Would making a video game be considered "business in intoxicants" or "business in poisons"? Right Livelihood, as stated in the :Vanijja Sutta


  "Monks, a lay follower should not engage in five types of business. Which five? Business in weapons, business in human beings, business in meat, business in intoxicants, and business in poison."


Could I argue that video games are intoxicants that allow players to escape from reality? Could one also say the video game maker is an adrenaline seller?(genre dependent)

If I make a game with simulated weapon usage against other humans, is that business in weapons? Or is it harmless fun?
Maybe it's more like entertainment: analogous to being an actor or a musician; or telling stories or making pictures.

There are vinaya rules about what constitutes killing: a condition is that there must be "intention to kill". For example if you carelessly knock something off a cliff, which falls on someone underneath and kills them, doesn't count as "killing" because that's an accident, i.e. there's no intention to kill. I'd argue that similarly, when people play a video game there's no "intention to kill".

You could instead argue that playing is intoxicating; but I think there's a more direct analogy, i.e. it's like playing a game. I think there's a sutta which warns that too much game-playing (especially with disreputable companions, perhaps gambling, perhaps spending too much time at it, perhaps becoming 'addicted' to the activity) isn't profitable for a lay-person.

Another direct description of the activity is that it's pursuing sense-impressions: so maybe it's samsaric. I think it's more like the seventh of the eight precepts:


  
  I undertake to abstain from singing, dancing, playing music, attending entertainment performances, wearing perfume, and using cosmetics and garlands (decorative accessories).
  


It's not the first ("killing") nor the fifth ("intoxicating drinks and drugs, which lead to carelessness").

You could perhaps, possibly, argue that it's the fourth:


  
  I undertake to abstain from wrong speech: telling lies, deceiving others, manipulating others, using hurtful words.