Effort

At the time of writing, my eyes are the weight of cement; I'm wired tired via the wombo combo of Whiskey and four hours sleep. Not the best combo, I know, but it's nothing to worry about, this is a once a month occurrence, not a once a day occurrence. However, it has brought to light something I don't think about much.

Normally when I'm in my room like this, I'll boot up a video game. Either one related to work, something on Game Pass, or just one that's a good thing to kick back and relax with. Just Cause, Borderlands or Halo.

However, upon booting up Teardown today, a game that's great for sitting in a calm environment, preparing your ultimate destruction fantasies, I found that in this current mindset, I don't have the energy or encouragement for it.

Asking someone to piece together puzzles, line up objects and items with pin-point accuracy, or figure out their average speed for traversing X amount of distance, is too damn much.

And that's the unique thing about games. They require effort from the player. That is their pull, but I'm sure for millions of people, that's precisely what pushes them away. When coming back home, stressed out either from tedium of bitchwork, or the peer pressure of holding people's livelihoods in your hands, is a game of Squad, or Siege really what the Doctor calls for?

There's been numerous times I've seen a friend's day get worse when booting up their favorite game, because their down depressed mindset is hampering their ability to be rewarded by the game via their actions.

No other art form does that.

Okay, clearly, there's a market for people being angry over bad movies and shows, yes, but the activity isn't what pushed them to that point, there wasn't any action to begin with. You pressed play, and then disliked what it presented.

You weren't upset by a song on Spotify hampering your progress because you're not dancing enthusiastically enough, yet this is how games work.

Dara O'Briain has a great Stand Up routine about this.

"Rarely would a book stop you and go 'Are you understanding the book? Talk to me about the characters development in the initial three chapters. What themes have emerged?' And if you incorrectly answer, it goes, 'Read the chapters again.'"'

Now, the obvious counter to this is "don't play games if you're not wanting to participate in a medium where participation is at its core," to which I fully agree. While not every game needs to be Guitar Hero Expert Mode levels of button coordination, games should have at least some form of interaction from the player, even if minimal.

But that doesn't make it any less strange to write about games for a living, and not be in a mindset to play them sometimes. I would like to think that, while not suitable for a critical analysis, I could watch a movie with one eye open. It wouldn't be fair, but it would be possible.

Games? 

Not unless it's Beyond: Two Souls.