The Juggling Act

While it's true talking about video games for a living forges a different relationship with the medium, all of are living through an age of bounty. There are too many video games to play, and it's impossible to ever feel "caught up."

The concept of "choice" and the overabundance of "choice" has been a reoccurring theme in this ongoing letter series with Rob and Patrick, and comes up here, too. This can often lead to a situation where you spend time with an excellent game and move on, creating a weird sense of guilt. It's my free time, I should spend it how I like? And yet, as you watch the games pile up, it can feel a little weird!

Rob and Patrick couldn't be more different in terms of the types of games they play, too. Which is probably a good place to transition to the conversation itself...

Patrick: So Rob, I’m not sure about you, but at any given time, I’m trying to juggle between three or four games that I’m playing at the same time. Some games require patience and focus and a dark room, others can be played with one eye while still chatting with one of my daughters. I took inventory before writing this, and here are the games I’m in the middle of at the moment:

• Arco (93.9 hours. I’m guessing you’re wrong about that one, Steam. Probably 10?)
• UFO 50 (Steam says 81.3 hours, which is also incorrect. More like two hours.)
• Tactical Breach Wizards (2 hours)
• Star Wars: Outlaws (3 hours)
• Iron Meat (1 hour)
• The Plucky Square (5 hours)
• NFL Retro Bowl 25 (5 hours)
• Black Myth: Wukong (4 hours)
• Arranger (2 hours)

That is not three for four games, but if I’m being honest, I’m not actually juggling all of those games, either. Some of those games—Arranger, Black Myth: Wukong, Star Wars Outlaws—are prime candidates for being left behind entirely. I will, inevitably, tell myself I’ll “play them over the holidays” to feel better.” NFL Retro Bowl 25 is something I pluck at when I want to push my brain further into mush after the Bears have disappointed me yet again on Sunday. It also doesn’t have an “ending,” really, so there’s nothing to work towards except feeling done with it.

One of my ongoing flaws is finishing games that I start, which at its best means I’m playing 7/10 games and having experiences that better inform my view of the medium, while other times it means I begin to look like a gaming hoarder who can’t make up their mind. My two children are now old enough to take care of themselves through broad swathes of the day, which is opening up more hours for me to play games, but I seem to be amassing more video games, instead?

A few weekends ago, my wife was out of town and I had five children in the house at once, but they were all playing nice with one another and I managed to play Astro Bot on my couch, beer in hand, for two hours straight without being meaningfully interrupted. One of the neighborhood parents asked if I needed help, but I declined it because I did not want to interrupt the universe.

Anyway, it reminds me of an ongoing conversation we’ve had this year about overwhelming choice. Now, it’s true that our line of work means that we’re playing more games than the average person because we need something to talk about on a podcast, but I find myself doing this with television and movies all the time, too! Every time I boot up our family room Apple TV and see how many shows my wife and I have left lingering four episodes in, I turn the TV off.

I simply do not see it. And then I start a new TV show. How is Slow Horses? 

But then eventually, the guilt catches up. I managed to see the endings to Nine Sols and Valley Peaks a few weeks back because I finally said “fuck it” and dedicated an evening to both of them. I’ll probably do the same with Arco, because I can feel the ending of that on the horizon.

You and I couldn’t be more different when it comes to the games we play, though. There is a little bit of overlap, though, but you tend to play more evergreen-ish games, experiences where there is no definitive ending to signal “hey, you could move on if you want to.” Obviously, I’m on the other end of the spectrum, where I’m put off by games that can’t be wrapped up in a bow. I get the sense that you don’t feel nearly as much of a hangup about leaving a game behind.

But it also means I end up dipping between lots of games and not finishing many of them. How do you manage feeling “full” on a game? What do you take as a signal to move on?

Rob: A thing I got from my time covering esports was a recognition that some games you can dedicate your life to and keep learning new things, and there are people out there who will and do. I might have a fairly broad view of strategy games but I will never understand StarCraft a fraction as well as someone who is moved to write an essay over on Team Liquid. So there are a lot of games you could never really finish in terms of mastering them or fully understanding them. So you can’t say, “I’ll be finished with this when I really understand it.” You might never get there, because the more you understand the more you’ll realize you don’t know.