Cartouche wrote:
Second, is bad for your social life - you start skipping social events cause you think "all those hours there, don't wanna go anyway, i'd rather play" - and that's how it starts, the rest is a downward spiral (you maybe seek a significant other that plays the game or replace real life friends with game friends).
Third - it impacts your productivity; i've heard horror stories - people that took less demanding jobs to play more, people not sleeping enough (also unhealthy), or simply quitting jobs to play.
Let me repeat the obvious - the more money you have, the more ways to have fun you will find - heck, you might find something more fun and healthier as a hobby.
If to that you say just playing the game makes you happy, then why not make enough money to finance a game where you could define your own rules/universe/etc?
Finally, the "your school" part.
I imagine that most of you are not at that age anymore, but you could study more in your field of expertise/start a exciting new career and maybe change the world (or just your life) for the better.
Its 2018, assuming that in game friends are some how "lesser" is a sign of your immaturity. You can have legitimate social bonds in many different walks of life, and none are more or less legitimate than others. Yeah, blowing off your obligations is bad, but that's not revolutionary, nor is it exclusive to XI or video games in general.
As for it impacting productivity so what? Taking a less demanding job to accommodate what you most desire in life isn't a crime. Nor is it less legitimate than marrying yourself to your work. As long a people are able to meet their responsibilities, the rest doesn't actually matter. If you want to make 25k a year, and can live responsibly on that, and your greatest joy in life is logging into FFXI, there is no problem so long as that is what you are comfortable with.
Changing the world, and the impetus of society to pressure people to do so is misguided entitlement. Nobody is entitled to the efforts of others.
The only thing that you have a legitimate claim to throughout your post, is that a sedentary lifestyle is bad for your health, and addictive behaviors can contribute to that. The rest is your arbitrary world view that adds nothing of substance to the greater discussion. You should probably just quit video games since your so focused on productivity. Meanwhile, I personally am going to continue on my career path and bargain for more vacation time and less pay to continue to fulfill myself in life. I will invent less and less to counteract people with your positions, because I'm tired of closeted gamers who are ashamed of their hobby like its less legitimate than anything else because its a game. Tell that to people who go to college to major in football.