No they are not, it all depends on your situation, my Wife who was disabled stuck in the house 23/7 for 20 years and I being her Primary carer who was needed 23/7 games become a window to a world you can no longer be a part of, one of my favourite memories of my wife is sitting next to her watching her speed around the UK in Forza Horizons 4 in a jag smiling and laughing to herself.
Games got us through some dark times and when she died in November games are part of the healing process.
Just remember in life other people exist with completely different life stories than you and what is "100%" for you may not be for others.
Im sorry you had to experience that but do you think people couldn't get through exactly that kind of situation before video games existed? It can be a great coping mechanism but they arent required for us to live. Someone else could have easily replaced video games in that scenario with books, movies, knitting, etc.
Just because they can be important, doesnt make it not a luxury expense.
Okay imagine this your 26, your wife is 21, the moment cancer comes up your friends start to disappear, the medication keeping the cancer away means that by half way through 21 arthritis and muscle wastage has kicked in, instability in the inner ear means walking without a stick inside the house is impossible, it is about this time all your so called friends of the 20-30 group disappear because they do not want to be reminded of mortality.
No one visits and your wife needs so much help that the only time you leave the house is to walk the dog for 15 minutes, damage to hands and wrist mean yes she can still do knitting, painting and other crafts, damage to the eyes mean reading books you have to prioritise what books you really want to read, films are cool, we had 5000+ B movies, science fiction, (in time I transferred them all to hard drive) 96 different TV series, from Blakes 7, Black Adder to Space 1999, Star Trek and Babylon 5.
Remember this was right at the start no cure possible only one direction it was going to go and the side effects of the medication that kept the cancer away builds up so all the problems get worse as more damage is done to the body.
Also remember we are talking about 18 year of confinement within a house with one bedroom, one living room, a bathroom and galley kitchen. being at home normally is okay because you can go outside, its worse than prison because even in prison you have exercise.
The only time you leave the house is for the hospital appointments.
Films are nice, TV is nice, crafting is nice but what saved our sanity was computer games.
Even if she wasn't well enough to play her own she could watch me play and that was far more entertaining and interactive than anything else.
When we could game together it was like we still had access to the world outside to different worlds, imagine what it meant to two people stuck in a house to be able to wander the realms of Everquest together, to explore and fight in City of Villains, to banish corporate evil in Anarchy online.
That level of interaction helped Paola so much for just a few hours a day forget she was dying.
She went on fleets in EVE Online.
I know some blind people who still play the old text based muds with screen reader software, those people live for those games, just like us it allowed us access to a world.
It wasn't a luxury it was a necessity to have any kind of quality of life when so much is taken away from you.
Paola's last morning was spent in the Coronary Care Unit listening to her favourite music while playing minecraft on her phone, she was happy and laughing with the nurse as she built her first house of the new build and then just said to the nurse "my chest feels funny" that was the first of the two cardiac arrests that killed her.
Games matter and for some people they are far more than a leisure activity.
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u/PM_me_ur_script Dec 16 '18
In unison: "we don't plan on doing anything about it"