video games are first and foremost entertainment

Wake Me When It's Over

Despite great debate over whether or not games are art, video games are first and foremost entertainment. They are an escape. They are windows into a life that's not your own. And if a game can't sell that experience, gamers begin to weigh the value of their time versus the cost of the game itself. If a video game isn't providing a level of excitement or engagement that a competing source of entertainment offers, it moves to the back burner.
"Earlier this year, I caught a nasty cold and was laid up, head full of meds, for a week or so. Eager to play a game that would suck me in and require very little thinking, I picked up Final Fantasy XIII. I sat there for days on end, mashing the PS3's X button and letting the game sort of happen to me. It was a perfectly passive experience, and it was just was I needed. But once I started feeling better and the haze in my brain faded, I realized that Final Fantasy XIII was boring, and I stopped playing it."

Now, twenty years ago, when there were fewer games, you might have just persevered through a boring game simply because, well, it was a video game. Video games still felt new and exciting just for existing. That crutch, though, was turned into kindling when the PlayStation 2 took video games mainstream once and for all.