An End to Everything

No E3 this year. Xbox did it's thing, but it was difficult to feel anything.

It is, for me, becoming increasingly difficult to relate to the people that consume or make video games. I work full-time in one of those real careers where I do something that makes civilization, at it's core, function. I am raising kids because being a responsible parent is a core component of sustaining the species. I am a modern day husband, sharing all the duties of house and home, because equality is an important social standard to uphold.

But fuck if all that doesn't sit on my shoulders like a dragon perched on the steeple of a Southern church built on more swamp than soil. At the end of the day I want to have positive social experiences with adults without having to manage a million logins, install patches, update the OS, and all the other bullshit that comes along with modern games. 

Modern games...ugh, what a joke they are becoming. Souls-likes that demand more attention than a 5 year old. Competitive shooters that think you need to achieve more than holding a piece of human civilization on your aging shoulders. Single-player movies that exist just to self-exault the creative team or deliver a message because "art is power", as I choke on the corruption that all this art is so powerfully not repelling.

The thing that probably bothers me the most is that modern video games are made for modern consumers. This is the stuff that people want. Modern games aren't made for people like me. We aren't supposed to like games. Games are for people with an immense amount of time on their hands. Games are for people that need to feel accomplished. Games are for people that need to find meaning in pushing buttons and staring at a screen. People like me have already devoted their time, accomplished what needs to be accomplished, and have made a meaningful impact in some way. What could we want out of a video game?

Maybe it is time to hang it up. Maybe video games, in that sense, really are for people that aren't carrying a tremendous amout of responsibility. Maybe that is what people mean by "video games are for kids". It isn't that responsible people shouldn't play video games, but that these games aren't made for responsible people. Not that anything really is made to relieve a responsible person's sense of Sisyphean stress. It wouldn't be responsible to relieve that stress. 

As with E3, and so many other things, I suppose it is best to embrace the end. My time has passed. It is just another place that I don't belong.