We Built this City

“I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.” - Mitch Hedburg

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I’m sure much has been written about how the Latin word “ludus” refers to both school and games, and I don’t need to do a ton of research to say that I get why, at least on the most obvious level. At their best, games provide new ways of looking at the world.

When it comes to video games, I’m like Mitch. I used to think a lot about games. I still do, but I used to, too.

I definitely think about games more often than I play them. Brad East wrote a thoughtful piece a few months ago that’s sure to ruffle a few feathers if you play games as an adult; while he agrees that games are at worst neutral for boys, but probably even good, he doesn’t see how adult men and games can be a good mix. On one level, I agree. If one at all has a tendency towards addictive behaviors, games are dangerous. Even more so if one is frustrated by the friction of the real world. I speak, of course, from recent experience, when I had to delete Balatro from my phone two days after downloading it because I was afraid I’d spend Christmas break ignoring my children. (Sheesh louise that game is a ridiculously well-designed dopamine loop.)

But I also think Brad - who is very brilliant - is wrong on this count, or at least that his thesis is incomplete. There is a place, even in the chancy neighborhood of video games, for Lewis’s view of a healthy fantasy that makes a person more fit to engage with the world, and not less. That joy of building a world, a strategy, or an engine, and seeing it come together was what pulled me in as a kid more than any form of competition ever did. It started with beating my parents at Monopoly and Scrabble, and then there was Age of Empires, Warcraft I and II, and European-style tabletop games like Catan and Dominion in high school. Now, as a parent, that joy doesn’t need to be left behind - it’s just that it’s perhaps better if you’re sharing it with your kids.