More Video Game Thoughts

Getting into March this year, I once again question the use of having video games as I get older. I don’t feel any better for using them, and all the content I see about them online indicates that the state of the industry is getting worse. Gamers are usually (not always) the worst people to interact with in-person and online. Take one look at Gbatemp and you’ll see what I mean in the online realm or any Discord server for that matter. Mostly, video games are a form of escapism, seldom do they offer any sort of meaningful life experience or entertainment beyond the meaningless attainment of goals. Some may take issue with this and that’s okay. Another issue is that video games have become entwined with countless identities. People take issue with any sort of critique on the medium and conflate it with an insult on themselves. This is an issue because people ought to be able to see things for what they are. Video games are so enticing and addictive that people can lose sight of what’s important in life, and this is especially true for young men. I myself have been a victim of the fallacy that video games are a harmless and fun hobby to undertake. Spending countless hours playing online games or spending lots of my hard-earned money on game cases that merely take up space in my house now. I find it difficult to believe that I used to put so much importance on this stuff and thinking that having a huge collection would make me content somehow.

Of course, the state of the video game industry is one of bloat and greed. Worth billions of dollars in stockholder valuations, video game companies take it upon themselves to deliver to most addictive, manipulative, and cringe-inducing experiences that only the most disconnected and youthful people could possibly find appeasing. Take for example the Nintendo Switch 2, knowing that they have a valuable base of customers, they’ve decided to bleed them dry with high hardware costs, inflated game prices, and a software management system that restricts ownership of paid games to an online account that can easily be revoked if the user violates any sort of “terms of service” as dictated by Nintendo. Very similar in scope to companies such as Valve and Epic Games. Not to mention pitiful releases such as Mario Kart World and Metroid Prime 4 that provide a lifeless, meandering open world experience that would make anyone with nostalgia for past releases want to cry.

Steam is another big component of the games industry that should make anyone shudder with fear over its power. It has multiple privacy violations in that it requires an always online connection to function and that it collects information about you constantly, and it holds all of your purchased titles hostage and will not let you access them outside of their platform. They make grand overtures with their development on Linux and improving compatibility with those operating systems, but its ultimately in the interest of profits and consolidating power over more video gamers.

Moreover, the effect on young people spending more and more of their time on online platforms such as roblox or fortnite have been staggering. I genuinely worry about the amount of in-person time they have with each other shrinking more and more over this generation and any future generations. The amount of children I see transfixed on screens either in the library or in other open spaces has increased dramatically. Most of the time they’re playing games by themselves or with other people. This isn’t an issue transfixed on pure speculation, this is a phenomenon firmly documented in books such as The Anxious Generation and iGen, where there is clear data stating that young boys especially are spending less time with their peers outside and more time on screens playing games or watching content online. The video games industry would like to rake in more money and would happily comply with the status quo of children spending more time on their online platforms. There is no meaningful buffer on this and the mainstream isn’t interested in fixing this beyond measly reforms such as “screen free schools” or the menagerie of age verification laws both sides of the political spectrum are happy to put into law.

I suppose the reality is that people will go on enjoying video games, whatever that enjoyment means. For me it was and is a means of escape from loathsome reality. I’m not as keen on doing it anymore and while I suppose I respect other peoples’ lives and what they choose to do with their time, I can’t help but wonder if deep down they feel something similar to what I am feeling. Whether there is any inch of doubt on what they’re doing and why they’re doing it.