[meditate]

I personally reject "hours of enjoyment" as a metric for value and depth of a purchased game. It's good to hear that you've had positive experiences, but the dark side is that for many it drifts towards being an addictive time-suck that eats money for nothing in return.

[skellera]

When did this opinion start taking such a hold? Out of all places, I didn’t think HN would be so anti-games but I’ve been seeing more and more people saying this here.

Could someone who feels this way expand on why they have such a negative view on games? Just curious if it’s personal, cultural, or something else?

Also, is it directed at complex games with storylines, online multiplayer, or mobile games meant to pull as much value as possible? Cause one is unlike the others.

[_slyo]

My grandfather believes that video games are a "scourge" for young men today. I used to think he was old-fashioned for believing this, but I have come around to agreeing with him.

I wasted a large chunk of my life on Counterstrike, Arma 3, DayZ Mod, PUBG, and countless console games. _Thousands_ of hours in total. For me, games were more than an escape or simply a way to unwind. For me, they were a well-hidden addiction. They were an obstacle to reaching my potential. I can't see myself going back to games again and still being as happy as I am now.

I miss games sometimes -- I still occasionally watch them on Twitch or YouTube -- but quitting cold turkey over a year ago has been one of the best decisions I ever made. That I didn't give them up 10 years earlier is a source of great regret.

I'm probably not going to ban my children from playing games they buy with their own money, but I'll definitely have plenty of long talks with them about the dangers of gaming.

[faitswulff]

> Out of all places, I didn’t think HN would be so anti-games

More time spent videogaming means less time spent leetcoding, raising VC, and crushing it as a 10x engineer! /s

[m463]

I think some games do have a dark side, crafted by the creators to hook into the psyche of the players.

I talked to a developer of a popular free-to-play game, and he told me of many of the psychological hooks they use in their game.

Exploitation of hoarding behavior, community fame for specific players, random occurrences that are carefully scripted, etc.

Nowadays it's hard to find games free of ulterior motives.

Yes, addictive games and personalities have always existed, but now there's money mixed in.

[Wowfunhappy]

I for one love video games. When done right, they are my favorite art form.

I am "anti" any game that uses psychological tricks to get me to keep playing. And for stuff like Celeste, Gris, and Hellblade and Portal that keep me engaged by providing an inherently fulfilling experience.

[jwagenet]

I’m not anti-games, but as I went through college and then started working full time I found I first ran out of time for games and later had lost most of my interest. Now a days I feel like I get more value from exercising, socializing (which can include playing games on the same tv!), or need to do other things (chores, projects), so I can see where the sentiment that games are “a waste of time” can come from.

[setr]

I’ve held a similar opinion for a long time now, but not from an anti-game perspective; enjoyment is simply an overloaded term, and trivial to hack (want to make a nearly any mediocre game enjoyable? Play it with friends.) It often just amounts to “I was content to lose N hours into it”, which on its own is a pretty worthless statement (and if its the only statement, a pretty damning one).

Games are often treated as, and judged as, timesinks. A good game is simply a good timesink. A good timesink makes use of addictive/gambling mechanics. And most games rely heavily on them (sometimes unintentionally; this is likely less true the closer you get to today).

But in my opinion games can be a lot more interesting than that, and “enjoyable” is a crass description of it. For example, I probably put over 2000 hours into league of legends when I was younger, but those hours were mostly a waste. Back then, I described it as enjoyable. Now I realize I never cared about LoL, I just had my social life there. The game was never actually good, and what little I actually think of it is only about the human components (and a little about how not to design a competitive game). The 15 hours I put into star control 2 were far more valuable (if only because it informed me how little, if not backwards, we progressed from it to mass effect, in terms of game design).

I have a negative opinion on games, but its because I like them. Most games are shit, and the industry has mostly been getting worse over time.

Also out of your three, I know you were referring to “complex games with storylines” as the “good” type, but taking a random lottery, multiplayer games are the only ones with any reasonable hope of actually being interesting, mostly by accident. Most “complex games” are completely superficial; multiplayer games naturally bring depth by “cheating” — the humans bring 90% of it.

But I like games. Theoretically. Sometimes, in practice.

[michaelt]

The opinion that "hours of enjoyment" is a poor metric isn't an anti-game opinion; it's just a response to grind-heavy games.

After all, I could double the length of Game X by adding twice as many handmade maps, well written and acted cut scenes, and carefully designed encounters - or I could double the length by adding extra grind.

The former would be something to be celebrated; the latter wouldn't.

[coldtea]

>When did this opinion start taking such a hold? Out of all places, I didn’t think HN would be so anti-games but I’ve been seeing more and more people saying this here.

HN has many grown-ups, which might skew it a little from the "games all the time are great / custom game rig" demographic.

>Also, is it directed at complex games with storylines, online multiplayer, or mobile games meant to pull as much value as possible? Cause one is unlike the others.

In the end, their value is time wasted translated into money. It's not like even the more evolved ones make some big artistic statement with deep meaning. Even the best are at the level of a Hollywood movie (and usually closer to Michael Bay than Kubrick).

[meditate]

I only speak from personal experiences with the business side of things. It's a combination of despotic upstream vendors, highly addictive products aimed towards children, lack of regulations, abusive working environments, and a general contentedness with profiting directly from the misfortunes of others. I do not believe any corners of the industry are safe from this attitude at the moment, despite the marketing veneer they may put on. And yes, if I sound cynical, it's because I am suffering from burnout at the moment.

[Accacin]

Personally I've become disillusioned with most online multiplayer games (I've played WoW, Dota 2, etc. for thousands of hours) and I've been a lot happier now I pretty much only play single player offline games.

Offline games can be played when I want (mostly in the evening for an hour or so) and there's no pressure to improve like in Dota 2 and WoW.

One of my favourite purchases recently was a PSP Vita, I can emulate most GB, GBC, GBA, PS, PSP, PS Vita, and many others and I'm having a whole lot of fun going back to play many games that I'd missed in the past.

[moate]

Hello, I'm a gamer/game-maker (table top, not digital) with some opinions.

Gamers are getting older. As in, the median age of people who identify as "gamers" is higher now than ever before. Part of this is because people who grew up with video games as children are now adults. People have always played games (chess is a great example) it's just what role gaming has played in the culture changes.

Since you now have a larger demographic of older gamers, you're going to start hearing more voices echoing this. When I was in college, I could spend 20+ hours a week playing video games until 3 AM. Now that I'm older and married I'm lucky if I get 5 hours a week for non-mobile games. I'm going to have a different evaluation of a title. The last thing I want is to buy a shiny new FPS just to get pwnd repeatedly by some 14 year old who keeps tbagging me and screaming racist taunts. Loot crates and pay-to-win feels gross because I don't want to dump money that I could be using for home repairs on add-ons for my toys.

I'm not anti-games. I love games. But I can hate tons of aspects of the games (like I mentioned above) or call out the toxicity of gamer culture and still be a part of it. This is a stark contrast to 15 years ago when we all needed to band together to explain that games can be art and that FPSs to lead to school shootings.

[watwut]

For me, it was close contact with addicted gamers and watching how their interactions with other people changed over time. Addicted gamer is not the same as gamer. I used to like games, going to through this and realizing that those games are specifically build to cause such affection and community specifically praises it made me unwilling to play again ever.

Even when I still played and did not yet seen addiction in practice up close yet, I realized that complex game with storylines and online multiplayer games are build for people who have the kind of free time that is incompatible with full time job, family and additional learning.

[Grue3]

I used to spend a lot of time on games, then I realised what a waste of time it is, when you can spend that time learning or creating stuff.

[munk-a]

I understand that "hours of enjoyment" can get extreme with addictive personalities and I think it's super relevant to point out games that use tactics specifically to trap users and extract in-app purchases from them but...

As a general rule I think "hours of enjoyment" is about as optimal as you can get for leisure payoff, the alternative "how much I learned" is nice too, whether that's literal stuff (like trivia), strategic growth or else can vary on a title-to-title basis.

But I do understand where you're coming from.

[jniedrauer]

> an addictive time-suck that eats money for nothing in return.

You just described mountaineering, rock climbing, skiing, running a marathon, skydiving, surfing, scuba diving, and just about every other amateur athletic pursuit.

[duopixel]

There are clear returns there: immersion in nature, cardiovascular/muscular/mental fitness, tolerance to pain, social bonding, etc.

[meditate]

I won't deny that. With the exception of long-distance running, all of those are cost-prohibitive luxury activities, just like gaming.

[apsdsm]

This is particularly true of, say, many mobile games. But conversely, if not hours of enjoyment, then by what metric do we gauge a good game? Perhaps there’s a line here between hours of enjoyment and hours of mindless engagement?

[pdpi]

Hours of enjoyment benefits certain types of games versus others.

Return of the Obra Dinn is a pretty short game, I put 13 hours into it by playing quite slowly (and there's a not inconsiderable amount of AFK time in there as well), I doubt I'll touch it again any time soon (because the structure gives it zero replayability value), and I would count it as one of the absolute best games I've ever played. Portal 1 is a 4 or 5 hour game and, again, one of the best ever.

On the other end of the spectrum, games like Minecraft, Oxygen Not Included or Factorio are enormous, all-absorbing time sinks that will consume your every waking hour for months or years on end if you let them.

How do I compare ONI and Obra Dinn and say that either is, in any objective sense, better than the other?

[chii]

May be the measure should be how harmful it is to continue?

For an MMO, you're engaged socially (presumably in a guild, rather than soloing). In a mobile grind game, you spend hours constantly checking on progress for that endorphine hit.

[gbacon]

It must be one heck of a fun title to take someone who would — if not for that dratted game! — be a productive pillar of the community and make her a bump on a log.

The far simpler, albeit non-egalitarian, explanation is some people are more productive and others will find ways to waste time.

[meditate]

I agree with you, but I still am highly disturbed by "whale hunting" aka certain entities manipulating those types of people into spending as much money as possible in exchange for being able to withdraw even further from productive society.

[HNthrow22]

amplified by the new model of game design to drive loot box sales above all else, which means fun gameplay is no longer a priority compared to designing systems that encourage users to spend on microtransactions, especially addictive-personality types.

quoting a comment from another thread "it used to be that you felt good because you were having fun. In this new era of micro transactions the games aren’t even fun anymore. There is only frustration, and then you pay to alleviate that frustration. You sometimes find yourself sitting there say, “why am I even doing this?”"