Imagine making this same point about books: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_published_per_country_pe...
The point has been made about books before, see, e.g. gwern: https://www.gwern.net/Culture-is-not-about-Esthetics
There are too many video games
11–20 of 173 posts
Re: There are too many video games
#12I feel like his point is that we've put creators, of all forms of media, on such a high pedestal that we're neglecting the mundane things that keep life running smoothly.
I guess it's a job/career version of "social media is making us all lonelier." Everyone wants to be a creator like everyone wants to be an influencer...
Okay, sure, but why are we doing that? I feel like it's something more fundamental that's gone off the rails. This is a form of society-wide coping mechanism until we can identify and try out solutions to whatever that fundamental issue is.
Re: There are too many video games
#13People say all the time, "why spend all that money on space when there's so many problems on Earth?" Why do people never say the same thing about all the money spent on video games and Starbucks? Which is arguably a lot more money.
Those might be the same people who say "why do you do research in field X, rather than on cancer research?". Why do you have a job as an admin rather than go back to school and become a cancer scientist?
It's easier to criticize the actions of others than to take responsibility.
Re: There are too many video games
#14People say all the time, "why spend all that money on space when there's so many problems on Earth?" Why do people never say the same thing about all the money spent on video games and Starbucks? Which is arguably a lot more money.
Space colonization is simply jumping third or fourth steps removed from the dream of making our Earth more livable and more ecologically diverse, or learning how to build and make an acrology.
From that perspective, it's no wonder why people think it's a waste of space, because they saw no meaningful purpose. Meanwhile, we're doing the opposite of terraforming Earth, by making it more unlivable everyday.
Re: There are too many video games
#15> This is a whole another blog post, so I'll paint with broad strokes for now. My city, Seattle, is crumbling. We don't have the energy to maintain the roads, and our bridges are literally falling apart. We can't even maintain what our grandparents built, let alone make any grand new projects.
What in the world does this have to do with people creating art? Maybe the crumbling infrastructure is emblematic of poor leadership (N.B. we aren't allowed to blame Democrats for running Seattle into the ground in tech circles), corrupt politicians, poor city planning, etc.
I get it, let's blame the musicians (what?)! The point is genuinely completely devoid of any through-line.
> The reason a young, enterprising indie dev can churn out product is because that person is surrounded by cheap products made overseas in punishing conditions by people we never see. These are the delicious fruits of Empire.
What a "college freshman" take on things, I wouldn't even know where to start.
Re: There are too many video games
#16This post gets weirder and weirder as it goes on. It seems to end up at a place suggesting that society is going to crumble around us as everyone spends their time making and playing indie video games. I think that’s a little sensational, to say the least. Here is the central thesis. There’s a lot to get through before you get to this. Writing a game nobody plays discharges your energy and creates the feeling of achi…
I think it's a bit more than just that, but yeah, it's not very well defined or detailed. A bit of a jobs version of everyone wants to be an influencer on social media, but it's making everyone lonelier.
Re: There are too many video games
#17[deleted]
Re: There are too many video games
#18Imagine saying there's too much culture...
This just strikes me as an incoherent rant from someone whose games obviously don't sell. IMO you can never have too much music, books, recipes, or games. Culture is important and as we get closer to a post-scarcity world people will expend less effort on survival and more on art and culture. Or space travel and technology that we don't need (but which we have to create because humans are curious).
Re: There are too many video games
#19This post gets weirder and weirder as it goes on. It seems to end up at a place suggesting that society is going to crumble around us as everyone spends their time making and playing indie video games. I think that’s a little sensational, to say the least. Here is the central thesis. There’s a lot to get through before you get to this. Writing a game nobody plays discharges your energy and creates the feeling of achi…
It's crumbling around us in part because we decided to overspend on infrastructure we don't need for one of the most inefficient form of transportation.
Instead of improving things we already have, we decided to move to the 'frontier', or worse, demolish perfectly good streets.
Re: There are too many video games
#20> Art is what we teach our kids is the most valuable thing. The Disney movie Coco is about a boy from a family of shoemakers who wants to blow them off and be a musician. Disney will never, ever make a movie about a musician who dreams of making shoes. Even though, well, try going a week without music and then a week without shoes and see which is more necessary.
1. Working at home I usually spend more time listening to music than I do wearing shoes.
2. Making shoes these days means working in a sweatshop somewhere, which isn't an appealing dream.
3. Disney makes more money from music soundtracks than from shoes, so you can see which one they might want to promote.
4. Musicals are a popular animated film genre; shoe-icals, not so much.