As a reply to the main quote: if we are talking in absolutes, then yes, playing video games could be a waste of time as you probably won't gain any skills that

As a reply to the main quote: if we are talking in absolutes, then yes, playing video games could be a waste of time as you probably won't gain any skills that are useful in the real world, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to have fun and unwind in a fantasy every now and again, as long as you realize that it's just that - a fantasy. > For some young men, gaming plugs a psychological gap left by the loss of a certain kind of masculinity, a loss sometimes blamed on feminists, who are accused of creating a feminised society that leaves no space for men. But in fact, the so-called ‘crisis in masculinity’ is a consequence, not of feminist campaigning, but of societal affluence — a miracle of the modern world, but one that has inadvertently produced a lot of frustrated and aimless young men, now directing their pent up energy towards a hobby that offers fake fitness but which, unfortunately, given the addictive nature of ‘limbic capitalism’, is more likely than other hobbies to become all-consuming, damaging the gamer’s health and repelling potential sexual partners. This article definitely needs a bunch of [citation needed] tags. I'm a gamer myself and know plenty of gamers, but none that play video games to feel more masculine or which blame feminists in some way for this alleged "crisis in masculinity". From my experience, these fantasies that the article mentioned: "a soldier, gunslinger, warrior, gangster, or heavily armed survivor in a post-apocalyptic hellscape" are more about us being able to live out fantasies without consequences the same way we would live them out by reading a fiction book, and not necessarily to somehow prop up our masculinity through them, though there might be some men that need that.