Its not just teenagers, me and my friends long for free, open places to exist. Everything has been monetized, everything requires a transaction. And that was ok for a while, but now hardly anyone can afford those places.
Video game worlds are vast and open.
At least I'm safe inside my mind...
Careful the Thought police might get to you, 1984 book.
*at least I’m safe inside my mind *
Don't worry, the best minds of our generation are already working to put advertisements in your dreams.
Hell, at least shopping malls were up-front about their literal storefronts.
Even that is a perversion- Victor Gruen is largely cited as one of the pioneers of the shopping mall. He was an Austrian immigrant to the US. He wanted to create a modern, climate-controlled version of the public spaces Europe had for centuries. They were designed to be public parks, housing, schools, etc, with shopping being just a portion of the space.
He famously denounced what the shopping mall became.
Hiking is free if you have access to it. As well as park. But i do acknowledge not every city/rural places have such luxury, with the overdevelopment and car infestation, greenspace is hard to come by.
I do get your point though, here in tropical country, i always have intense urge to just hike a random mountain but if i wanna climb that mountain i have to have permit and a guide, which makes sense because if not they might have to retrieve my corpse afterward. The world are actually very open, but man we human has lost that skill to unlock those place.
Unfortunately, NIMBYism comes into play should teens start making heavy use of any outdoor spaces, including trails and parks. Low or zero-cost can't be the only factor in providing places for kids, there also have to be protections against or ways to assuage older persons that are being fed constant streams of fear.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WINDtlPXmmE
Your comment reminded me of the "just leave me alone" portion of this rant. Not that I'm disagreeing with you, just pointing out that there's an inherent danger attached to escapism.
This movie (Network) will turn 50 in two years. Nothing has changed.
Just to be clear, I wasnt advocating for escapism. Merely, video games are the obvious answer to "where can I exist for free/cheap?"
This article brings up a great point.
In addition, I've always thought that video games work the way we were told the world worked. (At least, the way we were told it worked in the 90s in America.) Work hard to get some resources so that you can use those resources to build more stuff to get more resources, etc.
Kids today can work as hard as they want, only to still have no chance of paying for college and still have no chance of buying a house. Video games at least provide that "strategy -> effort -> reward -> next level" cycle that our brains find very rewarding, which, for far too many people, does not exist in real life.
That's probably what makes modern games so disappointing, too. Games were one area that actually was a meritocracy... until pay-to-win messed that up.
One of my big eye opener was 20 years ago. I worked at a university and was talking to a student about high school type part time jobs like fast food and he was like those are impossible to get and im like whaaa. I proceeded to tell him that when I was in high school. If you went to a fast food place, asked for an application, and filled it out. Whelp you were pretty much guaranteed to have it accepted. Im like that is why beavis and butthead work at one. If you show up on time and not in an inpaired state then you would get a raise and they would continue to give you small ones that would add up over time (nickle here and there) and a bump if you took a shift supervisoror something. After talking with him I realized that when I go to those places they have mostly adults working them now. I only ever see teenagers working at local mom and pop places mostly now. The thought of actually having to compete for the crappiest of jobs makes me realize how bad it is now.
My 12yo cousin knows what an idle game is but never heard of RPG. I've got some edumocating to do.
My 6 year old nephew loves minecraft like crazy. He doesn't know Minecraft is a video game.
When the reality is you grow up to be a wage slave whose salary can't even afford you a shelter to live in and you don't get any gratitude or progress in any helpful way in your career and you can't even enjoy any open space without having to pay a price, why even participate in this society?
Ah last in the games you have freedom. You progress. You get recognition. You can afford things.
Nailed it.
Yep.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
On Sunday the Observer magazine published a sensitive piece about video game addiction, speaking to therapists working in the sector and one affected family.
The article asked, “why are so many young people addicted to video games?”, which no doubt struck a chord with many parents who despair at the amount of time their children spend in front of computers and consoles.
Parents will reminisce about how they spent whole days outside, cycling the neighbourhood, but at the same time they’re treating their children’s smartphones like tracking devices, demanding regular check-ins, infiltrating their social media feeds and databasing their activities and friend groups.
No wonder then, that teens withdraw to online video game worlds, the last spaces they have left that remain unmediated by their parents or other authority figures – the last places where they are mostly beyond the reach of adult control.
You can travel freely, and for free, in Elden Ring or Legend of Zelda; no elderly relatives can suddenly vote to restrict your access to the continent in Euro Truck Simulator.
There is massive despair and disillusionment at a world in which home ownership is a fantasy, where steady careers for life are increasingly rare and where young people are accused of being lazy and complacent.
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