if there’s one thing Feminists and the Manosphere agree on, it’s that video games are stupid.
at worst, guys who play video games are “unattractive losers who probably still live in their mom’s basement.” at best they’re “wasting their life in fantasy land.”
as someone who oscillates between playing a lot of video games and forgetting they exist, i spent awhile contending with these criticisms. in Dalio fashion i wondered “are they true? and if so, how true?“
release routing
over lunch i mentioned the video game epidemic to my wife. i explained how i want to want to play again but the mere thought of booting up my PS5, waiting 30 seconds in the game lobby, and charging my wireless headset to talk trash is borderline torture. less hyperbolically it evokes turbo normie levels of boredom.
without hesitation she said “duh, look at what you do all day. video games can never compete with the dopamine release you get from work.“
and that’s why she’s mine.
sourcing problem
modern women and traditional men might be on to something. but they’re only directionally accurate. they attack the aesthetic of gaming without offering an alternative.
they ought to be asking why guys play video games in the first place. or don’t ask, just use some imagination. consider that for a few hundred dollars and the click of a button one can procure a plastic box containing a world with a predictable feedback loop that encourages experimentation, dreaming, second chances. where one can learn from their mistakes and be rewarded for their successes.
to optimists this describes the real world. but it doesn’t feel that way for everyone. some people think they’re stuck in a zip code, body, income bracket, whatever. so to the pixels they go.
abolition
without speculating why, heavy gamers (who indeed fumble real life opportunities) are not connecting the dots: instead of developing a Sim character, they could be the Sim character.
want more interest from girls? throw away your character’s ice cream and send him to the gym. want to make money on YouTube? force your character to practice speaking in front of a camera.
this paradigm won’t shift itself. this year i’m pondering how to help make reality more like a video game, rejecting the idea that we should make video games more realistic.