5 ms·

Lots of comments on this thread in the vein of “I dislike this game because it’s not productive”. My honestly question is… why? Why is “being productive” this g

• ninetyninenine 2y ago
  Most people are brainwashed by the rat race. They don't realize that all the productivity is worthless.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
• barbarr 2y ago
  Internalized capitalism
  • derektank 2y ago
    I'm not sure if there's any economic system that could survive long term without people being productive. Just because the farm is collectivized doesn't mean you aren't working from the crack of dawn to sunset
    • herval 2y ago
      Being productive doesn’t require you to be productive non-stop. It’s not good for you and will likely make you far less productive in the long run Trivia on farming: Medieval peasants worked far less than modern employees (at most 150 days a year). It was obviously harder physical work than sitting in an office all day, but they had plenty of downtime
      • wiseowise 2y ago
        Medieval peasants also had life expectancy of 30 years, what’s your point?
        • herval 2y ago
          How’s that in any way related to the topic?
        • tokai 2y ago
          That is not true. You are passing on an ill informed myth.
• OJFord 2y ago
  I think because - or to speak for myself, the reason I've never bought/played it, despite being interested - it's similar and yet not productive. Versus say Call of Duty or whatever that you might lose yourself in, which is also not productive, but bears no resemblance to work. Pilot communities probably say similar things about flight sims (or flight components of games) that aren't good enough to be useful practice?
  • herval 2y ago
    It’s not in any way similar to coding, though - it’s a puzzle-solving game. It’s not made to simulate any engineering discipline, nor user to train engineers (like flight sims are)
    • ghostpepper 2y ago
      You don't find coding similar to solving puzzles in any way?
      • herval 2y ago
        IMO coding is to solving puzzle the same way as any other discipline (from people management to architecture) is to solving puzzles
      • falcolas 2y ago
        Not really. And I think that's mostly due to the lack of constraints in most programming jobs. I don't have to think about throughput or optimizing op codes or almost anything else because our machines have absurd amounts of compute and more memory than most hard drives I've had in my life, the networks are broad and fast, and there's a commercial solution for most of the hard problems. Maybe I'd think differently if I worked on microcontrollers, but my brief foray into Arduinos and Raspberry Pies didn't feel that much different. I mean, I was using Python on the Arduino. I felt more constrained by the pins than anything else - another problem with several well explored solutions.
      • wiseowise 2y ago
• derektank 2y ago
  If you subscribe to Peter Singer's views on consequentialism, we all have a moral duty to spend our life maximizing the number of people we save from dying or from immense suffering. Hard to do that if you're not being productive; though I'll be the first to admit nobody does or can live with perfect adherence to that principle
  • herval 2y ago
    That’s a crazy ascetic view of life. Also completely unrelated to almost anyone on this forum, since it’s unlikely most here are doing any work that saves anyone’s life
    • lukas099 2y ago
      Theoretically, I guess telling HN people they should be out saving lives could save lives.
    • philwelch 2y ago
      To his credit, Peter Singer actually is a crazy ascetic.
      • lukas099 2y ago
        Taleb would be proud.
    • kfajdsl 2y ago
      I mean, you work to make money, and you can donate that money to all kinds of charities that do save lives.
  • massysett 2y ago
    Just as a productive person sleeps, so too do productive people take leisure. Someone who never sleeps is not maximizing the number saved from dying.
• klik99 2y ago
  I feel like it and Satisfactory redirects the part of me that creates and looks for novel ways of doing things from something that yields useful byproducts that actually change the world in tiny ways into something that yields nothing but more of itself. And it never really ends. I don't mind useless stuff, I play games, but something about Factorio and Satisfactory both draws me in and makes me feel so empty. I think because it scratches the itch that IRL I have built my career on, but points it towards something useless.
  • tailspin2019 2y ago
    This is a really good analysis. I love both of those games but I felt exactly the same way as you. For me they are REALLY addictive, Minecraft is too. In a way that isn’t the same as some console games I play - where it’s easier to step away…
  • shadowgovt 2y ago
    It's a digital model train set. At least it doesn't take up the whole basement like the sets previous generations played with.
    • fphhotchips 2y ago
      People look at me funny when I say this, but it's true. I work in performance - a space where we're thinking about threading, parallelism and the like a lot - and I often say "I want to hire who play with trains". What I mean is "I want people who play Factorio", because the concepts and problems are very very similar. But fewer people know Factorio, so I say trains instead. I think I know why it's enjoyable even though it's so close to work, too. It's the _feedback_. Factorio shows you visually where you screwed up, and what's moving slowly. In actual work the time and frustration is usually in finding it.
• grensley 2y ago
  The KPIs of these people's own lives have failed to grow quarter-over-quarter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYvhC_RdIwQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYvhC_RdIwQ
• lmm 2y ago
  To me it feels like it subverts the desire to build something, in the same way that e.g. porn subverts the desire for sex. You feel like you're making something, but at the end of the day you didn't actually make anything.
  • oceanplexian 2y ago
    For me RTS games are like a drug. I can easily get lost in them and play for 10-15 hours straight due to how my brain is wired. That doesn’t mean I never play them, but I treat it with the same respect as a drug, and use them in moderation.
• gchamonlive 2y ago
  Maybe because it sometimes feels like work. So if it's kinda like work, why not do something that is also not productive but would either not feel as though it's work or if it's like work, that you can actually enjoy. For some the latter is facotrio. I tried it myself, didn't get past the demo. I think if I'm doing something not productive in terms of not using my time towards something that actively makes me money, I would feel better doing something like learning another programming language, do some quick projects to automate parts of my life, try to write myself a game or a piece of toy software that challenges me and is also fun to implement. I think I'd rather do those than play facotrio.
• malux85 2y ago
  Because I am high in trait orderliness, conscientiousness and industriousness. That’s why startups appeal to me, because they appeal to my nature. It’s in my nature to desire being productive. So asking “why must you always be productive” on a site full of startup enthusiasts … well, you’re going to get a lot of the same answers
• luffy_t 2y ago
  Because it feels like you are building something but you are not. The problem solving in factorio is just tedious like doing manual calculations and you spend a lot of time doing this. It satisfies the problem solving itch for people who haven't faced any challenging problems in their work. Once you start solving these problems in real life factorio just seems pointless. Dont get me wrong i like paying pointless games that require very little to zero thinking (Muscle memory based) that I find satisfying. Factorio is just tedious.
• dartharva 2y ago
  Because this is HN and everyone wants to LARP as their projection of a typical HN denizen. Sometimes this place brings out the LinkedIn in people.
• Dig1t 2y ago
  Because we'll all be dead soon and I want to have achieved something great with the short time I was given on this planet.
  • VonTum 2y ago
    If you don't somehow make something useful, or built a thing people actually use, then what was the point of it all? To have fun and then be forgotten? Though, with AI looming to take this last shred of human dignity too, maybe having a bit of fun along the way isn't such a bad idea.
• hiAndrewQuinn 2y ago
  Well, because being more productive makes more money, of course. Even if I only capture a small portion of the overall value of it. Scratch that - I'm using "money" as a proxy for "value". Let's talk value directly. All things being equal, if I can enjoy Activity A totally in isolation, and Activity B equally much, but B leaves something behind which other people can use and get their own value out of, then B is clearly a better or more noble use of my time. Being productive just makes you a better person on net. Now... I do not choose the "max productivity" strat with each and every second of my being, far from it. I'll probably buy and play Factorio sometime in the next few months, and it will be Steam game #3 added to my library after FTL and Slay the Spire. But I'm not going to sit here and pretend it is somehow better for the world outside of myself to play Factorio rather than e.g. improve the FOSS software I maintain that helps people learn Finnish. Let alone something like contribute to the Linux kernel. This is a philosophical non-question to me.
• sureglymop 2y ago
  I think it's perfectionism and impostor syndrome. When I play games, I never play competitive or intense games, I see it as a therapeutic activity. I play relaxing single player games like Stardew Valley or Tiny Glade. Cultivate some crops, feed my chicken, pat my cat. No real end goal other than to just relax. I urge anyone to try, especially in co-op with with a friend or partner. It really is therapeutic.
  • cedws 2y ago
    I’d love to do that, but I have a different kind of syndrome where I can’t motivate myself to play something unless I’m playing with other people. Being an adult, I don’t have anyone who can just jump on a game with me on a regular schedule. I’ve wanted to play Valheim for ages. I even bought the Factorio DLC on launch day and barely played it because nobody wanted to play.
• ivanjermakov 2y ago
  Oh yes, without getting too political, that's just what capitalism is about. Ironically, Factorio is all about productivity. Mine more resources, produce more items, expand more land and build more factory.
• theshackleford 2y ago
  I faced my mortality and went the other way. I’ve already achieved more from an extremely difficult background than I ever could have imagined and it turns out when faced with my mortality, that was enough for me. Everyone has different ways of unwinding and finding meaning, and productivity doesn’t need to be the sole measure of time well spent, at least for me anymore.
• Xeronate 2y ago
  Being productive doesn’t consume my entire life but if i’m going to do two things that feel the same I may as well do the one that has other substantial benefits to myself and others. I spend enough time developing that side of myself at work. My free time should go to making myself more well rounded.
• nprateem 2y ago
  I think it's just getting older. Some play is rehearsal for real life. Now I can run a real company, make real money and become a real millionaire instead of a pretend one (or at least try to). Plus I'm going to die unlike when I was an immortal teenager, so I want to retire ASAP. If I'm going to game it'll be an FPS or similar when I'm too brain dead to play when-will-i-be-a-millionaire.
• KopyWasTaken 2y ago
  Feeling productive probably makes them feel good. To me, people generally just want to have a good time, and some would like to be remembered. If "being productive" accomplishes that on a day-to-day basis and gives them hope that they'll be remembered for it, then best of luck and have at it. To me it seems like a narrow and boring way to live but to each their own.