I knew I should've been an asterisk / joke about that! :) Yeah, I could certainly see that but I disagree with your assessment that it is just pandering or sel

I knew I should've been an asterisk / joke about that! :) Yeah, I could certainly see that but I disagree with your assessment that it is just pandering or self-soothing. Seeking out any external information in your off-time / outside from that activity gives you the edge against people who just show up and only engage and think about the activity while doing it. If you are watching basketball play-by-plays or even better, recordings of your own games (read: consuming transformative versions of games just outside your skill vs passively consuming a professional game) outside of basketball practice, there is a good chance you will pick up or develop ideas of how to apply that to your own game. Yes, passively watching someone play WoW has a low chance of making a world-first raider but watching a world-first raider do raiding with the intention of picking new ideas up will expose you to ideas and methods you won't otherwise be exposed to through normal gameplay. By listening to other engineers speak, you are being exposed to problems and solutions you would have had to encounter and solve yourself (or possibly never have so you will never cross pollinate ideas)