Video game vocabulary?

[JubakuX]

Me and my brother have both been studying Japanese for about three years now and one thing that still throws us off is vocabulary used for video games as we are both avid gamers.

My question is: If I were talking to someone using polite Japanese, what verb would I use to say that I "play" video games? Like in the sentence, "I play video games often."

I've seen やる used for this many times before though it's always been done in casual conversations so I'm always afraid to use it in polite situations.

If anyone has the answer to this it would be very much appreciated.

[Psy]

Don't take my word as final, but I'm pretty sure you can just say (テレビ)ゲームをする。There are probably abbreviations for the various consoles too, but the only one I know is プレステ "playstation."

[Taurus]

I've used asobu with my wife's family and they seem to understand, and that's what they seem to use. However, I was skyping my wife yesterday while playing a game for work and I used 'asobu' and she said it sounded wrong in the context of a game that I was playing for work, which I thought was interesting (I guess it sounds funny in English, too, to say that you're playing a game for work, but we don't really have an alternative since to say you're doing a game for work sounds even funnier).

It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.

[jclemons]

N64 abbreviation is just 64 in Japanese
ろくじゅうよん！

Super Nintendo is スパファミ

Wii is just ウィー、PS3:　ピーエススリーor プレステ３

If you say ゲーム好き（ずき）です。they understand without the テレビ part added.

[zakojanai]

I've always heard and used テレビゲームをする. The examples in the JDIC all seem to use this and when I googled this phrase I got a lot of hits. When I googled　テレビゲームをやる I got a few, but not very many hits.
When I searched for テレビゲーム with 遊ぶ,　I only got a couple of hits using the phrase テレビゲームで遊ぶ. The nuance for this phrase is a little different. テレビゲームで遊ぶ indicates a method in which you play with others. In this case, the video games are the method. I don't think you would use it if you were just playing games by yourself since テレビゲーム isn't the object of 遊ぶ. I'm not sure if this makes sense, so if someone more knowledgeable could comment I'd love to hear the answer.

[JubakuX]

I've always heard and used テレビゲームをする. The examples in the
When I searched for テレビゲーム with 遊ぶ,　I only got a couple of hits using the phrase テレビゲームで遊ぶ. The nuance for this phrase is a little different. テレビゲームで遊ぶ indicates a method in which you play with others. In this case, the video games are the method. I don't think you would use it if you were just playing games by yourself since テレビゲーム isn't the object of 遊ぶ. I'm not sure if this makes sense, so if someone more knowledgeable could comment I'd love to hear the answer.

I noticed that 遊ぶ is used a lot when referring to playing online games (such as World of Warcraft or Counter Strike) with other people, so that explanation makes sense from what I've seen.

When it comes down to する vs やる though, やる actually comes up with slightly more results on Google if you search for "ゲームをやる," which is how I usually see it used in casual speech.

I know that I could technically make it more polite by using やります but I wanted to find the most natural way to say it and that seems like it would be too easy.

[zakojanai]

You're right about the number of hits...I wasn't looking at the actual numbers, rather at how the phrases were being used. Either way, ゲームをやる or ゲームをする can be used.
If you wanna make it polite, you should probably use します. But how often do you really talk about video games in polite company? The reason I'd use する　instead of やる is because やるjust sounds a little rougher.　Maybe that's just because I associate　やる with the Beat Takeshi movie "みんな〜やってるか!" (English title: "Getting Any?") Turn on rikaichan and move your mouse over やるand I think you'll see what I mean.

[JubakuX]

You're right about the number of hits...I wasn't looking at the actual numbers, rather at how the phrases were being used. Either way, ゲームをやる or ゲームをする can be used.
If you wanna make it polite, you should probably use します. But how often do you really talk about video games in polite company? The reason I'd use する　instead of やる is because やるjust sounds a little rougher.　Maybe that's just because I associate　やる with the Beat Takeshi movie "みんな〜やってるか!" (English title: "Getting Any?") Turn on rikaichan and move your mouse over やるand I think you'll see what I mean.

Yeah, that's why I was hesitant to use even use やります as it does sound rougher than する. The only thing is that I thought that maybe やります could be used for playing video games in the same way that it can be used for playing sports, because I've seen やります used in polite situations to say that you will play some kind of sport or game in general.

The reason I need it in polite form is because if I were to talk about my hobbies to someone I first meet (or in any other introduction where you would list your hobbies) then I would need to be able to mention that gaming is one of my hobbies.

[jclemons]

Thing about やる is that it's all about context. So don't worry so much about sounding rough. It's more appropriate than する when you say you'll do something in the immediate future (action).

[zakojanai]

While you're right that using yaru is all about context, I don't yaru is more correct than suru or vice versa. Grammatically, either is fine and if you use the masu form, I doubt you'll get into any trouble using yaru. I just think that if you want to err on the side of caution, use suru. Of course, if you're talking about playing a musical instrument, yaru would be totally appropriate in polite company.
Here's a link to a little debate in Japanese about the uses of the two verbs, though not in relation to playing video games.
http://okwave.jp/qa686084.html[url][/url]

[JubakuX]

^ Thanks for the link. I skimmed it and already found some interesting stuff. I'll have to look into it in further detail later though I did see this:

＞外来語は「やる」を使うことができない

「パソコンをやる。」「テレビゲームをやる。」は言えますよね。

That seemed to be the only thing related to games and it seems like you're maybe not supposed to use やる for foreign words though computers and games (among other things possibly) are an exception? Interesting.

[Jessi]

>>外来語は「やる」を使うことができない

I find this interesting because I can think of other 外来語 that use やる alot, especially sports like スケボー (skateboarding), サーフィン (surfing), etc. Hmmm.

[zakojanai]

I don't think that guy made his point very well. When combining 外来語 with やる, you'll always need the particle を. That's not the case with する. That's what I think he meant, anyway.