A few years ago I asked a similar question (specifically whether video games have become a pressure release -- and in so being -- a replacement for social action). Now someone else is claiming similar...

... but...

... in what I would consider a "sinister" context (IMO Yuval Harrari makes some terrible, arrogant value judgements on others).

What do you think...

... are video games simply a fun past time or a form of social control?

video: [Link removed due to questionable nature.]

You mean like the same reason the Romans gave out free food and circus (as in violent and bloody festivals) to keep people happy enough so that they didn't revolt or otherwise cause too much trouble? Or when the crusades forcefully converted people to a new religion? And now we see is through consumerism and thus playing games whenever we can (perversely enough)?

Historically speaking, it's nothing new, only the tools changes with time and technology.

And speaking of World Economical Forum; as a self-proclaimed historian and a futurist he's got some really dark thoughts about the future. This is on his own page; "History began when humans invented gods, and will end when humans become gods".

That can only happen through games and drugs...

At first, video games made as a scientific effort to make something interactive & fun through our TV screens or computers, and also as a result of creativity & a form of art that is still relevant to this day, mostly for indie games.

But then video games blown up, becoming a big phenomenon and a new trend on society. Some people starts spending more time & money on video games and even making playing them as their main job now.

This phenomenon, later, formed a condition where some (or many) people live isolated & alienated, never leaving their home or close neighborhood (as Yuval Harrari described in the video), but this not a fully designated condition by some 'powerful' people, at least not 100%. They might take advantage of this condition for theirselves or even to 'control' people, making the problem even worse.



This is my whole opinion, because human society system is so complex. It's hard to interpret exactly every ins & outs of every phenomenon happening in our society. And Yuval's opinion can be true or false, just like anybody else (including me).

Most definitly.
Videogames are created to oppress us.
It's all a big plan exexuted by "the elite", "the governments" (all working together, for the second time in history, the first time was the faked moon landing) and the "them". Tetris was just the first step for mass control, muahahahahahaha!

But seriously. Videogames are a way to make money.
One of the results might be that we stay quiet and don't revolt against the government, but that's not the intention behind them.
They are nothing more than a product and in some cases a way to express something.

If they were designed to control, then they would need to have a common message they transfer and ... well, they don't.

^This

Both, of course. Or do you think that "a fun past time" isn't a form of social control?! ;-)

This largely falls apart in the face of independent or freeware games, and doubly so for libre, open source games.

Plus, I can't exactly see what social control a game like Cube And Star could exert.

No, aside from some devs using them to try to spread this or that ideology because it makes them feel good. The publishers of those devs really just care about $$$ though, not ideals.

The definitive assessment of the sweeping thesis as offered by Yuval Noah Harari in the video you linked to is that it is incorrect.

Maybe Harari sees how militarization is normalized through games and movies, and that's definitely a problem we have. But on the whole, governments are interested in keeping their population useful, and an overdose of both drugs and video games kind of have the exact opposite effect.

There are more effective forms of social control with which you don't sabotage yourself, let me put it like that.

Harari also ignores wholesale that video games are, more often than yesteryear, a narrative art form, and the narrative is written by individuals, not the government. It is, literally, an expression of free speech with all the values of the speaker(s) intact. Which rather fuels social change, as narrative media has always done, than to keep an existing status quo intact.

. Of course that political angle had to be squeezed in here, thanks for nothing. All art is propaganda, the notably socialist George Orwell told us. Sure, if the status quo is normalized and your prejudices confirmed in your preferred narrative media, it's easy to not see what is definitely still there. But all that still is as off topic as corgis in a plumbing forum: You think they're cute at first, but wet dogs still stink.

I think it depends. If you are a game tester, I think it has a direct value as it is an important part of the game creation process.

For those that just become really good at a game to compete professionally, I must admit that I personally never saw the appeal (which is probably why I pursued software development instead of trying to become ridiculously good beyond the entertainment value I got from it at any game, electronic and otherwise), but I think a lot of people seem to derive a lot of value from watching top players play to the point where they are willing to shell out money for it. I won't claim to fully understand it.

The one thing I'll mention is that this tends to only happen with competitive games pitting players against each other, which seems to me like an indicator that our species put out-sized importance on being "the best" (as in, not just being "good", but being "better" than the other guy). Well, I don't think it is the initial intent behind it, but I think they can certainly be used as an appeasement method to keep people who might otherwise be disruptive happy (or at least, not too unhappy that they'll be disruptive).

I must admit that while I view games very positively and derive a lot of entertainment from them, I'm not a fan of the "don't bother me with the state of the world, I just want to play my games" mindset, but I don't think this is something that games can possibly fix within themselves. Instead, I think it is a side-effect of other cultural issues (like apathy for example) and these are what needs to be addressed.

Are videogames put in place to keep the population docile ? No, no more than sports, music festivals and soap operas anyway.

Numbness as a way of life boils down to individual choice, while many things could be regarded as enablers the choice has to come first.

I think that has less to do with videogames and more to do with not going out to work a regular job not being an automatic death sentence by starvation (for the lower and middle class) like it was in the past. Welfare, working from home and general affluence in first-world countries makes it possible for people to live isolated. Videogames just provide the escapism and community to replace some of the things absent from such a life, with more control and without the risks of going outside.

I think he's referring to technology indistinguishable from magic.

We already have many "God Like" powers if viewed through the eyes of the Ancient world.

Take a Colt 45 to ancient Greece, point, flash, bang, and a guy 20 meters away dies. That's a God like power.

We communicate at vast distances, have the sum of all human knowledge literally at our finger tips. Revive the dying and even the dead.

It is highly likely by the end of this century we will have created our own Adam and Eve, sentient beings crafted in our own image, to them we are their creator, their god.

But as for the OP.

Computer games, like all media, can be "social control" or "social cohesion, gluing us together" or a "social solvent, disruptive to society", it can be all three or none, and its entirely subjective.

I miss that point
Thanks