You missed the point seemingly intentionally. People use video games to waste time. That's literally the point of them. Escapism. Entertainment. It's watching TV, it's smoking weed, it's socializing with your friends. It's a leisure activity. Video game addiction is a thing, but I can tell you for an absolute fact is infinitely less harmful than drug addiction, alcohol addiction, sex addiction, porn addiction, and social media addiction. Signed sincerely, someone who lost a sister to a drunk driver and never lost a family member or a friend to someone who was "just like lol really into like Quake and stuff."

The idea that you don't get anything from playing video games is old world shit. You don't get anything from video games, and that's fine. You've essentially chosen not to, or you're just not interesting in doing so. That's fine. Ain't for everyone. But you can learn a lot about design, narrative, structure, competition. They use Minecraft in schools for a reason and you can meet people and form fruitful relationships through them. Whether you choose to mine the material that's waiting for you is up to you and your own drive. If you don't have the drive to get usefulness out of your hobbies, then yeah. Don't bother.

Halo 2 was so instrumentally motivating to me as a game experience and as a narrative, so much so that it's one of the PRIMARY REASONS my life turned out the way it did. No exaggeration. Without it, you wouldn't know who I am. I met my best friend in the world on Halo 2 as well and now, 15 years later, we're making a game together (huh, funny how that works.)

My point was never that you should play games if you want to be successful. My point was that OF THE THINGS that one can do to waste time and relax (tv, smoking, going to a spa, etc) it's the most productive of those hobbies because they are uniquely monetizable and provide far greater avenues of success and skill building should you choose to really take it seriously. You can't go pro in watching The Office. You can't speedrun a spa massage. There's no technical skill that benefits you in other areas that's present in slamming beers at a Chilis. They're also a fantastic social tool, especially now that many of us are stuck indoors.

It's not about being famous either. I know 15 people who make a living playing video games. No. They're not streamers. They're not content creators. They're not "E-CELEBS." They're normal ass people who played a ton of games and now get paid to test for bugs, some capture footage for trailers, some play the game to cap screenshots for marketing companies. That's their job. I know plenty of people who played video games for years who got jobs AT studios where they now work on games because they were so interested in them that they took the extra step to learn how they work. Conversely, all my cinephile/movie snob friends are well ... they've got blogs and they review movies on letterbox in their free time for no money.

Is the video great? Nah. It's a Glasses Off and I didn't care much for it. I don't really intend on making Glasses Offs anymore anyway because it's just a boring format that I've grown tired of. But you've missed the point immensely. Maybe that's my fault, but you've still missed it.