This article could just well be titled "Why I have a hobby/life".<p>Gaming, for better or for worse, represents a very low-barrier-to-entry sort of activity, where in fact good design intentionally structures games in a way to provide a gratifying learning curve and risk/reward. Yet I feel at some point in time we need to consider opportunity cost and externalities:<p>-Assuming that I have finite time and I derive similar amounts of joy playing video games and tabletop games, do I spend time grouping with old college roomies on Halo and shoot aliens, or do I try to coordinate a time with 4 other busy professionals, drive across town, grab some snacks, and roleplay some Call of Cthulhu on a weekly basis? Or maybe I hang out with some buddies at TechShop and we build a robot that uses facial recognition to launch whiskey shots at people?<p>-If I wanted to enjoy a narrative, do I allocate three hours, send an FB blast for movie buddies, and spend $15 sitting in a dark room with others watching a common story, or do I allocate 20-30 hours over a few days to experience the story of GTA V? Or do I pick up a book and spend a day to let my imagination take me to Westeros or Battle School?<p>-If I wanted to enjoy some music, do I play some Guitar Hero and press some controller buttons? Or join a structured choir? Or pick up some social dancing (a co-op music game with a social externality, essentially)?<p>I think gaming is FANTASTIC as an efficient way to get quick jollies, with a low barrier to entry as well as high skill requirement for advanced levels; MOBAs such as League of Legends or shooters such as Call of Duty come to mind for "gaming as a skill". However, I do think other activities such as swimming, cooking, biking, amongst others, provide different externalities. And for some people these things are just better in the long run.<p>PS -- I've had a long history of gaming since the NES came out and love it. It's just that personally I find it harder to manage and regulate my gaming consumption (attention span and time are the main caps) vs other activities, and I also feel that I've had less to show for as a gamer of twenty years (did the semipro Starcraft thing for a bit but not much more) than as a concert violinist of ten, or salsa dancer for five; so on and so forth.<p>That being said, the analytical mindset of optimizing resources given victory conditions in games probably was the main reason how I ended up being a data scientist. I feel strongly that a positive way to direct our "fun" towards something productive is powerful for individuals and beautiful for a society... but that's a later step in our happiness, and for a different conversation.