[soreasan]

The second to last paragraph suggests it is a possibility though:

"To draw a firm conclusion, however, would take a clearer understanding of the direction of causation. While games improved since the turn of the century, labour-market options for young people got worse. Hourly wages, adjusted for inflation, have stagnated for young college graduates since the 1990s, while pay for new high-school graduates has declined. The share of young high-school and college graduates not in work or education has risen; in 2014 about 11% of college graduates were apparently idle, compared with 9% in 2004 and 8% in 1994. The share of recent college graduates working in jobs which did not require a college degree rose from just over 30% in the early 2000s to nearly 45% a decade later. And the financial crisis and recession fell harder on young people than on the population as a whole. For people unable to find demanding, full-time work (or any work at all) gaming is often a way to spend some of one’s unwanted downtime, rather than a lure out of work; it is much more a symptom of other economic ills than a cause."

[jorgemf]

I said the paper, not the article in the economist. It is funny the article it is based on a paper which draws different conclusions.