Main content

From Spacewar to Pokemon Go, video games 鈥 aside from becoming a large industry in their own right 鈥 have influenced the modern economy in some surprising ways.

From Spacewar to Pokemon Go, video games 鈥 aside from becoming a large industry in their own right 鈥 have influenced the modern economy in some surprising ways. Here鈥檚 one. In 2016, four economists presented research into a puzzling fact about the US labour market. The economy was growing, unemployment rates were low, and yet a surprisingly large number of able-bodied young men were either working part-time or not working at all. More puzzling still, while most studies of unemployment find that it makes people thoroughly miserable, the happiness of these young men was rising. The researchers concluded that the explanation was simply that this cohort of young men were living at home, sponging off their parents and playing videogames. They were deciding, in the other words, not to join the modern economy in some low-paid job, because being a starship captain at home is far more appealing.

Producer: Ben Crighton
Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon

(Photo: Hands holding game pad and playing shooter game on TV screen. Credit: Getty Images)

Available now

9 minutes

Last on

Mon 8 May 2017 03:50GMT

Sources and related links

Steven Levy - Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (Cambridge: O'Reilly) 2010 p55

J.M. Graetz - 鈥淭he Origin of Spacewar鈥 Creative Computing magazine (Volume 7, Number 8) August, 1981听

Edward Castronova - 鈥淰irtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier,鈥 CESifo Working Paper No. 618, December 2001听

Jane McGonigal - Reality is Broken (London: Vintage) 2011

Steven Johnson - Wonderland: How play made the modern world (New York: Riverhead 2016)

Broadcasts

  • Sat 6 May 2017 02:50GMT
  • Sat 6 May 2017 19:50GMT
  • Mon 8 May 2017 03:50GMT

Featured in...

Podcast