It's interesting to consider why it is that some games are respected and viewed as a skill.
I think what sets games like chess, and to a greater extent go, apart from trivial addictive games, is that they teach concentration, executive function, pattern recognition, and in some cases jumping up and down abstraction hierarchies, in a way that probably extends beyond the game's domain into life.
I don't know what to do about the morass of addictive games that are taking over human mindshare. There have always been some; even crossword puzzles are arguably the pre-computer version. They strengthen recall and concept association but how useful is that, since most of what's required is trivia? Scrabble at least is social (with the benefits that entails) in addition to strengthening recall of uncommon words.
Some time ago there was an article here about Croatia(I think?) making chess playing mandatory for all school children. The comments section was full of people saying that it's stupid because there is no correlation between playing chess and any skill useful in life. There are no studies that prove that playing chess improves anything, apart from....being good at chess. I don't know if that is true personally, but that was the vibe HN was giving.
My grandfather used crossword puzzles to help himself learn English, so while I'm personally frustrated by the Trivial Pursuit-like nature of modern puzzles, I wouldn't regard them with the same disdain I give the average Zygna or EA title.
I think what sets games like chess, and to a greater extent go, apart from trivial addictive games, is that they teach concentration, executive function, pattern recognition, and in some cases jumping up and down abstraction hierarchies, in a way that probably extends beyond the game's domain into life.
I don't know what to do about the morass of addictive games that are taking over human mindshare. There have always been some; even crossword puzzles are arguably the pre-computer version. They strengthen recall and concept association but how useful is that, since most of what's required is trivia? Scrabble at least is social (with the benefits that entails) in addition to strengthening recall of uncommon words.