Responding to The Worst Anti-Gaming Take of the Year

We've still got a long way to go for mainstream acceptance and legitimacy.

Photo by Francisco De Legarreta C. on Unsplash

[ED. NOTE: Stay tuned to the end for updates on future plans for this newsletter!]

[EDIT 1/16/25: Fixed typos, errors, and generally cleaned up and expanded some thoughts. Sorry, I first published this in a bit of a hurry!]

I’m not usually one to jump into the fray whenever someone posts a transparently provocative hot take. And I very intentionally structured Game & Word to not be a news/review/reaction/commentary site. Life’s too short. It’s not worth the effort. I’d much rather finish up the next entry in my Elden Ring analysis, or celebrate the things I love about this medium more generally.

But I also started Game & Word to highlight the positives of gaming, and to push back on the constant stream of uninformed, fearmongering, clickbaity, reactionary, Boomer-tier takes that wider society constantly lobs at video games and the people who enjoy them.

So even though it gives me no pleasure to do so, when the Free Press published Jack Baruth’s latest jab at video games as “soul-sucking” in his latest jab at “curation” hobbyists, I felt compelled to respond:

Shopping Is Not a Legitimate Hobby

The offending passage in question is below (emphasis mine):

Both of these non-hobbies are fundamentally soul-sucking. The video game substitutes the imaginary and meaningless for the real world of challenge and accomplishment beyond the screen, while curation offers nothing but a never-ending treadmill of purchase, unboxing, storage, and eventual disposal. In neither of these is anything created, accomplished, or even truly enjoyed. There is nothing but mere consumption, whether it is the purchase of “downloadable content” like a gun that causes its opponents to explode in a shower of confetti in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II or the anticipated arrival of a Rolex Submariner at the local jeweler.

And look, I don’t begrudge Jack for writing this, or the Free Press for publishing it. He’s entitled to his opinion, and his piece was almost certainly published with the goal of farming rage for engagement and traffic—which, as a publisher myself, I certainly understand the impulse to do. His style also seems very much optimized to elicit this type of response.

And yes, I understand that in publishing this rebuttal, I’m directly playing into this game and reinforcing the outrage-farming cycle that has made the media landscape in 2025 such a hellhole.

But I just can’t let such a boldly wrong claim—again, in 2025—stand unchallenged. I believe in the marketplace of ideas, and in countering bad speech with good speech. Jack’s said his piece, now I’ll say mine. Let the reader decide who’s right.

(And I hope this goes without saying, but this isn’t a call to “cancel” Jack either. The rise of cancel culture (and the accompanying denial, minimization, and straight-up gaslighting by the perpetrators) is one of the most noxious legacies of the 2010s; it’s high time we left it back in that horrible decade, where it belongs.)

So, let’s get started.

The Only Thing That’s “Sucking” Is This Argument

So, do I think video games are “soul-sucking”? Well, what do you think?

Longtime readers may remember a few pieces I published a few years back examining the benefits and pitfalls of video games. Here they are, with the paywall removed and slightly updated with more recent data and additional nuance:

Issue 2.8: Why We Pirate

Issue 3.9: A Tale of Two Case Studies

To sum them up, for all the pitfalls and potential harms of video games—including predatory monetization schemes, toxic player behavior, and addictive game design¹—they also provide tangible, concrete, and (yes) quantifiable benefits to players.

Here, let’s list a few of them:

• A sense of competence, agency, and camaraderie, particularly for those unable to obtain the same from “real world” activities;

• The ability to instantly connect and bond with people all over the world over a shared interest;

• Stress relief and therapeutic value from immersing oneself in a fantastical world or in another person’s shoes;

• Increased empathy through viewing the world from the developer’s viewpoint;

• Creative stimulation and awe from experiencing beautiful and/or thought-provoking games, as well as generally tapping into one’s imagination and inner playfulness;

And that’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure some of you folks can name a few more in the comments.

Fact is, I’d be hard-pressed to call Final Fantasy VII “soul-sucking” after it gave me the lifeline I needed to make it through my teenage years. Or Breath of the Wild for saving my sanity when my daughter was hospitalized. Or Animal Crossing: New Horizons for giving me a modicum of normalcy and routine during COVID.

If anything, I’d call these games soul-enriching!

Now, some of you may point out that these benefits aren’t unique to games—one can experience empathy, beauty, and escape just as easily from reading a good book or watching a good movie.

And this is very true—games can induce the same feelings of awe and empathy as any other art form, because they are an art form (a point that even Jack concedes in a reply to a comment I made).

But the flip side of this is that other art forms also produce output that’s just as “low-brow,” “devolved,” or (yes, even) “soul-sucking” as the games Jack decries:

• For every Shakespeare play, there are countless generic, formulaic, and derivative works of bestselling genre fiction;

• For every Oscar nominee, there are countless generic, formulaic, and derivative blockbusters focus-grouped to appeal to the widest possible audience and the cost of any soul the movie might have had;

• For each Michelin-starred restaurant, there are dozens or hundreds of highly profitable McDonald’s locations;

And yet, nobody decries literature, film, or the culinary arts for the presence of their lower-tier output!

Jack also makes the curious indictment that in video games, nothing is “created” or even “enjoyed.” Yet, in a response to a comment, he extols the virtues of “reading the classics” over playing video games, despite the fact that nothing is created in the act of reading, either!

Obviously, the act of creating art is very different from the act of enjoying art. But what makes appreciating one art form inherently “lesser” than the other? I posed this question to him, but never received a response.

You may counter that reading is different because it engages the imagination. But in the same sentence, he also decries video games as “imaginary and meaningless”!

So… which is it? Is imagination good, or bad? And again, how is Madame Bovary’s imaginary narrative fundamentally legitimate, but Gris or To The Moon’s isn’t?

As for the “meaningless” part, it ties back into my response just above. Meaning is derived on an individual level. Just because you find something meaningless, doesn’t mean it’s inherently meaningless. And I have a hard time buying that artistic output in any form is inherently meaningless.

Now, it’s true that there are a lot of games that could be described as “soul-sucking” or meaningless. You could even argue that the industry as a whole has so far failed to live up to the medium’s promise of truly transformational storytelling and artistry, despite the practically limitless audiovisual and narrative palette available to game developers today.

But that’s very different from claiming that video games as a whole are “soul-sucking,” or that they’re all empty simulacra, on a fundamental level.

Besides, it’s not like all games are juvenile power fantasies. Many games tell beautiful stories, offer novel perspectives, or create beautiful worlds to explore, raising the bar for artistic and narrative innovation, such as (just off the top of my head):

• Journey

• Fez

• EarthBound

• The Legend of Zelda

• Final Fantasy

• What Remains of Edith Finch?

And again, how is playing these any different or less fulfilling than watching The Godfather, or reading Shakespeare, or watching Opera?

Besides, even if someone does enjoy the FPS pew-pews that Jack derides… so what?²

In fact, his responses to the comments objecting to his piece (and I do give him credit for engaging with these comments in good faith) belie a smug and self-important inflation of the value of his own (and clearly superior, you filthy plebeian) taste. It all reeks of elitist gatekeeping.

Maybe it’s because, by Jack’s own admission, he’s played hundreds of hours of competitive FPS titles like Call of Duty, Counterstrike, and Team Fortress 2. Perhaps if he’d carved out even just a couple dozen of those hours to play Journey or Breath of the Wild instead, he’d have a different, more holistic perspective.³

And no, the solution is not to produce less Call of Duty. Nor is it to only produce more Breath of the Wild (not that I’d personally mind!). And it’s certainly not to make more unplayable, pretentious, unintelligble hipster dreck like Kentucky Route Zero.

The solution is to keep driving artistic and narrative innovation forward in games by supporting developers who make truly unique, forward-thinking, and fun games (after all, if a game isn’t fun to play, what’s the point?).

But at the same time, we shouldn’t deride those who enjoy more conventional or “base” entertainment. If it’s not harming anyone, who cares? Let people have their fun, even if their choices baffle you. “Don’t yuck my yum,” and all that.

Now, all that said, I do agree that games have the potential to basically hold players back in life, by substituting actual achievement and exploration with convincing but ultimately inferior simulacra of such, thus discouraging actually going out to accomplish tangible goals and new experiences. And I agree that a lot of players do fall into that trap.

But any activity can be all-consuming to an unhealthy or detrimental degree. This includes consuming other art forms like TV, film, and yes, even books.⁴ 4chan does not have a monopoly on obsessive media consumption.

Any activity taken to excess is detrimental! So why single out video games as inherently and uniquely “soul-sucking” and empty?

We extol the power of books and movies to transport us to fantastical worlds and view the world through other people’s eyes. So why crap on video games for doing the same because they’re “not real,” even though stories told in other mediums are not “real” either?

We laud sports and even analog games like chess for providing competition and a sense of accomplishment for the victors. So why do we sneer at competitive video games, even when played on a professional level?

We don’t bat an eye about wasting our lives away binge-watching filler slop on Netflix, and even proudly wear it on our sleeves! So why do we heap such scorn at the players indulging their imaginations, honing their strategic chops, and forging deep friendships by playing World of Warcraft for the same amount of time?

It’s madness. Madness, I tell you!

The Best Is Yet To Come

It’s high time we honestly started looking at games for what they are—the good, the bad, and the ugly—without the empty fearmongering, contempt, and rage-baiting that mainstream media and society constantly layer on top of the conversation.

To this end, I will start publishing more frequently, both to push back on these flawed and false narratives, as well as offer a counter-narrative highlighting the wonder and joy this hobby and art form has brought to millions.

These will be quick bites, in addition to the longer, more analytical fare that has been this newsletter’s bread and butter from the beginning, though I may start paywalling those (as they’re far more time and resource-intensive to create).

I might also revive the podcast, providing similar quick bites in audio and video format.

But before all of that, Part 2 of my Elden Ring analysis will arrive very soon!

In the meantime, I’ve re-activated paid subscriptions. If you want to support Game & Word, and my efforts to highlight the hidden depths of gaming (which I guarantee you won’t find anywhere in mainstream media), just clicky the button below:

If you’re not able to do a paid subscription, no worries! Even just sharing this post is a huge help:

As always, thank you for reading, and I’ll catch you next time—hopefully under cheerier circumstances.

GGs,

~Jay

1. Notice how I didn’t include “violence” there. That’s because it’s a total non-issue that only serves to distract and siphon time and effort away from addressing some of the actually harmful aspects of video games.

2. For that matter, what does it matter if someone enjoys purchasing expensive watches? Who gives a crap?

3. It should also be said that even perennial Karen boogieman games like Grand Theft Auto hold some artistic merit of their own. GTA, in particular, has provided highly incisive and sharp satire and social commentary on modern society.

4. I have family and friends who escape into novels practically every waking moment, to a highly unhealthy degree and at the expense of their social lives and even professional obligations. Sure, they’re highly learned and imaginative. But at what costs?