Why am I so Anti-Video Gaymes?

[@tozlink]

He prints his emails like a true boomer.

[@ElianderPerez]

he talk a lot about boomers hahah

[@mooseolini1447]

A disciple of Alex Jones.

[@pinkhead6857890]

Boi I still use a rolodex to save my contacts and an electric typewritter for taking notes, and im only 27.

[@luminusprotect]

Look my dude I still get mad at links that don't work on the website I printed

[@billgatest7563]

Morrissey has been known to send three faxes a day

[@mitchelvalentino1569]

I lost my job, my friends, and I haven’t slept in days. I haven’t been outside in months. I know I have a problem, but I just can’t stop playing PONG.

[@BonensProject]

I know how you feel, I can't stop playing Tetris in emacs.

[@Philip550c]

I lost everything to E.T. on Atari

[@lain_os5385]

@@BonensProject Emacs snake > Emacs tetris

[@justins7796]

lmao why does the caps make it funnier xD

[@CulinoB2B]

Omg i have... I have to... POOOOOOOOOONG

[@HarryHelsing]

Actually find KZbin to be a lot more addictive than games. Though that's just me personally

[@zekrinealfa1113]

Not just you.

[@baaz5642]

Yes

[@D00000T]

watch the educational content on this site and that time won’t get wasted (it’s somehow the only section on youtube that isn’t mostly filled with trash yet)

[@dragicmagic9870]

It is

[@reoffending]

That's because it molds itself to be more addictive to you as you use it more.

[@infogang3603]

Fun fact: Luke actually has his email server hooked up to a teleprinter so the minute you email him it prints it.

[@skeletor2118]

wtf

[@kevynoliveira]

@@skeletor2118 wtf

[@xypher337]

@@skeletor2118 wtf

[@wasted5742]

@@skeletor2118 wtf

[@ApostKef]

hahahahahahhahaha

[@rothbardfreedom]

"I once had a girlfriend", Smith, Luke 2021 is already more unbelievable than 2020.

[@bsodcat]

Hes free FREE OF BLOAT

[@007hansen]

@@bsodcat maybe it's true: kzbin.info/www/bejne/enS2Z6dsg7p0fbM

[@BeHappyTo]

each year just gets better

[@raymundhofmann7661]

@@bsodcat Women never fart.

[@NicolasGoulart42]

"I once had fun, it was awful."

[@MrChaladar]

Time to listen to this in the background while doing my daily quests.

[@Seiseary]

Lol i was listening to audiobooks while gaming

[@theintertainer9393]

@@Seiseary how do you even enjoy either of them together?

[@Seiseary]

@@theintertainer9393 i dont

[@KyzenHD72]

Literally listened to this video while doing world quest in World of warcraft, and I'm not even ashamed.

[@overclucker]

Today I crafted breads while secretly listening to banjo music in my wireless earbuds. KZbin switched over to some dude talking about sniffing glue and huffing gas with banjo in the background.

[@zibane6246]

"I once had a girlfriend". No need to flex on us, Luke.

[@esben181]

Something about Luke makes me want to go outside and plant potatoes.

[@giovannipezzin5707]

The easiest way is to plant them in hay. Lay down 50 cm (20 inches) of hay, then potatoes, then cover with another 30 cm (12 inches) of hay. Come again 8 months later and instead of digging you just "peel off" the first layer of hay, then enjoy your potatoes

[@Assault_Butter_Knife]

I did it for last year, they all caught some fungal disease and died, which left me with a bunch of small near-unusable potatoes, which by weight were probably equal to what I planted in the first place. This has left me really sad, and I just want to share the grief. Don't let this discourage you though, I had a successful go at it some time before at my parent's house when I was a kid, just keep in mind that things don't always work out even if you did everything right

[@goodcitizen4587]

mmmm Love me some taters

[@anigeriantaxidriver5040]

grip its blight bro, you gotta treat them bitches

[@peterhooper2643]

It's that potato head he's got

[@tumblingdown8612]

"videogames are a waste of time" "mom cancel my meetings, pacman broke the gpu driver again!"

[@iqwrjwqioprwjriopqrjpqowir]

wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Downgrading_packages

[@nonames9935]

Get windows it free, reply to find out how

[@KookoCraft]

@@nonames9935 No. You fail to understand the true meaning of “free”

[@elidrissii]

I feel this in my bones.... The last kernel update is making my computer freeze perpetually for >15min at a time. It will be the last time I'm doing pacman -Syu in a while.

[@SliceJosiah]

​@@nonames9935 'Free' as in 'gratis for the retarded edition' (you have to pay for the not-quite-as-retarded edition)

[@nezia5651]

10 minutes video to brag about having a girlfriend. Stop flexing on us so hard Luke

[@sunset-inn]

There is only so much we can take.

[@belstar1128]

Me too

[@OhhBread]

"I once had a girlfriend" hmmmmmmmm......

[@Seiseary]

Then i found about linux

[@comicsans1689]

@@Seiseary I did things backwards; I found out about Linux and then got a girlfriend.

[@alternateperson6600]

@@comicsans1689 cope

[@comicsans1689]

@@elliothacker Cope

[@comicsans1689]

@@alternateperson6600 You're coping. She uses a Thinkpad X220t that I fixed up for her and likes it. I haven't converted her to GNU/Linux yet though.

[@guptaanmol184]

Tldr: Don't be addicted

[@peacemekka]

which is quite an impossible task. You almost always are addicted to something or the other.

[@josiek7589]

Right but they’re designed to be addictive.

[@D00000T]

@@josiek7589 I mean it depends on what you’re playing and the situation. If all you do is play Minecraft with your buds because the world is currently going to shit and your government says no to going outside then I’d say you’ll probably not get addicted

[@dragicmagic9870]

@@josiek7589 eh, I used to play video games all the time. Now I've lost interest in most of them other than playing pokemon occasionally. If they were truly addictive I would have never stopped. Maybe my addiction was just replaced with KZbin

[@deadmeme8011]

you can't stop me from smocking crack, nerd

[@ProBarokis]

hey, but you're playing minecrat IN real life!

[@magnusanderson6681]

So hypocritical...

[@_zigger_]

Using DEFAULT RUNESCAPE CHARACTER SKIN

[@ElianderPerez]

hahahaha

[@j777111able]

That’s called Crypto mining 🪙

[@lucafruehauf5447]

Good you got rid of her. Girlfriends are bloat.

[@fernabianer1898]

​@@gl3nda96 I used to know a girl who was only good at one thing and didn't do much otherwise, soo...

[@wednesdaynightbusiness6296]

cope

[@007hansen]

Well, philosophy is far ahead of you kzbin.info/www/bejne/enS2Z6dsg7p0fbM

[@groff8657]

Actually if you think about it, girlfriends are not bloat, they force you to live in a minimalist way. e.g. they suck up your money so you're forced to live with less, they suck up your time so you make the most of your little remaining time, and when they leave you, it forces you to become independent.

[@lucafruehauf5447]

@@groff8657 But you can learn all those things without a gf. FWB is the thinking man's gf.

[@MortonSeinfeld]

The comparison to porn is mostly accurate. Porn provides fake intimacy, while video games provide a fake sense of achievement. Unlike porn though, I don't think a moderate amount of games is inherently harmful. The real danger is when you play them compulsively or out of a strange sense of obligation (like you said, it becomes a kind of 'job').

[@MingeBorea]

I find it good to mix game time with napping, music, or reading so you don't just waste your mind and time hurting yourself

[@nigeladams8321]

How is it a fake sense of achievement, you achieve something. Whether or not you think that something is worth your time is up to you.

[@ABHINAV-bo2ls]

Games, unlike porn, are not spiritually corrosive

[@nigeladams8321]

@@ABHINAV-bo2ls porn isn't spiritually corrosive either, because souls aren't real

[@westy229]

@@nigeladams8321 one way to look at it. Not a reality though and I'm not going to argue spirituality with you but porn legitimately harms you more neurologically and physically. Increased prolactin, grey matter changing, increased risk of erectile disfunction, relationships suffer and it further degenerates society since people will think it's socially acceptable to be perverted

[@juliuscolesv2318]

lol guys this is just a /g/ meme channel, in the real world he uses a macbook pro and plays videogames

[@Houshalter]

Can you play video games on a mac? is apple based?

[@sunset-inn]

@@Houshalter we are all poor and straight here so we wouldn't know.

[@enjoful]

He's gonna come out in a VICE article

[@Cobalt985]

@@Houshalter kind of, geforce now actually just recently added support for only using Chrome. other than that, not really. I would not rely on Rosetta to try.

[@trevorfranks69]

Really?

[@sayanghosh6996]

glad that this rant is more on a wholesome level than the other rants.

[@x87-64]

nice scripts

[@bruderdasisteinschwerermangel]

Now I'm a zoomer, I have hundreds of hours spent on various games, and I still play games very regularly. But I do agree, a lot of games are designed to just spend more and more time (or money @ EA) with them, and it's genuienly a problem. "free" to play games are the worst candidate here.

[@pt8306]

I tend to stick to singleplayer, "complete experience" games. That is, games that aren't endless and have a well-defined end point. It definitely makes it easy to put-down a lot of games. You spend the 15 hours playing and finishing it, then you go do something else for a few months. It's akin to reading a book. The big problem with a lot of games, especially modern ones, is they tend to "generate content forever", either by being Multiplayer (multiplayer games in general tend to have unlimited content as there's always another round to play), or they build themselves as "big endless worlds" with nearly limitless (and usually pretty boring) sidequests, and they just take absolutely forever to finish and chew through a lot of time, and they aren't even that fun so it's not like it genuinely gives you the leisure and entertainment you might need for a bit, then you can stop. I find it very easy to play these games basically forever. I avoid MMO's specifically for this reason, but I have just sort of stopped playing multiplayer and "large open world" games entirely because they just take way too much time and have almost no real payoff or actual fun to be had. The only exception is that I will occasionally play some Among Us with friends because I count it more as social time and it's a rare thing that maybe happens once a month. Games are controllable just like any other substance, and Lukes position of "they are bad because they are addictive" is naive. It's like someone saying alcohol is inherently bad because some people become alcoholics.

[@PoptartParasol]

Skinner box :/ most if not all games now are conditioning you this way. Rpgs especially

[@ayveee3811]

Free games are free if you don't value your time

[@Nurse_Xochitl]

It's not just free games, look at Call Of Duty with it's awful predatory grind and engagement optimized matchmaking. I hate it!

[@NoName-to5xl]

I never play roughly for the same reasons expressed in video . Last month i discovered civilization 5. Three days no sleep. Lost roughly a week of my life. It's crack cocaine for me. I'm 41 and i have a 3 year old kid. I can't do this shit. 100% agree with video. Never again. Unless I'm stuck at home and it allows me to spend some fun time with my son.

[@LukeSmithxyz]

URGENT! Read this: lukesmith.xyz/deletion

[@joenathan8059]

No

[@chien461]

"Write games, don't play them!" - Terry A. Davis

[@LedoCool1]

Yeah, right. It's "don't take the drugs you sell" type of logic. But by that same logic: if you're a decent human being, why making games if they're like crack?

[@tbxmb]

@@LedoCool1 because you are a good human and try to make the consoomers happy.

[@generalmichaelconstantine4598]

@@LedoCool1 I'd say make videogames because they really help you understand how to code efficiently and properly do memory management in your low level programs. I feel like it's a good skill only the game development industry has kept alive. Everything else can get away with being hilariously bloated and slow (look at the web) but not videogames. That's the only reason I'd say learn game development. Other than that, I wouldn't even play them myself, let alone publish them.

[@johnjackson9767]

@@LedoCool1 Nothing wrong with drinking a beer or two or getting into craft brewing. However, if all you do is drink, you're an alcoholic.

[@LedoCool1]

@@johnjackson9767 and if you change word "game" to "beer" in Luke's video you'll find out that beers are bad just because someone gets addicted to them or buys a shitty brand. How is that fair?

[@georgeallen7487]

Playing video games competitively in high school taught me things about mindset that have helped me significantly in my adult working life. I don't think it's healthy for a young man to not compete in at least one thing, and video games are some people's only social outlet. I personally feel like I've wasted the most time on KZbin, but I regret almost none of my time playing video games. At the very least they taught me I could get very very good at something if I put my mind to it.

[@skeletor2118]

Same here.

[@hineko_]

You could fight after school like we did. School on school mass fights were fun.

[@Cobalt985]

Or, you could just play an instrument... I like vidya and all, at least ADHD-friendly ones, but I much prefer music to learning how to point and click accurately enough for me to delete people across the map faster than the other team (insert your favourite reductionist explanation of games here.)

[@ThePC007]

@@Cobalt985 Competitive instrument playing sounds either super fun or super dumb. I'm not even sure.

[@PrototypeScope]

@@ThePC007 lol.

[@caleb22lr]

my parents were right about video games, and you've helped me realize that. I wasted thousands of hours in counter strike, only to make $15 from a small tournament

[@Phoenix-tq8lt]

It was only a waste of time because you didn't enjoy it and only did it for money. LOL

[@nik-challengeman383]

​@@Phoenix-tq8lt thats cope and you know it

[@michaelhawkinson4180]

You only didn't enjoy it because you were bad.

[@PsycosisIncarnated]

@@nik-challengeman383 why is it cope? i got a ryzen 5 5600x and rx 6700xt beast pc. I can use my system for anything INCLUDING triple AAA gaming. And oyu know what man? I love it lmao. It's good to chill back sometimes and shoot some tards on battlefield. If you are wasting HOURS upon HOURS and DAYS on gaming that it becomes an addictino then yes you got a serious issue.

[@peamutbubber]

If you enjoyed it more fool you

[@clemencegrumble6531]

Games are an extreme form of escapism, moreso than books and movies. I did spend years playing games which were very involved and complex, and "wasted" so much of my own time. But looking back, I also realise my household growing up sucked and I had a horrible dad. Video games helped me cope with the reality that I was miserable, and probably softened the blows to my mental stability that were being done. I ask myself now, were they worth my time? No, of course not. But growing up in a bad household affects people in a way which makes succeeding in school or completing personal goals next to impossible. So, I probably would have gotten just as much done without video games. However, I also feel I would be much worse off mentally. Now I understand that I don't need games to distract myself from reality because my life is much better. If I were to engage with games on a similar level now, it would serve only as an unnecessary escape from the better life I'm living. Idk that's just my two cents

[@schnapps2241]

i feel like thats partly true and partly a giant cope, you've experienced videogames in one way, but you can be drawn to them for another reason. You probably were never really passionate about the medium and just wanted some form of escapism, but myself i still keep coming back even tho i was never in that bad a life situation. Maybe i just need some form of entertainment besides creative hobbies and Videogames are way more exciting to me than watching something, i'd say theyre about on par with reading, with the caveat that reading has more of a benefit to it. But a purely entertainment hobby doesnt require a benefit for it to be valid as long as you enjoy it.

[@lecrovidae6987]

​@@schnapps2241 Putting videogames on the same level of reading is the real cope. When we do things that over-saturate our brains with dopamine like playing videogaymes, we literally /can't/ read for more than a few paragraphs. Videogames have evolved into leeches that suck away our time and manipulate us by giving us a feeling of advancement. We advance nothing in real life, become addicted to things that aren't real, and as a result money + time deteriorate. It is, like Clemence said, escapism from reality. You can write this off as simply being enjoyment with no benefit, but if it has no benefit other than "I enjoy it," it probably has many corroding factors you don't notice, or refuse to notice. Many people eat processed sugar because "they enjoy it," when really they're only addicted and sacrifice the vitality of their bodies for instant gratification instead of taking care for what they put into their bodies to the best of their ability. My fellow human-being or chatbot unrecognized, I've spent ages 8-17 and 3 quarters being addicted to the trash you currently indulge in. If you're reading this, I hope that what you take away from this comment is the idea of improving yourself and your life rather than directing your energy towards justifying your current actions or refusing to consider /how/ you might be able to do things in a better way. Don't take part in the rat race, and don't go to Hell.

[@Phoenix-tq8lt]

How is something you enjoyed a waste of time? It is only a waste of time if you let other people judge your life and you care what they think about you.

[@Phoenix-tq8lt]

@@lecrovidae6987 just because your life sucked when you were a gamer doesn't mean that happens to everyone else. In North Korea they work and play hard and game nonstop while most of them make way more money than you. There is no correlation between gaming and not having a productive life.

[@lecrovidae6987]

@@Phoenix-tq8lt Money does not = happiness. Work does not = productivity. If living the rat race, working a 9 to 5 job you don't like and then obsessing over your means of escapism instead of living life in a way that allows you to enjoy and create authentic things sounds like what you want to do, then go for it. But internally none of them are happy. I know that because I've been in that position for my entire childhood, as already stated. Are druggies happy? Because that's essentially what you are if you play videogames. Your brain becomes so dopamine saturated that you can't focus on anything else. Your mind starts to wander when you sit down and read more than a couple of paragraphs from a book you would otherwise enjoy. The friends you make online are hardly ever authentic friends, for all communication would cease with them if you suddenly stopped partaking in the same drug. They're not friends with you, but with what you both indulge in. Videogames chemically alter the makeup of your brain, and are as a parasite whispering in your ear that you must defend it from critique. You become a cult member, earnestly waiting for the next, shiny, vidya that you and thousands of others are waiting for in that discord server, only for it to not fully fill the void once you get your hands on it, so you continue the cycle of draining your wallet, and with it your sanity. Videogames MAKE you obsess over them, and then it becomes your life. Real life always sucks when the fake world is so exciting, that is not dependent on how much money you make. Productivity is not synonymous with your bullcrap job. You create nothing of value, and are consumed by the system you partake in.

[@oalfodr]

This video turned out to be much more positive than I thought. I spend some of my time both playing games and watching TV shows. In my opinion, TV shows are mush greater time sink than games. I play games a lot on one week and then I do not touch them for weeks. I spent some time roaming the radioactive wastes and that was relaxing for me.

[@reggiestickleback7794]

Get out of here, s.t.a.l.k.e.r

[@Assault_Butter_Knife]

Maybe this is a cope but I'd say that some games at least are mentally stimulating, in the same way how classical games like chess are. Being good at an RTS game for example requires a certain degree of skill and understanding of the game, and it requires you to mentally participate in it (i.e. think), in the same vein how the aforementioned chess does. Watching a show or a movie, for all the entertainment value that it has, is a passive activity and doesn't require any input from you most of the time. Though I will admit that this is probably an exception rather than a rule, there are uncountably more games like fortnite and call of duty than there are like factorio or opus magnum

[@demonking86420]

"Tv shows are mush greater time sink than games" I don't like where this is going, and nowadays those people who sink a buttload of time on shows usually do it with "netflix/hbo/disney+/whatever streaming service they subbed to originals"

[@Phoenix-tq8lt]

@@Assault_Butter_Knife Games like MMORPGs have made me an extremely fast learner and worker in real life. People who hate on gaming are just noobs.

[@garrettterminal1400]

playing video games while watching this is a chad move

[@spooki-2451]

it seems everyone ended up having that same idea, lol.

[@PrototypeScope]

I did lmao

[@theycallme_nightmaster]

was playing elden ring while watching this. don't give a fuck

[@guidedexplosiveprojectileg9943]

@@theycallme_nightmaster now thats art

[@suburbben1687]

💀

[@v9466]

Consoomers are raging in comments trying to find excuses

[@LukeSmithxyz]

Why yes, thank you! I *am* very proud of this thumbnail! i3.ytimg.com/vi/L5xd5yejPBE/maxresdefault.jpg

[@mor4y]

It was a nice surprise seeing you on woe's the other night :) totally unexpected, I hit that notification so fast I nearly put my finger right through the screen 😆

[@mor4y]

@Scorched Earth i saw a security researcher (Brendan O'connor - stalking a city for fun and frivolity) using Unity as a way of mapping hundreds or even thousands of data points, its really good for it! :) It was work related to WiFi, which isn't long range, so you could use 'fog of war' settings in unity to limit the visible area, and also have the option to see all at once. Pretty cool use of a game engine :)

[@arrtemfly]

great job! awesome skills! cool art direction! very inspiring!

[@__-yu8vi]

Your thumbnail is shit. First of all, unfitting font. Shadow on letters is off. Tilt is off. Second, no 1984 reference? You libs seem to like it. Third, the entire soyjak meme is shill shit. It's literally made by industrial farmers spreading fake science. It demonizes customers, who barely have any control over things they consume (beyond not consuming them, which is called "ethical consuming" and doesn't work) - making it a low-effort joke for people who have shitty opinions, but are also afraid of consequences of their speech.

[@ponternal]

Online competitive games are the worst in this regard. With a single player game at least the game ends at some point and you run out of things to do. People spend thousands of hours trying to improve and progress in these online games when they could be mastering something in real life.

[@Dther99]

EDIT: This comment, and the video it responds to, is about *AAA Game Studios.* AAA Game studios are the ones using psychological tricks to manipulate people into buying pixels. Indie studios (generally) do not. AAA Game studios will die. Gaming will survive. Please go LARP in the woods instead of telling me *gaming stronk* because I agree. My two cents? Video game addiction is a *symptom* of being dissatisfied and disconnected with one's social life. I used to be a big gAYmerTM until about a year ago, when I decided that my life was a hot mess that needed fixing. Started hitting the gym and going to church. In short, this desire you described, of being at church, or with friends or at school or whatever and thinking "Man, I wish I was playing a video game" completely dissipated. Now I only play video games when I have literally nothing else to be doing, and the games which I *do* play tend to be small ones made my independent creators. The reason why this happens with video games and not any other media is because video games are the pinnacle of escapist entertainment. If VR ever takes off, we'll see holodecks becoming super addictive and traditional screen-and-console games will practically disappear. Exhibit A, my personal favourite modern novel, Don Quixote. When books were the best you could get to living someone else's life, a bored gentleman with nothing else to do read a metric tonne romance novels, went nuts and decided to become a knight. Same crap, different horse. Thanks for reading my Ted Talk, A Zoomer

[@ffffuchs]

>going to church lmao bitch ass loser

[@ryanmalin]

Nice ted talk bruh. VR has taken off significantly. I agree with your point about dissatisfied social life. VRchat is the only video game I play now and its working great to replace IRL social interaction. Its not perfect but thats what Im working with.

[@epsteindidntkillhimself69]

Given the fact that we still have MUDS and Roguelikes (as in actual roguelikes) are a booming genre in the modern era, I highly doubt traditional games will go away just because we get better and making VR stuff.

[@Dther99]

@@epsteindidntkillhimself69 "Booming" is a strong word. Coming from a Traditional RPG/CRPG enjoyer, Roguelikes (as in the Berlin Interpretation) and MUDs have always been, and still are, niche genres. While the "stereotype" of a game-addicted nerd is someone who has a huge "retro" collection and bizarre tastes, the by far most common (and most damaging) game addicts are either addicted to a series or playing F2P games and spending their entire paychecks on lootboxes. They're the people buying every FIFA game and "investing" in TF2 Unusual Team Captains. That being said, notice how frequent-release games and even former virtual economic powerhouses like TF2 are starting to sputter out. Big AAA series like CoD and Battlefield are making less profits, because the average gamer has "seen it all". Video games are, slowly, going the way of books. Comic books and magazines used to be the primary form of written media, yet are mostly non-existant now. But Paperback novels are as popular as ever. There's a shift towards more meaningful video games, like Roguelikes and MUDs, becoming popular as a new generation rediscovers them, but the AAA industry is quietly dying and... I'm sort of all for it. VR is next for this cycle. That's why Valve is trying to make such a push to release big-budget VR games, and why modern consoles are practically VR-ready prebuilt PCs with vendor locks. They want that slice of the pie first.

[@epsteindidntkillhimself69]

@@Dther99 "Comic books and magazines used to be the primary form of written media" At what point was this ever the case? "While the "stereotype" of a game-addicted nerd is someone who has a huge "retro" collection and bizarre tastes" I don't think I ever made an argument for that stereotype, nor do I believe that to be a representation of the typical "nerd" "Roguelikes (as in the Berlin Interpretation) and MUDs have always been, and still are, niche genres" Again, I don't believe I ever said anything to contradict this. Of course they are a niche genre. My point is that more of them are being developed and released today than ever before, at least in the case of roguelikes, despite being considered outdated. This analogy is meant to call into question the idea that traditional video games will simply be discarded when VR becomes more prominent. If anything, I think the market for traditional video games will only continue to grow.

[@MrFillzor]

Starting the year with the big hitters, huh?

[@Aggnog]

Just what we needed to celebrate the new year, Luke making us feel like we are wasting our lives. On the actual topic, the issue is not video games, it's the expansion of video games as a means of entertainment. It's not different from any other type of consoomerism in that you need to educate yourself on the subject in order to avoid being controlled by the people you are throwing your money at (AAA studios). It's no different to hollywood superhero movies. It's more important than ever to accentuate that obviously big budget games only use you as a means to make money, but AA and indie games (and older games in general) often use video games as art (like stated in the video obviously) and as a way to express their own ideas to an audience often much larger than a book or painting would. Even more important is to not limit yourself to modern games (this is mostly a message to the zoomers). The modern AAA archetype is really just the industry's way of making you buy new hardware every 2 years to make more money out of you. There is a reason retro graphics are becoming so big in the last few years. Nobody dismisses old movies and dismissing old games is very limiting. Most importantly video games of the past did not have direction led by opinions on twitter and political correctness. Back to the letter, I think the main idea of your viewer was on games that are a singular experience, as opposed to those which you play repeatedly for the fun of it. Good examples of this are story driven rpgs (baldur's gate, disco elysium), adventure games (point and click mainly), puzzles (portal, the witness etc). These are generally non-toxic genres that don't conform to the neet gamer ideology that is perpetuated in the modern industry. Lastly, again this is really just an issue with modern lifestyle and ease of access. Video games are prevalent in modern society, just like anime or movies or netflix series. In the past you would have had people spend hundreds of hours collecting stamps or art or reading books, or another weird time-consuming hobby, but the stigma was obviously not the same. As Luke said in the video, the social disposition is the problem and not the way in which you spend your time. Edit: I forgot to mention this, but a good guideline is to look for games that make you think, critically is preferred. Most online games try to make use of reflexes, muscle memory, memorization for the most part, actually thinking extensively is not a requirement to playing LOL or CS etc. The genres I mentioned earlier are very conducive to making you think instead of idly passing the time, which is not the best thing ever, but I'm sure playing portal or antichamber or the talos principle is more of an experience than watching Chris Ramsay, and any of the old adventure game classics won't lose to a good book, like Gabriel Knight or Broken Sword or The Longest Journey etc. Again, it's important to refer to video games as a medium, not an entity. What's important in art is to either evoke thought or emotion, and this is no different even in classic literature, and all media really.

[@johnjackson9767]

The stigma was similar to those who "got lost in books" (meaning fiction). Escapism as a way to avoid actual life and responsibilities has always been a problem.

[@foxto100]

WALL OF TEXT

[@pig5469]

Disagree. Video games as an artistic medium struggle to communicate ideas and thoughts in comparison to books, movie, or even tv. This isn't to say they're wholly inadequate, they're just stifled by the medium and consequently cant portray as interesting or complex ideas. The only real advantage they have in storytelling or the artistic medium is "immersion" as the consumer tends to play a direct role in the storyline. Another issue in games compared to other media consumption is that they generally aren't as shareable. You can sit down with a friend and watch a movie together and enjoy it. Afterwards, any interesting portion of the plot or ideas in the movie you can share in conversation. In most video games with story, you can only have one person play while the rest watch, or if you all play at the same time you'll likely all have different experiences. There may be some which provide interesting story or ideas but they're typically going to be much more shallow than what books and even movies and tv offer. On the point of similarly pointless hobbies such as stamp collecting, you didnt have at least 1/3 of boys who considered it their hobby(a very generously low estimate of those who consider gaming a hobby). Nor did stamp collecting take up as much time, allowing for the cultivation of more practical hobbies around it. Before the popularity of the internet, it probably also started development of skills such as bartering and helped foster a small but real, tangible community. Most people's "gaming community" or "internet friends" are not people who they could call up on the phone and enjoy hanging out with irl on a Saturday night or ask for help with moving out(though this can certainly be more attributed to the culture's modern usage of the internet than gaming specifically). TLDR: video games aren't the same as most other media or hobbies. They have some unique problems as well as the same problems of other media but typically of a larger magnitude

[@Aggnog]

@@pig5469 Well obviously they aren't the same, nowhere was this implied. You argue about sharing video games with friends, but this is completely incorrect and you could say the same for books, but you didn't. Sharing and talking about video games is just as common and in fact has even more merit to discussion because you don't actually see or experience the same identical thing as you would in a movie or book. You also specifically imply that the "gaming community" is comprised of nothing other than antisocial neets, which is simply shallow and uninteresting, your only definition of a friend in your argument is someone on the internet, which is biased at best. Again, you seem to think that I'm putting this medium on a pedestal or something, but that is not the case. I do think, however that it is ignorant to put everything under the same denominator.

[@wootwoot8754]

bruh i have burned out my frontal cortex with vidya gaymes and my attention span is no more than 5 seconds and you expect me to read all that wall of text lol get a life

[@trashgames8334]

6:18 Boomer ex linguistics major uses the object pronoun in the nominative case.

[@Klayperson]

literally unwatchable

[@Jombo1]

Oh man I gotta get back home and watch more Luke Smith videos!

[@MrPolluxxxx]

Oh man, I gotta get back home and watch more Programming Tutorial ++++++

[@mskiptr]

You can't, there's no more left!

[@giovannipezzin5707]

C O N S O O M

[@snail8720]

Working with math is kinda like that too. Sometimes I emerge from my cave after like an entire weekend of trying to solve some issue that when I come out, every task feels vaguely related to it. This isn't video games doing that, this is what fascination feels like.

[@ProBarokis]

emerge? omg that's just like in gentoo

[@mskiptr]

Back in highschool we were doing lots of polynomials for some time. Since I was also doing them on my own to get over the curriculum faster, I overdosed solving equations. I remember once getting a dream that consisted only of some polynomial and various transformations on it. I'm also pretty sure that since one can't really read polynomials quickly enough, I started to think about them symbolically instead of using words (pronunciation). And yes, you certainly can get obsessed with almost anything. Recently I'm often thinking about programming language theory, regardless of where I am or what am I doing.

[@senselessnothing]

Better to go nuts about the intricacies of measure theory which is actually somewhat useful than HIDDEN MECHANICS IN X GAME AND HOW TO EXPLOIT THEM

[@iwankazlow2268]

@@mskiptr I once had a weekend where I did nothing but uni math. It was in a semester break, I don't watch TV, lived separately, was stocked up on food and didn't have to leave my room. So I continued. By Wednesday I was thinking in functions, changed numbers in size and color to better visualize and solve it in my head... Without some peers coming over and snapping me out I would probably just think for some more days and forget to occasionally sleep. I feel like I know what madness is and why mathematians, physicians and chess players are bonkers (based right wingers).

[@snail8720]

@@senselessnothing Well, I am a game developer, and I really enjoy looking and analyzing games. In fact, one time when i was trying to wrap my head around some cutting edge cryptography I decided to take a break and play a game. The same pattern that allowed me to understand the thingy was also present in some minute aspect of the lore. You could say it's "pointless" or "meaningless" or that it is a "waste of time", but what exactly isn't? Is Luke going to church every Sunday not a waste of time? The glorification of the pursuit of knowledge is, in my opinion, vacant as any other.

[@subterfugue]

POV: Walter White talks about how series and games are time sinks, and how games are a bit worse than series', being a series character

[@demetrioshilton2401]

What was your unbiased opinion? Series I’m guessing, lol.

[@enjoful]

What is the point of view then? POV of who or what

[@bashisobsolete.pythonismyn6321]

Parallel

[@bjronthompson1438]

huge let down of the year, luke had a gf.

[@LukeSmithxyz]

Yeah I unsubscribed when I heard it.

[@bjronthompson1438]

@@LukeSmithxyz hey luke, what are your thoughts on anime tho?

[@sunset-inn]

Yeah I am not gonna simp for Luke's chat livestreams any moar.

[@sunset-inn]

@@bjronthompson1438Animu is probably as bad as vidya if not worse.

[@orim2665]

@@bjronthompson1438 Only LOGH, fuck anime. Even old anime is shit.

[@SecretHat]

The stimulation and dopamine hit of modern luxuries is so strong that it makes the older (usually more productive) pursuits of life pale in comparison. Food, video games, porn, TV, KZbin videos, it's everywhere.

[@gsus7125original]

6:32 I play so many games that when I mess something up in real life my mind says "Better reload your quicksave dude" and for a split second I think its actually an option to "reload my save" in real life before realizing how stupid that is.

[@johnjackson9767]

They're dopamine escapism. Reject them. (This is coming from a game dev).

[@douwehuysmans5959]

Nothing wrong with dopamine escapism as long as the escape is productive. You can learn a skill or learn chess for example, then at some point you can use that skill to make a living. The problem arises when your escape is non productive

[@thedcaneisreelOmEGalEl]

@@douwehuysmans5959 How is chess productive?

[@davidr2421]

@@douwehuysmans5959 Sticking your hand in a toaster can be productive if you make a KZbin video about it. Nobody* makes a living from chess and nearly nobody learns skills from games. * "Nobody" meaning a statistically negligible number

[@davidr2421]

@Skitalets It does not highlight skilled people. It's just a game

[@thedcaneisreelOmEGalEl]

@Skitalets Chess is nonsense for translating to actual warfare. Might as well play an RTS if you want to "train" for war. Chess has no resourses for you to block, no terrain to take advatage of, no strategic upgrades to implement. It's just a game in which the dude who pointlessly spent the most time learning patterns of movement wins if he has the IQ to improvise a bit more than the opponent. Given the fact that most people dont make money, it's just as useless as video games to the average individual

[@gytux0258]

"Video games are a waste of time" is a statement that only makes sense if you are capable of working 16 hours a day 7 days a week. Most people wouldnt be able to do that, and wouldnt even want to, and I would hardly call time spent relaxing wasted if you actually manage to rest from stress and what not. No matter what activity helps you achieve that. As for being more addictive, If I find a novel that tells a compelling story to me I will absolutely read it obsessively and think about it every free moment I have. When I was younger I would sometimes skip out on sleep to read, just as much as i have sometimes skipped on sleep to play a game longer. I will absolutely agree that certain big companies are using very predatory tactics in their games to maximise profits, but that isn't true of gaming in general. And the addictiveness of an activity probably scales more with how an individual is wired, rather than the activities themselves. So in my opinion this isn't a problem of gaming as an art medium, but of corporations acting unethically and taking advantage of vulnerable people. And in fact I would say certain kinds of gaming can have the potential to be more productive than reading a fantasy novel. A lot of my closest friends live so far away, that visiting even one of them once a year isn't very doable. Sure we can bond over life events and various hobbies, books we have read and movies we have seen, but with a video game I can actually interact with them, beyond talking. Playing games is such an amazing way to maintain bonds with friends who are just too far away to visit. TL;DR "Video games are a waste of time" is a statement just too reductive to take at face value, unless you are advocating for everyone to just eat, sleep, work, excercise, repeat.

[@deon6045]

"I wish I could have all that time back" is so real because, at the end of it all, little of all that gaming, or TV shows, etc. etc. etc. is something you even remember. It becomes this massive void in the timeline of your life. Yet some have little to pull them away from it, unfortunately.

[@nandoxus]

"One must imagine gamers happy"

[@giovannipezzin5707]

Need heavier controllers

[@nezu_cc]

"The time you enjoy wasting, is not wasted time" I'll just leave it at that, go have some fun

[@altEFG]

One simple sentence that I started telling myself when I found myself binge-watching KZbin, not wanting to stop playing a video game, etc: it's gonna be there for you later to enjoy. Just keep in mind it's not a race to consoom this thing you enjoy as fast as possible. In case with "games as a service" model, it's not gonna be there for you to enjoy, and that's plain evil corporate practice. That's why I refuse to even touch such games. Whether video games or any other potentially addictive media is bad for you depends on your ability to recognize the addiction and act accordingly. I'd say that video games hit that sweet spot between active and passive entertainment, between something like books, which requires you to actively use your imagination to picture the events described as merely text, and movies and tv, that require of you just to passively observe. If you can be addicted to something like this, ask yourself, why there is nothing of importance in your life that you'd rather be doing and you quench your boredom with entertainment? Most of people who are addicted to media and entertainment are just terrified of boredom. Try boredom for a day, it may reveal something to you about your life. That said, video games are A-OK in my book as long as you enjoy it for being art or a clever engaging past time, not because you have nothing else to do in your life that brings you joy and fulfillment.

[@nikkehtine]

you don't see people going "I gotta head back home or I'm gonna miss my show"? I would like to have a family like yours

[@EmeraldPro360]

It hurts quite a bit to have watched this video but there is truth to these words. I come from a physically and mentally abusive household and these games prevented me from fracturing and allowed me to feel emotions aside from anguish. I'm slowly trying to rely less on games for entertainment and instead started to tinker with Blender and trying to learn scripting in python. But i don't think I have a programmers mindset ahaha. Anyways, nice video Luke! Happy New Year from the Philippines.

[@JohnSmith-ul5zb]

Same here. Had a bad family life growing up. Games can provide escapism and compared to other habits (smoking in my case) are a lot less bad. I wish you the best and take care of yourself.

[@arrtemfly]

cool! have a great year mate. wish you all the best in life.

[@TheAlison1456]

No one has an anything mindset. You have to tailor yourself to the mindset. (this is encouragement)

[@hichemfantar1965]

No such thing as programmer mindset. Just understand how computers work and you will be able to speak their language.

[@hichemfantar1965]

Start with a low level language like C and do research on Algorithms and Data structures.(low level means it's close to machine language)

[@silentkiller2mm]

>image not spending your free time piping stuff into awk

[@raymondgradzewicz]

You know, it was genuinely interesting listening to your reasons why you don't like video games. Every single time I hear someone speak against video games (until now) it was by some arrogant person who probably has never played video games before saying "Video games cause violence" and stuff like that. As if video games are somehow worse than what these people do all day, which is watch cable TV. You brought up some good reasons, and I've gained a new perspective because of it. I've also started reading more, thank you!

[@catzybluphish1058]

y r u fat

[@quartermainegames]

Modern video game publishers are raising children who are/will be gambling addicts, it's disgusting. The EU is why paid loot crates aren't a thing anymore, but the mental mechanisms still exist. The even more disturbing thing is that they've made the gameplay itself a random reward schedule system to increase the amount of time you spend in the game. If you're interested, keep researching it. Big publishers spend millions on psychological research to figure out how to manipulate people to pay more money into their games.

[@raymondgradzewicz]

@@catzybluphish1058 Why can't you speak in full sentences?

[@senselessnothing]

Just don't waste too much of your life with something that won't help you much

[@raymondgradzewicz]

@@senselessnothing It's a little late for that, 7 years of mine have already been wasted. I mean I enjoyed them, I had fun, but it wasn't really productive. So is that a waste? hmm...

[@grodcomputerman]

A lot of the 'time-sink' arguments in this video can be directly applied to pen and paper RPGs, arguably the precursor to modern day video games in a lot of ways. I think that there isn't a real comparison between video games (or pen and paper RPGs) and other media like music/TV because those mediums are non-interactive. The interactivity is what makes that form of entertainment different. So, this reads more like a rant against interactive media rather than video games specifically. As an avid gamer (pen and paper + video) I personally prefer interactive media rather than the (mostly) mindless television (and movie franchises) that come out year after year. The exception to that is of course independent movies/TV/books, which are devoid of the mainstream elements designed to push your synapses in a very conventional (ie. pleasing) way. Ultimately interactive media, like all media, enjoyment is subjective, and it doesn't really bother me that people don't like video games, since for example, I hate superhero movies (but I know many millions of people love them).

[@grodcomputerman]

@K F thx for the insight

[@TheAlison1456]

Is there a point here? Or are you really just saying it's fine for people to differ in enjoyment and opinion of/on things?

[@comradekirilov3483]

@@TheAlison1456 whoosh

[@TheAlison1456]

@@comradekirilov3483 You really got me there, redditor. I am so ashamed... :-(

[@homarmendoza26]

I agree with the endless mindless movie franchises that come our every year. Its like how many more superhero movies do we need? have they not had enough of our money? it's not like they make em any better. at least a videogame for like $60 can give me more joy for my money and time.

[@dogedoge6989]

"we were playing fallout 3, it was actually kind of a sucky game" TRIGGERED

[@Sun_Seeker]

I would have definitely got triggered if he called new vegas shit. That would have been an outright blasphemy

[@leet-kitty-catface]

It does suck though. It had no proper aim assist with controller.

[@NerveFlux]

I spent nearly five years of my life without video games or social media distracting me just work. It wasn't until I started visiting someone important in my life in the hospital that wanted me to play with her and watch some YT videos. I honestly couldn't believe there were people my age playing video games for a living? I used to be great at video games as a kid hahaha. We were going to do something together but she passed away. I remember her reminding me to have more fun and to not stress over work so much. I only play video games for fun and I never got mad at games like some do. Sure it's art but I can't imagine it being the only thing I did with my life.

[@simonedeiana2696]

Consooming is generally bad, crafting is usually good, both in the real and digital world. For this reason I'd push more for people to learn how to make stuff with a game engine rather than playing games a billion dollar corporation made; just like I would suggest people using their phones to learn photographic composition instead of looking at Instagram all day long

[@simonedeiana2696]

@creative name why would you make battlefield 3? could you build an apartment complex all alone? no, doesn't mean you can't build a nice little house for yourself. Yours is a very strange reply my man...

[@LedoCool1]

There is no good and bad in this world. You make stuff good or bad with your very hands.

[@Aggnog]

@creative name You don't need to make something similar to battlefield 3 in the same way independent directors don't have to make the avengers for their first movie. Indie games are incredibly prevalent and a lot of them are by team of 1 to 5 people with some outsourcing here and there.

[@snail-bait3229]

@creative name the point is not to make battlefield 3, the point is to be creative. You can limit your scope to a small indie title and still make something beautiful.

[@llamadasinrespuesta4631]

Vidyas should be banned, drugs too.

[@MangoKitty]

also i think part of the harm of videogames, exspecially nowadays, is that they make it so you don't ever have to be "done" with the game. Like with all the new content additions and games as a service they keep people playing them for a decade

[@nathannjh]

Im one week clean. Thank you for the motivation luke. I only watch a few hours of youtube in a whole week, and its always background noise for when im doing something like cooking or cleaning. I miss my game, but i know things are probably better this way. Maybe if i can make it a few months i can introduce one or two hours of games a week. Playing with Sagemath has been my tinker toy for the spare time, i truely love to learn. Sorry for the scatter brain comment. The important message is i want to let you know you are making a positive impact on my life. Thank you.

[@Seiseary]

Yeah the opportunity cost is HUGE. Most gamers are running away from something escaping. Love it how you said let yourself be bored.

[@soulofhogwarts]

That epic moment when luke says "Lets find out" like the boomer style.

[@Yautjaprime]

Actually Varg style.

[@soulofhogwarts]

Yeah I only know about xargs. 🔌

[@Pariatech]

Pathetic normy not knowing about real life Odin himself

[@jaronnamir8868]

I get like that with Tetris, I start seeing shapes from the game in everyday items plus I would spends hours surpassing my high scores. But for the pass 8-9 years gaming hasn't been the same for me, I'll sit down and start playing then completely lose interest. I remember the day when gaming just became meaningless to me, it was when I was playing Uncharted 3 and I was trophy hunting then during my 3 or 4 playthrough, I had an epiphany "like what the f**k am I doing with my life? chasing meaningless things that'll get me nowhere". That's when I started taking my higher education (Comp Sci) seriously and thinking more about my health.

[@babitz0r]

Moderation in all things.

[@the81kid]

Including moderation?

[@Zoltar358]

There is one aspect of games that might be beneficial. Learning English. I always used to say If you want to learn how to speak English, just play games and watch movies in original. It worked quite well for me through the past years, so it might not be wasted time after all...

[@jorionedwards]

I'm getting mixed results in learning other languages like German and Japanese.

[@Zoltar358]

@@jorionedwards Everyone is diffrent. That's not a bad thing...

[@skeletor2118]

Yeah, entertainment definitiely sped up the process of me learning English.

[@misterkefir]

I second that.

[@stevo728822]

Not really true. Back in the 70's my grandmother would be glued to the same soaps on the TV. Most people would be sat in front of the TV for 4-5 hours every evening. It was an escape from real life and addictive. The same was probably true of listening to the radio and reading novels in the past.

[@ahumanbeing6875]

Video game addiction is rough. Something that helped me, I downgraded my computer. It will only run old games and it was a really cheap to build from spare parts.

[@Brain-washed2]

you played hours of fallout and turned the game off and went to go drink water and said "does this have radiation?" brother.

[@KenmoreChalfant]

I've always been a big gamer but I too have noticed how addicting and time consuming they are. In recent years, I still play games regularly but I generally steer clear of the giant time sink ones like Ubisoft games, MMOs, multiplayer FPS / battle royale, Fallout, Skyrim, etc. My favorite games these days are the ones that I can beat within 1-3 days and then walk away from entirely (Inside, Outer Wilds) - as well as more "arcade-y" games like Spelunky where you can play for 15-20 minutes at a time and easily quit and not play for weeks and jump right back in. I definitely use games as a crutch for boredom but I use KZbin/Reddit/Twitter for that way more, but that is good advice that you accomplish more when you tackle boredom productively instead of filling it with frivolous distractions.

[@BeansEnjoyer911]

Most things in life are useless in the grand scheme of things. Sigma male grindset seems to not understand that really you're going to likely pass and not contribute anything notable to the universe. Thus... What you do with your free time should be whatever makes you happy and does not cause harm to others

[@w1keee]

it feels weird playing video games while watching luke smith

[@quite1enough]

Majority of video/pc games is just like numbers subtracting and adding with button mashing, using art design and story as a shell. I'd really prefer to see an actual new games, new game mechanics, like we have chess, checkers, backgammon, Go, preferance, etc. It's sad that with all these new tech we don't see any real new stuff.

[@generalmichaelconstantine4598]

Gave up on video games years ago. I was mostly surprised with how long a single day started to seem.

[@bigpod]

i once gave up video games for a while and i figured that i was just doing other things which were just as useless as playing games but didnt give me as much plesure as games

[@impersonator4439]

@@bigpod that's a good point, it's an escape, if you don't deal with why you want to escape you'll just find other ways to.

[@llamadasinrespuesta4631]

@@bigpod Lmao get a job and fuck.

[@bigpod]

@@llamadasinrespuesta4631 i have one and that still doesnt mean i dont have unused time

[@iwankazlow2268]

@@bigpod Yeah. I still fail to see what about normie life is not escapism. I have it, I had it more. People around me are living it. Pointless extention of tasks, avoiding things to be done, and endless endulging in others, stretching it to oblivion. Talking for hours about trial meaningless things more about we engage in those things. Cooking, shopping for 'essentials', dogwalking, walking in nature. It's hell of you start to think about it, it's bliss if you don't. I enjoy doing nothing, because it's better to simply let the thoughts strive. When people come along and talk, they insert their own bullcrap... weather, politics, yes, games, shitty movies, money and how they suck or are good with it... You can break their hour long rants into 5-10 short sentences, and nothing would be lost. (insert bloat meme) And here, we all LaRP about which of our pointless tasks is totally not like the other tasks (uwu) and 'aCtUaLly' has meaning.

[@kodee2]

Huh what a crazy boomer. Oh well back to my 10 hour Crusader Kings 2 run to try to unlock the reunification of rome achievement

[@empresslithia]

Not all video games are equal. Some games are addictive, some games are incredibly social, some games try to tell a story, some games try to teach you something. As for myself, I can only bring myself to play games that enrich experiences. I'd much rather spend an hour playing a game with a friend that gives us a shared experience, than spend that same hour ricing my bspwm setup.

[@joenathan8059]

Alot of people choose consumer escapism because the elite/system have made real life so miserable to live in. Now VR is out and all I can think about is the "Pleasure Machine hypothesis" and how ppl might actually choose that instead of rejecting it.

[@yunggolem4687]

As someone who spent half a decade making video games for a living, I assure you games are not getting better and better, they're getting worse and worse. They are made more and more simplistic and targeted at broad base compulsive behavior. They're converging with social media. I barely even play games anymore because the only improved factors since the golden age in the late 90s/early 00s are largely superficial (graphics/sound) or convenience factors. The actual core value of the game as a message delivery device or a simulator or a presentation of interesting interactive systems has fallen off. There are a few exceptions, like The Witness, and there are a few interesting systems-based games, but there's an extreme dearth of interesting simulation games. Narrative games are almost entirely a joke since the golden age, 98% trash. Multiplayer has gotten easier and more convenient... which has actually made them worse as the quality of people you find within them has declined sharply and consistently as it approaches the least common denominator... much like western nations. "Well if games are worse, why are so many more people playing them?" Because it's easier and mainstream now. Because games are a more natural form of escapism than TV or books for a certain type of person who wants the feeling of agency, but is constantly frustrated by lack of funds or lack of competence or lack of freedom or an excess of mundane responsibilities in his day-to-day life. It's not actually accomplishment that people seek, it's agency. It's the ability to have a large influence on the environment with only moderate cost. In your day-to-day life the employment of even small amounts of agency has huge costs for the average person. Mostly in terms of time, but also in terms of stress, money, opportunity costs, and social costs. Within a game, the ratio of agency to cost is reciprocal. With minimal cost you are able to have huge influence. For most people to have a significant effect on their physical, social, mental, or financial environment the cost is measured in years worth of consistent effort, if not their entire lives, and even then their exercise of agency probably won't be perceived as significant outside of a small circle of people. The fact that more people are susceptible to video game addiction is actually less of an indictment of games than an indictment of the structure of human life. Many people subconsciously and correctly judge their lives to be mundane and largely meaningless outside of the meaning they themselves and those they are close to arbitrarily imbue to their lives. This is the accidental wisdom of the drunken sage. In the end, there is no proof what you "accomplished" was meaningful in any greater sense, there is no proof your life is not already a simulation. You may as well try to eek out what pleasure you can. For some people that's simple and straightforward; have a drink, eat tasty food, play shootyman games, ingest psychotropics, share the experience with your social circle. For some deviants and mutants they must deny themselves simple gratification now to receive the kind of gratification that satisfies them best later, they must work on long projects or learn difficult skills or organize themselves intricately alongside others. Some people like to write small essays in internet comment sections... there is no accounting for taste. There is no proof that one way is better than the other, only that people have preferences. And no this isn't nihilism, it's more like solipsism, but not only at the individual level, also within the social circle. It's Dunbar's number rearing its head again. Meaning only exists in your head and the heads of your tribe (chosen and unchosen), therefore you should assign meaning in the way that you prefer.

[@baronzad2056]

"the only improved factors since the golden age in the late 90s/early 00s are largely superficial (graphics/sound)" You triggered the memories of Warcraft 3 having much better sound direction than any modern blizz game, and now I must reply on a 3 year old comment. HOly SHIT Heroes of the Storm Anub'Arak's voice is just so shit compared to WC3 Anub'Arak (Crypt Lord) I'm going to turn into a ragefully idiotic sportsfan about it

[@sk8n854]

I still play video games, but it's not very often. If I notice it's tugging at me to keep playing all the time, then I stop playing that game because that's not something I want to do.

[@ludovitkramar7088]

watching while playing a videogame, good points, I agree Edit: earlier today I tried to "be bored" for half an hour, I seriously couldn't stay still for ten minutes, must consoom!!

[@bigpod]

humans cannot be bored, you will automaticly start doing something whether that is in your head or with your hands

[@ludovitkramar7088]

@@bigpod the problem is when you only fill the time with games, videos and that kind of stuff like I do

[@bigpod]

@@ludovitkramar7088 it realy doesnt matter with what you fill it you will most likely fill it with what produces you most plesure unless you make concous decision to fill it with productive stuff which unless your find that thing plesurable you will find that it just didnt give you the plesure because most activites we fill our "bored" time with are just as useless as games

[@NukeCloudstalker]

That's good! That means that you're naturally productive and the only thing that can hinder that is misdirection! Good for you

[@bigpod]

@@NukeCloudstalker wait what

[@calebspeaks9394]

They are a hobby. Do you do anything for fun? Why don't you quit? Its not the most productive thing you could be doing in the moment, so you should stop. This is not really my line of logic, but rather, yours. And its a ridiculous one. But how about this, how about instead of worrying what things other people are doing that make them happy, find something to good to do with your life that makes you happy too. I don't get why people have so much trouble living and let live.

[@xpbatmanqx5535]

I see no harm in playing in moderation though, the games can improve your problem solving skills and can help you develop really good mindsets (depending on the games of course) there was also a few ted talks that show their positives. I see that all these negative people talk about come from not managing time correctly.

[@Phoenix-tq8lt]

People who hate on video games are generally the negative type of people who care what people think of them. "GaMeS Aren't ReAl SoCiaL LyF Is MoRe ImPoRtAnT." Duh. Neither is the entire social society, and I find being alone to be one of the biggest advantages in life. MMORPGs games taught me how to work hard and grind for what I want. They taught me that things usually do start off a bit boring and challenging but they get better as you go on. They taught me patience, strategy, hand eye coordination, how to be the best at whatever I set my mind to learn, even in "ReAl" life. I could go on all day about the benefits honestly. As long as you don't miss sleep or meals over gaming it's fine

[@xpbatmanqx5535]

@@Phoenix-tq8lt definitely. In my case, playing street fighter seriously taught me sportsmanship, really good mindset for improving and handling losses, and remaining cool when under pressure.

[@Phoenix-tq8lt]

@@xpbatmanqx5535 awesome I wish more people knew the benefits of gaming as well as the risks of abused but moderation is key and even overdoing games can rly teach you moderation as well so it’s mostly good imo

[@upliftingsounds1087]

Games have generally given me greater organizational skills which have helped in my writing and storyboarding

[@acceleratr]

Get out of house after playing weeks of fallout3 is the same thing that happened to Don Quixote, the guy that read sooo much that he started to thinks he is a knight and started his adventure

[@thewholeworldblurred]

this is the knight pill. stop playing and farm real life xp!

[@beefling5390]

Battle pass adds a extra level of sunk cost fallacy. Once you buy it got to complete it.

[@BrendanBrown1]

Totally understand his points being that getting addicted to video games can be counterproductive in your daily life. If getting addicted to video games means that you take less opportunities, decline to go to social events, or you make less time for friends and family, then it is an addiction. However, it is probably one of the most benign addictions one can be "stricken" with in life because most video games are actively fun and cognitively engaging, and I would imagine most people game with friends, so you're not opting out of social interactions every time you play a game. If you think about it, lots of social activities like parties, sports, get-togethers, or even just having a meal with someone are mainly meant to just be fun, not necessarily to expand your worldview or to make more connections, so they can also be somewhat considered timewasters. Yes, hanging out with people in real life is still deemed as normal healthy behavior, but I honestly think that society needs to stop stigmatizing playing lots of video games as a rappant addiction akin to alcoholism. However people want to live their lives is fine by me, as long as they're not actively hurting themselves or others.

[@somusz159]

Most games really seem like a waste of time, especially multiplayer like MOBAs and shit. Limit game time heavily bros!

[@miguelperezpal]

Yeah, unless you are really good at them and can actually go pro and make some money to then invest.

[@pyrefly7575]

Videogames can be art , it's just sad that 99% they aren't . The reason they aren't is because it's easier to sell mass appeal entertainment than introspective art, and since videogames are the form of media that costs the most to produce , Thus producers don't feel like making the next "blade runner" they'd rather just make IronMan 5 And because of this 99% of videogames are the equivalent of ironman 5 and it's sad. But the potential in videogames is the biggest in all forms of media ; Silent hIll2 , What remains of Edith Finch , Outer wilds are all good examples . Those games change your life the same way a good lynchian film does

[@J3zu5]

Just hear this, if you enjoyed your time of playing, it's not wasted

[@Sahilbc-wj8qk]

Something you enjoy does not mean you will enjoy in or good for long term.

[@ADHD55]

Moderation is key, some video games are good for mental/cognitive improvement

[@AugustusBohn0]

agreed, but also I would go further and say people ought to be allowed recreation for its own sake in moderation, it doesn't have to also double as reflex training or whatever as long as it's not taking up a large chunk of your day.

[@TheMemin247]

That's like saying that you will smoke just a little bit of Crack and not end up addicted

[@AsapCodeine]

@@TheMemin247 lets not compare games to crack

[@DuhNoU]

@@TheMemin247 flight simulators

[@Phoenix-tq8lt]

MMORPGs made me better at real life honestly. I have ADHD too.

[@SecretSauce2738]

I think that this also depends on the game. Sometimes a video game can be a work of art and even carry meaning in the same way a book can. For example, Bioshock has a lot of ethical questions it asks the player and the concept/scenery is incredible. I don't find it to have the same addictive hook as a game like counterstrike. That said, I have way more hours played in counterstrike than bioshock because I used to have an addiction to it.

[@guidedexplosiveprojectileg9943]

Deus Ex is a real piece of art. Very interactive and a good story.

[@RancidWraith]

"Are videogames a huge waste of time, or am I just anti-fun?" Why not both?

[@SamWhitlock]

Amen brother. Although there are other things that can be compared to video games (e.g. youtube, netflix, social media), it's vidya games that rank top because none of those other things convince you that you're "taking action" as much. In the middle of a netflix binge, one is usually aware that it's a waste of time (even if one continues to watch). With video games (and porn for that matter too), it tricks you into thinking you're taking action towards some truly valuable goal in life for which it serves as a proxy. For video games, it's usually some sort of agency / self of hope in an otherwise hopeless view on life. Authors of books don't hire teams of psychologists to addict you and they can't tweak the parameters of the book in real time to coax you into returning to that game even when you don't really want to.

[@area-xp3sw]

Funny part is that when they started adding the achievements and trying to gamify the games further I lost all interest in video games. I wasn't addicted but I did play quite a bit

[@ianflanders5096]

I used to play a lot of video games - mostly retro DOS games and Internet Flash games. Even those were often too addictive for me to play in moderation. I can't imagine playing some modern game like Fortnite or Pokemon Go that's hyper-optimized for maximum addictiveness.

[@honkhonk8009]

It used to be an addiction but then I kinda grew up and got different hobbies. Havent played it in a month. I kinda wish I was a akid again and found shit to be just as fun

[@vladklochkov1513]

There's a point in your life when you realise that your parents were right about video games all along

[@LedoCool1]

Except they weren't. Because following that line of logic you'd end up in a world where there's nothing but utilitarian creations. Beauty must not be - it doesn't serve a purpose gaining you material stuff. Though AAA is a time waster all right.

[@somusz159]

@@jasonsmith8548 weak bait

[@Seiseary]

Haha sadd

[@sk8sbest]

@@jasonsmith8548 nooooooooo

[@sashan4722]

@LedoCool1 why are you spamming the comments with your nonsensical simping. like many things, video games are dangerous when taken to extremes, and it just so happens to many are designed to do exactly that. "beauty" is entirely irrelevant to the topic at hand, though if there were a medium dedicated entirely to beauty that was also addictive, it would be bad as well in large doses. for many of us who grew up with video games and got addicted, that shit feels like a black hole, its just not worth it. not to mention that there are very few games "beautiful" enough to justify consooming them over another art form. the world isn't as black and white as you think it is.

[@hedgeearthridge6807]

I kinda think of it like how Paul in the Bible said it's better to remain single if you can, but if you have sexual desire then you absolutely should get married, and there's nothing wrong with that. If you dont play video games, then awesome! You can spend that time doing more meaningful things. But if you want to play them, then that's fine too, just make sure you do it responsibly and dont waste too much time. I'm in the latter group, I want to be married and I like playing vidya gaymes. Just gotta make sure im responsible with those things.

[@elclippo4182]

"I once had a girlfriend" All gay and incel viewers can’t believe it and instantly deny it.

[@TheLazyLemmon]

I think Jonathan Blow put it well when he said that modern video games don't value the players time.

[@ferret7508]

Along with addiction to the idea of "getting something done," video games replace real social aspects with online sociality. This adds ontop of the social problems that the kids attracted to video games already might have, since online sociality is so much more easy and unconsequential

[@HyperMario64]

Well this is a critique a bit broader than videogames. Yes I do agree they are played to significant extent, as for me I consider myself lucky if I can find 30 minutes in the day to relax and enjoy a small cute and funny videogame. I cannot play for more than 1h nowadays, I just get bored. I prefer to spend most of my time on productive activities or actually hanging outside and enjoy life. Honestly I find similarity between your example of avid book readers and addicted gamers. The signature is different, but I detect the same underlying passion that you describe. In general, all media bores me the same today. I need to switch frequently between non-productive stuff otherwise I get insane being stuck in it. Too much things to do.

[@dubbeltumme]

I think "sportsball" is more close to gayming then bingewatching TV. Seems to have the same effect of distracting "men" and keeping them from growing up...

[@pt8306]

"BuT ItS ExERCiSe So iTS hEalTHy FoR Me tO SiT In fROnT oF a TV DriNKiNg BeeR!"

[@beybladeguru101]

I mean, shit, at least you're "in control" when you play video games. Watching other people doing stuff without trying to learn is much worse.

[@Stszelec01]

Life is a waste of time technically

[@rjdp3]

In time reference www.imdb.com/title/tt1637688/ Back to reality

[@Stszelec01]

@@rjdp3 so what this movie is about that chemistry of love is very addicting and important to our species?

[@bioemiliano]

Life is universe's bloat. Not even kidding, we are responsable for increasing entropy by all the fancy chemical reactions we constantly do to keep us living, we make the universe's 'lifetime' shorter.

[@snowcloudshinobi]

i used to feel guilty for skipping socializing for video games but in truth there just isn't anything i get out of socializing. i learned to stop feeling guilty once i realized i'll never become the person other people want me to be regardless of how hard i try.

[@KingFahtah]

"Let's find out" where have I heard that before?

[@DanielOliveiraMenelkir]

That's why I prefer dealing with retrostuff for hobby or playing: You have a free time, play something, have fun, close the shit and just forget about it.

[@errvega2705]

I try to get good at games.

[@LinkEX]

2:30 _Wheel of Time_ was originally written by Robert Jordan, but he died before the finishing the series. Brandon Sanderson picked up from there, and wrote the three last volumes. But Sanderson also has his own original fictional universe that includes other extensive book series like _The Stormlight Archive_ and _Mistborn,_ so your GF was presumably a fan of those series as well.

[@LinkEX]

So for anyone looking to replace his video game addiction with another type of potentially obsessive escapism, Sanderson is your guy.