Why do people like video games?

It always seemed like a kiddie hobby that’s not meant to be taken seriously, but apparently a bunch of people in their 20s and 30s take it very seriously.

Yeah, PC gamers bent the knee to Steam decades ago at this point. This isn’t exactly a brand new issue.

Because myself and my kids like Mario Kart?

Because I like my OG Switch and this is a pretty massive improvement over that console?

On the plus side, the virtue signalers saved $ and can spend it on something that’ll bring them more joy and is hopefully more aligned with their views. And gives them practice and a mindset of “I’m the kind of person willing to boycott” for any other boycotts that might have a real effect someday.

It’s not really a boycott if you never really planned on buying the product. Otherwise, I’m technically boycotting Apple and Ford. Because I don’t buy Apply products and I don’t buy Ford cars.

When I say “please” and “thank you” I’m essentially just virtue signaling that I’m willing to play nice…

Those are specific actions you are taking in being kind and nice towards another person in reality. However, if you were to make a comment on Lemmy about how kind of a person you are because you claim you say “please” and “thank you” all the time, then that would be virtue signaling, because making claims about what you do or care about on social media is relatively meaningless without the specific actions being taken outside of that context.

So, in this case, talking about how evil Nintendo is for pricing a game at $80, what does that do exactly? Why should anyone else listen or care about someone expressing that opinion? Are you joining activist groups and spending time or money pushing for laws/politicians/etc to enact change to fight back against these actions? If so, then that’s not virtue signaling. But I’m unconvinced most people expressing these opinions and upvoting/downvoting posts and comments are doing anything beyond exactly that.

Of all the things in my life to worry about. Nintendo pricing and other issues barely move the needle.

And if they did, it would be hard to game at all because every company has at least a few “practices” that you can point to as making them “bad”.

It’s not really about boycotts not working.

It’s that a handful of people virtue signaling about how bad X game/company is on niche social media communities don’t matter if their opinions aren’t aligned with your average person.

Most people just enjoy games as a hobby and treat it the same way they treat picking something to watch on Netflix.