If anything, old video games were more innocuous, as they didn’t try to be anything other than simple distractions that you would naturally tire of before long. Today’s games are precision engineered to be dopamine treadmills in the guise of immersive cinematic experiences, yet due to the primacy of gameplay mechanics, remain hobbled as works of art or storytelling.
Sure, some gaming could be a healthy bit of fun in a social context, but it tends not to be, doesn’t it? It tends to become a massive time sink, the accumulation of which over many years, usually of your youth (notice that older people just lose interest in games, like they suddenly don’t see value in them anymore), will not leave you well-read or physically fit or able to entertain others or even good memories - just precious time committed to the void.
I am not ignorant of video game culture. I’m just honest about the actual quality. I know games have storytelling. For instance, the Marathon series has an excellent story told via text read in terminals, utilising different types of prose and poetry, even concrete poetry, quite creative. The Halo series has something similar, except the primary storytelling mechanism is cinematic cut scenes, which, like 99.99% of such things, are terrible. Like the worst dregs of the sci-fy channel would have more artistic merit.
Some of both - I’m never going to claim that all games are of cultural significance, but I find the assertion that gaming is a passtime devoid of spiritual reward on a par with the idea that reading novels might be devoid of spiritual or intellectual reward - trivially true for a large proportion of the material, perhaps, but no more true for one medium over another.
I get what you're saying, and think you're mostly right.
However, I just booted up Breath of the Wild for the first time in a year (it's the not the first video game I've played in a year -- I just haven't played it in a year) and was absolutely astonished at how beautiful and well-designed it is. "Soul-filling" is a proper adjective for its affect of me.
Some games are obvious dopamine and money pits; some games are art. Those in the latter category are unfortunately few and far between, but I suppose every medium is like that. Some books are just as pointless and trashy as Clash of Clans.
Speaking for myself, I haven't lost interest in games as I grew older. What happened, rather, is that I lost the drive to go through the initial learning pains to get to the point where the game is truly fun and enjoyable - and so I end up mostly playing older games where I already know the ropes, and, occasionally, new games that rehash the old formulas and thus don't require much learning.
Video games probably taught me more than any other activity in my youth. I also played football and was an avid reader of fiction.
I don't really play them anymore because I played competitive games (As opposed to very casual or story driven games), and being good at games is no longer a priority to me. It takes a lot of time and effort to maintain your skill level, let alone increase it.
I definitely still see value in playing competitive games, but I think I've already extracted most of that value.
