Microsoft’s CEO said that Xbox is competing with TikTok, not just with PlayStation and Switch. He is the CEO of one of the top companies in the world, so I assume he is correct in his observation.
Well, if I’m honest, that worries me. To me, video games are a powerful medium that can improve our chances of survival. They are entertainment, of course, but an important form. One of the best things they can teach us is how to wait for a reward. This might seem minimal, but it’s absolutely useful for our well-being in life. Discipline and self-control are probably more important than intelligence in this sense.
TikTok, however, is designed for the opposite: it’s an infinite feed of passive content to consume, like a digestive tract. We absorb whatever comes our way, passively. TikTok is entertainment because it’s capable of quickly satisfying our instincts. And it’s true that, in the attention economy, it is in direct competition with a gaming console.
But if top industry players decide to fight that battle, I’m afraid that the very purpose of video games will get diluted into videos with minimal interaction. That is a problem, and an opportunity for the brave.