
Why Some Men Don't Work: Video Games Have Gotten Really Good - hvo
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/03/upshot/why-some-men-dont-work-video-games-have-gotten-really-good.html?ref=business
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CM30
Another article blaming video games?

Honestly, the reason some people out of work play video games are more likely
one of the following:

1\. They're fun and they reduce the tedium of everyday life. Others could do
the same thing with sports, tabletop games, chess, TV shows and movies, etc.
There's no practical difference between an unemployed guy playing video games
all day and the same person watching TV all day or playing golf all day. It's
merely a way to take your mind off all the boredom while looking for a job.

2\. Playing games can in theory be a way out of poverty, at least in today's
internet social media driven world. How many of these people have YouTube
channels or popular presences online? If you have no other practical options,
then trying to make money through video game Let's Plays and YouTube
monetisation seems like a decent last resort.

And yes, the job market is broken too. Maybe if companies stopped trying to
look only for people with every skill and piece of expertise needed in advance
and were willing to train people to do jobs, we might have less people
unemployed at the moment. Heck, maybe the New York Times could help here. Stop
doing the common media thing of mostly hiring upper class college graduates
from privileged families (which seems to be a trend at the moment) and start
hiring people who want to work rather than those who whine about how poor
people act in internet editorials.

~~~
petra
YouTube, although marketed as a great entrepreneurship channel, is nothing of
this sort, and the stats tell that story , that only a rare few can make a
living out of it.

And this is part of a larger "scam" being perpetuated currently, that today is
a golden age of entrepreneurship and that's the job of the future , mostly
because of all kinds of platforms(like Amazon fulfillment, t-shirt printing,
etc) open so many new opportunities for entrepreneurship.

While the stats tell a different story , that there's a decline in
entrepreneurship, and if you look carefully, you'll see how platforms actually
suck the core out of many small businesses and leave them to run empty shells,
businesses largely without a competitive advantage or value creation.

~~~
CM30
Well that's actually a good point. The 'sharing economy' could arguably be
better described as the 'work for free so some millionaire gets richer'
economy. Or the 'low paid contractor' economy.

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realusername
The reason must be video games for sure, surely not because you need 5-year
experience for a shitty part-time cashier job paying minimum salary because
the job market collapsed.

~~~
GhostVII
Where do you need 5 years of experience for a minimum wage job? Everyone I
know who wanted a minimum wage job got one without any experience, maybe I
just know a lot of outliers though.

~~~
Inconel
That was probably a bit of hyperbole on the poster's part, but as an example I
once had to work for free for a week in order to secure a minimum wage job
washing dishes. I had no formal dishwashing experience and had to prove I
could actually wash dishes. This is in CA and I have no education beyond high
school.

~~~
throwaway2016a
I didn't think that was legal. Hiring you for a 1 week period with your
employment up for renewal at the end of the week sure, but not this.

For example, in Massachusetts unpaid internships are illegal unless you can
prove it is job training AND that it does not perform a job functions that you
would otherwise have to pay someone to do. Your situation fits the first part
(it can be called training) but not the second.

~~~
Inconel
It definitely wasn't legal. But I was desperate.

------
pjc50
Counter-opinion from twitter:
[https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/881862753115230208](https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/881862753115230208)

"Table from their latest paper. 1) Nonemployed 21-30 men devoting _less_ time
to leisure overall since '04-'07..."

~~~
omginternets
That doesn't contradict the claim that they're spending more time on video
games. To illustrate: suppose leisure time goes from 25% to 23% and leisure
time spent playing video games goes from 1% to 80%.

(N.B.: the core claim is ridiculous for other reasons...)

~~~
Chathamization
It contradicts the claim made in the title that they're not working because of
the video games.

~~~
omginternets
The point is precisely that it doesn't.

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thehardsphere
Here's a counter hypothesis: some men don't work because the economy is bad
for them, and they're only playing more video games than they used to because
video games have gotten less expensive over the past 20+ years.

~~~
CM30
The price is definitely a factor here. Look at Steam, Humble Bundle, etc. You
can now buy tons of games for less than a dollar each if you time it right.

~~~
thehardsphere
Steam et al is only half of the equation. Hardware is vastly cheaper also.

It used to be that a decent gaming PC would cost over $1500. Now you can get
one (or an equivalent console, thanks to the proliferation of the x86-64
architecture) for around $500.

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willvarfar
Seems its hard to to trace causation either way. It could be that people play
video games to escape the tedium of being un- or under-employed, rather than
are unemployed because they play video games instead of seeking work.

~~~
cctan
This. The same people that can be addicted to games may have the potential to
be addicted to Chess in other time periods.

But they will be regarded as genius chess masters.

On the other hand, with our surplus of resources, its no wonder a percentage
of our people can afford to do nothing but play games.

~~~
usrusr
Also, with our constrained resources, no wonder a percentage can only afford
to play video games (as opposed to other pastimes that require significantly
more space, transportation and equipment).

Superficially both resource arguments look like exact opposites, but I don't
think that they are really conflicting.

------
JamesMcMinn
The whole argument is built on ignoring the question "why aren't employers
hiring young men" and asking the very presumptuous question "Why don't young
men want to work?"

I can't get access to the full paper without paying $5, which I'm not going to
do, however the abstract doesn't sound very convincing either, making the
argument that video games take up a larger percentage of men's leisure time,
and younger men have more leisure time than older men, so video games must be
stopping men from working.

It's not a very convincing argument, and the converse could just as well be
true: older men would prefer to spend more time working than enjoying leisure
time.

~~~
tpeo
The paper can be freely accessed at NBER
([http://www.nber.org/papers/w23552](http://www.nber.org/papers/w23552)).
There's no need to pay anything.

Anyway, it's not really a presumptions question. Or at least, it wasn't
supposed to be: the fact that people are doing something doesn't imply
anything about what they _should_ do, and neither does describing their
choices imply anything about either the socially preferred set of choices or
the authors' preferred set of choices. So if young men were putting in less
work hours so they could stay at home and play video games, that would be
nobody else's business.

But the issue is that that doesn't to be the case, and the authors made no
effort of trying to tackle alternative explanations. When I read an economics
article, I expect that even if the authors won't try to address alternative
explanations, they will at least acknowledge they exist. After skimming the
article, that doesn't to have happened at all.

Don't know how the authors want me to believe that video games are to blame
for the lower working hours of young males when they followed closely the
working hours of older males up until 2008, either. Are they gonna pin it all
on Halo 3?

~~~
JamesMcMinn
> You may purchase this paper on-line in .pdf format from SSRN.com ($5) for
> electronic delivery.

> You are eligible for a free download if you are a subscriber, a corporate
> associate of the NBER, a journalist, an employee of the U.S. federal
> government with a ".GOV" domain name, or a resident of nearly any developing
> country or transition economy.

I am none of these things.

------
Symmetry
The drop in employment is mostly that men in college aren't also holding down
jobs. Maybe video games have something to do with that but I'm not very
concerned.

[https://www.economy.com/dismal/analysis/datapoints/295750/Ar...](https://www.economy.com/dismal/analysis/datapoints/295750/Are-
Video-Games-Killing-the-Labor-Market-for-Young-Men/)

------
croon
> One hears this regret in talking to older gamers. “Of course gaming has
> interfered with any attempt to look for or do any serious work,” says
> Arturo, 29, who reckons he has spent 600 hours playing Kerbal Space Program,
> a space-flight simulator, and possibly more at Starcraft II, a strategy
> game. He doesn’t just miss the forgone income and opportunities; he could
> have been reading, he laments. But those hours are gone for ever.

I've been working for 10 years, since my early 20s. I've also played Dota (2)
for 2000 hours, and read VB.Net books, and spent time with friends I no longer
have contact with, and working out even though I'm now kind of out of shape
for the last couple of years (started a c25k to catch back up).

My point is, a lot of things I've done in the past are "gone" now. A lot was
leisure, some was exercise, some was work related. None of it is relevant now,
to my life, to my work, etc, yet I see no point in regretting any of it.

All experiences shape you, no matter if they were good, bad, productive or
not. And even if you spend all your (free) time being "productive", you don't
guarantee that it's long term relevant, or that you don't die of stress.

A balance is probably good, and games are a lot better than other passive
pastimes.

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nol13
Ugh, wouldn't be working either if I could find a switch already.

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kristofferR
I like this article much better:
[https://www.1843magazine.com/features/escape-to-another-
worl...](https://www.1843magazine.com/features/escape-to-another-world)

------
Alex3917
Just as an interesting datapoint, people subscribed to gaming-relating
subreddits as of June 2017: 22,482,107

Versus people subscribed to programming-related subreddits (not counting
r/ProgrammerHumor): 2,287,089.

There are currently ~290 video-game related subreddits with over 10,000
subscribers.

------
trophycase
Just wait until VR MMOs. I guarantee many lives will be completely
destroyed...

~~~
throwaway2016a
Only if they can make the headset comfortable enough to wear for hours on end.
I have a PSVR and the longest I can go without taking a break is an hour for
some games (i.e. Rush of Blood) and 15 for others (Resident Evil).

For the first one, I just get sweaty and fog up the lenses. For the second one
I actually get motion sick (even though Rush of Blood has far faster motion,
the presence of a fixed position object alleviates the motion sickness)

------
Tomis02
Games have become more popular and potentially more addictive, not necessarily
better (for my definition of better, games nowadays are generally worse than
in the 90s and early 200s).

~~~
silassales
Whats your definition of better

~~~
fellellor
A lot of Games these days, especially in mobile and online, are focused
towards giving players quick rewards and keeping them addicted rather than
providing a meaningful experience.

On the other hand you have some excellent experiences available like Papers
Please, Hotline Miami, KSP etc. So it isn't like games in the old days were
better, rather you have more shittier stuff available today that is much
better marketed.

~~~
Tomis02
Games like Papers please are outliers, not representative for today's gaming
market. Back in the day you'd have AAA teams constantly trying to innovate
(classic examples Bullfrog Lionhead Looking glass Westwood Black isle and so
on and so on). Nowadays AAA teams simply rehash old concepts, focus being put
on milking existing franchises and marketing, artistic freedom sacrificed in
the name of pandering to the lowest common denominator. Games today are
generally worse because of that.

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Siecje
I know women who play puzzle games on their phone but don't consider them
games.

~~~
sofaofthedamned
Had a girlfriend ages ago addicted to Candy Crush. I remember one Sunday -
she'd invited her sister and mum round for Sunday lunch, which I was cooking.

Came out of the kitchen and saw all 3 playing the same game. Went outside for
a cigarette and the lady upstairs was leaning out of her window playing the
same game but with the sound on ('tasty...' etc)

We didn't last long after that.

I'm not having a go at them playing the game, I am pretty good at
procrastinating myself in different ways (on this site for example), but I
swear there has got to be a scientific study somewhere on the birthrate being
affected by people playing CC or mooching on Facebook.

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retrac98
Got a laugh out of "Recreational computer time"

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bitwize
If these men aren't working, where are they getting the money to buy vidya and
keep a roof over their head while they play? Their parents?

~~~
83457
It you didn't read, they are talking about overall average declines in working
on the order of a couple hours a week.

