Questions to Ask About Video Games
Questions about games for a friend, a date, a coworker or a teenager who plays more than you do. They start with what someone is playing now and move toward habits, taste and the games that stayed with them.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What are you playing at the moment?
Why ask it
The easiest question in the set and the one with the most information in it. The answer usually gives you their platform, roughly how much time they have, and whether they play alone, without you asking three separate questions.
What's the first game you remember playing, and whose machine was it?
Why ask it
The machine matters as much as the game. An older sibling's console, a school computer room or a parent's work laptop each imply a different story, and people who started on someone else's hardware often remember waiting for a turn as vividly as playing.
How do you usually fit gaming in: an hour in the evening, a whole Saturday, or in short bursts on a phone?
Why ask it
Session length shapes taste more than genre does. Someone with twenty minute gaps cannot love a game that takes half an hour to get going, and this explains recommendations that fell flat between the two of you.
What's the game you've put the most hours into?
Why ask it
Hours reveal what someone actually enjoys rather than what they admire. The gap between the game they name here and the one they call their favorite is often the interesting part of the conversation.
Which game do you keep going back to and reinstalling?
Why ask it
Reinstalling is a stronger signal than finishing. It usually points to comfort rather than challenge, and asking what mood sends them back to it tends to open a more personal conversation than any question about favorites.
What's a game everyone loves that you couldn't get into?
Why ask it
This gives permission to disagree with a consensus, which most people enjoy. The reason is what to listen for: pacing, difficulty, tone, the amount of reading. Any of those tells you what to never recommend to them.
Do you finish games, or drift off around the middle?
Why ask it
A surprising number of people abandon games they are enjoying, and saying so out loud is usually a small relief. Their answer also tells you whether long games are a gift or a burden.
What's the last game that kept you up later than you meant to stay?
Why ask it
This finds the game that had real pull, and the mechanism is often specific: one more turn, an autosave in the wrong place, a friend online in a different time zone. That mechanism is worth naming.
Do you play with other people, and are they people you know offline?
Why ask it
For a lot of players the answer is a group of friends they have never met in person and speak to weekly for years. Treating that as a real friendship rather than a curiosity is usually the difference between a conversation and an interview.
What's the funniest thing that's ever happened to you in a game?
Why ask it
Bugs, physics accidents and badly timed voice chat produce better stories than achievements do. Expect the story to require setup, and let them give it, since the setup is the fun part.
Have you ever rage quit something and then gone back to it?
Why ask it
This gets at how they handle being stuck, which is more revealing than asking about their hardest game. Some people grind, some look up a guide, some put it down for a year and return, and each answer says something about them elsewhere too.
Is there a game you're genuinely good at, and what do beginners get wrong?
Why ask it
Asking for the beginner mistake gets a real explanation rather than a modest shrug, and people are noticeably happy to teach. If they cannot name a mistake, they are probably competent rather than expert, which is worth knowing before you ask them to coach you.
Which game has music you'd listen to away from the game?
Why ask it
Soundtracks are one of the few parts of a game people carry into ordinary life, and the answer often reaches back years further than the rest of the conversation. It also opens a door for anyone who is more interested in atmosphere than in play.
Has a game ever got to you emotionally, and did you see it coming?
Why ask it
The did you see it coming half makes this answerable without embarrassment, since it turns confession into craft. Listen for whether the moment was written or emergent, because players who are moved by their own choices want very different games from those moved by cutscenes.
Do you look things up while you play, or refuse to?
Why ask it
This is a small article of faith among players and people have firm views. Purists will explain what a wiki spoils; the pragmatic will tell you about the evening they wasted lost in a level, and both answers are more entertaining than the question suggests.
What's sitting unplayed that you feel slightly guilty about?
Why ask it
Almost everyone has a backlog from sales they could not resist, and admitting it is disarming. The guilt is worth poking at gently, because a hobby that generates obligation has stopped being a rest.
Which older game have you tried to go back to, and did it hold up?
Why ask it
Revisiting is where nostalgia meets reality: controls that aged badly, save systems that punished you, a story that was thinner than remembered. The ones that do hold up are worth writing down.
Have you ever changed how you play because it was taking up too much of your life?
Why ask it
Many players have quietly set their own limits, uninstalled something competitive, or dropped a game with daily tasks. Asking plainly, without disapproval, usually gets an honest and thoughtful answer.
If someone who never plays games sat down next to you, what would you hand them?
Why ask it
This tests whether they can think past their own taste, and the choice reveals what they believe games are for: a story, a puzzle, an hour of company. Anyone who names something with a twenty button controller has forgotten what a beginner faces.
What would a game made specifically for you look like?
Why ask it
Ending here lets someone assemble the parts they have been describing all conversation, and the answer is often oddly specific: no combat, no timers, a small map they can learn. It is the clearest statement of taste they will give you.
Talking about games with someone who plays more than you
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Opening without stalling the conversation
- Ask what they are playing now rather than what their favorite game is. Favorites require ranking a decade of memories, and most people freeze or default to a safe answer.
- If you do not know the game they name, say so and ask what kind of game it is. Faking recognition ends the topic within two exchanges.
- Ask about a single moment rather than a whole game. Moments come with stories attached.
- Let them use the vocabulary they use with other players, then ask what a term means. Most are pleased to explain and it costs nothing to admit.
What the answers usually tell you
- Long sessions and competitive games often mean a fixed social group with a schedule, not solitude.
- Puzzle and management games in short bursts usually belong to people with fragmented time, such as parents and shift workers.
- When someone talks mostly about building, decorating or collecting, they are describing a calm hobby rather than a challenge.
- Someone who names only games from ten years ago is probably a lapsed player. Ask what pulled them away rather than pressing for current opinions.
If you are asking a child or teenager
- Ask them to show you rather than describe it. Ten minutes watching over their shoulder buys more goodwill than an hour of questions.
- Ask who they play with and whether they know them offline. Do it as curiosity, not as a check, or you will get a shorter answer next time.
- Ask what they are good at in the game. It is often the only place in their week where they are the expert in the room.
- Ask what they spend money on and what things cost. Free games with in game purchases are built to blur that, and the conversation is more useful than a rule.
Common mistakes
Ranking their hobby against yours
Comments about wasted time, or about mobile games not being real games, end the conversation and are remembered. If you want to know why they play, ask that instead.
Turning it into a skill contest
Comparing achievements, rank or hours converts a shared interest into a competition. Ask how something is done rather than announcing how you did it.
Asking twenty questions in a row
Answer a few of these yourself as you go, even if your answer is that you last played twenty years ago. A one sided interview reads as research rather than interest.