Gaming Isn’t A Waste Of Time - I Got Facts To Back It Up……I Guess!?!!

Wednesday it was lunch break 12:35 pm, I just had my lunch and there’s time left before 1 pm so I decided to play Symphony of the Night on my phone which I “bought” from the AppStore. When a female coworker approached me and tell that why am I wasting my time playing.
I didn’t answer her, not because I had no valid argument at that point but I took my prerogative not to engage in a banter with her knowing that she wouldn’t or even try to understand what I’m about to tell her.

Sad thing is some people think of gaming to be childish stuff and not real form of entertainment like listening to music or watching a movie.

Most of all why would I waste my breath arguing with a brick wall. Since I’m a member Writer’s Guild why not (ab)use this opportunity to voice out my thoughts.

Now where should I start? Oh yeah the “facts”, video games is one of the top three entertainment medium to date. It even surpassed the music industry terms of revenue about more than 80 billion USD compared to 30-40 billion USD that of music industry and second to the world wide movie industry of 100 billion USD.
Now how’s that for a valid argument!

That goes to say that probably Genshin Impact earned more money than Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.

Still I can’t defend my case based on revenue alone. The toy companies earn hundreds of millions or even billions of combined. But I would argue that not all toys are made exclusively for the young demographic for there are some what I call specialty toys. Toys aimed for specific individuals namely hobbyists. Just imagine the amount of Gunplas or those toys based on certain anime IPs being sold each year making the Japanese toy company Bandai one of the top three toy companies in the world alongside Hasbro and Mattel.

I know what you’re thinking right now. Is that all Mr. Cringe Yapper? Well, not yet but I think you already know this one.

We all know playing video games promotes hand and eye coordination not only that we play games in order to socialize. Imagine the connection we made to a random person on the other side of their screen while playing on line be it competitively or co-op. The way we talked about our strategies, we comfort or even bicker at each other when we lose and how we celebrate, trash talked and brag at each victory.

Video games sets our competitive nature free to roam out in the virtual world. Competitive nature that made this continuously emerging sport thrive. Yup you’re right I’m talking about E-Sports.

From single player to multiplayer co-op and from amateur to the big pro league. No one can deny the emerging popularity of E-Sports where at stake are some real serious bragging rights and some cold hard cash that goes along with it. Lines are drawn with regular competitions being held to see who’s the baddest in the virtual world.

Okay this is it, it’s time to bring in the big gun!

“To game is to recover.”

Why did I say that? Not a very simple answer I guess.
Imagine this , you came home from work exhausted and mentally drained. But then you pick up an all familiar game to unwind. Little that you know you’re not just blowing steam you’re recovering.
How’s that supposed to happen?
As you play your mind goes on what psychologists call the “flow state”.
What is flow state? To simply put it , flow state happens when our mind goes into deep focus minus the pressure enabling it to fire in all cylinders. This revitalizes our brain relieving it of the the stress we unwilling acquire during our daily grind.
Flow state was coined up by this guy

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Sep. 29, 1939-Oct.30, 2021) a Hungarian-American psychologist. His credentials are quite a lengthy that I couldn’t fit it in here so if you’re interested just Google him.

According to the peer viewed publication Journal of Media Psychology (where some of the big names on the field submits their research findings on the psychological effects brought by media) video games are most potent trigger of flow state.

Lastly to prove that video game isn’t childish stuff are some statistics. Did you know that almost 80% of the gaming population consists of late teens to adults. About 50% of gamers came from the global workforce or working individuals like you and me. Last but certain not the least is that the total average age of the worldwide gaming population is 35 years old.

These are the facts I gathered just to prove that we’re not wasting time with gaming and I hope with this more people will be aware that gaming is now part of our modern culture.

As you all may or not know I’m not really good with closing statements.

So with that said I thank you for spending time reading this cringe yap of mine.

This is Stingy Perry signing off.

 

[JG5009]

I'm thankful for being a nerd, for being a person who doesn't date, for loving RPGs, and for everyone who loves video games.

That's the point of life, there's so many things to enjoy from this world and each person should be able to choose and enjoy specific ones even if they aren't the common rule, no one should be ashamed or be looked down for not liking the things that the mayority of the people do.

 

[Lod 10]

Esse é o sentido da vida, há tantas coisas para aproveitar neste mundo e cada pessoa deve ser capaz de escolher e aproveitar coisas específicas, mesmo que não sejam a regra comum. Ninguém deve ter vergonha ou ser menosprezado por não gostar das coisas que a maioria das pessoas faz.
::pazmario

Thank you for supporting me pretend

 

[Stingy Perry Stingy Perry]

Forgive me if I didn’t pointed this one out on the article.

Imagine you did a no death run on one of those Ninja Gaiden games for the NES yet still there’s this nagging voice inside your head telling you that you could’ve done something more “productive”.
I say it’s natural, because we are raised in a modern society where we feel that others judged us depending on our output.
Video games achievements are rarely visible but that doesn’t mean it’s counterproductive. In fact you might have recharged more than that person who spent all day in a spa. Like an old saying goes;
“ Break the mind and the body will follow “.

 

[Lod 10]

Forgive me if I didn’t pointed this one out on the article.

Imagine you did a no death run on one of those Ninja Gaiden games for the NES yet still there’s this nagging voice inside your head telling you that you could’ve done something more “productive”.
I say it’s natural, because we are raised in a modern society where we feel that others judged us depending on our output.
Video games achievements are rarely visible but that doesn’t mean it’s counterproductive. In fact you might have recharged more than that person who spent all day in a spa. Like an old saying goes;
“ Break the mind and the body will follow “.

II have my own philosophy my friend if I have retro games because I need games that stress me out And I also love this RGT for nothing and because I know so many good games

 

[PrismRed]

I would still play video games even if it causes cancer or one random kid in Africa dies everytime someone plays for an hour.

 

[retro8s]

i'll never think video games as a waste of time. because so many video game franchises like Mario and Sonic are games i'll enjoy. so much. I'll spend alot of time with my favorites sequels . as i got older to love them more,. i love Rpgs and puzzles games too then i was a teen.. i'll spend alot of time playing Pokemon gen 1. then it was still new and under 5 years old. far i consider that worthy of my time of enjoying my favorite games. then debating over it a waste if my time.

 

[Kobu]

I hate that mindset. If you want to get existential, everything is a waste of time. You’re going to die eventually and nothing you do can stop that. As such, do whatever makes you happy while we’re here as long as you don’t hurt anyone and to hell with what anyone else says.

 

[Spyrone]

I was an awkward kid raised in a broken home, with disinterested/neglectful parents, and went to school(s) in the ghetto– which were full of the violently ignorant, if not downright retarded...

So the overwhelming bulk of my literacy, and to lesser extent, my moral values (ie. Truth is what works, lies are what doesn't), was built on reading instruction manuals, gaming magazines, and of course, video games themselves..

Thus the skills & thought-process that I had picked up over the years were applied to the Martial Arts when I enrolled myself in them in my late-teens, and eventually to my work ethic when I entered the workforce as an "adult"..

The internet was still in it's infancy when I was young, and I didn't have access to tons of books (my mom read novels, but come on), and the adults around me couldn't give less of a shit if they tried. Therefore, I credit the vast supermajority of useful knowledge that I had acquired throughout my entire childhood came, either directly or indirectly, from video games..

Damn... I didn't mean for this to be such a trauma dump.. But it is what is...

Yeah, where I lived wasn't a straight-up ghetto (I guess, if only because we didn't really have any gangs, just random tweaker lunatics that are the reason they made those METH: NOT EVEN ONCE commercials) but it was a series of shitholes. For instance, one of the craziest things I remember was when some rando tweaker got in a chase with the Montana Highway Patrol and started throwing pipe bombs out the window at the cops chasing him. They chased him across half the goddamn state before he ran out of gas. I was skipping school at the time when he passed through Helena (where I lived at the time) and happened to hear the bombs going off. At first I thought it was someone skeet shooting tannerite charges (we lived near a trapping club) but then I went inside and saw the local NBC affiliate blaring a special report about the whole thing and warning people to not go outside. That was just one of the crazy things that happened while I was a kid.

My parents, thankfully, weren't neglectful or shitty (at least until I got to high school, but I'd rather not talk about the circumstances which led to that) and I had access to plenty of books (my mother was an avid reader of Stephen King and Clive Barker, and I could regularly find awesome AH, horror and cyberpunk books while thrifting) but we were often broke as hell. My parents literally dealt drugs (pretty much just psychedelics and weed, thank god) to try and make ends meet, and there were still times were the only way we could afford groceries was when they pawned all the guns and video game consoles.

 

[Lee__Kanker]

Don't you know it actually raises my IQ mom?!

 

[Leguminoso]

I play Hearts of Iron 4, especially mods. And those mods taught me a ton of niche history stuff better than most books.

Kaiserredux is probably the best example despite being a meme mod, it teaches you a ton about niche historical figures or how some countries actually worked (Austria-Hungary for example, China with its warlords, etc).

 

[Heinzu]

I always find it interesting to observe how others always try to spoil the fun of everything. What did this woman even want and what does it matter to here what others do I hate people who always try to ruin everything for others.

 

[Lod 10]

Well well guys I'll tell you my version They saved my life as I play I feel so good I can stay calm today and several things I love playing games even if someone calls me addicted, right? Of all the things, I love playing video games.They are my refuge

 

[SpcDaicon]

Every time this discussion is brought up I just want to rip every strand of hair out of my head.

Although bringing up gaming benefits is a good argument, I think we should be refining the debate: what do we, as a society, understand as "usefull" use of our time? Why do we even care?

If we look deeper onto it, what society understand what the "useful use" of our time is, its always linked to work or generation of wealth. Doing X is not work related? It's a waste of time. Doing Y is not making you money? It's useless.

I hate how we simply accept that usefulness is, somehow, related to work. It creates an illusory idea that we can only have a meaningful (or "useful") life if we slave away working till we die. I hate it.

The very divide between "useful" and "useless" is a insult to life itself. A false dichotomy created by those who exploit your labor to guilt trip us into feeling shame towards the time we use for ourselves and not to make them rich.