What is the point of the next gen consoles?

I doubt that the majority of people playing an instrument do it to make other people happy. They do it first and foremost for their own enjoyment. And enjoying yourself is a reward in itself that is not dependent on being useful for someone else/society/intellectually stimulating.

 

Yeah, but you are overreducing the issue now. Everything we do for fun is done for personal satisfaction. But there are other rewards besides personal satisfaction that some hobbies achieve and some hobbies do not.

Let's compare exercising to playing video games.

They both have personal satisfaction as a reward, so are they equally rewarding? It depends. Do you also value health, longevity, increased attractiveness, and other benefits of exercise? If so, then it is reasonable to say that exercise has a different set of rewards than video games, which is the point I was trying to make above. Value judgements are up to the individual.

 

To me that comes down to the addictive factor again. You were not playing out of enjoyment but out of compulsion. Or maybe it started out as something enjoyable, but eventually the negative feelings outweighed the positive feelings, which made you quit again. I think this doesn't apply to most people who play video games as a hobby, since a hobby is by definition something you enjoy.

 

That's why I compared gaming to gardening/painting/collecting stamps/playing an instrument. What 'other reward' comes from putting colors on a piece of paper? What other reward comes from creating soundwaves with your fingers? What other reward comes from putting organic matter in the soil? Other than the reward of getting personal satisfaction from it?

 

I said "Success, I guess"

 

You could have said "Failure, I guess". Why didn't you? Because you convinced yourself that you were right without having any idea. AKA self-deception.

Why would you intentionally lie to yourself?

 

No, it's all good. I used to play a lots of videogames, just don't like them now, that's it. Maybe 2 or 3, but all in all I haven't played videogames for like 237 years.
To me only negative aspects of gaming might be that it's not good for your posture, if you keep on doing it for long and don't follow the way you sit. Also, gaming is addictive.

 

Muslims.

 

Moose limbs.

 

No

 

Learning about self-expression, boosting your creativity, making things that other people can enjoy.

Same as above. Improving finger dexterity, lung capacity. Some instruments help with sleep, meditation, etc. Inspiring other people to play music. You can make money from busking.

If it produces fruit, you can eat the fruit. Some plants attract butterflies, birds, etc. If it's a tree, then you can have shade, privacy, something to climb, a rope swing or tree house, etc. Maybe you are restoring an endangered species of plant in your area, thus benefiting the community/ecosystem.

 

I would say it has to do with the fact that it's a relatively new pastime and the older generations always scoff at new things. But there are IMO legit reasons why people might not respect gaming very much.

• The gamer's efforts are rarely lasting or reflected outside the virtual world.
• Gaming is not physically demanding and in most cases not very mentally demanding either.
  
• Most narrative games place the player in the role of a passive observer (decisions don't really matter that much) which puts them in a category next to movies and books. More than movie or book writers, game developers focus on bells and whistles over quality of the story or deeper substance. Shooting down aliens in Halo just doesn't make one ponder existence quite like a Sartre book does.
• Individual games are fads that come and go. Nobody can tell how (or where?) will humans live in the year 2300 but it's a good bet they will be playing violin and chess. Counter Strike, probably not.

Personally, gaming is on the list of things I'm trying to do less of. Spending hundreds of hours pwning n00bz in League of Legends while real life is put on hold is not exactly something one would write with pride about in their memoir.

 

Taking your money.