Young men dropping out of the job market to spend time in an alternate reality

Uh.. did you even read the article we're commenting on? I'm speaking directly to its main thesis. If you're making a claim about it being a straw man, take it up with the author.

> I'm a millennial and I don't know anyone like you're describing.

And I'm a millennial too and I know plenty of people like the one I'm describing.

> Every time you hear "labor shortage" you need to add "at the offered salary/wage"--they need to offer more money.

It's not that simple. Many of the industries experiencing labor shortages are labor intensive and there are limits to the amount they can increase wages and remain economically viable.

> Why do you think people would rather work a minimum wage job than take your advice? You offer literally no explanation and just make claims without any evidence. You are speaking from opinion, not fact.

Frankly, Millennials aren't as money-motivated as previous generations were. They choose to accept the stigma of staying at home with their parents or working low wage service jobs over the life of a blue-collar worker. I don't even really fault them for it; money ain't everything. But they have to lie in the bed they make for themselves. They can't both live a bohemian lifestyle free from responsibility and have all the trappings of life that hard work provides.

A phase-out reduces effective hourly wage, which theoretically reduces the incentive to work. That's no different than any other kind of marginal tax rate, though, and UBI would require a high marginal tax rate.

Probably the best argument UBI is to replace current welfare systems with one cash payment because, in addition to theoretically reducing administrative costs, it would make phase-outs easier to understand. If there are welfare recipients who misunderstand when benefits apply, they might not want to obtain additional income even though it would benefit them.

In fact, often game designers would rather not do this pay to win crap, although it's hard to ignore that it does seem to be the primary way people are willing to give you money in certain markets nowadays (mobile especially), and they would like to keep making games for a living, instead of making one game while ignoring current market trends, the game failing spectacularly, and the company shuts down as a result (I've worked for three game studios which have done basically exactly that, although two of them did try making free to play games eventually and still failed).

I would love to make mobile games where I just charge $1-3 and still see success, but the stats just do not back it up. Yes, there are people who have successes that way, but they are either much larger, much more networked in the industry and know how to get a ton of media coverage (Just getting 'some' coverage is not enough. I've worked on games that have gotten 'some' media coverage. They've done poorly), or have worked on something so beautiful and compelling people feel they have to share it with others (Monument Valley comes to mind).

I've actually mostly given up on video games right now and I'm focusing more on board games, where it's much easier to actually charge money for what you produce, since there's a physical component to it. That industry has exploded in the last 5 years also and it's starting to get harder to find success there as well, but I'm more passionate about that right now. Plus there's the bonus that you can make a video game version of your board game and existing fans would be willing to pay money for your app, as well as some cross-promotion between the two.

Personally I don't think there's a problem trying to make your game as fun as possible (and fun and addiction are very closely linked) as a designer, you almost have to in order to get people to talk about and share your game.

It's when you actively try to snare people into giving you a constant feed of money for virtual benefits that I think is a bit dodgy, but again the public has already voted with their wallet and said they won't download a mobile game unless it's free, so game developers/publishers have to get money for the game somehow.

My guess is most "2nd lifers" still among the living (people with disabilities and medical conditions seem to be overrepresented among users; death announcements are not uncommon) are still around, they just log on less frequently and spend more time in other online worlds.

The obvious successors in the works are Linden Lab's own Sansar,

https://www.sansar.com/

and SL cofounder Rosedale's High Fidelity:

https://highfidelity.com/