[jacobolus]

Why do you think spending time solving hard logistical optimization puzzles is such a worse hobby than sports or reading books or painting or whatever? Even if it’s not your own cup of tea, why do you care if other people enjoy it?

It’s certainly no less valuable to society than e.g. playing chess or go or poker, and on average probably a better use of time than reading the newspaper or chitchatting on this website. Many of the skills learned are largely transferrable to solving other kinds of difficult technical problems.

You can make an argument that aerobic sports are valuable for general health, but beyond the exercise and some measure of social activity, the game part of the sport doesn’t have any a priori importance, and if people prefer to get their exercise some other way that doesn’t seem like an inherent problem.

“Forcing people” to “relax” with particular activities seems pretty authoritarian.

[jackothy]

I don't think I'm getting my point across.

First of all: It certainly is my own cup of tea; Like I said, I play lots of video games myself.

On a societal level I'd say there are basically two reasons why I think video games might be a worse pastime than the older ones. First it's that you are more likely to spend "too much" time on video games because they are more addictive, you don't really get tired and you can do them at basically any time. Second it's that I think video games is a lower value way to spend your time. Sure, you might improve a bit at problem solving, but I think the value per unit of time spent is still very low. I even think this might come at a cost because really figuring out/performing well in a game can be very mentally taxing at the expense of more productive use of that mental capacity.

These two points apply to the examples you mentioned as well: reading news and talking on social media. I'm not saying video games is the only bad hobby. Apropos Ted Kaczynski, it might be tempting to say that most "post industrial" hobbies are the bad ones.

Lastly, I'm not talking about "forcing people". Even if choosing video games as a hobby is a bad idea then people (including me) are free to make bad choices.

[jacobolus]

> I'm not talking about "forcing people"

>> we would be healthier as a society if people were forced ...

* * *

People have been complaining since forever that other people waste too much time on board games / novels / playing or watching sports / playing or listening to music / traveling / attending live theater shows / going to the pub / gardening / hiking / stamp collecting / politics / mathematics / philosophy / cooking / going to restaurants / whatever other activity you can name.

It’s fine to say that many people would do well to prefer activities that are interactive and creative vs. passive, physically active vs. sedentary, social vs. individual, skillful vs. mindless, etc. But Factorio per se seems like pretty high-hanging fruit, especially if people are playing it together. (Disclaimer: I don’t really play computer games.)

[jackothy]

Oh, my bad, I see how I miscommunicated the "forcing" thing. In my head I was imagining an alternate world where video games simply didn't exist, so there people would have no other option than to (be "forced" to) read a book etc.

And yes, I agree that Factorio might be one of the "smarter" games out there. But the point about addictiveness, and the point about being mentally draining rather than relaxing, still stands for Factorio.

Personal anecdote: I spend much of my time in high-ranked (think top 0.1% of players) video game matches, and I think it might be too mentally stimulating to the point where I don't have the energy or willpower to get other useful things done.

[spopejoy]

Another analysis is to go ahead and consider video gaming primarily as a compulsive & addictive pastime. If so, it is one of the least harmful ever.

If video games are scratching some dark and antisocial itch leading to hours spent with them, it's easy to think of far worse outlets -- drugs/alcohol, sex/porn addictions, gambling, food, etc -- that have been with us forever.