(for parents): how to tell when videogaming is good

here are things i would look for to judge how good gaming is:

does playing this game involve gaining real mastery?
is there a sense of self directed achievement -- “I finally beat X!” vs the screen just screaming “you are such an awesome winner!” non stop.
related / in other words: does the game actually permit failure (if applicable)? all old-school games strongly do, but most games directed at children now do not, while also pretending that achievement and success are occurring. i think that is probably not great. but actual mastery is great!
also related: adults vary a lot in how much they can enjoy a game that they are losing. not all games are fun to lose, but, many can be. for me it would be really important to try to make sure my kid understands how to have fun and be engaged while playing a game in a situation where they are likely to lose. to me this is just a proxy for something super important in life.
does the game have the above and also involve / require cooperation / coordination with others?
extremely valuable!!
does playing this game involve learning information and systems?
if you were an expert on the game, would your child want to ask you a bunch of questions?
does the game appear to stimulate your child's imagination more than, for example, clouds do?
does engaging game involve creating [non-ephemeral] original things?
especially if it is collaborative!
does the game have modding / authorship by peers?
this is a huge deal. modding is how children can have very very real agency in creating things that other humans are very genuinely excited about and invested in, using skills that will remain applicable their entire lives. that was my childhood.
even if your child is not modding / at all ready to do that kind of thing, i think this idea being native to them is SO important and valuable. playing content by other kids and community members, viewing game authorship as something normal people do to share with peers, etc.
does the game involve non-trivial strategy, does the game lend itself to analysis, could somebody do better at the game by discussing choices heavily or making spreadsheets?
Not sure at what age these kinds of games start making sense but I'd personally try to get my kid playing Slay the Spire asap.

I think if even just one of these things are true then the game probably justifies itself and in my mind qualifies as a worthwhile part of a very enriched, curated childhood.

some of these can be hard to determine as an outsider not engaged with the game, but chatgpt would know.

I have a lot more thoughts on this / things to list, but the rest isn't as applicable until age 8-10 since it all has to do with online social structures.

phones vs computers

the above properties are common among computer games and console games that adults are passionate about. conversely, the above properties are pretty rare among smartphone-only games.

or like put another way if you let the algorithm guide you on the computer, you'll probably play enriching games, and if you do it on the phone / ipad app store, i think probably not, so i'd do a lot more curation there.

minecraft

notably minecraft hits many / most of these points by default, and there are ways of engaging it that can hit every single one.

for example people will do engineering challenges where they try to farm 1 million slices of melon, which would be completely impossible if playing ‘the normal way’ but all the tools are present in the base game to achieve it.

or the Create mod -- you really cannot just do stuff blindly there. You have to learn things in a systemic way, research, just to achieve the most basic outcomes. The whole focus of the mod is automation and engineering. I engage the same parts of my brain as I do when picking up a new software engineering skill.

Factorio is imo one of the most enriching things a kid could spend time on, ever. I would hire a software engineer with 2y professional xp, who grew up playing hundreds of hours factorio, over one with 4y professional xp.

to me the fact that minecraft is the game with the single highest playercount and cultural footprint among kids is like, a pretty darn strong signal that the kids are alright. (i played it as a young teen myself, before it blew up)

the reason they like it is because it does meet so many of the criteria i described. and there still aren't a whole lot of games that have it beat on those fronts, speaking as somebody who is aware of an extremely high % of all games that exist haha. kids really like stuff that is earnestly enriching and empowering(!) and will seek it out as far as i can tell, i sure did.

on hyperstimulus

as somebody who played a lot of videogames / socialized heavily online from age 7? 9? onward, i do think there is plausibly something to the idea of training yourself on hyperstimulus. i think my boredom set-point is a lot higher than either of my parents, though they are also of course older, but i'm pretty sure there's a real difference. at many points in my life i've felt this was a bad thing, and my mom did a lot of hand wringing about questioning whether she messed me up by letting me use the computer so much. but the reality is that i like the things that i like. culturally there is a sense that it is not virtuous to be quick to boredom, but it's not clear how exactly this would impact my life negatively. for example i would tend to think that seeking more excitement and engagement in your career correlates with making more money. wanting to ‘reset’ my stimulation set-point has only ever been motivated by vague shame, and not like, furthering some actual specific important life outcome.