I have sort of opposite take on video games to him. To me, video games fill in the time slots when I'm too tired to pursue anything meaningful - they're just mi

I have sort of opposite take on video games to him. To me, video games fill in the time slots when I'm too tired to pursue anything meaningful - they're just mindless entertainment, which would otherwise be spent re-watching shows or, in the pre-electronics era, reading newspapers or staring into the fire. That's the reason I've never finished Braid - I can spend all those brain cycles on my actual work or interests, not on figuring out made-up complexity. The only complex game I play is Magic: the Gathering, and I play it for the social factor and with physical cards only - it's fun meet with friend/friends once in a while and compete in a mentally challenging game. Our friendship is better for that. I don't really see what exactly I am supposed to be getting out of playing games like Braid or The Witness though. EDIT: There's a minority of population (which is heavily overrepresented in our industry), which enjoys solving pure logical puzzles just for the sake of solving them. Just look at how much praise Factorio gets on HN. Also famously, Feynman enjoyed to figure out keylocks and ancient hieroglyphs as a past time. Puzzle games cater mainly to such audience I guess.