So, instead of engaging in some harmless recreation, you reckon it's morally superior to go on Hacker News and chastise people for engaging in harmless recreation?

I think instead of being obsessed with criticizing others, it would be nice if people focused on just about anything else in the world.

Games are not the loftiest goal in the world, but they do make people happy and engage their minds. Not everyone is going to cure cancer, and it is not reasonable to criticize them for not being that person. Yes, curing cancer would be grand, but we need plumbers too. Just because something isn't historically significant doesn't mean it isn't significant.

I'm not criticizing them for what they do, I'm criticizing them for the whole wooo I'm changing the world arrogance. Take it down a notch and get some perspective.

The one thing more frustrating than "woo i'm changing the world" arrogance is "woo, i'm making a difference by helping the 'woo i'm changing the world' people get some perspective."

If you don't like their arrogance, put them in their place by doing better.

I've already done better. I've contributed significantly to the first draft of one of the human chromosomes. I've helped prepare parts for the LHC by cleaning them to remove contaminants, and I've made several open and novel contributions to science.

I'm now working on changing a small area of society, but I don't make any arrogant claims of changing the world in doing so.

LOL, one of the best come backs I've seen on HN :)

I enjoyed 2048, but yeah it didn't change my life in the slightest.

And every other "world changing effect" they ascribe to it, could more easily explained with the "butterfly effect", than the significance of this game.

UPDATE: Downvoting with someone you disagree is fun, but try at least offering an argument.

Oh, so you'd be one of the guys telling Zuckenberg to stop fooling around with stupid site with students' pictures, and start doing serious things?

Or telling Jobs & Wozniak that their tiny computer for hobbyists is meaningless, and they should do some serious work with mainframes.

Or perhaps you'd walk up to Picasso and tell him to stop painting triangles and squares, and get into industrial design? And scientific illustrations?

See, the effect of a project can be estimated in hindsight. 2048 made some people interested in programming, and inspired a ton of other people. Who knows, perhaps some future Einstein in 20 years will say: "it all started when I played this stupid game, that had an open source, and I decided to play with it."

What if, 50 years from now, game design textbooks talk about 2048 and how it became a near instant hit in the early 2000s?

So playing and talking about a game means you never focus on important problems?