You’re right, Factorio is hugely addictive (saying it as an ex-addict).
In general, the best games are also hugely addictive, especially the ones that were specifically designed to be addictive (in contrast to being just an excellent game).
It’s one the reasons why I’m trying to avoid video games these days. Unless the game has an unusually high educational value (like Factorio or Capitalism Lab), I assume the game is net harmful, and is not worth any time/money.
Can you write a post about things you learned via video games? I am highly skeptical that they can teach anything transferable to the real world for STEM-adjacent adults. (Programming video games like https://store.steampowered.com/app/375820/Human_Resource_Machine/ can teach some programming, but they are more like gamefied Leetcode than a strategy/puzzle game. Most non-programmers I have introduced these games to could not even win the starting levels.)
I wrote an LW post about the one game I can recommend in LW circles. It’s called Understand. The main thing it trains is continually coming up with hypotheses and falsifying them.
I’ve played gazillions of other games, including stuff like Factorio and almost all the Zachtronics games, but don’t think their upsides outweigh their significant downsides, like being enormous timewasters.
There’s no way you were introducing competent programmers to those and they were failing them. I’ve played through a fair amount of HRM and don’t remember the start being hard (though after a bit it got tedious because of the low level of abstraction)
Personally, I think I got a good feel of the basics of business management from Capitalism Lab. It is a very detailed business sim that is trying to be as realistic as possible for a game.
According to the dev, the game’s predecessor was also used at Harvard and Stanford as a teaching aid. Judging by the immense complexity and depth of the game, I find the claim believable.
Factorio is fun and might make a kid grow up to be an engineer—and it’s also a hugely addictive waste of time.
“How Much Are Games Like Factorio And EVE Online Sapping Away The Intellectual Potential Of Humanity?”
https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/ml00ac/how_much_are_games_like_factorio_and_eve_online/
You’re right, Factorio is hugely addictive (saying it as an ex-addict).
In general, the best games are also hugely addictive, especially the ones that were specifically designed to be addictive (in contrast to being just an excellent game).
It’s one the reasons why I’m trying to avoid video games these days. Unless the game has an unusually high educational value (like Factorio or Capitalism Lab), I assume the game is net harmful, and is not worth any time/money.
Can you write a post about things you learned via video games? I am highly skeptical that they can teach anything transferable to the real world for STEM-adjacent adults. (Programming video games like https://store.steampowered.com/app/375820/Human_Resource_Machine/ can teach some programming, but they are more like gamefied Leetcode than a strategy/puzzle game. Most non-programmers I have introduced these games to could not even win the starting levels.)
I wrote an LW post about the one game I can recommend in LW circles. It’s called Understand. The main thing it trains is continually coming up with hypotheses and falsifying them.
I’ve played gazillions of other games, including stuff like Factorio and almost all the Zachtronics games, but don’t think their upsides outweigh their significant downsides, like being enormous timewasters.
There’s no way you were introducing competent programmers to those and they were failing them. I’ve played through a fair amount of HRM and don’t remember the start being hard (though after a bit it got tedious because of the low level of abstraction)
He says non-programmers; I guess you misread?
No need to guess, I will confirm: I was super wrong and you have correctly figured out how.
Personally, I think I got a good feel of the basics of business management from Capitalism Lab. It is a very detailed business sim that is trying to be as realistic as possible for a game.
According to the dev, the game’s predecessor was also used at Harvard and Stanford as a teaching aid. Judging by the immense complexity and depth of the game, I find the claim believable.