Why Young Men Would Rather Play Video Games Than Get A Job

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Hmmm, let's see...given the choice, you can work your ass off all day or you can lounge around the house on the sofa and play video games. Boy that's a real tough choice right there. It's a mystery to me why any young guy would rather play video games than work. :rolleyes:

This is Danny Izquierdo, “a 22-year-old who lives with his parents in Silver Spring, Md.”, as the Chicago Tribune reports (their photo, too). Izquierdo, the Tribune writes, is part of a trend: Young men who are opting out of the job market because it’s more emotionally fulfilling to play video games. It’s not that they couldn’t find a job. It’s that they don’t want to. Games are a better mode of living.
 
Games dont pay the bills and if the parents would not let them get away with this they would not have a choice. Simple stupid research article at its best.

Unless they are a successful twitch streamer...
 
Looks at the cheapest 2 bedroom for 500k
Looks at want ads with 5 years experience min, and a BA
Looks at pay at starting 60k
Realizes starting pay is over 8 times less that the cost of the average starter home in the area

Opps out...

Hell i make less than 25 bucks an hour by a large margin, but no loans, and houses around here cost as much as bmw's


When starting pay for a 5 year experience job is 25% or less of the cost of a starter home, wut do you do?

Wut do you do when you have 70k loans, and a 250k mortgage, and make 60k?
 
Sure but I mean... where is this dude living? With Mommy and Daddy? I would rather cut my toes off than live at a parent's house as an adult. Not that I had that option, mind you. After 18 then graduate high school and I was outta there and never looked back. In fact I sold all my precious computer stuff and games to pay for rent/food/gas/beer.

People like this, who just give up on life and mooch off their parents forever (I know a couple... not friends) just make me ill. If I was this guys parent I would either throw him out or march him to Best Buy for a job. Or maybe even Gamestop... you like games so much, now you get to sell them instead of play them. hahahaha

When starting pay for a 5 year experience job is 25% or less of the cost of a starter home, wut do you do?

Wut do you do when you have 70k loans, and a 250k mortgage, and make 60k?

You get an apartment. And a roommate if needed. I work with guys in their 30's who still have roommates, they make good money but they'd prefer to blow it on toys and split the rent.
 
I think the Occam's razor explanation would be:

Job market tighter than it used to be. Men who have trouble finding work also play videogames while unemployed.

More probably men who don't want to take a drudge job to earn money because their parents let them sit on their lazy butts. I bet the guy in TFA could get a job at any number of food related places if he just applied. Even if his parents let him keep living at home, they should make him get some kind of job.
 
I feel Twitch has created this sort of pipe dream where they see the 1% making money hands over fists and think to themselves I can be that guy or boon streamer too, why not. They then proceed to waste an enormous amount of effort running their stream like a business dreaming of that one big raid or game that will snowball into a legion of rabid fanboys who will flood their PayPal with a constant stream of donations. It's a ill sad sometimes because it's like watching thousands of turtles hatching and make a run for the ocean knowing only a handful will make it.

A streamer I once followed even wished on stream that he was paralyzed from the waste down so he would have a legit excuse to game all day, a failed suicide attempt and year later he's working the customer service desk at Ikea, the sad part is this guy actually had talent and multiple competitive fps tournament wins under his belt, that's at least more than what most of these so called Twitch stars could claim.
 
Games dont pay the bills and if the parents would not let them get away with this they would not have a choice. Simple stupid research article at its best.

I sold a game account the other day for $225.
Question is, can I work hard enough at playing games to turn this into a decent monthly income?

Reality, if I had to learn several games well enough to pull this off in order to earn say $1,500 a month, I think I'd still rather just have a job.

Now in six years when I retire, hell yea.

Sit around the house, play games, sell my game accounts for some cash. I just need a nice supply of email addresses to register all my accounts under.
 
It's not easy to kick a kid out of the house. I had to kick my oldest girl out. It was the last option I had to try and help her get moving again. I was scared to death.

Turns out I was all worried about nothing. She was moved in with her boy friend's family the very next day. By allowing her to move in they just cut my legs right out from under me.

But it's working out. The boy is actually becoming a man, my kid is learning what's important. They are off to a slow start, but they have a chance and they are moving in the right direction.

But yea, some don't ever figure it out.
 
I sold a game account the other day for $225.
Question is, can I work hard enough at playing games to turn this into a decent monthly income?

Reality, if I had to learn several games well enough to pull this off in order to earn say $1,500 a month, I think I'd still rather just have a job.

Now in six years when I retire, hell yea.

Sit around the house, play games, sell my game accounts for some cash. I just need a nice supply of email addresses to register all my accounts under.
People are still paying some stupid money for older Steam accounts. I never really got why either. The explanations I have heard make very little sense.
 
What rubbish! Next they'll be trying to tell us young men would also prefer to eat pizza, drink beer, and have sex rather than work. :rolleyes:

I didn't know that was an option. The guidance counselors in high school never mention that.... Probably because that's what they wanted to do, but got pushed into the counselor job by their parents....
 
I like to play games, but I love my job... mind you, tinkering computers is what I do for fun, so doing that for work is just bonus.
 
Jesus, man. Even if it takes you 10 years. Everyone in their 20s should be perusing a 4-year degree OR have a well-paying trade craft going.
 
I remember my early 20s... I spent a lot of time sitting on my ass in my parents house playing videogames and didn't have a job...

I *also* was working my butt off in college, and got through pretty quickly with a high course load (and a high GPA).

Looking back... The lack of money did suck, and while I'm still glad that I wasn't working fast food or something, I do regret not doing more in-industry internships. That would have made things go more smoothly, post-college (graduated '07, immediately got a post-graduation job, then the economy went to hell in '08, and it took a year+ to find a job again).
 
Spending all day alone grinding on a game isn't fun. It might trigger the effort/reward circuit in the brain and take up your time, but these guys have essentially opted out of society because they don't see a place for themselves in it. I think it's too easy to write them off as lazy and I'd bet that there's plenty of them with a decent education. Some people just need more help than others.
 
I've been told by female friends that most gamers they have dated have small 'packages' and are terrible in bed. Can any hardcore gamers here confirm that?
 
I don't have a problem with it as that means less competition in the job market. As long as the parents are willing to provide for them however long they prefer, more power to them. They are literally doing a huge favor for those looking for skilled jobs.

Most of these young men have pretty much killed their future anyways. Employers will hire those straight out of colleges than these bums that took year(s) off for not working. And no college degress? Menial jobs that is both mentally and physically depressing at the current and foreseeable future. They will be the ones that get abused by management.
 
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It's not easy to kick a kid out of the house. I had to kick my oldest girl out. It was the last option I had to try and help her get moving again. I was scared to death.

Turns out I was all worried about nothing. She was moved in with her boy friend's family the very next day. By allowing her to move in they just cut my legs right out from under me.

But it's working out. The boy is actually becoming a man, my kid is learning what's important. They are off to a slow start, but they have a chance and they are moving in the right direction.

But yea, some don't ever figure it out.
That would be tough. My oldest kid is 10 - I can't imagine doing it at this point. However, I see why you would do it. You sometimes have to kick your kids in the ass. If you don't, the world will eventually.
 
I remember my early 20s... I spent a lot of time sitting on my ass in my parents house playing videogames and didn't have a job...

I *also* was working my butt off in college, and got through pretty quickly with a high course load (and a high GPA).

Looking back... The lack of money did suck, and while I'm still glad that I wasn't working fast food or something, I do regret not doing more in-industry internships. That would have made things go more smoothly, post-college (graduated '07, immediately got a post-graduation job, then the economy went to hell in '08, and it took a year+ to find a job again).

I said fuck it. I spent a lot of time partying, playing video games, drinking beer... Little time going to work. To pay for the beer and video games. I did do a few classes, but nothing major. 21-23. At 23, I got married and I got a bit more serious. Never gave up video games, though. That'd just be silly.
 
Looks at the cheapest 2 bedroom for 500k
Looks at want ads with 5 years experience min, and a BA
Looks at pay at starting 60k
Realizes starting pay is over 8 times less that the cost of the average starter home in the area

Opps out...

Hell i make less than 25 bucks an hour by a large margin, but no loans, and houses around here cost as much as bmw's


When starting pay for a 5 year experience job is 25% or less of the cost of a starter home, wut do you do?

Wut do you do when you have 70k loans, and a 250k mortgage, and make 60k?

I'm finding it difficult to translate the currency in this. Are you expecting to pay off a starter house within a few years or something?
 
Not every job involves you busting your ass or requires you to spend half your life in school to earn decent coin...;)
 
While I doubt this dude is, you can make surprisingly good money playing certain games through a bunch of different means. Streaming, Youtube, gold selling, account selling, power level/ranking services. The list goes on.
 
Not surprising in this emasculating feminist society we live in. The "man child" and Big Bang Theory nerd driven culture among a estrogen rich toxic environment (food and chemicals), doesn't stand a chance.
 
Then why the hell did I get a job? I could have just stayed at my parents house and played games all day.

Seriously, this is not a new problem, the world has always had lazy adult babies, this is just a new wave of blaming everything on some random activity.

Although... I am a software developer, so I do kinda play on the computer all day.
 
I've been told by female friends that most gamers they have dated have small 'packages' and are terrible in bed. Can any hardcore gamers here confirm that?

We'll see that's what porn is doing to these kids.

News flash, most dudes DO have small packages, and most chicks have small tits.

Back before the 21st century we made do with what we do'ed.
 
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