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This article addresses moral panic and so it may seem like it is not an extension of it, but I think it basically still is. People have tried for decades, thro

This article addresses moral panic and so it may seem like it is not an extension of it, but I think it basically still is. People have tried for decades, through scientific research, to quantify harm caused by video games and have failed over and over again. Can people become "addicted" to them and use them as escape mechanisms? Sure, But that happens with all kinds of things, from chess to reading to running. It's rare to see a real impassioned defense of gaming outside of "it's not that bad" but I'd like to go out and say it had a hugely positive impact on my life and I think it's really doubtful I'd be where I am today without gaming. Beyond giving me the foundations of the technical skills I used to become an engineer, gaming gave me tons of social skills as well. As an adolescent I was able to play a ton of different roles in a group in a way that I wasn't able to in real life, even in sports and mock trial and things like that, where other elements of teamwork were present. This prepared me greatly for understanding deep collaboration with teammates at work today. Much more than group projects in school. Like orders of magnitude more so. It's also important to note that despite being the safest the country has ever been, adolescents are more restricted than ever before. It is extremely rare for them to have places where they can be free, with their friends, and also trying out new social roles. This is an extremely valuable process and it's really difficult to do these days. I don't think there is anything wrong with Fortnite, but I think if you're trying to figure out why people play it and you reduce that down to "bright flashing colors and escapism" you're missing a ton of the context. And this isn't to rag on sports and say gaming is better (or theater, or woodworking, if those are your things) it's just to say: it's 2019. This gaming thing has been going on for quite some time. It's a real thing with depth, mastery and real benefits that spread into the rest of your life just like playing sports, or chess or however else you think kids should be spending their time. Let's stop tiptoeing around gaming like it's just a vice and start emphasizing the positive things we get out of it.

badpun 7y ago
> This gaming thing has been going on for quite some time. It's a real thing with depth, mastery and real benefits that spread into the rest of your life just like playing sports, or chess or however else you think kids should be spending their time. Sure, that's true, but only for some kids - while for others, games, esp. non-skill ones (say, 100th hour of slashing monsters in Diablo) truly are a distraction and bring nothing in, while they fill the time in child's development that is normally devoted to activities which develop the child in some way. The same thing can be said about other activities, like TV, but I feel like video games may have even less to offer than those. I mean, if you watch sitcoms on TV, you're developing your sense of humor, observe people engaged in funny dialogue etc. I can't see a single valueable thing about that 100th hour of playing Diablo - it's a pure time waster. It's not great for an adult, but especially bad for a child/teenager, which should be growing instead of wasting time.
- fabricexpert 7y ago
  Perhaps 100 hours of slaying monsters in Diablo helps prepare a child for 40 hours a week performing menial tasks for the rest of their life?
  - Splines 7y ago
    If you made a "office space" kind of game, and it was something you could actually call a game, I wouldn't be surprised to see a community grow up around it as people discussed path prioritization, how to speed run the TPS reports level, and how the recent nerf to casual dress fridays have impacted the meta.
    - viraptor 7y ago
      There's job simulator https://store.steampowered.com/app/448280/Job_Simulator/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/448280/Job_Simulator/
    - Macross8299 7y ago
      Mailroom to CEO Let's Play (speedrun 100% achievement)
- wdewind 7y ago
  Diablo is orders of magnitude less successful than Fortnite (or even Overwatch, by the same company), and I'd argue the reason is exactly what you are talking about: it's just not a very good game and the things you can get out of it just aren't that valuable. Overwhelmingly people choose more teamwork based, deeply social games. This is what the numbers say. A second premise I want to address is the idea that using games (or movies or books or whatever) as a mind numbing distraction is a waste of time or the fault of the escape itself. Tons of people are dealing with really intense trauma, and it's not really clear that there really is a better short term alternative for stress management. I think if people are doing things like slashing monsters for 100 hours in Diablo don't look at Diablo, look at what's going on in the rest of their life. Because you can take away Diablo, but you if you aren't fixing what makes them play a shitty game as a distraction for 100 hours you haven't really helped them at all. Finally: tons of people run pathologically. I mean basically anyone who is serious about the sport does more damage to themselves than is necessary, and runs far more than the optimal amount. I don't think running is exactly the same as gaming, but it's worth examining why we as a culture have no problem discussing Larry's second hip replacement from running 10 miles a day but tremble when discussing Larry's son's 10th hour this week playing Fortnite.
dnissley 7y ago
The thing that sets video games (and social media) apart from these other things that you mention is that they are far more updatable, and not surprisingly this attribute is taken advantage of for good and for ill. The ill of course being that they are able to be updated in such a way that they hack your attention / biology ever more efficiently over time. This doesn't happen with chess, reading, or running. At least, not without these activities becoming intermediated by updatable technology. Which IS happening, but still, not as much.
- manfredo 7y ago
  I think this may be one of the reasons why I've trended away from many internet-connected games as of late. I get the feeling that they're really just Skinner boxes under the hood. Maybe I'm just a curmudgeoney old man (though I'm only 26), but older games just have this more genuine feel. They play the way they play, and while they often have rough edges, I don't get the same sense that they're trying hard to keep the player engaged. I get this nagging feeling that modern "games as a service" have this relationship with the player where they keep them engaged enough to be sucked in but refuse to have a cathartic conclusion. I've grown to appreciate games that end and say "that's all folks".
  - rujuladanh 7y ago
    Indeed, AAA games are designed like you explained on purpose. However, let's not put every game in the same bag. A shootout to all indie games that simply make games that start and end.
  - layoric 7y ago
    I’ve felt the same and I grew up with those older games (I’m 35). There are still some greats coming out but you have to seek them out and filter out a lot of games these days to find them. If you are interested in game design and more on what makes a great “that’s all folks” game, check out “Theory of Fun” by Raph Koster.
jupiter90000 7y ago
Judgments about wasted time are incredibly subjective and prone to errors, not to mention unclear in relation to what might be the ultimate nature of a human's existence and life. I know some people that love woodworking for example, to me it's a waste of time. I've enjoyed hiking and going in a canoe somewhere, to someone else that'd be a waste of time they could be building a startup. That in turn could be a waste of time for someone who finds spending time with family more important. Anyway, not saying I haven't called things a waste of time, just when I'm honest about it it's really just what I think, not the universal truth. "That 100th canoe stroke was such a waste, he could have been {0}ing." - Person who judges what other people want to do
- formalsystem 7y ago
  When I was a teenager I used to play chess competitively and when I mention this to people, they look at me all impressed. When I mention that I now play Dota competitively, I get an "oh I hear that game is really addictive" or "I'm not a video game person". And since I've played both for quite some time now I can promise you that playing any interesting game is not a passive experience and is in fact pretty brain melting if you get into it. "I don't like games" to me now sounds a lot like when people say "I don't like music" or "I don't like books". You may not like specific genres but not liking an entire medium is often just a sign of miseducation. I would challenge the most dedicated of programmers to build an efficient factory in Factorio or an adventure buff to see what it feels like to beat a monster like in Sekiro or Dark Souls. The Witness, Baba is you, Crusader Kings 2 etc. Please play any of those games and tell me that gaming is a passive activity.
  - veryworried 7y ago
    I doubt few would argue that gaming is a passive activity. What they seem to argue is that any gaming experience specifically designed for entertainment is ultimately worthless. There’s games all around us if you look. I like to play the “I broke my kernel and my entire system is fucked and now I gotta repair it” game or the “write a driver for some obscure hardware” game or even “demonstrate a vulnerability exploit on a live system” game, all which lead to greater value creation and self fulfillment superior to defeating some imaginary creature.
daeken 7y ago
> It's rare to see a real impassioned defense of gaming outside of "it's not that bad" but I'd like to go out and say it had a hugely positive impact on my life and I think it's really doubtful I'd be where I am today without gaming. I owe my entire career to gaming. Shadowrun on the Sega Genesis made me want to be a hacker, EverQuest hacking turned me from a mediocre (at best) web dev to a competent reverse-engineer, and my first serious startup came about because I wanted to play Oblivion on OS X. Every huge leap in my technical abilities came about because of games; I wouldn't be anywhere near where I am today without the pushes that these amazing works of art gave me.
- Macross8299 7y ago
  Out of curiosity, what was the startup doing and did you ever get Oblivion running at a 100% similar experience to native? (Bethesda bugs and all)
  - daeken 7y ago
    I created a system to convert Windows binaries to native Linux/OS X binaries and wrote my own implementation of a ton of Win32 APIs. Never did get Oblivion running, but did run several other games, most notably Prey. Eventually pivoted to implementing DX10 for Linux/Mac/Windows XP (back when Vista was the only one with it), and then the company died a little while later for unrelated reasons. You can read a postmortem here: https://daeken.dev/blog/2009-12-27_Alky_Postmortem.html https://daeken.dev/blog/2009-12-27_Alky_Postmortem.html
- alexgmcm 7y ago
  Shadowrun was an amazing game. Whenever I mention it these days people think of the FPS.
jrochkind1 7y ago
From the OP itself: > So, I'd suggest re-framing the question. "Will playing Fortnite cause my child (or me) quantifiable harm?" is not the only question we should be asking. Given what is usually meant by that question, the answer is almost always "no." But, in addition to that question, we might also ask how playing Fortnite figures into our pursuit of the good life, individually and as members of distinct moral communities. Answers will vary, of course, and they will most likely be conveyed by narratives rather than statistics. I suspect they will also be less sensational and more nuanced than the answers the first question tends to get. Moreover, the latter question and the answers that follow will not elicit simple and programmatic action points, rather they will elicit the deployment of practical wisdom.
- Macross8299 7y ago
  >The good life as members of distinct moral communities ... I suspect [answers] will also be less sensational and more nuanced I really don't know about that. Defining "The good life as a member of a distinct moral community" has lead to all sorts of sensational moral panics of the past. i.e. "what kind of good Christian plays D&D"?

badpun 7y ago

> This gaming thing has been going on for quite some time. It's a real thing with depth, mastery and real benefits that spread into the rest of your life just like playing sports, or chess or however else you think kids should be spending their time. Sure, that's true, but only for some kids - while for others, games, esp. non-skill ones (say, 100th hour of slashing monsters in Diablo) truly are a distraction and bring nothing in, while they fill the time in child's development that is normally devoted to activities which develop the child in some way. The same thing can be said about other activities, like TV, but I feel like video games may have even less to offer than those. I mean, if you watch sitcoms on TV, you're developing your sense of humor, observe people engaged in funny dialogue etc. I can't see a single valueable thing about that 100th hour of playing Diablo - it's a pure time waster. It's not great for an adult, but especially bad for a child/teenager, which should be growing instead of wasting time.

fabricexpert 7y ago
Perhaps 100 hours of slaying monsters in Diablo helps prepare a child for 40 hours a week performing menial tasks for the rest of their life?
- Splines 7y ago
  If you made a "office space" kind of game, and it was something you could actually call a game, I wouldn't be surprised to see a community grow up around it as people discussed path prioritization, how to speed run the TPS reports level, and how the recent nerf to casual dress fridays have impacted the meta.
  - viraptor 7y ago
    There's job simulator https://store.steampowered.com/app/448280/Job_Simulator/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/448280/Job_Simulator/
  - Macross8299 7y ago
    Mailroom to CEO Let's Play (speedrun 100% achievement)
wdewind 7y ago
Diablo is orders of magnitude less successful than Fortnite (or even Overwatch, by the same company), and I'd argue the reason is exactly what you are talking about: it's just not a very good game and the things you can get out of it just aren't that valuable. Overwhelmingly people choose more teamwork based, deeply social games. This is what the numbers say. A second premise I want to address is the idea that using games (or movies or books or whatever) as a mind numbing distraction is a waste of time or the fault of the escape itself. Tons of people are dealing with really intense trauma, and it's not really clear that there really is a better short term alternative for stress management. I think if people are doing things like slashing monsters for 100 hours in Diablo don't look at Diablo, look at what's going on in the rest of their life. Because you can take away Diablo, but you if you aren't fixing what makes them play a shitty game as a distraction for 100 hours you haven't really helped them at all. Finally: tons of people run pathologically. I mean basically anyone who is serious about the sport does more damage to themselves than is necessary, and runs far more than the optimal amount. I don't think running is exactly the same as gaming, but it's worth examining why we as a culture have no problem discussing Larry's second hip replacement from running 10 miles a day but tremble when discussing Larry's son's 10th hour this week playing Fortnite.

dnissley 7y ago

The thing that sets video games (and social media) apart from these other things that you mention is that they are far more updatable, and not surprisingly this attribute is taken advantage of for good and for ill. The ill of course being that they are able to be updated in such a way that they hack your attention / biology ever more efficiently over time. This doesn't happen with chess, reading, or running. At least, not without these activities becoming intermediated by updatable technology. Which IS happening, but still, not as much.

manfredo 7y ago
I think this may be one of the reasons why I've trended away from many internet-connected games as of late. I get the feeling that they're really just Skinner boxes under the hood. Maybe I'm just a curmudgeoney old man (though I'm only 26), but older games just have this more genuine feel. They play the way they play, and while they often have rough edges, I don't get the same sense that they're trying hard to keep the player engaged. I get this nagging feeling that modern "games as a service" have this relationship with the player where they keep them engaged enough to be sucked in but refuse to have a cathartic conclusion. I've grown to appreciate games that end and say "that's all folks".
- rujuladanh 7y ago
  Indeed, AAA games are designed like you explained on purpose. However, let's not put every game in the same bag. A shootout to all indie games that simply make games that start and end.
- layoric 7y ago
  I’ve felt the same and I grew up with those older games (I’m 35). There are still some greats coming out but you have to seek them out and filter out a lot of games these days to find them. If you are interested in game design and more on what makes a great “that’s all folks” game, check out “Theory of Fun” by Raph Koster.

jupiter90000 7y ago

Judgments about wasted time are incredibly subjective and prone to errors, not to mention unclear in relation to what might be the ultimate nature of a human's existence and life. I know some people that love woodworking for example, to me it's a waste of time. I've enjoyed hiking and going in a canoe somewhere, to someone else that'd be a waste of time they could be building a startup. That in turn could be a waste of time for someone who finds spending time with family more important. Anyway, not saying I haven't called things a waste of time, just when I'm honest about it it's really just what I think, not the universal truth. "That 100th canoe stroke was such a waste, he could have been {0}ing." - Person who judges what other people want to do

formalsystem 7y ago
When I was a teenager I used to play chess competitively and when I mention this to people, they look at me all impressed. When I mention that I now play Dota competitively, I get an "oh I hear that game is really addictive" or "I'm not a video game person". And since I've played both for quite some time now I can promise you that playing any interesting game is not a passive experience and is in fact pretty brain melting if you get into it. "I don't like games" to me now sounds a lot like when people say "I don't like music" or "I don't like books". You may not like specific genres but not liking an entire medium is often just a sign of miseducation. I would challenge the most dedicated of programmers to build an efficient factory in Factorio or an adventure buff to see what it feels like to beat a monster like in Sekiro or Dark Souls. The Witness, Baba is you, Crusader Kings 2 etc. Please play any of those games and tell me that gaming is a passive activity.
- veryworried 7y ago
  I doubt few would argue that gaming is a passive activity. What they seem to argue is that any gaming experience specifically designed for entertainment is ultimately worthless. There’s games all around us if you look. I like to play the “I broke my kernel and my entire system is fucked and now I gotta repair it” game or the “write a driver for some obscure hardware” game or even “demonstrate a vulnerability exploit on a live system” game, all which lead to greater value creation and self fulfillment superior to defeating some imaginary creature.

daeken 7y ago

> It's rare to see a real impassioned defense of gaming outside of "it's not that bad" but I'd like to go out and say it had a hugely positive impact on my life and I think it's really doubtful I'd be where I am today without gaming. I owe my entire career to gaming. Shadowrun on the Sega Genesis made me want to be a hacker, EverQuest hacking turned me from a mediocre (at best) web dev to a competent reverse-engineer, and my first serious startup came about because I wanted to play Oblivion on OS X. Every huge leap in my technical abilities came about because of games; I wouldn't be anywhere near where I am today without the pushes that these amazing works of art gave me.

Macross8299 7y ago
Out of curiosity, what was the startup doing and did you ever get Oblivion running at a 100% similar experience to native? (Bethesda bugs and all)
- daeken 7y ago
  I created a system to convert Windows binaries to native Linux/OS X binaries and wrote my own implementation of a ton of Win32 APIs. Never did get Oblivion running, but did run several other games, most notably Prey. Eventually pivoted to implementing DX10 for Linux/Mac/Windows XP (back when Vista was the only one with it), and then the company died a little while later for unrelated reasons. You can read a postmortem here: https://daeken.dev/blog/2009-12-27_Alky_Postmortem.html https://daeken.dev/blog/2009-12-27_Alky_Postmortem.html
alexgmcm 7y ago
Shadowrun was an amazing game. Whenever I mention it these days people think of the FPS.

jrochkind1 7y ago

From the OP itself: > So, I'd suggest re-framing the question. "Will playing Fortnite cause my child (or me) quantifiable harm?" is not the only question we should be asking. Given what is usually meant by that question, the answer is almost always "no." But, in addition to that question, we might also ask how playing Fortnite figures into our pursuit of the good life, individually and as members of distinct moral communities. Answers will vary, of course, and they will most likely be conveyed by narratives rather than statistics. I suspect they will also be less sensational and more nuanced than the answers the first question tends to get. Moreover, the latter question and the answers that follow will not elicit simple and programmatic action points, rather they will elicit the deployment of practical wisdom.

Macross8299 7y ago
>The good life as members of distinct moral communities ... I suspect [answers] will also be less sensational and more nuanced I really don't know about that. Defining "The good life as a member of a distinct moral community" has lead to all sorts of sensational moral panics of the past. i.e. "what kind of good Christian plays D&D"?