I lean toward “efficient entertainment”, but I do sometimes wonder what that chunk of my free time would look like otherwise.
2 points
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I find the best games are challenging ones where I can watch myself improving at them, like training a skill. It’s not a transferable skill, of course, but I think the act of building your tenacity and accepting success/failure is healthy and good for the ego.
When I try games that I would consider “slop”: fetch quests and walking simulators in between cutscenes, I can feel my brain rotting and I don’t enjoy it.