I see what you’re saying, but at the same time, I really truly did already know most of this. The part specifically about the hippocampus I didn’t know, but all the parts about consequence, memory, rewards vs addiction, couch co-op, etc, I’ve been saying all that for many years now, and I know I’m not the only one.

SOME of this has been broadly spoken about for many years, but not in these kind of scientific (and actually useful/helpful) terms. The headlines were always something like “Everquest/World of Warcraft/Minecraft are the devil’s games, meant to corrupt our youth!” When the truth is really that they are designed to be played, and keep being played, for that sweet subscription and expansion money (and eventually microtransaction money, too).

Everquest and WoW at least originally had some of these unforgiving elements, that taught us risk management, patience, skill, problem-solving, and reward for accomplishing a difficult task. I totally see why games are made the way they are now, it was the natural progression of it all, but these guys nailed it: for anyone growing up playing new AAA games with a lot of their free time, and not ever playing through old games, it will certainly be totally different for their brain/development.