I love Academy Awards season. It’s always exciting to see what the academy has judged as the best films (setting aside the debates about what “the academy” consists of for now). In any case, the awards season seems to spark more discussions about film than any other point in the year, and I think they do encourage more people to watch movies they may have otherwise turned away from. At the same time, there’s always drama, and this year that drama came from the speech for the Best Original Score winner, by Ludwig Göransson for Oppenheimer.

Göransson, upon accepting his speech, said “To my parents, thank you for giving me guitars and drum machines instead of video games.” Cue the insulted gamers rising up at this hot take which has demolished their hobby’s very foundation. How dare he thank his parents for encouraging him to cultivate a useful skill over a well-known time sink? For some reason, this was a very controversial statement for Göransson to make, and while I can see where it comes from I think it got massively overblown.

Göransson’s point, I think, is a useful reminder of the importance of choosing to use our time wisely and with intent. Göransson used his time to develop a creative skill, allowing him to produce music loved by millions around the world, and has cultivated a very successful career from this skill (not just as a film and TV music composer, but also as a pop music producer, for artists like Childish Gambino). Creating things, in general, is more fulfiling than consuming them. Having said that, everyone needs to chill out in some way. If video games are a good way of chilling out for you, power to you. I am sure Göransson has some way of chilling out, so there’s nothing wrong with that. But the key is to make sure that’s really the best option for you to use your time. If you have some time where you don’t need to chill, maybe instead of playing video games, you could try to learn a new creative skill. Write a book, play music, even code your own game and share that with others! You may find that more fun than even playing video games.