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> There is a looming issue Ms. Stecher sees in the future: Her husband, who is 39, loves video games and thinks they can be educational and entertaining. She do

> There is a looming issue Ms. Stecher sees in the future: Her husband, who is 39, loves video games and thinks they can be educational and entertaining. She does not. I'm still peeved so many people hate video games categorically. Age of Empires & Civilization got me into history as a kid and I checked out dozens of books as a result. Plus, the reason I ended up wanting to learn more about computers was to make games myself.

chaoticmass 8y ago
Age of Kings had a cool Condition/Trigger system for scripting campaigns. I thought the idea was so simple, yet powerful, it influenced me to write a scripting language based off the concept in Qbasic when I was 14. The scripting language idea consumed and while I dropped the Condition/Trigger system for something more sophisticated eventually, I worked on making my scripting language for years and learned a ton of skills.
moreira 8y ago
Civilization in particular is phenomenal. The Civilopedia was a treasure trove of details about different real-life historical concepts. And the "Women's Suffrage" video in Civilization 2 made quite an impact on me as a kid. Having said that, I do think there's a big, big difference between playing games of that sort and... Candy Crush.
- framebit 8y ago
  I actually came here to say the same thing: Civilization != Candy Crush.
benglish11 8y ago
I've learned quite a bit about foreign cultures from Civilization which has prompted me to do my own reading/research to further my knowledge. There are also educational aspects to games like Factorio which can teach good logical problem solving and applied math skills.
- tdsamardzhiev 8y ago
  I have a friend who played tons of Civ 3 back in the day. He had the most success playing Rome. This got him into Roman history and culture, which in turn got him into law. He's currently one of the most respected criminal investigators in the country. Oh, and he's writing a book about Rome!
AdmiralAsshat 8y ago
My mother tolerated my and my sibling's videogame obsession throughout our youth, but she still largely felt we were wasting our time. I don't think she ever really understood the appeal. Now she's older and retired, and whenever I visit to see what she's doing with her leisure time, she spends most of it on her laptop playing a fish aquarium game or Farmville on Facebook.
- mikepurvis 8y ago
  That's a fascinating turn-around though— I wonder if she considers what she's doing gaming? Basically, there are a lot of extremely high quality single-player narrative games out there, many of which provide a story/explore difficulty level where it's almost impossible to die. Would she still be prejudiced against those, or now that she understands the appeal in broad terms, would she consider upgrading to games that aren't a complete wasteland of F2P nonsense? FWIW, many public libraries have a small collection of Xbone/PS4 games, so if you got the base hardware, there'd be an opportunity to sample a bunch of things quickly to try different styles and genres.
  - AdmiralAsshat 8y ago
    I don't think she's really interested in what I or my brothers considered "games". The high-intensity/fast-reflex or long-investment kind of games we would play probably did not appeal to her. She seems to have gravitated towards the casual-gaming stuff, where the end-goal of the game is meandering and there's a great deal of instant gratification ("Congrats! You clicked a button! Have a trophy!") With that said, I regret in hindsight that I didn't force her to try Animal Crossing back when it came to the Gamecube 15 years ago. It was very much a prototype of the casual gaming trend that's popular now. We might've found some common ground back then before our ages caused role-reversal.
    - mikepurvis 8y ago
      A lot of modern open-world games incorporate the meandering/gratification loop you're talking about though. I can't find it now, but there was a heartwarming story on reddit a few months ago about a dad dying of cancer and playing BOTW on a switch in his hospital bed, and bonding with his adult son over it— he never even made it off the Plateau (the initial tutorial section of the game), but was having a ball running around collecting plants, making potions, getting gear, whatever. Even if the violence level of Assassins Creed or God of War isn't your cup of tea, something like Detroit Become Human or Horizon Zero Dawn could be a good fit.
remarkEon 8y ago
RTS games in particular were extremely fun for me, and I don't see how playing hours of Starcraft and C&C wasn't an exercise in strategic thinking. I share Ms. Stecher's skepticism, though. Games today are fundamentally different from what they were when we were growing up (I'm guessing we're around the same age if you were big into AoE). Some of my friends have kids now, and the games I see them playing make me cringe. They look designed to be addictive - not in the way that playing C&C was addictive, but that they're designed to form real addictive behaviors. So I don't know what I'll do. It's a hard problem. Banning all screens doesn't seem like the answer. I don't know what is.
- adrianN 8y ago
  Games evolved from products that are sold once to a service that continuously extracts value from the customer. It's only natural that they try to be as addictive as possible when additional playing time means additional revenue.
  - remarkEon 8y ago
    Yeah, I know. I get that. I suppose I just think it's sad. Maybe Nintendo will save us.
  - ben_w 8y ago
    They used to be that before they were sold as one-offs, too. Arcade machines demanding more quarters for extra lives is a meme I grew up with, and my childhood currency didn’t even have a coin called “a quarter”.
  - fhood 8y ago
    Yeah, because games are really expensive to make. Fucking up a single time has been known to take out entire publishers. The issue is that many games simply can't break even at $60 a copy and so they have to look to other methods.
- themagician 8y ago
  This is the reality. I lost days playing Red Alert. Video games used to be fun. The used to be challenging. Even Super Mario Bros 3 was a challenging game that provided a sense of accomplishment. Today gaming is much broader. Video games have merged with the larger gaming world (gambling). Most iOS games aren’t fun. They aren’t challenging. The are games of random chance at best. Like video poker or a Vegas slot machine you just press a button and hear a “winning” sound, even if you didn’t win. It’s the weirdest thing when you watch somone playing a game like this and ask them, “Is it fun,” and their answer is, “Not really.”
holstvoogd 8y ago
yeah, there are definitely 'good' games, there used to be more. However, most games these days are also just digital crack. I guess it might be hard to understand that difference if you've never experienced things like AoE へ‿(ツ)‿ㄏ I think the problem is not screens or technology, it is, as with so many things, greed and the 'marketing' tactics that it breeds.
- ben_w 8y ago
  I used to know a guy who was asked to explain himself when he referred to his game dev job as “selling crack to kids”. That was just over a decade ago, before the Cow Clicker clones got going.
- zzo38computer 8y ago
  I do think many games isn't so good. (That is Sturgeon's Revelation.) Also to consider what is written on ZZT when the program terminates, there is one of two pages possible one is complain about such game with "flashy but meaningless graphics" and other problems they have.
matthewaveryusa 8y ago
To add to your point, I got into programming because I modified the buy menus in counter-strike to my liking when I was a young teen and immediately got hooked by the idea that I could make my computer automate things for me. And let's be honest, as much as I like(d) counter-strike it's not an intellectual game by a long shot. I remember my internet was so bad I had to add wait;wait;wait between issuing commands to the server or they would be dropped -- have been dealing with latency ever since :)
- Cyph0n 8y ago
  > And let's be honest, as much as I like(d) counter-strike it's not an intellectual game by a long shot. Oh, you'd be surprised by how much strategy goes into CS at the highest levels of play.
  - 0x54D5 8y ago
    My first devops experience was maintaining Red Hat 7 boxes hosting Counter-Strike servers. I believe the version of CS at the time was 1.1. Our clan leader was IT for some company in Boston and was able to have these servers out of his office on a 100 mbit connection when the average internet connection was still dial up. I think I was 15 at the time. The experience tought me a lot about SSH, compiling, text logs, config files, etc etc etc.
  - fawak 8y ago
    > At the highest levels of play. So not for 99.99% of the players. Although it's not the same subject, this reminds me of a video by Duncan "Thoorin" Shields, a rather controversial and prominent eSports figure: "Gaming is a Waste of Time" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiXfnfBk3BM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiXfnfBk3BM) In the video, he talks (among other things) about people justifying the time they spend on video games by the fact that some players win millions by playing the game. Sure some do, but the very vast majority of players don't, and using the 0.01% of players as an exemple is not a good argument in favour of video games.
    - Cyph0n 8y ago
billfruit 8y ago
Yes, atleast playing games is not a passive mindless activity like watching TV, most games require active thought, interaction and decision making from the player.
tw1010 8y ago
I used to feel just like you. Now that I've escaped from video game addiction though, I'd totally admit the reason I felt that way was either due to implicit peer pressure from fellow nerds, or from lying to myself that there was some underlying cause for why I spent so much time in front of the screen (e.g. loneliness, shyness) which could have been addressed in much healthier ways.
- criley2 8y ago
  I guess as a former addict you have to do things like categorically dislike all video games just to maintain your sobriety. Good on you for doing what you have to do to overcome your addiction, but such black and white opinions are not really healthy or smart for people who aren't struggling against a disease, IMO
  - tw1010 8y ago
    I still play sometimes, so I get periodic reminders how it used to feel. (I don't dislike it. It's great fun in moderation.) But the things I spend my time on today are things I wouldn't had done when I was younger (be social with friends I like that aren't toxic, exersize, read, travel), but not because I didn't want to, but because I thought I couldn't (because I was too shy, or didn't have friends with compatible interests). I'm pretty sure past-me would've been way happier doing what I spend my life on now than what he did back then (if he'd only get through the initial no-fun investment hump to actually get the non-toxic friends, or past the point where exersize goes from annoying and exhausting to energizing and fulfilling). But because I didn't feel like the life I'm living now was within reach back then, I lied to myself about the benefits of video games (so people wouldn't bother me or I felt better about spending my time in that way). That's my takeaway from introspecting on the parents and mine similar sounding scenarios.
BoiledCabbage 8y ago
> I'm still peeved so many people hate video games categorically. I'm more annoyed that everytime video games come up, someone brings up Civilization as a strawman to argue. 99% of games aren't Civilization. We all know people are talking about that 99%. The article even calls out that the parents make exceptions for some educational games/screen time. And yet rather than legitimately engage and address peoples concerns about video games, it's always the same argument of: raise the benefits of Civilization, share nostalgia about playing it in the past and ignore the actual arguments being presented. This thread is no exception. This is a place of more intelligent discourse - address the opposition's points, or concede they are valid.
- antidesitter 8y ago
  > I'm more annoyed that everytime video games come up, someone brings up Civilization as a strawman to argue. > 99% of games aren't Civilization. We all know people are talking about that 99%. The article even calls out that the parents make exceptions for some educational games/screen time. And yet rather than legitimately engage and address peoples concerns about video games, it's always the same argument of: raise the benefits of Civilization, share nostalgia about playing it in the past and ignore the actual arguments being presented. > This thread is no exception. This is a place of more intelligent discourse - address the opposition's points, or concede they are valid. If you had carefully read the comment you’re replying to, you'd have noticed the GP is addressing the claim “video games can be educational”. Not “most video games are educational”, but “video games can be educational”, which Ms. Stecher seems to be denying. Thus it makes perfect sense for the GP to present an example. So before hypocritically accusing others of “strawmanning”, “unintelligent discourse”, and “ignoring the actual arguments being presented”, please take the time to read what people are actually saying. And while 99% of games aren’t Civilization, I’d need a citation for the claim that 99% of games aren’t educational, if that’s what you meant to imply.
- AWildC182 8y ago
  I think there's a lot more out there than Civ in the "formative/educational" market. My literal favorite game of all time is KSP, not just for the amazing gameplay but for what it's taught me. Similarly, semi popular but niche games like Farming Simulator and the other "%s Simulator 20%u" games have a lot of meaningful content. I'd argue even ArmA and similar games are educational in some capacity. Also, Portal because I just have to mention it. That said, I don't know where I'd go with Fortnite, Overwatch, the COD lineup, and the rest of the mega titles. You could maybe make an argument for some of them maybe but I don't know what that would look like. They're fun games but mostly seem pretty devoid of anything inspiring or intellectually challenging. Then there's the ugly... Mobile games categorically seem awful. Edit: Also, kids should be encouraged to mod games. I think you'll probably find more than a few people who are here right now because they found out how to mess with game files to change what they see on the screen, in effect, the ultimate power and learning experience.
Yizahi 8y ago
Yes, RTS train certain skills and educate in general. Yes, some other games and whole genres do that. And still all video games cause non-linear, lets say "addiction", to them. They increase tendency to procrastinate. Especially after significant play time over lifetime, when those same educational aspects are a justification to continue procrastinating playing them. I know this from experience and it is very hard and feels like increasingly harder to stop or limit it.
scarecrowbob 8y ago
"I'm still peeved so many people hate video games categorically." I think video games are beautiful. I just finished Detroit: Become Human, and I've been playing games since Wolf3d came out. I suspect that the digital story telling in many video games is every bit as much "literature" as any novel, poem, or play. I also personally saw more people drop out of college because of WoW than drugs. Just an anecdote. But I don't feel that video games are any better or worse than smoking cannabis or drinking alcohol, and I don't mind feeling a little grated when folks marketed them to my kids in ways that directly attempt to increase their addictive potential.
msla 8y ago
http://www.merrycoz.org/books/CONFESSN.xhtml http://www.merrycoz.org/books/CONFESSN.xhtml > At an early age I acquired a taste for novel reading, and indulged it to such an excess, that my mind was enervated, and its relish destroyed for higher and more solid attainments. I feel that I had a capacity for better things; but, under the ascendancy of this idle habit, it sunk into a fatal lethargy, from which neither shame nor ambition could awaken it. The drunkard, in the intervals of sobriety, feels most keenly the evils of intoxication, and, if self love allowed him to be candid, could a tale unfold of disease, of mental and bodily suffering, that would do more for the cause of temperance than all the societies in the world have ever accomplished. The excitement of novel reading is akin to intoxication. When it subsides, it leaves the mind collapsed and imbecile, without the capacity or the inclination for active exertion. I question, whether the confessions of an opium-eater exhibit more striking evidences of the pernicious influence of that stimulating drug on the physical system, than the experience of an habitual novel reader can furnish of the injurious effects, produced on his mental organization by the constant perusal of works of fiction. Reading novels will make your brains pour out your ears, kid. Any new form of entertainment will meet resistance.
manfredo 8y ago
Modding and making my own video games got me into programming. If it weren't for games I probably wouldn't be in a field as lucrative as tech. I'd say it's important to avoid Skinner box style games, but otherwise they can be fun and mentally productive. If I had a kid I'd introduce them to games like Kerbal Space Program, racing games (e.g. Forza Motorsport, Gran Turismo) [1], and maybe some RTS games as they got older. I think it's important to choose what games children. The examples listed above reward learning, discipline, and skill. Not luck or pure time commitment.
naravara 8y ago
>Age of Empires & Civilization got me into history as a kid and I checked out dozens of books as a result. So this is kind of a problem. LOTS of people of our generation learned a lot of our history from games like Age of Empires and Civilization. But these sources of information aren't neutral. They had biases baked into their narratives by the simple structure of game design. The notion of "nations" or "civilizations" as discrete, immutable, and clearly defined categories is actually straight up wrong. The idea of history as the story of competition between these civilizational entities is likewise wrong. But tons of people of our generation think of history this way. They think of technological advancement like a "tech tree" as if all of human progress can be charted on a map with no consideration for alternative ways the world could have shaken out. Monotheism MUST be invented after polytheism, you MUST have invented the wheel in order to invent agriculture, and so on. Overall you're being fed the idea that the world as it is is the only way the world could have been, which is just not the case. We were being acculturated into a specific (and imperialistic) worldview about what history is and how culture works. But because nobody ever took video games seriously, they never bothered to understand and unpack their influence as pedagogical tools. It's not like a novel or a movie where the morals and themes of the narrative are there to make an intentional point. With games the logic of needing to have a game to play and goals and objectives to meet winds up transmitting themes and morals that people either don't intend or don't bother thinking very hard about.
- trynumber9 8y ago
  Of course they weren't accurate, that's why I went to the library to learn more. But they transformed learning about history and geography from something tedious into something I would do on my own, in free time. Self-motivated learning, I think, is something special.
  - naravara 8y ago
    I'm not talking about the accuracy of the specific facts. I'm talking about the framing of the facts that impacts how you interpret/make sense of them. >Self-motivated learning, I think, is something special. In certain disciplines, like philosophy or history, where narrative and temporality matter a great deal, "self-motivated learning" often puts people at high risk for falling in with total cranks and walking away with deeply problematic biases. The problem is that there is a lot of cool, fun stuff in these fields. But to actually understand them, there is also a fair bit of boring stuff about methodology and self-examination where you need to unlearn certain biases and confront a few types of of cognitive dissonance that we all have. Self-styled autodidacts have a tendency to spend a lot of time on the intellectual equivalent of candy and junk food and not enough on the "vegetables," so they come away with weird and unbalanced ideas about how the world works.
borkt 8y ago
Studying ancient history and reading books have been thought to be a frivolous waste of time by previous generations as well. It all comes from your frame of reference.
- goldfeld 8y ago
  That's a surprisingly stupid statement to read on here.
nnforall 8y ago
I think games can have a place. Even dumb games like Lemmings can have some place. And some games really can be educational, or develop thinking skills, etc. I wonder what game critics would say about a child spending hours a day playing Chess. But all chess and no soccer is not a good mix. All Fortnite and no chess is not a good mix. In fact, I seriously question the value of any Fortnite or Minecraft. As entertainment, a little bit isn't worse than many other entertainments. But too much is too much. And as far as entertainment goes, I'm tired of yet another Marvel movie where we can blow up as many things as possible in the most spectacular ways and never even think about consequences. I know it's goofy to worry about real life when we are talking about mythological characters and aliens. But I do think that we spend a huge amount of time and money to train youth to disconnect from real life. If somebody dies on the other side of town, it isn't real so it doesn't matter. If you have to kill 100 opponents to get to the princess, it's all part of the game. But many years ago we played cops and robbers and killed each other, too. Or cowboys and Indians. And we argued about whether somebody should be dead or not because of how many times they'd been shot. And we graduated from pointing fingers to rubberbands to add some realism. Then paintballs. So I suppose the human brain is capable of sorting it all out. But I think it is healthy to feed the brain some balance. Put down the controller and join a service project now and then. Adopt a highway, or visit a care center. Connect with real people and remind your brain that video games aren't real. And stealing cars isn't the only way to win the game. In fact, it's just wrong.

chaoticmass 8y ago

Age of Kings had a cool Condition/Trigger system for scripting campaigns. I thought the idea was so simple, yet powerful, it influenced me to write a scripting language based off the concept in Qbasic when I was 14. The scripting language idea consumed and while I dropped the Condition/Trigger system for something more sophisticated eventually, I worked on making my scripting language for years and learned a ton of skills.

moreira 8y ago

Civilization in particular is phenomenal. The Civilopedia was a treasure trove of details about different real-life historical concepts. And the "Women's Suffrage" video in Civilization 2 made quite an impact on me as a kid. Having said that, I do think there's a big, big difference between playing games of that sort and... Candy Crush.

framebit 8y ago
I actually came here to say the same thing: Civilization != Candy Crush.

benglish11 8y ago

I've learned quite a bit about foreign cultures from Civilization which has prompted me to do my own reading/research to further my knowledge. There are also educational aspects to games like Factorio which can teach good logical problem solving and applied math skills.

tdsamardzhiev 8y ago
I have a friend who played tons of Civ 3 back in the day. He had the most success playing Rome. This got him into Roman history and culture, which in turn got him into law. He's currently one of the most respected criminal investigators in the country. Oh, and he's writing a book about Rome!

AdmiralAsshat 8y ago

My mother tolerated my and my sibling's videogame obsession throughout our youth, but she still largely felt we were wasting our time. I don't think she ever really understood the appeal. Now she's older and retired, and whenever I visit to see what she's doing with her leisure time, she spends most of it on her laptop playing a fish aquarium game or Farmville on Facebook.

mikepurvis 8y ago
That's a fascinating turn-around though— I wonder if she considers what she's doing gaming? Basically, there are a lot of extremely high quality single-player narrative games out there, many of which provide a story/explore difficulty level where it's almost impossible to die. Would she still be prejudiced against those, or now that she understands the appeal in broad terms, would she consider upgrading to games that aren't a complete wasteland of F2P nonsense? FWIW, many public libraries have a small collection of Xbone/PS4 games, so if you got the base hardware, there'd be an opportunity to sample a bunch of things quickly to try different styles and genres.
- AdmiralAsshat 8y ago
  I don't think she's really interested in what I or my brothers considered "games". The high-intensity/fast-reflex or long-investment kind of games we would play probably did not appeal to her. She seems to have gravitated towards the casual-gaming stuff, where the end-goal of the game is meandering and there's a great deal of instant gratification ("Congrats! You clicked a button! Have a trophy!") With that said, I regret in hindsight that I didn't force her to try Animal Crossing back when it came to the Gamecube 15 years ago. It was very much a prototype of the casual gaming trend that's popular now. We might've found some common ground back then before our ages caused role-reversal.
  - mikepurvis 8y ago
    A lot of modern open-world games incorporate the meandering/gratification loop you're talking about though. I can't find it now, but there was a heartwarming story on reddit a few months ago about a dad dying of cancer and playing BOTW on a switch in his hospital bed, and bonding with his adult son over it— he never even made it off the Plateau (the initial tutorial section of the game), but was having a ball running around collecting plants, making potions, getting gear, whatever. Even if the violence level of Assassins Creed or God of War isn't your cup of tea, something like Detroit Become Human or Horizon Zero Dawn could be a good fit.

remarkEon 8y ago

RTS games in particular were extremely fun for me, and I don't see how playing hours of Starcraft and C&C wasn't an exercise in strategic thinking. I share Ms. Stecher's skepticism, though. Games today are fundamentally different from what they were when we were growing up (I'm guessing we're around the same age if you were big into AoE). Some of my friends have kids now, and the games I see them playing make me cringe. They look designed to be addictive - not in the way that playing C&C was addictive, but that they're designed to form real addictive behaviors. So I don't know what I'll do. It's a hard problem. Banning all screens doesn't seem like the answer. I don't know what is.

adrianN 8y ago
Games evolved from products that are sold once to a service that continuously extracts value from the customer. It's only natural that they try to be as addictive as possible when additional playing time means additional revenue.
- remarkEon 8y ago
  Yeah, I know. I get that. I suppose I just think it's sad. Maybe Nintendo will save us.
- ben_w 8y ago
  They used to be that before they were sold as one-offs, too. Arcade machines demanding more quarters for extra lives is a meme I grew up with, and my childhood currency didn’t even have a coin called “a quarter”.
- fhood 8y ago
  Yeah, because games are really expensive to make. Fucking up a single time has been known to take out entire publishers. The issue is that many games simply can't break even at $60 a copy and so they have to look to other methods.
themagician 8y ago
This is the reality. I lost days playing Red Alert. Video games used to be fun. The used to be challenging. Even Super Mario Bros 3 was a challenging game that provided a sense of accomplishment. Today gaming is much broader. Video games have merged with the larger gaming world (gambling). Most iOS games aren’t fun. They aren’t challenging. The are games of random chance at best. Like video poker or a Vegas slot machine you just press a button and hear a “winning” sound, even if you didn’t win. It’s the weirdest thing when you watch somone playing a game like this and ask them, “Is it fun,” and their answer is, “Not really.”

holstvoogd 8y ago

yeah, there are definitely 'good' games, there used to be more. However, most games these days are also just digital crack. I guess it might be hard to understand that difference if you've never experienced things like AoE へ‿(ツ)‿ㄏ I think the problem is not screens or technology, it is, as with so many things, greed and the 'marketing' tactics that it breeds.

ben_w 8y ago
I used to know a guy who was asked to explain himself when he referred to his game dev job as “selling crack to kids”. That was just over a decade ago, before the Cow Clicker clones got going.
zzo38computer 8y ago
I do think many games isn't so good. (That is Sturgeon's Revelation.) Also to consider what is written on ZZT when the program terminates, there is one of two pages possible one is complain about such game with "flashy but meaningless graphics" and other problems they have.

matthewaveryusa 8y ago

To add to your point, I got into programming because I modified the buy menus in counter-strike to my liking when I was a young teen and immediately got hooked by the idea that I could make my computer automate things for me. And let's be honest, as much as I like(d) counter-strike it's not an intellectual game by a long shot. I remember my internet was so bad I had to add wait;wait;wait between issuing commands to the server or they would be dropped -- have been dealing with latency ever since :)

Cyph0n 8y ago
> And let's be honest, as much as I like(d) counter-strike it's not an intellectual game by a long shot. Oh, you'd be surprised by how much strategy goes into CS at the highest levels of play.
- 0x54D5 8y ago
  My first devops experience was maintaining Red Hat 7 boxes hosting Counter-Strike servers. I believe the version of CS at the time was 1.1. Our clan leader was IT for some company in Boston and was able to have these servers out of his office on a 100 mbit connection when the average internet connection was still dial up. I think I was 15 at the time. The experience tought me a lot about SSH, compiling, text logs, config files, etc etc etc.
- fawak 8y ago
  > At the highest levels of play. So not for 99.99% of the players. Although it's not the same subject, this reminds me of a video by Duncan "Thoorin" Shields, a rather controversial and prominent eSports figure: "Gaming is a Waste of Time" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiXfnfBk3BM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiXfnfBk3BM) In the video, he talks (among other things) about people justifying the time they spend on video games by the fact that some players win millions by playing the game. Sure some do, but the very vast majority of players don't, and using the 0.01% of players as an exemple is not a good argument in favour of video games.
  - Cyph0n 8y ago

billfruit 8y ago

Yes, atleast playing games is not a passive mindless activity like watching TV, most games require active thought, interaction and decision making from the player.

tw1010 8y ago

I used to feel just like you. Now that I've escaped from video game addiction though, I'd totally admit the reason I felt that way was either due to implicit peer pressure from fellow nerds, or from lying to myself that there was some underlying cause for why I spent so much time in front of the screen (e.g. loneliness, shyness) which could have been addressed in much healthier ways.

criley2 8y ago
I guess as a former addict you have to do things like categorically dislike all video games just to maintain your sobriety. Good on you for doing what you have to do to overcome your addiction, but such black and white opinions are not really healthy or smart for people who aren't struggling against a disease, IMO
- tw1010 8y ago
  I still play sometimes, so I get periodic reminders how it used to feel. (I don't dislike it. It's great fun in moderation.) But the things I spend my time on today are things I wouldn't had done when I was younger (be social with friends I like that aren't toxic, exersize, read, travel), but not because I didn't want to, but because I thought I couldn't (because I was too shy, or didn't have friends with compatible interests). I'm pretty sure past-me would've been way happier doing what I spend my life on now than what he did back then (if he'd only get through the initial no-fun investment hump to actually get the non-toxic friends, or past the point where exersize goes from annoying and exhausting to energizing and fulfilling). But because I didn't feel like the life I'm living now was within reach back then, I lied to myself about the benefits of video games (so people wouldn't bother me or I felt better about spending my time in that way). That's my takeaway from introspecting on the parents and mine similar sounding scenarios.

BoiledCabbage 8y ago

> I'm still peeved so many people hate video games categorically. I'm more annoyed that everytime video games come up, someone brings up Civilization as a strawman to argue. 99% of games aren't Civilization. We all know people are talking about that 99%. The article even calls out that the parents make exceptions for some educational games/screen time. And yet rather than legitimately engage and address peoples concerns about video games, it's always the same argument of: raise the benefits of Civilization, share nostalgia about playing it in the past and ignore the actual arguments being presented. This thread is no exception. This is a place of more intelligent discourse - address the opposition's points, or concede they are valid.

antidesitter 8y ago
> I'm more annoyed that everytime video games come up, someone brings up Civilization as a strawman to argue. > 99% of games aren't Civilization. We all know people are talking about that 99%. The article even calls out that the parents make exceptions for some educational games/screen time. And yet rather than legitimately engage and address peoples concerns about video games, it's always the same argument of: raise the benefits of Civilization, share nostalgia about playing it in the past and ignore the actual arguments being presented. > This thread is no exception. This is a place of more intelligent discourse - address the opposition's points, or concede they are valid. If you had carefully read the comment you’re replying to, you'd have noticed the GP is addressing the claim “video games can be educational”. Not “most video games are educational”, but “video games can be educational”, which Ms. Stecher seems to be denying. Thus it makes perfect sense for the GP to present an example. So before hypocritically accusing others of “strawmanning”, “unintelligent discourse”, and “ignoring the actual arguments being presented”, please take the time to read what people are actually saying. And while 99% of games aren’t Civilization, I’d need a citation for the claim that 99% of games aren’t educational, if that’s what you meant to imply.
AWildC182 8y ago
I think there's a lot more out there than Civ in the "formative/educational" market. My literal favorite game of all time is KSP, not just for the amazing gameplay but for what it's taught me. Similarly, semi popular but niche games like Farming Simulator and the other "%s Simulator 20%u" games have a lot of meaningful content. I'd argue even ArmA and similar games are educational in some capacity. Also, Portal because I just have to mention it. That said, I don't know where I'd go with Fortnite, Overwatch, the COD lineup, and the rest of the mega titles. You could maybe make an argument for some of them maybe but I don't know what that would look like. They're fun games but mostly seem pretty devoid of anything inspiring or intellectually challenging. Then there's the ugly... Mobile games categorically seem awful. Edit: Also, kids should be encouraged to mod games. I think you'll probably find more than a few people who are here right now because they found out how to mess with game files to change what they see on the screen, in effect, the ultimate power and learning experience.

Yizahi 8y ago

Yes, RTS train certain skills and educate in general. Yes, some other games and whole genres do that. And still all video games cause non-linear, lets say "addiction", to them. They increase tendency to procrastinate. Especially after significant play time over lifetime, when those same educational aspects are a justification to continue procrastinating playing them. I know this from experience and it is very hard and feels like increasingly harder to stop or limit it.

scarecrowbob 8y ago

"I'm still peeved so many people hate video games categorically." I think video games are beautiful. I just finished Detroit: Become Human, and I've been playing games since Wolf3d came out. I suspect that the digital story telling in many video games is every bit as much "literature" as any novel, poem, or play. I also personally saw more people drop out of college because of WoW than drugs. Just an anecdote. But I don't feel that video games are any better or worse than smoking cannabis or drinking alcohol, and I don't mind feeling a little grated when folks marketed them to my kids in ways that directly attempt to increase their addictive potential.

msla 8y ago

http://www.merrycoz.org/books/CONFESSN.xhtml http://www.merrycoz.org/books/CONFESSN.xhtml > At an early age I acquired a taste for novel reading, and indulged it to such an excess, that my mind was enervated, and its relish destroyed for higher and more solid attainments. I feel that I had a capacity for better things; but, under the ascendancy of this idle habit, it sunk into a fatal lethargy, from which neither shame nor ambition could awaken it. The drunkard, in the intervals of sobriety, feels most keenly the evils of intoxication, and, if self love allowed him to be candid, could a tale unfold of disease, of mental and bodily suffering, that would do more for the cause of temperance than all the societies in the world have ever accomplished. The excitement of novel reading is akin to intoxication. When it subsides, it leaves the mind collapsed and imbecile, without the capacity or the inclination for active exertion. I question, whether the confessions of an opium-eater exhibit more striking evidences of the pernicious influence of that stimulating drug on the physical system, than the experience of an habitual novel reader can furnish of the injurious effects, produced on his mental organization by the constant perusal of works of fiction. Reading novels will make your brains pour out your ears, kid. Any new form of entertainment will meet resistance.

manfredo 8y ago

Modding and making my own video games got me into programming. If it weren't for games I probably wouldn't be in a field as lucrative as tech. I'd say it's important to avoid Skinner box style games, but otherwise they can be fun and mentally productive. If I had a kid I'd introduce them to games like Kerbal Space Program, racing games (e.g. Forza Motorsport, Gran Turismo) [1], and maybe some RTS games as they got older. I think it's important to choose what games children. The examples listed above reward learning, discipline, and skill. Not luck or pure time commitment.

naravara 8y ago

>Age of Empires & Civilization got me into history as a kid and I checked out dozens of books as a result. So this is kind of a problem. LOTS of people of our generation learned a lot of our history from games like Age of Empires and Civilization. But these sources of information aren't neutral. They had biases baked into their narratives by the simple structure of game design. The notion of "nations" or "civilizations" as discrete, immutable, and clearly defined categories is actually straight up wrong. The idea of history as the story of competition between these civilizational entities is likewise wrong. But tons of people of our generation think of history this way. They think of technological advancement like a "tech tree" as if all of human progress can be charted on a map with no consideration for alternative ways the world could have shaken out. Monotheism MUST be invented after polytheism, you MUST have invented the wheel in order to invent agriculture, and so on. Overall you're being fed the idea that the world as it is is the only way the world could have been, which is just not the case. We were being acculturated into a specific (and imperialistic) worldview about what history is and how culture works. But because nobody ever took video games seriously, they never bothered to understand and unpack their influence as pedagogical tools. It's not like a novel or a movie where the morals and themes of the narrative are there to make an intentional point. With games the logic of needing to have a game to play and goals and objectives to meet winds up transmitting themes and morals that people either don't intend or don't bother thinking very hard about.

trynumber9 8y ago
Of course they weren't accurate, that's why I went to the library to learn more. But they transformed learning about history and geography from something tedious into something I would do on my own, in free time. Self-motivated learning, I think, is something special.
- naravara 8y ago
  I'm not talking about the accuracy of the specific facts. I'm talking about the framing of the facts that impacts how you interpret/make sense of them. >Self-motivated learning, I think, is something special. In certain disciplines, like philosophy or history, where narrative and temporality matter a great deal, "self-motivated learning" often puts people at high risk for falling in with total cranks and walking away with deeply problematic biases. The problem is that there is a lot of cool, fun stuff in these fields. But to actually understand them, there is also a fair bit of boring stuff about methodology and self-examination where you need to unlearn certain biases and confront a few types of of cognitive dissonance that we all have. Self-styled autodidacts have a tendency to spend a lot of time on the intellectual equivalent of candy and junk food and not enough on the "vegetables," so they come away with weird and unbalanced ideas about how the world works.

borkt 8y ago

Studying ancient history and reading books have been thought to be a frivolous waste of time by previous generations as well. It all comes from your frame of reference.

goldfeld 8y ago
That's a surprisingly stupid statement to read on here.

nnforall 8y ago

I think games can have a place. Even dumb games like Lemmings can have some place. And some games really can be educational, or develop thinking skills, etc. I wonder what game critics would say about a child spending hours a day playing Chess. But all chess and no soccer is not a good mix. All Fortnite and no chess is not a good mix. In fact, I seriously question the value of any Fortnite or Minecraft. As entertainment, a little bit isn't worse than many other entertainments. But too much is too much. And as far as entertainment goes, I'm tired of yet another Marvel movie where we can blow up as many things as possible in the most spectacular ways and never even think about consequences. I know it's goofy to worry about real life when we are talking about mythological characters and aliens. But I do think that we spend a huge amount of time and money to train youth to disconnect from real life. If somebody dies on the other side of town, it isn't real so it doesn't matter. If you have to kill 100 opponents to get to the princess, it's all part of the game. But many years ago we played cops and robbers and killed each other, too. Or cowboys and Indians. And we argued about whether somebody should be dead or not because of how many times they'd been shot. And we graduated from pointing fingers to rubberbands to add some realism. Then paintballs. So I suppose the human brain is capable of sorting it all out. But I think it is healthy to feed the brain some balance. Put down the controller and join a service project now and then. Adopt a highway, or visit a care center. Connect with real people and remind your brain that video games aren't real. And stealing cars isn't the only way to win the game. In fact, it's just wrong.