Mailbag: The War on Fun

Why can't we just play and let play?

Currently Writing: Elden Lore, Part 2

Currently Playing: Sid Meier’s Civilization VII | Infinity Nikki

Hello, gamers!

I must say, some genuinely remarkable and thought-provoking discussions have come from my latest piece (you know, the one responding to that anti-gaming Free Press article), both in the comments section and through Substack Notes (which, at this point, is about the only form of social media I find tolerable and somewhat enjoyable to use). And there are some threads I’d like to further explore here.

So I’m going to do something new: a mailbag (or rather, comment bag) where I highlight some of the most insightful responses to my piece and explore some of the nuances they introduce. Let’s get started!

A Script That’s Older Than Dirt

Among the many, many insightful responses I received, one of the best was a comment by

Kim Luker

. There’s a lot to unpack here, so I’ll do it in sections:

"It all reeks of elitist gatekeeping." Indeed. It's also very typical. Throughout history technological advances are met with horror, disdain, and dire warnings. The Victorians wrote about how kaleidoscopes - today's old-fashioned, offline, wholly acceptable toy - were causing kids to run into walls and were going to damage eyesight. Fiction reading was believed to be super harmful, especially for women. Newspapers were going to kill civilized conversation around the breakfast table. Radio was going to produce a society that couldn't tell the difference between reality and fiction. In the 80s (my teen years), TV was going to rot our brains.

This is indeed a recurring theme in the history of media and entertainment. Whenever a revolutionary new technology or mass medium is invented (or “enters the chat,” to use a little gamer parlance), pearl-clutching and doomsaying inevitably follow.

Recall, for instance, none other than the one and only Socrates railing against the written word. A product and champion of the oral tradition that had been humanity’s sole method of transmitting knowledge since we’d evolved the capacity for language, the wise philosopher worried that reading would atrophy people’s memories and essentially dumb them down.¹

Similar concerns from the intelligentsia would come out of the woodwork with every significant technological development or new form of entertainment—of which Kim provides several examples in her comment. But just to add one more: did you know that when steam locomotives came out, experts were concerned that women’s uteruses would fly out of their bodies once they hit 50 miles per hour?

Spoiler alert: they didn’t.

Gaming is, of course, no different. Of course, I’ve already gone through the many flavors of fearmongering that moral gatekeepers have unfurled towards gaming at great length, so I won’t rehash them here (though you can always check out the archive for a refresher).

But did you know that it wasn’t always video games that have been the target of moral scolds’ ire? Card games were banned at several points throughout the centuries because they were considered gateways to gambling, vice, and the occult. And let’s not forget that Dungeons & Dragons got precisely this treatment as part of the 80s’ infamous “Satanic Panic.” Sports, too (which, remember, are also games), often get caught in the crosshairs—whether it’s Soccer’s supposed vulgarity and sinfulness in Ye Olde England, or American Football’s links to concussions and domestic violence today.

In other words, this is a script that’s older than dirt (well, maybe not literally, but it is older than computers, steam, and even feudalism… and certainly older than video games themselves). Again, I’ve dedicated many words to refuting this script, so I won’t rehash them again.

Besides, I could never do as good a job as Sid Meier (of Civilization fame) did in the conclusion to his fantastic memoirs, Sid Meier’s Memoir! — it’s too long to paste here, but I’ll include it as a footnote if you want to read it in its entirety (which I highly recommend you do).²

But where does this come from? Insofar as TV or newspapers, you could understand why they’d make the powers that be nervous, as they enabled the mass dissemination of potentially dangerous information (dangerous to the establishment, that is).

But games? They’re just… fun. What’s wrong with people having fun?

Well, it’s funny you mention that because, according to that same establishment, having fun is in and of itself a problem!

The War on Fun

This brings us to the next part of Kim’s comment:

There's also a larger-picture belief that too much fun is bad, unless it's fun that's Currently Socially Acceptable (sports, binging Netflix, reading [but only certain kinds of books, certainly not graphic novels or comics], outdoor hobbies, etc.). Additionally, much of the entertainment that is accessible to us plebes, much of the art and culture we create, is 'less than.' Take music as an example. There is a very sharp divide between the classical music world and, well, everyone else - despite the skill and talent of self-taught musicians in every community all over the world.

This is really well-put. It perfectly sums up the hypocrisy, logical inconsistency, and sheer absurdity of the arguments against gaming, and there’s not much more I could add to it.

Still, I’d like to contribute my theory of where this impulse to sanction and proscribe fun comes from.

Basically, it runs parallel to the moral panics that accompany new technology, which we just discussed. They're both downstream from the Puritanism that the Pilgrims brought over when the Mayflower veered off-course and landed in Plymouth Rock, sowing the seeds of America and its culture.

The “Protestant work ethic” the Puritans (along with subsequent British and Northern European immigrants) brought along has had its benefits, imbuing America’s nascent culture with the industriousness that has helped propel its economy to the top of the world’s. But it has also been taken to such an extreme (and even comical) degree, such that play and fun are always suspect.

Back then, it was because fun was an expression of laziness and, therefore, “sinful.”

But these days, fun and play are looked down on not for being "sinful," but rather because they don't create "value." And not to keep harping on Jack’s piece, but you can see strains of this type of thinking there as well (as well as in every other identical argument made by anti-gamers), especially the part about nothing being created by playing games—the implication being that gaming is, therefore, a worthless activity.

But we all know the saying: all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.³

Make no mistake, the people who subscribe to this view—that your every waking hour should be spent being as productive and “creating as much value” as possible—are the same people who push to install keyloggers and cursor trackers in remote employees' laptops, dock warehouse workers' pay for taking bathroom breaks, and are positively salivating to completely replace human labor with AI.

Imagine a world where such draconian and intrusive management practices are so entirely ubiquitous and integrated into society as to be wholly normal and unremarkable. Think about what a horrible, sterile, stale, and soul-crushing world that would be. That is the world you create when you stamp out fun, play, and imagination. That is the world that people who deride games and other hobbies as valueless and meaningless wastes of time want you to live in.⁴

As an aside, this is also why I appreciate shows like Bluey so much. One of my favorite aspects of that show is how the parents not only indulge their kids’ imaginations, but actively participate in and nurture it. This is such an important message, because mainstream society doesn’t just try to stamp out adults playing (as if that wasn’t bad enough), but kids as well.

As soon as kids start school, they’re set on a track to have their creativity and imagination gradually snuffed out and replaced by rote memorization and scoring high on tests. And by the time they hit puberty, they’re expected to have fully shed “childish” pursuits like play in favor of becoming molded into pliant, obedient, and productive drones.

Those who resist—say, by continuing to read fantasy novels or play video games throughout and beyond their younger years—are stigmatized as emotionally stunted manchildren. For those who grew up in the 80s and 90s: does the term “arrested development” mean anything to you?

And play provides tangible benefits not just to children, but to adults as well. It keeps the relentless ugliness and monotony of adult life from crushing your spirit. On a deep level, we recognize this—even as we deride people with “childish” hobbies, we simultaneously lionize those who are “young at heart,” perhaps with a tinge of envy of their courage to never lose touch with the innate wonder, optimism, and curiosity of their younger selves.

For a while, this seemed to be getting better. The fantasy genre—including works like The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and tabletop RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons—have seen a massive resurgence throughout the 21st Century, after decades of being derided as glorified make-believe for immature dorks. And video games themselves are not only a massive industry (dwarfing Hollywood, Sports, and the Music industries combined), but as ever more Twitch streamers and eSports players build viable and lucrative careers through gaming, the tired argument of games being a waste of time seems more antiquated than ever.

In fact, this is the overall point that reader

Jimmy Nicholls

was alluding to with his comment:

I agree with this post: video games are as meaningful as any other art form. But at this point, I just don't see the point in responding to detractors. It's a behemoth of an industry, cool indie games come out every year, loads of people play video games. I just don't think we have to care about people who claim they aren't meaningful any more.

And Jimmy brings up a good point. At a certain point, you’ve grown big and powerful enough that you can just ignore your detractors. Throughout the 20th Century, Puritanical⁵ moral guardians masterfully wielded obscenity laws and market power to keep the entertainment industry in line—the Hays Code hung like a specter over movies, comics were similarly censored, and Elvis’ hip shaking triggered boycotts from scandalized parents. But by the turn of the millennium, the censors’ powers had clearly waned. And these days, violent and sexual themes in film, TV, and music are wholly unremarkable.

And there’s every reason to expect that video games will get there, as well. I’ve argued many times in these pages that video games follow the developmental path of movies so closely, that in order to predict where gaming will go tomorrow, all you have to do is look at where Hollywood is today.

So even though we’re still rehashing the same tired debates about violence in video games (to use just one example), there’s reason to hope that as the industry continues to grow and the hobby becomes more widespread, this will eventually die down—just as did for sexually suggestive content in movies. Did the Puritans go away? Not really. But Hollywood has dwarfed them in power to the point it can act like they did.

However, I’m hesitant to take this future for granted when it comes to gaming. And that’s because of the same parallel streak of Puritanism that I covered earlier—the one that elevates or stigmatizes activities according to how “productive” they are. Unlike the more straightforwardly moralistic strain, this flavor of Puritanism is not receding into the background—if anything, it seems ascendant.

All you have to do is look at the work culture, and the relentless push to quantify, optimize, and (to use a gaming term) min-max every second spent at work (and, often, at home), as if humans were unfeeling, unthinking work machines and not… you know, people. Or look at, for that matter, the push to automate away as many jobs as possible.

Or look at the comments made by a certain former DOGE advisor about needing to venerate the math olympiad and valedictorian over the jock and prom queen (and please allow me this one small political allusion—this is not a politics blog, and I officially take a strictly apolitical stance for this blog, but this is relevant to my argument). Again, the implication being that, if an activity is not productive (or does not enable future productivity), then it’s inherently worthless. Also notice the re-ascendancy of the formerly discredited “Tiger Mom” ethos, which really did seek to replace sleepovers with math tutoring.

A lot of things are in flux right now, and anything can turn on a dime. This includes legally—as the powerful and ever-profitable alcohol industry learned with the enactment of Prohibition.

So I think it’s important to push back against anti-gaming fearmongering and rage baiting whenever it pops up. Of course, I’m just a small, part-time publisher in the backwaters of Substack—I’m not so grandiousely deluded to think I could single-handedly shift the discourse (unless I got lucky and went mega-viral… Hey, Elon! How about a boost?).

But I do feel it’s my responsibility to add my voice to the conversation whenever I can. Even if I can help persuade one observer, one fence-sitter, or one open-minded and reasonable non-gamer about the inherent merit and value of gaming, then it will all be worth it.

Because you never know—what if that one person is one day in a position to make a difference, at a policy or advocacy level? Our actions have ripple effects, far into the future. And as long as I have the energy and bandwidth to cast a light on behalf of my most beloved hobby far into that future, I will continue to do so.

But I also do what I do for other reasons—and they’re not all quite so abstract at this one. Let’s have a look.

Games DO Create Value, Actually

Returning to Kim’s comment:

My [neurodivergent] teen has gathered a group of people online that are now creating improv in real time based on an existing story framework. They set weekly schedules and events, and she is part of the leadership and manages the character and story archives. Recently, they decided to do reporting and create a newsletter, and she's part of that as well. This is all done on VR and Discord. These are full-on real life skills. These friends (that would be judged 'not real' because they are online) got her through the hardest year of her life in 2024.

There's so much that flows down from this fear-mongering, especially for parents.

Here, Kim touches upon another point that often goes unacknowledged in the wider discourse around gaming: it has been a lifeline to countless disabled and neurodivergent kids and adults, whose experience is often discounted, when not ignored completely.

Kim’s daughter’s life has clearly been enriched by video games and the online communities that form around them. Another excellent example is Mats “Ibelin” Steen, who suffered (and eventually died from) Duchenne muscular dystrophy, but nevertheless lived a fulfilling life of wonder, achievement, and true friendship through World of Warcraft. He was actually the subject of a recent Netflix documentary, which started to come together after Ibelin’s WoW friends contacted his family after his death:

I’m sorry, but if you can watch that documentary and still argue, with a straight face, that games are “meaningless” or don’t create value, then you are either a sociopath, a moron, or so ideologically blinded by your contempt for a hobby you refuse to understand that your opinions should be discounted right off the bat.

And yet, the voices of countless players like Ibelin go unacknowledged in the greater debate against video games. Could it be—and I’m just spitballing here—that it’s because opponents don’t have a response, that deep down inside, they know that they’re wrong, but their egos won’t allow them to admit it?

At the end of the day, it’s useless to speculate. And I can understand people arguing against games being a worthwhile passtime because they simply don’t know how much these players benefit from them (since these stories are almost nonexistent in mainstream coverage of gaming). But as stories like Ibelin’s proliferate and more people become aware of them… will they still continue to say gaming is a worthless passtime?

Their responses will be telling, that’s for sure.

But it’s not just disabled and neurodivergent folks who benefit from gaming. Plenty of neurotypical folks (or, at least, outwardly neurotypical folks) benefit as well, as

Andrea

mentioned in her comment:

Some practical skills I learned through video games: I learned how to read and navigate using maps through RPGs. I learned history through Assassin's Creed series. I learned multi-tasking through Dandori. As a non-native English speaker, I learned grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciations through video games (I remember reciting some of Sora's dialogues with my friends).

Animal Crossing helped me stay connected with my family and friends during the lockdown as well. Final Fantasy introduced me to the wonders of fantasy world building and to the beautiful music.

To say that video games are soul-sucking and meaningless is understatement [sic].⁶

Like with Kim’s daughter learning leadership and organizational skills, Andrea has also picked up highly useful life skills from video games. The language skills, in particular, are highly useful—even the “playing video games doesn’t create value” crowd would be hard-pressed to argue that learning language skills isn’t valuable, especially since it’s highly applicable to productivity!

(And speaking of language… obviously, she meant to say something along the lines of “false statement” instead of “understatement,” that’s very clear from the context. Don’t roast her in the comments, people! Unless you want to get banned, that is. English is a notoriously hard language to learn, and she writes it well.)

This, by the way, is also why I don’t mind my daughter playing Minecraft as much as she does. In fact, I felt as proud of her building her first Minecraft house as I did when she built her first LEGO house:

In case you’re wondering, it says “Josie’s House” in 4-year-old speak.

There’s a lot more to dive into when it comes to Minecraft as an aid for nurturing creativity, as well as developing organizational, planning, and social skills. Some of the comments even alluded to this. But this post is getting long enough, and the benefits of Minecraft really do deserve a post of their own.

Finally,

jack saunders

comes up with the perfect counter to another perennial anti-gaming argument: that other passtimes like reading are inherently superior because they engage the imagination in ways that consuming more visual media doesn’t. In his words:

IMHO, few activities more intensely engage the imagination than one where every move depends on the consequences of a contemplated action. The faster the actions required, the more fluid the imagination must be.

I never even considered this angle, but of course it makes perfect sense. The mental dexterity (and yes, even physical dexterity, in the form of reflexes and hand-eye coordination) needed to become proficient in many games also translates well to other areas.

For instance, did you know that surgeons who grew up playing video games make 37% less mistakes than those who didn’t? That’s a huge difference! So, next time your parents tell you to lay off the video games (or you feel the urge to tell your kids to do the same), you can tell them you’re getting in gear for your future career as a heart surgeon.

But what I really love about Jack’s point is that it creates rhetorical space to argue in favor of the FPS pew-pews that many anti-gamers (including Baruth in his piece that started this whole conversation) hold up as examples of gaming’s vapidness and meaninglessness.

Usually, gaming advocates (and I’ve certainly been guilty of this) default to instead highlighting more narrative-focused or artistically-innovative games as a counterargument. But this runs the risk of reinforcing the same snobbery leveled at gaming as a whole, by creating “castes” of games and implying that one class of games is inherently superior to the other.

But that’s really not the case. Fact of the matter is, multiplayer shooters like Call of Duty have value as well. And they would, even if they didn’t sharpen reflexes and hand-eye coordination! Because, as long as nobody’s being harmed, no form of recreation is inherently better than the rest.

Is there such a thing as a “bad” game? Yes, very much so. But we must be careful to reserve the label for objectively badly-designed games, not merely games that aren’t to our taste. And would games like Call of Duty sell as many copies as they do if they were truly objectively bad?

And look, it’s totally understandable and highly tempting to say “but look, games can be art, too!” by pointing to so-called “thinking man’s games,” but by doing so, we essentially bring ourselves down to the anti-gamer’s level.⁷

To bring things full-circle, back to Kim’s comment, she points this out as another layer to the stigmatization of fun:

Additionally, much of the entertainment that is accessible to us plebes, much of the art and culture we create, is 'less than.' Take music as an example. There is a very sharp divide between the classical music world and, well, everyone else - despite the skill and talent of self-taught musicians in every community all over the world.

And, indeed, this attitude was on full display not only in Baruth’s article, but in his responses to me (and others who objected to his premise), one of which read as follows:

Opera is a degraded form of entertainment compared to Bach, film was worse than opera, TV was worse than film, YouTube is worse than TV, TikTok is worse than YouTube.

Similarly, the fact that Madame Bovary is more worth reading than Harry Potter doesn't mean there aren't better choices than Madame Bovary.

Setting aside the fact that Opera actually predated Bach by over a century, this response really lays bare the elitism that fuels so much anti-gaming sentiment. And, as if to further drive home the point, it also mirrors and invokes the classical music example that Kim cited (the divide between novels and comic books is another great example, but alas, one that will have to wait for another post).⁸

It’s also fundamentally wrong. For instance, I’d be hard pressed to call TV a “degraded” form of film when so much prestige TV displays deeper storytelling and more artistic boldness than the entirety of Hollywood’s recent output (though I will concede that he’s right about TikTok, albeit for entirely different reasons).

So, that’s that. I promise I’ll stop harping on Baruth’s piece and responses from now on, lest I give the impression that I’m singularly focused on him. I’m not—he’s just one of many, many, many voices advancing almost identical elitist, fearmongering, simplistic, and misleading arguments against video games.

And that’s the crux of the matter—this is about more than just one person’s bad takes. There’s a society-wide perception of video games that’s not only based on shaky intellectual ground, but also causes real harm (as Kim put it at the end of her comment: There's so much that flows down from this fear-mongering, especially for parents).

And it’s all completely unecessary.

Therefore, I’ll continue to push back against these arguments, wherever and whenever they come up. And I encourage you to do the same—whenever you encounter them, share your experience with video games and how they’ve helped you. Point to examples of games that have helped you learn a skill, find a community, or get you through a tough time. Use your example to argue for the inherent artistic, educational, and recreational merit of gaming.

If enough of us do it, over a long enough period of time, we’ll slowly move the needle towards societal acceptance of gaming as an art form and as a hobby. And one day, when we finally reach that goal, we’ll look back at these crazy times when games were considered “meaningless,” and laugh… knowing it was all worth it.

Until next time,

~Jay

1. Which is interesting, because there are some studies that show a noticeable decline in memory and recall in kids when they learn to read—although to be fair, others find no such decline, or show long-term increases in memory and cognition that offset the initial decline.

Nevertheless, if Socrates were alive today, I wonder if he’d appreciate the irony of reading and writing being widely considered both indicators of and prescriptions for higher intelligence and worldliness.

2. “The creator of Tetris was once asked about the addictiveness of his game, and whether he was disturbed by it. “No, what else would people be doing?” he scoffed. “They’d read a stupid book, see a movie. No. Playing a game is a good thing.”

Of course, he only meant a book that happens to be stupid, rather than all books are stupid. But in fact, the value of books has not always been taken for granted.

Just as this generation has fretted over the perils of gaming, the generation that grew up with just a few county fairs for entertainment considered books to be a genuine danger to their children.

“Compulsive reading,” wrote the 18th Century historian Johann Gottfried Hoch, “is a foolish, harmful abuse of an otherwise good thing, truly a great evil as contagious as the yellow fever in Philadelphia.”

Later, the generation that grew up with public libraries was horrified by the proliferation of movies, leading the Purity Department of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union to write scathing editorials against this so-called “addictive activity.” Then, the Academy Awards were invented, movies became understood as an art form, and everyone turned their reactionary instincts toward gaming.

In the last several years, I think we finally crested that hill, which is great news. But I also know that one day, my future grandchildren will sneer at whatever new thing is captivating the attention of their youth. They, too, will call it “addictive,” and grumble about how “kids these days ought to go play a good video game, instead of wasting their time on those newfangled psychogels (or whatever).”

No form of media is perfect, and no form has a monopoly on addiction, either. The important distinction is what you choose to convey with your vehicle. Imagination is good, compelling narratives are good, and empathy is good—in whatever form we express them.

Addiction is a problem, but it can happen with any type of escapism: leisure, substance, behavior, food, even social approval. And it should be addressed through individual circumstances, not the banning of excellence. We shouldn’t fear the things that enthrall us, but instead acknowledge our responsibility to harness them as a tool, and determine what good can be accomplished with them:

—For every workplace lunch hour that stretched into three, there’s someone who learned career skills through the economic strategizing and political negotiations of Civilization.

—For every student who failed a class after too many late nights fighting Montezuma, I can point to one who read a book about Montezuma because the game made him curious.

—For every Civilization widow who feels neglected by their game-obsessed spouse… well, I have one story that trumps them all:

A couple of years after the original game came out, we received a letter at the original Microprose office from a young boy, about 10 years old (judging from the grammar and handwriting). Fan communication was at its peak by then, and we were used to being told on a daily basis that the game was a life-changing experience. But in this case, it turned out Civilization had actually saved lives!

The boy’s mother was an avid player, and sometimes stayed up conquering the world long after the rest of the family had gone to bed. On one particularly late night, her game was interrupted by the smell of smoke, and she ran upstairs to discover a large fire already in progress. Thanks to [Civilization], he said, she was there to wake up the family and get everyone out just in time.

My favorite part about that story, aside from the “hooray, nobody died” aspect, was that it was the mom, not the dad, who was playing. Gaming is for everyone. And not just on an individual level, but as a whole. It’s for everyone, together.

I haven’t always known what appeals to people who aren’t specifically me, but I have always been interested in finding out. And when it comes to games, I think addiction is usually just another word for the intense connection we feel toward a work of art. As an artist, my job is to foster that connection in a constructive way, and if I’m lucky, to connect people to one another through our shared experiences.

When escapism is done right, it creates a community of ‘escapees’ that never existed before. The only alternative would be to knowingly create something less powerful. To deliberately dial back that human connection, out of fear. That’s madness! We’re stronger together, and the more universal and effective our games are, the more knowledge, empathy, and ambition we can inspire.”

(Emphasis mine)

3. No, I’m not referring to Baruth specifically. Honest! I’m just citing a well-known proverb, which we all know. The name is just a funny coincidence.

4. But I also don’t want to give the impression that this is the sole reason people hate on video games. There are some legitimate concerns around gaming, especially around predatory monetization schemes and addictive game design. But I won’t rehash those here today.

There’s also a simpler reason: good ole’ ego. Kim’s comment touches on this, using the divide between classical music and popular music. And not to knock on classical music—it’s beautiful, sublime, and stands the test of time. I, personally, love it. But at the same time, you can’t deny there’s a lot of snobbery surrounding people who profess their love for it.

And you can draw similar analogies for just about any medium. Even within video games!

5. Word choice is very much intentional. If you’d read this piece from the beginning, I’m sure you can connect the dots.

6. Obviously, she meant to say something along the lines of “false statement” instead of “understatement,” that’s very clear from the context. Don’t roast her in the comments, people—English is a very hard language to learn!

7. This also risks elevating and incentivizing the creation of more unplayable, pretentious horse slop like Kentucky Route Zero, and that’s one thing the world does not need more of.

8. Also, notice his wording: “the fact that Madame Bovary is more worth reading than Harry Potter.” As if it were indisputable that Madame Bovary holds more intrinsic value than Harry Potter, as if it were an objective fact, instead of a subjective assessment. That tells you all you need to know, really.

And this argument doesn’t even work from the “value added” perspective, either. Harry Potter introduced the joy of pleasure reading—as in, reading for leisure, and not just when doing homework—to an entire generation. To millions of kids. How many people got hooked on books from reading Madame Bovary?