[socialist_coder]

The difference is that back then, the brainless games were the equivalent of a box of chocolates. Sure, you might eat a couple but you would probably get bored before you finish the box. Now, it's like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. You never want to leave.

So as a child, choosing the productive option yourself is basically impossible.

[eesmith]

I disagree about the addictiveness of earlier games.

I and many others played endless hours of PC games in the 1980s. I remember going through all 150 levels of Lode Runner, for example, and it distracting me from doing other things.

Some kids played so much Pokemon, or Tetris, or other games that their parents took away their Game Boy.

One difference, as this piece mentions, is the direct coupling of the gameplay in many modern games to a wheedling for money from the parents for in-game advancement. That didn't occur 20 years ago. (The Game Boy required batteries or the purchase of a wall adapter, so there was demand for additional money to play, but the coupling wasn't anywhere near as direct as now.)

[megaman22]

I could never get bored with Civilization 2, or Lords of the Realm, or Close Combat 2, or Age of Empires. And I put a lot of hours in, between 10 and 18. I'm not sure that Candy Crush is anymore fun than those games were.

[techman9]

Oh my god. And Starcraft, and Axis and Allies, (original) DOTA. I was even a WOW player back in the day before I got fed up buying expansions. Man, the hours of productive time I wasted...