I wonder if I keep coming back to wanting to play Counter-Strike and old school shoot ‘em ups because those games taught me to be a much, much better navigator in crowded spaces.
I’m not in the mood of playing Bloodborne because oppressing atmosphere+dying every 90 seconds is not what I want when in real life it’s open season on black people. I can’t be in the mood.
Going from there, I feel like escapism is… Ambiguous. Games are so good at that though. We just “try” and then it’s three, four hours later. And then we’re just kind of confused and weirdly satisfied?
The Indie Soapbox this year had Jenova Chen wonder about what’s going on with games and if he is asking too much, wanting them to be more than what they are now.
You know something with a big, positive impact culturally and socially? Really memorable, across generations games? Are we doing this with or without competitiveness? How? Very difficult questions to answer.