On Video Games - 26 July 2026
On 09 July 2026 while in Astoria, Oregon on a motorcycle trip, I wrote in my Picto Diary the following about a previous visit to Astoria, Oregon:
I’d been through Astoria a couple of times before while motorcycling the Oregon coast. During the last visit, about ten years ago, I spent an evening discovering Candy Crush for the first time. Exactly as the game designers intended, I got hooked. I got suckered. Too lazy to grind levels the free way, I ended up pouring roughly $1,700 over the next two years into climbing that endless candy-coated ladder. Looking back, I’d have been far better off spending that evening at the Maritime Museum instead. I could have learned then what I finally learned today: the real, unforgiving vagaries of the Columbia Bar—a far more consequential set of levels than any match-3 puzzle.
A friend, Torquemada, sent this comment about my diary entry:
What? $1700 on a video game? Seriously? Do you have any idea what my Shanghainese wife would do to me if did something like that?
Stay upright. You've been down too often.
Torq,
Sandy, UT
I reflected more deeply on my own and my friend's comment and wrote this:
For better or worse, the tip of the spear of modern technological progress is inspired by video games. Demis Hassabis and Elon Musk cut their teeth on video games, later developed them, and still play them today. Today’s Nvidia chips, which drive the progress of AI, are descendants of Jensen Huang’s video-gaming chips.
In retrospect my brief foray into Candy Crush was not a total waste. Candy Crush opened my eyes to the nature of video games and significantly advanced my retired-geezer educational quest. I’m glad for the Candy Crush experience, though, paying fealty to part of Torq's message, it would have been better had I powered up the ladder without having to pay for it.
Want to play Candy Crush? Sign up here!