![]() ![]() That opportunity came in the form of Sid Meier’s Civilization VI, the latest in a legendary computer-game franchise that started in 1991. The real world was out of control, but here was an opportunity for me to play emperor. A friend in another city suggested that we game together remotely, and I felt a pang. Netflix and novels couldn’t distract me from scrolling through the news or counting the fibers in my couch pillows. I quit gaming outright, and I mostly stayed away as adulthood unfolded- until the boring horror of 2020’s shutdowns arrived. But then one week during my sophomore year in high school, a realization hit me: Spending so much time questing on a screen might get in the way of other quests-for a driver’s license, a social life, a career. Much of my childhood was spent in that silvery chute, where I commanded alien armies and cast spells. The $179 billion gaming industry is by now bigger than the global movie business and North American professional sports combined, and its decades-long rise has been credited with declines in reading, TV viewership, workforce participation, and even sex. ![]() No other activity, it becomes clearer every year, can compete in delivering kicks per second-and gaming’s magnetic pull is bending civilization itself. The likes of Minecraft and Zelda turn the drag of time into a silvery chute you drop into and emerge from after hours in a state of flow. If the point of life was simply to enjoy the moment that you’re in, we’d all be playing video games constantly. ![]() Illustration by Katie Martin images by Universal Images Group / Sylvain Grandadam / Print Collector / Getty ![]()
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