This is another in an occasional series of conversations in which The New York Times invites watchmakers, collectors and fans to discuss, well, almost anything they please.

A quirk of the mechanical watch world is that some of its most passionate denizens spend their days focused on all things digital.

Just ask Suzanne Wong and Lydia Winters.

Ms. Wong is a native of Singapore who lives in Geneva, where she serves as editor in chief of the online watch publication WorldTempus. Ms. Winters was born in Florida and has lived in Stockholm since 2011, when she joined the team at Mojang Studios, the Swedish game developer that owns the popular video game Minecraft. She is now the company’s chief storyteller, a sort of global brand ambassador.

The two met on the social audio app Clubhouse in 2020 when Ms. Wong, a co-founder of Watch Femme, a female-centric watch community, was moderating discussions about industry topics, from how to start a collection to the experiences of female entrepreneurs. Ms. Winters, a budding watch aficionado and accomplished photographer, was an eager participant.

In an email, Ms. Wong pointed out “a cool kind of symmetry” between them. “Lydia’s day job is with Mojang and she’s into watches in her free time,” Ms. Wong wrote. “I work in the watch industry and on weekends I mess around on Minecraft to relax. Storytelling is very much a part of what we both do for a living.”

On a video call from their homes last month, the women spoke about the barriers that discourage people from joining the watch community, tactics watch executives could borrow from the world of video gaming and their own attraction to analog timepieces.

The conversation has been edited and condensed.

Lydia, what drew you to watches?

LYDIA WINTERS My partner, Vu, had been taking photos of watches and I was like, this is so weird. He said, “You should do it, too,” and I said, “No way.”

SUZANNE WONG So watch photography didn’t even appeal to you at first?

WINTERS Not at all. The reason I started it was because I was getting more into watches during the pandemic, and we were listening to a lot of Tenn & Two, Kat Shoulders’s and Katlen Schmidt’s podcast, and they invited me on. Now I’ve gone so much deeper than Vu. I’ve found my subject. It’s kind of a hilarious turn from “no way” to way deep. I just introduce myself now: “I’m a watch nerd.”

WONG You work in that nerd sector anyway, so it shouldn’t be that off-putting.

WINTERS So many similarities. I evidently like things that are male-dominated, where women are breaking in: watches, photography, gaming, tech.

Suzanne, what’s your origin story with watches?

WONG Around 2010, I applied for some magazine jobs and the first one that got back to me was a luxury lifestyle title, like Tatler, the society magazine, but for men. Their watch writer had just left. No one else wanted to take up that beat. They were like, “Make the new girl do it.”

The more I learned, I wondered, what is it about watches that makes people so passionate? I didn’t see it at first. It’s a rich man’s hobby. But people are super invested in it, and not just in terms of their pocketbooks; they’re invested emotionally and I wanted to learn what made them tick. Ha ha!

Lydia, how do you answer that question for yourself?

WINTERS For me, it’s the connection and community that watches bring. I love that if you collect watches and someone else does, you immediately have something to talk about. Now some of my best friends are in the watch world and you find other commonalities.

And it’s such an intimate item to wear. You look at your wrist a lot. It’s so connected to who you are and can make you feel so different. A while ago when I first started collecting, Lung Lung Thun, one of the women in the community, was on a panel and said a watch could feel like a superhero cape. That’s the part I love.

WONG I totally hear you about the superhero cape. There was a time when, intellectually, I could appreciate a watch like a Richard Mille, but I didn’t get why some people were so nuts about it. Until I put one on, and thought, yeah, I’m a baller now. And with people being a bit surprised at first because you’re a woman who’s into watches, I think we enjoy that feeling of flipping the script and getting people to think about what it means to be a watch collector.

Do you consider yourself a collector, Suzanne?

WONG I don’t know if I’d call myself a collector. I know collectors who have rooms of watches and they don’t know what they have. I know what I have.

WINTERS Don’t place the barriers. Do you have more than one watch? Then you collect watches.

WONG Everyone has more than one pair of shoes but they’re not a shoe collector. But OK, you know what? I’m going to come out and say I am a watch collector because I actually do put some thought into curating what I have. If you identify as a collector, it implies some sort of intention. It implies you’re making a statement.

WINTERS I felt similar in gaming because at the beginning, I wasn’t playing a lot of games and if someone asked me if I was a gamer, I’d say no, because there was some kind of bar. And who makes the bar? Am I picking these things out and keeping them safe and choosing each day? It’s better to be more open with those words than closed off: “You’re only a collector if you collect rare watches.” All those become barriers for other people to join the community.

Have you been to a watch show yet, Lydia?

WINTERS I really wanted to go to Watches and Wonders this year, but next year for sure. I’ve been to a couple meet-ups. I happened to be in New York when Complecto had a meet-up. Complecto is all about getting more women and people of color into watches. I experienced the best version of a watch meet-up on my very first one because it was a very diverse group.

When I was at that event, no one asked me if I was there with my partner. No one assumed my level of knowledge was low. And everyone was excited about everyone’s watch. Openness drives openness, and diversity increases diversity and representation. The more you keep moving that needle, the more people feel welcome to join. If you’re in the Watch Femme community, you can ask the most basic question and no one’s going to say, “Oh my god, you don’t know what a spring bar is?”

WONG That feeds right into something I’ve been mulling over for a long time: What’s the difference between a watch nerd and a watch snob? Because they’re both equally knowledgeable and equally passionate. I feel like a watch nerd uses his or her knowledge to include people and a watch snob uses his or her knowledge to exclude people.

WINTERS That’s a perfect definition. That’s why I tell people I’m a watch nerd. That means I can just start spewing out weird watch things to you. Let’s go!

WONG What’s the biggest watch you own in terms of diameter?

WINTERS It’s the [40-millimeter Rolex GMT-Master II] “Rootbeer.”

WONG The largest one I wear is a 44 millimeter, but if you can rock it, you can rock it. I do get comments: “Is that your boyfriend’s watch?”

WINTERS Again, that’s that gatekeeping. My watch is bothering your ego.

WONG Those boundaries and limits are starting to break down a bit. One of my biggest pet peeves is nomenclature and the categorization of men’s and ladies’ watches. You don’t need a certain anatomy to wear a men’s watch. It’s not a tampon.

WINTERS It’s about what are you using the watch for? “I want to be outdoors on my boat and I want to be able to swim in it.” Or, “I want a fancy night out.” Do you want diamonds? It doesn’t matter if you’re a lady, a man or nonbinary. It’s what you’re going to do in the watch and how you use it.

Do you think that as personalization technology becomes more robust, we’ll all just be customizing our own watches?

WONG I think there’s always going to be space for a limited amount of customization. What color strap do you want? What color dial do you want? But it’s never really going to come to the point where you can walk up with your Etch A Sketch and say, “Hey, make this!” Because there are limits to what manufacturers and brands will put their names on, even if you pay them 5 zillion bucks. As with clothing, most people just buy off the rack.

WINTERS What brands could do — and this is the Minecraft side of me — is be more open with the community. Are you giving a few color choices your designers have picked and asking which one? That’s how the Oris Aquis Cherry came about. And that’s a brand I feel so strongly about because of the community feel. It’s not customization; it’s more input and transparency.

WONG So you’re essentially saying some brands should implement a mob vote?

WINTERS I didn’t realize you knew so much about Minecraft! For the past five years — the mob vote was my concept — we gave the community one time a year to vote something into the game. And that’s something watch brands could do. You can still decide what the options are. You know they’re viable, you know you can manufacture them. But the moment you give that over to the community, it’s a very exciting thing.