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Sometimes I worry about what effect that has on kids. What does it do to someone, who has invested hundreds of hours into perfecting their skills at a video game, just so they can brag about beating it? And it's not even a multiplayer game, they're just memorizing patterns against a fixed bot. And then they go and play other games, making video games their main hobby and only source of pride, because they're bad at all things in the real world, because they're not practicing anything real... I don't know. I'm not saying these games should be illegal or anything, but I think people need to be more aware of how addictive they are. Most of us wouldn't casually sign up to watch a 300 hour long movie, or the same 3-hour movie 100 times, but we download these video games without a second thought.
300 hours is nothing... Get on my level, I have 3,000+ hours in just Dota.
Oh, ive also wasted tons of time on videogames. Most of it before steam thiugh, so i dont know the exact value. It is shocking to see that hiur count go uo though.
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...Improves their hand-eye coordination and reaction times? Gives them a healthy sense of competitiveness?
But its not actually competitive. Theyre not doing esports, theyre just following some how-to guide and following its directions, or screwing around until they find somethat works against pre-programmed monsters. I think there is value in competition, but i dont see the value in these solitary time-sinks.
I mean, that's how I got into software engineering (doubly so if we consider windows 98 to be one of the monsters).
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This doesn't seem that different from rock climbing or archery or even footraces. These are all intrinsically solitary activities of man vs a static environment, but by doing them together, people can build communities, and by comparing performances, people can compete. I do think there's something about overcoming video game challenges that is intrinsically... not worthless, but perhaps worth quite a lot less than other endeavors, but I see that more as a video game thing.
I agree that part of the problem is them being videogames. Its the combination i think?
This combination applies just as well to "reading a book" as it does to playing Dark Souls, and you're making a lot of assumptions when you say "difficult enough to tire out your brain, but not difficult to be a really serious challenge".
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You could make the same argument for football and chess. Games are a good way to practice useful skills, which is why they exist and are encouraged or tolerated, and the failure modes are well known: if your entire life starts to revolve around this inconsequential thing or if you contract behavioral addiction, it's time to stop.
I've never really been convinced by the idea that video games are more addictive than other types of games. People do spend hours upon hours playing various other things or marathoning TV shows and movies.
What you seem to be missing is that interactive media inherently contains more possible interaction. It's less boring because it contains more experiences. A completionist playthrough of Elden Ring isn't equivalent to watching the same dark fantasy movie on a loop, it's comparable to watching a complete anthology of a bunch of different fantasy movies.
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I can't speak for everyone, and I can't speak for all games. But I played a lot of video games as a kid. You learn a lot more than just how to press buttons in a pattern.
It taught me how not to get ruffled by failure, a skill that came in quite handy during my amateur martial arts career at tournaments. To say nothing of less intense situations like debugging frustrating code, or dealing with a cut in woodworking going wonky.
It taught me to be methodical, as a lot of success in difficult games comes from thinking about the problem you are stuck at, and working backwards. If you constantly die in a certain corner, don't get stuck in that corner. If you can only beat a boss with a certain item, make sure you've collected that item going in. And once again, this methodical approach to problem solving has paid dividends in my professional life, and my hobbies.
This last one, I donno. I want to say intense gaming sessions taught me to focus. But there is a fine line between compulsion and focus. I wouldn't say anyone is "focused" at the slot machine for 3 hours. But I'm willing to bet the kid who beat tetris was focuses as fuck.
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