Everyone is trying to get us to come out — or stay in — and play. Seriously. Peloton, Netflix, Zoom, TikTok, Amazon, Apple and Google are all eith

We Need a New Term for Video Games

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2021-07-23 17:30:04

Everyone is trying to get us to come out — or stay in — and play. Seriously. Peloton, Netflix, Zoom, TikTok, Amazon, Apple and Google are all either experimenting or going much bigger into video games.

The straightforward answer is that globally people already spend a lot of time and money on video games, and established game companies and newcomers alike are eyeing all sorts of interactive digital experiments to grab more of our time and money.

I’m excited for this development, even though my own avid video game playing ended in the era of BrickBreaker for the Blackberry. It feels as if we’re in the middle of reimagining both what a “video game” is and what online idle time can be — more engaging and social, perhaps, and a little less passive doomscrolling. (Or I might be reading too much into this. Yeah, it might just be about money.)

Whatever the motivation, games may soon feel inescapable. New features on Zoom — yup, that Zoom — include poker, trivia and mystery games. Peloton, the maker of $2,500 exercise bicycles, is releasing a game that allows people’s pedal power to command a rolling virtual wheel. Netflix this week confirmed that it planned to add video games to its online entertainment service. Facebook, TikTok, Amazon, Apple and Google to varying degrees are pitching us video games or selling game subscriptions. (The New York Times is going bigger into digital games and puzzles, too.)

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