It's not something that requires explicit consideration: probably anybody you ask will tell you that no, they don't need to play videogames; people who play them normally do it because they enjoy it, not because they need to.

(It feels weird to have to explain that.)

Have you considered pausing before hitting "reply" and asking yourself: "does this comment add anything? does it have anything intelligent to say?"

You don't really need to do anything that doesn't provide for your economic well-being. Some things a just for fun and that's great!

You don't need to provide for your economic well-being either.

Right, who needs hobbys or fun anyway. /s

For those of us who live fairly far away from our most excellent friends, yes, I need video games to play with them. I look forward to my weekly game sessions to drink a beer and hang out with them. Even something as simple as a board game is well suited to a video game with voice chat, and those often are primarily and only built/tested/supported on Windows, making fpgaminer's notes very welcome.

Nor do you need to be on Hacker News...

You do need to relax and unwind though, and video games are a great way to do that.

No, you don't need to play video games, but they can be a lot of fun.

However, it's important to note that you don't need Windows 10, or Windows at all, to play good video games. All the best games play using emulators, since they all came out in the 70s-90s. And Linux supports emulators like MAME and MESS just fine.

I don't need to play Go, learn guitar, read books, watch movies or travel either, but I still do those things because they're fun.