I’m watching the TNG episode ‘The Mind’s Eye.’ Geordi is taking a solo trip to Risa for a conference, and he gets bored in the shuttlecraft on the way there, so he asks the computer ‘How about a game?’ First the computer doesn’t understand the request, then when he rephrases it, all she has to offer him is a physics trivia quiz.

It’s the twenty-fourth century and Geordi can’t even play Tetris to while away a long flight.

Filed under star trek tng sometimes their vision of the future failed themwere they assuming people wouldn’t want to do DUMB STUFF like play video games any more in the same way they assumed they wouldn’t do DUMB STUFF like watch television? Airy post I’m surprised Geordi doesn’t have some games installed IN his VISOR he could have picture-in-picture and be playing all kinds of stuff and nobody else would know

I’m sure he has something going on when he has to talk to Barclay. You’d think he’d bring a padd with a book or something. Speaking of visions of the future, Individual Padds hold a book each!

Yes, there’s that scene in one DS9 episode where Bashir wants to show Sisko tons of research he’s done on something and dumps about ten PADDs on his desk. Those things need bigger SD chips or something.

Also let’s not forget what’s considered the most interesting game ever to come aboard the Enterprise:

I guess it’s not far from those candy crush type games

The trick with that game is not that it’s such a cool game in itself but that it’s wired to stimulate your brain’s pleasure centres and give you endorphins like WHOA every time you complete the very simple task of getting the disc into the cone. So it’s addictive in a different way from present -day games in which the goal is to get the highest score or collect all the rare items; it’s really just a front for a mind-control mechanism.
I’m not blaming them for not foreseeing the rise of smartphone games or MMOs, but there were lots and lots of video games by the late 1980s and it’s just surprising that they didn’t take that in a ‘how would these develop if the technology got even better?’ direction. Holodeck simulations are presented more like getting to participate in a written story than playing an interactive narrative game with lots of different possible outcomes.

True but then I suppose the writers may not have been as young as to be part of the generation playing those games? Or maybe they just never considered the impact or relegated it to a fad, like television.

You’re right on the Holodeck portion too it should have been more choose your own adventure type. Julian was able to change the rules and destroy the James Bond rule although that was Quark’s buggy, spatula-rigged holosuite.