Gaming in the Quarantine Years

Nothing else I've consumed in the last year has hit as close to heart as this video. Thank you for making it! That was very cathartic for me, helpful for me to understand my own mental state. I, too, consider myself incredibly fortunate to have been much less affected by the pandemic than almost anyone else. I was on parental leave with a newborn anyway, so neither my wife nor me had to work, nor did we have any financial concerns, nor any real 'need' to go out into the suddenly dangerous world. Before watching your video, I did not understand why, but I just couldn't pick up any new games. It felt like the perfect opportunity to go back into my long queue of great games I've picked up over the years, but never had the time for. I had just built a gaming PC. I had no social obligations, and no obligations to be well rested in the morning for work. All the games were already bought, and these were quality games I knew I want to play one day. But I just couldn't. It was back to the classics every night, first L4D, later Alien Swarm. The games I had played many times before, the games I really did not need any concentration for. Often I didn't even enjoy it, but I experienced this strong for escapism, I just had to go there, no matter how tired I was. So yeah, no point here, just saying thanks for sharing this and helping me sort my own thoughts!

Henrik Heimbuerger

This was one of my favorite videos you've done yet. Great job!!

Well articulated and appreciate the openness. I'm in very similar boat; on one hand being an introvert gamer feeling like I'm doing a lot better than others, but feeling just off and unable to commit to past times I enjoy. Appreciate you sharing.

Gabriel Sorrel

Interesting video, if a little depressing. Personally I've taken the opportunity of everyone being stuck inside to get my friends (including my non-gamer friends) to finally play some coop games, and it's made quarantine a lot more mentally stable for all of us.

Pobega

Appreciate these thoughts as always. I think you're speaking to a common and important feeling, and your vids always seem to have structure behind them even when you're taking on something different like this. I've similarly gotten to a point with gaming where, as far as gaming, no matter how often I think I prefer games with narrative depth or at least mechanical depth, I end up returning to some of the same old-reliables that are sort of just mental distractions. As one exception, TLOU2 delivered its narrative at a slow enough pace for me to play through a couple times. But even then, it can seem like playing enough to make significant narrative progress quickly runs out of time in a given night. To try to help you or anyone struggling, have you been reading lately? The difference between how you experience material with a book vs. digital media seems important right now. I think reading more closely resembles the real-life experience we've all been missing out on, as little mini-narratives emerge in moments or paragraphs or even a single well-written sentence, and leave us free to digest the material at a pace that suits us. As much as games can create resonant moments through dialogue or settings, and I love them for that, we don't often get to hang on those moments for long before they're broken up with some kind of cutscening or thing-collecting or mission-completing. In normal times I think we appreciate that kind of narrative experience with interactivity. But if we're consciously or unconsciouly trying to use games as a stand-in for the experience of real-life, I can see how games start to feel both overwhelming and disappointing at the same time.

Do you still post transcripts? A friend was asking about it. He really liked this video, and said that it expressed a lot that he felt. But he wanted to share it with his partner and she's more likely to read something than watch a video.

RSS

I'm off video games right now and it's exhausting to explain my reasons every time a friend recommends a game to me, so thank you for making this. It articulates some things about the different roles of gaming in my life, as a passion and as an unhealthy coping mechanism, accurately enough that I'm planning to use this as a reference. I think the simulated footage of your daily routine in the Unity engine is really powerful in a way that's actually hard for me to watch. I found myself looking through the lenses (youtube video, FPS environment) that I normally view escapist media through but, instead of an escape, all I saw was a reflection of my real-life monotony. I felt profoundly trapped. I think parts of this script are pretty general and I've heard them a lot lately: "I'm unhappy but also really lucky," "everybody's suffering this year," "hope is on the horizon," etc. I think it's definitely going to help contextualize this video for people who watch it in future years, when the pandemic is no longer fresh in our collective memory, but for me right now it feels less original than the insights I'm used to hearing from you.

What became a chance to catch up on media and chores turned into a prolonged sense of isolation that saps many of energy. I never had much energy but despite having all the time in the world, I am no less productive than I was before. Your problems may not be as extreme as others but they are problems non-the less. It effects everything. I may be an extreme introvert myself but even I desire some form of other activity other than staying sedentary. The studies from this pandemic will be studied for years to come.

Nicholas Mew

My skinner box has been Genshin Impact and, even though I can feel how overtly harmful its gacha feedback loop is, I don't seem to have the will to do anything else with my free time. I lost my job right at the start of all this when my wife was 3 months pregnant with our first child. It's been kind of a double edged situation, I've been able to care for the baby and watch him grow but he's the only person I interact with and not a great conversationalist yet. I was keeping in touch with friends on Discord up until a few months ago and totally crashed. Now its just baby and Genshin Impact. I can't even imagine what "going back to normal" would even entail anymore and it feels like, while I haven't lost any family to it, there has been a profound loss that won't be reclaimed when it's over.

Darron Perry Jr

hype

Cagey Videos

Really solidly expressed, nothing in here that feels 'cringe' or 'embarrassing.' I particularly appreciate the work on those form shifts, too. What you're describing is an interesting thing in my study about the boundaries of play and the ability to adapt that lusury attitude Suits describes. I keep telling students that 'play is consensual,' because you have to choose to be playing... and right now, you're having a hard time making that choice, because your choices are limited. Games are not in contrast to twenty different things. They're in contrast to one thing. That's got to be draining.

Talen Lee

Been REALLY feelin your recent tweets on this topic and related stuff over quarantine, so I'm quite looking forward to watching this one 👍

LGR

Putting your pen to paper allowed you to verbalize and identify a lot of the same feelings about games and broader media that I've also sense have developed in the past year. So thank you. Also, I hope you are giving yourself creativity credit for rigging up your virtual Worklifetorium.

Steven Vanderveer

I feel your acute awareness about "complaining" when comparatively everything is... ok. This pandemic has actually be the best year of my life. my kids are grown, my job converted to work from home which is my ideal situation, and ideal game to work on, I've been creatively on fire, and I've always been enough of a home-body that being home doesn't bother me at all. But damn, staying connected with friends and family on social media and seeing how many of them are going through all sorts of hell sure does take my joy down several notches. Being at home all the time doesn't remove us from the web of culture that our social-animal-brains resonate with. I spend a decent chunk of my life now trying to figure out what I can do to help friends and loved one's cope with their tragedies.

Josh Foreman

I didn't think it was obvious or wanky. I thought it was a really good go at bringing out a particular way of being. I'm not sure I've come across such a clear and straightforward expression of the kind of habits and feelings you've describe. I hope that the change in circumstances coming down the line does help lift things, but I do think it's still going be quite a bit of work - on top of that - for a lot of people (including myself) to change these habits and these feelings. With that in mind, I thought that bringing up *trying* to play different games and finding that, right now, they ask too much of you, was important and I'm glad you did.

Zetetic

I'm very glad for you and your family that some things like employment have not gone too poorly, and I believe that is no reason to speak negatively on how you're emotionally feeling in spite of that. We're all simultaneously experiencing an ongoing traumatic event on a global scale, and to deny that or minimize it in any way for yourself would be to not participate in, what I would consider, absolutely necessary self-care. I think it's extremely admirable that you're so compassionate for others' situations who are in some ways worse off while you yourself are feeling poorly, but I would hope that compassion doesn't prevent you from partaking in said self-care. On the video itself - genuinely, there was nothing "cringe" at all about this video. I personally am a patron and a subscriber to hear your perspectives on most everything, not just crunchy video game analysis, and I'm sure others feel the same way.

great name

James Mason