The Exploitation of Purposelessness in the Age of Technology

What is the fundamental interest in casual gaming? Moreover, what lies behind the investment of people's time into such an activity? Could we potentially derive —or perhaps extrapolate— an explanation concerning the rise of casual mobile gaming from the more fundamental drive to productively make use of one's time?

When looked at objectively, the fact that the merits and accomplishments achieved in mobile gaming are only relevant within its virtual universe make it an objective waste of time. By this, I simply mean that the progress accomplished in a particular mobile game exists only in the eye of the beholder: that is, there is no value in the progress accomplished unless it matters to the user. However, the real problem with this type of gaming is not necessarily the gratuitous and purposeless investment of one's time, but what progress in such a game entails, and the way it is taken advantage of by people with tangible resources.

That is not to say, however, that an obsession with being productive in an unproductive virtual environment cannot be exploited; on the other hand, the more time people choose to waste on these sort of applications, the more the creators financially benefit – and not just the creators! Fellow gamers, especially those with programming prowess (at least enough to set up a bot or two), can unfairly gain an advantage of others who devote significant portions of their lives to such types of games.

So what is the danger? It is precisely the absence of true, objective advancement —essentially, the fact that progress does not equate to effort. The fact that anyone with money can buy virtual currency in that video game and put others to shame simply amounts to a system in which virtual status supersedes actual merit. It is, in a sense, a true depiction of the capitalist system in which we –voluntarily or not– are forced to function: a system in which your financial and socioeconomic circumstances, and not your effort, are more likely to land you "ahead of the game."

In this view, the problem doesn't lie so much in the fact that people are needlessly wasting their time accomplishing something that will amount to nothing, but the fact that others who have money are excused from playing according to conventional rules, thereby rendering the quasi-productive use of one's time entirely useless –even in the context of the mobile video game.

It is precisely for this reason, then, that mobile (casual) gaming is now surpassing the traditional PC and console markets in terms of revenue: because it isn't an industry devoted to providing a genuinely immersive and personal game experience –one in which progress necessarily requires skill and competence– but one solely focused on the capitalisation of virtual resources by virtue of real money. I am thereby entirely opposed to the continued exploitation of users for their virtual (and by definition, imaginary) fulfilment, especially when they could be devoting the same amount of productive energy to doing something palpably useful –i.e. learning a language, learning new programming languages, etc.