could not get on with?
Why ask it
Permission to dislike something admired produces real opinions instead of safe ones. The reason matters more than the title: pacing, difficulty, tone, an interface, motion sickness. It also tells you what never to recommend to them.
Have you ever quit something you were deep into? What happened?
Why ask it
Quitting is more interesting than finishing. Expect a difficulty wall, a story turn they hated, a group that fell apart, or life simply arriving. It is also the easiest route into how they feel about the time they spend playing.
What is the hardest thing you have finished, and what got you through it?
Why ask it
The interesting part is not the difficulty but the persistence: notes, videos, a friend talking them through a boss, two hundred attempts. How someone describes getting unstuck in a game usually matches how they get unstuck elsewhere.
Have you ever left a game because of the other players?
Why ask it
Harassment and bad behavior push people out of games they loved. Asking about players rather than about the game lets them mention it without having to make a speech, and expect a shorter answer if it was aimed at them personally.
What did a game get so right that you still think about it?
Why ask it
This tends to produce the best answer of the conversation. It might be one mechanic, a piece of music, a single room, or a moment where the game trusted the player. It also moves the talk from preference to craft, which players rarely get asked about.
Is there a game you would not play again because of how it ended?
Why ask it
Some endings are respected rather than enjoyed, and people will name a game they admire and never want to feel again. It is an unusual question to be asked, and the answer often has more to do with what was happening in their life at the time.
Do you use a microphone when you play?
Why ask it
Voice chat is a live issue for a lot of players, particularly women and anyone whose accent attracts comment. Keep it easy to answer either way, because some people play muted for reasons they would rather not explain to someone they have just met.
What is the most you have spent on this, and how do you feel about it now?
Why ask it
Money in games takes odd shapes: a graphics card, a fight stick, four years of a subscription, purchases made at one in the morning. Asking about how they feel now rather than the amount gets an honest and often very funny answer.
Do you have games for relaxing and games for competing? Which do you need this week?
Why ask it
Most players run both modes, one to unwind and one that demands everything. Asking which they need right now quietly turns a hobby question into a question about how life is going, and it is often where the conversation deepens.
Do you watch other people play, and does that count as gaming to you?
Why ask it
Streams, speedruns, and competitive matches are a large part of the hobby now, and some people watch more than they play. Whether they count it tells you something about how they judge their own leisure time.
What would you show someone who thinks games are for children?
Why ask it
This hands them the floor to defend something they care about, which most people enjoy. Expect concrete suggestions: a game about grief, a puzzle game, something a parent could manage. It is also the quickest way to end up holding a controller.
Knowing what you know about me, what would you actually put in my hands?
Why ask it
A recommendation aimed at you rather than at everyone forces them to think about who you are, and it commits you both to something. Ask it late, after they have heard what you like, and be ready to genuinely play the thing.
Has a game ever done something for you at a hard time?
Why ask it
Games carry people through illness, isolation, bereavement, and long night shifts, and almost nobody gets asked about it. Ask once, keep your voice ordinary, and let them decide how much of it to tell you.
What is the game you keep meaning to start and never do?
Why ask it
Everyone has a backlog and the reason is usually revealing: too long, too sad, waiting for a free weekend, or afraid it will not match the memory. A gentle place to finish, and it frequently ends with an actual plan to play something.
What did you grow up playing on?
Why ask it
Hardware dates people accurately and without asking their age, and it explains later taste better than genre does. Someone who spent their childhood on a family PC has a different set of reference points from someone with a console in their bedroom.
What was the last game you actually finished, and did the ending land?
Why ask it
Most people do not finish most games, so this quietly asks what held them to the end. Endings are also where opinions are strongest and least rehearsed, since almost nobody has been asked about one.
Do you finish games, or drift off about two thirds through?
Why ask it
Drifting off is the norm and admitting it is oddly relieving. The reasons people give, a difficulty spike, a new release, an open world that stopped offering anything, are more interesting than any list of favourites.
What do you keep recommending that nobody ever plays?
Why ask it
Every player has one, and this is the question they have been waiting for. You will get genuine enthusiasm rather than the safe answer, and usually an explanation of why it is a hard sell.
Which game did you play with someone, and are you still in touch?
Why ask it
Shifts the subject from games to people, which is where the real material is. Answers frequently involve a friendship that only existed inside one game, a sibling, or a guild that dissolved, and most players have never told anyone about it.
What is the worst thing you have done to another player?
Why ask it
Asked lightly, this reliably gets a confession and a laugh, because everyone who has played online has one. It is also a fast read on whether they find griefing funny or embarrassing in retrospect.
Is there a game world you would just walk around in if there was nothing to do?
Why ask it
Separates people who play for challenge from people who play for a place to be, a distinction most players feel but have never had a word for. The answers are specific and often unexpected.
Which game changed what you thought games could do?
Why ask it
Different from a favourite, and most players can name one immediately. What follows is usually the clearest account you will get of what they want from the medium, and it does not require you to have played it.
Is there a game you cannot go back to because of what was happening when you played it?
Why ask it
The most searching question here, and it lands because games occupy long stretches of time in ways films do not. Answers involve illness, unemployment, a lockdown, a breakup. Ask it late in a conversation, not early.
Do you play more or less than you did five years ago, and how do you feel about it?
Why ask it
Playing time drops with work, children, and attention, and many players are quietly unsure whether they mind. This gets a more thoughtful answer than any question about favourites, and it is the one people keep talking about.
If you could wipe your memory of one game and play it fresh, which?
Why ask it
A good closing question because it asks what someone valued most about an experience rather than which game was best. The choice is almost never the game they earlier named as their favourite, which is worth pointing out to them.
How to have the conversation
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
If you do not play yourself
- Say so early and without apology. Players are far more generous with someone honestly curious than with someone bluffing familiarity they do not have.
- Ask to watch for ten minutes rather than asking more questions. Sitting beside someone while they play answers most of what you were going to ask and gives you something specific to ask about.
- Ask what the game wants from them: reflexes, planning, patience, cooperation. It is a better question than what the game is about, and it works for anything from a farming game to a shooter.
- Follow the emotion rather than the mechanics. You do not need to understand a build or a meta to ask why that moment mattered.
Questions that land badly
- How many hours a day do you play. However you mean it, it arrives as an accusation, and you will get a defensive number rather than a real one.
- Do you not think it is a waste of time. Nobody has ever answered this in good faith, and the conversation is over as soon as you ask it.
- Are you any good. Skill is a sore subject for plenty of players, and the honest answer is usually complicated enough that they will just deflect.
- Console against PC, or one franchise against another. It invites a rehearsed argument instead of anything about them.
- Asking a woman whether she really plays, or asking about being a woman who plays, before anything else. It is the most common thing they get asked and the thing they are most tired of.
Better follow-ups
- Ask them to show you the bit they were describing. Most games can produce the moment in a minute or two, and it beats any description.
- Ask who else was there. Games are full of other people, and the story about a friend, a sibling, or a stranger who helped is usually the story worth hearing.
- Ask what they would change if they made it. Players have detailed, unsolicited opinions about design and rarely get asked for them.
- Ask what they were like as a player five years ago. People change genres and habits as their lives change, and the shift is usually about something other than games.
If this is your partner or your child
Ask when a good stopping point is rather than asking them to stop now. Plenty of games cannot be paused, and leaving a match mid-way lets four other people down, which is why abrupt requests turn into arguments that appear disproportionate. Agree on a signal, an end of a round, an end of a run, and it stops being a fight. If you want to understand the appeal, ask to be taught something rather than asking for an explanation, and accept being bad at it in front of them for a while. That single evening tends to do more than any conversation about screen time. If you are genuinely worried, be concrete about what you have noticed, sleep, meals, school, friends drifting, rather than about the hours, because hours alone tell you almost nothing about whether something is wrong.