Well the biggest obstacle to getting good at chess is finding a solid reason why it's worth pursuing, as opposed to getting good at something else (or doing nothing).
2) its a game you can play at every age, so your investment in the game pays off over your lifetime
3) all your games can be easily recorded for future analysis
4) fun for hackers: there's lots of software to analyze and manage your game history
5) also fun for hackers: there are massive databases of games at every level
6) hundreds of years of published analysis that will become interesting as you get good
7) playing well requires you develop and exercise a wide range of cognitive skills
I'm going to a tournament tonight at my local club. I'm terrible (USCF 1224) but playing is a rush.
I'm just agreeing with xyzzy4; finding the game fun is more important than anything else.
Personally, I don't like the fact that luck is a bigger factor that chess players are willing to admit. Sometimes you make a move that anyone would consider strategically good, but little did you know, that move would put you in a bad situation many moves later, and only a machine or maybe a grand master could know it.
While you're right (all ages can play Street Fighter), it's hardly something that one can expect to be common in, say, 45 years. Chess will certainly still be played ubiquitously.
Furthermore, Street Fighter requires good reaction times, hand/eye coordination, etc. A better counter-point might be something like poker (or another card game).
That said, you're right: if you don't find chess (as a game) interesting, you probably shouldn't spend time pursuing it :)
And by the way, I too thought the reactions needed were insane. But after some time, you realize all that is just muscle memory, and the hard part is the strategy. It's a conversation between two minds.
I'm amazed that he also (intuitively) figured out "the French sound" (the linguistic term escapes me) well enough to be able to call out words for not being words. I wouldn't be surprised if many French speakers tried to sneak some high scoring words past him, knowing he can't speak French only to be flabbergasted when he called their bluff.
In fact I don't think many processes in nature are truly random (quantum phenomena have to have a large effect and you need to choose a no-hidden-variable theory), but it doesn't really matter. It's just a model.
There was a brief period where the ultra-intelligent switched to the highbrow game of the Eastern world, Go, likely due to its greater difficulty at grandmaster levels, and its well-established handicapping system that allowed for entertaining games between people of different skill levels.
Now, there are thousands of games played by elites, and none of them have such a clear advantage that anyone would put their leaderboard position on their resume. I already know how to play Chess well enough to let my boss win (without making it obvious that I threw the game), and I have plenty of other games that I can play when I actually want to have fun.
So why would I spend any more time practicing just that one game? I could try to improve my Go ranking, or play Hive, or build a new M:tG deck, or get better at Risk.
Many of the reasons people had in the past to play Chess well are no longer applicable exclusively to Chess.
An interesting counter point to this idea:
https://medium.com/message/why-chess-will-destroy-your-mind-...
His head would have exploded in moral outrage, from all the people engaged in non-productive amusements, to the general detriment of society.
Those who attempt to make other people ashamed of having fun are just the worst. I catch myself being judgmental and snarky sometimes, but in keeping with the nerd code, I have never intentionally tried to make someone else feel bad about themselves for liking something I don't like. My personal niche obsession might be infinitely superior to yours in all possible ways (in my opinion), but that doesn't make you a bad person. It just means you're from a different nerd tribe.
Shame. Axis and Allies man. Choose the highbrow games of each category!
I guess DOTA is the "highbrow" game of the video game world, at least as far as prize pools and money. Maybe fighting game players are more elitist (but they tend to back-up their status with extremely in-depth understandings of the game... at the frame-by-frame level)
Pokemon also has a very dedicated following, and is relatively "high-brow" at least within its own community.
http://www.smogon.com/bw/articles/bw_complete_damage_formula
The number one reason why people become good at anything is that they first became obsessed.
Take chess (I have 2000+ fide elo, so I have some experience here). The practical value of being good at chess is close to zero, unless you can make money of it. Now, there are some 1500 GMs in the world, and most of them can't even make enough money from chess to become a professional. If you approach this with a rational mind, you will never even start putting in time. The same reasoning works for almost everything (sports, arts,...).