MTV muses on gaming with girlfriends/boyfriends

by Scott Jon Siegel { Nov 29th 2007 at 8:30AM }

Sharing is difficult. For those of us blessed with significant others who game, we know this all too well. When games become "ours" instead of "mine" or "yours" how do you go about sharing the gameplay? MTV copy editor Katie Byrne has been thinking about this exact same problem, specifically with reference to her and her boyfriend's shared save file on Super Mario Galaxy.

Although things start well with sharing the game -- switching off every other planet, and dividing play-time equally -- the plan goes a bit haywire when she visits home for Thanksgiving, and her beau just keeps on playing... and beats the game without her.

Of course, we think the answer is obvious: separate save files for separate people. Single-player games are hard to turn into shared experiences, especially when both parties desire equal play-time. Read about Katie's upsetting experience on gaming with a significant other, and share your own success/horror stories below.

Tags: boyfriends, couples, girlfriends, relationships, super-mario-galaxy, supermariogalaxy

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Cheez-It @ Nov 29th 2007 8:37AM

Sounds more like the boyfriend was a dick than a need to split save game files. By dick I mean an inconsiderate, selfish, impatient person who should probably be dumped :)

Saria the Cat @ Nov 29th 2007 2:02PM

I think the real problem here is that she never directly communicated to him how she felt about the Mario game being an important co-op experience. A guy shouldn't have to read into texts like "Nice." and search for another hidden meaning like ":( I thought we were going to finish this together!" When something is really important to me, I will make damn sure my boyfriend knows what's up. :)

Noshino @ Nov 29th 2007 8:44AM

oh...

with my last girlfriend, we actually shared savefiles, she was a Tomb Raider fan, so it was that game back then, and she would also get upset if I would just take a few steps ahead without her...

but then again, she wouldn't get upset if I leveled her character a bit, yes, I wouldn't use her skill or stat points, but I would just get her exp now and then (Ragnarok Online)

upz @ Nov 29th 2007 11:45AM

Noshino, I'm always surprised by how many of my fellow Joystiq'ers, such as yourself, are able to land girls that play video games. In fact, I think I've only known a few girls who knew that there was more to games than Bejeweled and Spider Solitaire.

To illustrate by example, my last girlfriend would get irrationally mad when I decided to play Street Fighter in the basement with my hippy friends instead of going to the mall with her or something like that. I haven't even told the current one that I spend my free time playing video games while eating Chef Boyardee straight from the tin instead of going to the gym or whatever it is she thinks I do.

WiNG @ Nov 29th 2007 2:41PM

yeah um if you expect your relationship to last long term you probably should let her know what your hobbies are.

I was on a first date once, and we walked past an arcade on the way back from a restaurant. She said, "God, just look at all those morons. Video games are so retarded."

There was no second date.

Noshino @ Nov 29th 2007 11:15PM

hahah, yah upz, my friends were also surprised when they met her...hell, she played even more than them...they say that she doesn't look like a gamer at all...=(

B1gC72 @ Nov 29th 2007 8:49AM

since the introduction of multiple save files on console games.....i use multiple save files. me and my brother shared consoles up until this generation actually since i moved out for college and wanted my console to play too. but i digress, the dumbass guy should have just made a copy file or a whole separate one if he wanted to finish it and knew his wife would too. with doing it that way, worse come to worse, he could just delete the other file before she came home without her being any the wiser. he could have even put it on an SD card for crying out loud!

lol that is relationship rule number one: if there is the slightest possibility something you do may upset your girlfriend/wife, DO NOT DO IT because you can't win.

FOXHOUND @ Nov 29th 2007 8:52AM

-waves "NO MA'AM" flag-
'Eff that noise, LoL. XD

riggs @ Nov 29th 2007 8:58AM

Thats why me and my girl play coop games, like gears halo, and now army of two

JPN @ Nov 29th 2007 8:59AM

Weird picture...must be an old one. The Life Ring goes up to 8...wish mine did in SMG! :)

David Keating @ Nov 29th 2007 9:26AM

I buy all the games and play them first, then I loan them to my gf and she plays them a week later... for free. Not a bad deal. Right now she just beat Bioshock and is playing Assassin's Creed, but she wants to get her hands on Mass Effect, but she's going to have to wait another week or so for that one... it's a bit on the long side. We watch each other play games all the time, but I've yet to find a cooperative game we can both get into. She likes Rock Band so far... she plays the Bass.

Fetcher @ Nov 29th 2007 9:31AM

A great game that my wife and I had success playing together was folklore. I took Ellen and she took Keats and it went almost without a hitch. We got to play equal amounts, neither could usurp the other's save (since you can't get into the other character's chapter while in a chapter: ie if you're keats, you're Keats until you finish that chapter, then you can pick again). Even the final boss was splitable, since Keats takes the first half and Ellen takes the second. For a single player game, it was perfect for sharing.

Gregorius @ Nov 29th 2007 9:37AM

That's why I got her a DS. She plays DS and I play the 360. She only likes the XBLA games on the 360, so it works out.

DucSloerie @ Nov 29th 2007 9:57AM

My girl got into gaming watching me play SOCOM online... After trying she soon hogged my PS2, and soon after that we got a second PS2 and extra TV in the living room. We spend way too much time gaming together online.

Now after playing Ratchet on the PS3 together and she tasting COD4 I think it won't be long before we need a second PS3 ... :-)

Chrysee @ Nov 29th 2007 10:04AM

The last game my husband and I played co-op that wasn't at all a co-op game was Skies of Arcadia a couple months ago. We just traded off with each other when we got sick of the random encounters or dungeons. But we've both played the game before, so it was alot easier to avoid sneaking into playtime while he was at work or whatever.

driven2sin @ Nov 29th 2007 10:04AM

good times.. i remember me and gf playing Resident EEeeeeeevil back in the day. She wasn't good with action games so we just played together...

MrKniceGuy @ Nov 29th 2007 10:09AM

We have two Xbox 360s. One for me and one for my wife. We also have two copies of Crackdown Halo 2 and 3, and Tiger Woods 07. But we can also share. She's happy to watch games that are movie like too (Condemned was a fun one) where she is a second pair of eyes for puzzles. And sometimes we'll play different games at the same time.

But before we had to next-gen consoles (my wife loves me) we shared all the time. And no, I would not have played a game we were playing together while she was gone. That's just total dick.

Answer: just get two memory cards.

MD @ Nov 29th 2007 10:17AM

Multiple saves. End of issue.

My husband rarely remembers to check into a different profile on the 360, so sometimes he forgets and pokes at me for unlocking all the achievements in a game before him, but, oh well.

If it's a single player game with one save slot (often a DS game), whoever wanted the game the most gets to finish it first. Then the other person has a go.

We used to have two ps2s until one finally fried, but I really don't see a point to multiple consoles. We divvy up the time on those fairly, and if he's doing his Mass Effect character after work (and after my several hours on my own), then I futz with my DS if I want gaming. Haven't had a problem yet.

LilCo187 @ Nov 29th 2007 10:17AM

My girl and I know there is no sharing save files (outside of Suspend Play on Mario 3 2-Player mode). Hell, we wouldn't even sit in the room together when the other was playing Twilight Princess. Umbrella Chronicles was a definate purchase for us though, given the co-op and our love for the series.

bsm0f0 @ Nov 29th 2007 11:35AM

I've owned everything up to the PS2. My wife would never play for more than five minutes no matter the console or the game. I was eyeballing the next gen consoles and figured, what the hell, I'll get a Wii and maybe she'll play.

I was wrong. We started off with Wii Sports and my game time just went down hill from there. I had to get a second Wii and even then it was a squabble over who was playing Twilight Princess and who was watching tv.

Things have calmed down a bit and we've since given a Wii to my mother, but we don't share game files. She's a bit slower than I am so I have to pace my gaming to make sure I don't ruin the endings for her etc etc, so generally I play after she does and only up to where she currently is in the game and then we'll hook up for some co-op mario/puzzles/etc ... or co-op on the couch =D

laurita @ Nov 29th 2007 11:44AM

weird post!! http://www.paraguaydelivery.com

drew @ Nov 29th 2007 12:13PM

The first time my gf played a video game with me was GTA:SA. She shot at a cop and I screamed at her to jump in his car and speed off, but she drove righ tinto the water. Since, she and I have played two games together - Shadow of the Colossus and Mario Galaxy. In SoC, she basically just sat there and made jokes about Agro the horse, and she still talks about how much fun she had playing it.

With Mario, she actually plays. I think the visual aspect of games matters more to her than anything. She's an art major working in fashion though, so it's understandable.

Robobagins @ Nov 29th 2007 12:33PM

I tired to game with my last gf but our tastes were pretty different except for fighting games, and that would only last as long as I would loose.

I've had much better luck with the rest of my family though. On the holidays, after the meal we all plunk down in front of the tv, turn up the surround and turn down the lights and play a survival horror game, switching out after death or for the person with the best skills needed for the situation.

Lemmiwinks @ Nov 29th 2007 12:53PM

What's hilariously silly about the linked article is that she actually expected him to recognize her text response of "nice" as meaning "please stop."

TheWarden @ Nov 29th 2007 1:18PM

Girlfriend? What's that?

Aludra @ Nov 29th 2007 1:29PM

For SMG, I simply helped my boyfriend out collecting starbits and holding enemies. Not much, but personally I don't like the gameplay, but its more interesting than just watching him. Can't wait for co-op mode on Brawl.

Odog4ever @ Nov 29th 2007 1:44PM

I've got it easy. I just made a separate profile for my girlfriend on the 360. Then I bought her a live account when it was on sale one week. She only likes playing XBLA games so it not really a problem time wise.(She did beg me to play co-op, Halo 3 on easy cause she wanted to see what the fuss was about though)

Sharing one saved game file just seems like a not very well thought out ideal to me.

Saria the Cat @ Nov 29th 2007 1:49PM

My boyfriend and I almost always share the same games since our tastes both range so widely (everything from strategy to RPG to action to platformer to FPS). I usually wind up starting a game and getting him to start his own file, and we generally keep up with each other in terms of the storyline, since we're both busy so we each can only invest X hours a week. It was a big deal when I finished Bioshock before him, though. He instantly yelled, "NO SPOILERS!"