Videogames Shouldn’t Be Work
This column is a reprint from Unwinnable Monthly #182. If you like what you see, grab the magazine for less than ten dollars, or subscribe and get all future magazines for half price.
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Here’s the Thing is where Rob dumps his random thoughts and strong opinions on all manner of nerdy subjects – from videogames and movies to board games and toys.
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I want to be clear up front in that this is not a condemnation of the concept of playing games as a job – be it streaming, eSports, reviewing, or other things I haven’t been able to remember for the sake of this explanation. Similarly, there’s nothing wrong with game mechanics that are intricate or tedious enough to feel almost work-like. But here’s the thing: Playing games for fun or entertainment purposes definitely shouldn’t feel like work.
What do I really mean by that? Well, let’s look at No Man’s Sky as a recent example. For me, anyway. This is a game that you buy once and are set for life, with no paid DLC or in-game purchases requiring real money or premium currencies that have to be bought with real money, and with an impressively long (and ever-growing) list of free content updates that add new items, missions, gear and sometimes entire gameplay mechanics. But then there are the Expeditions.
For the sake of brevity, if you’re not familiar with Expeditions they’re basically limited-time events you can take part in to earn special in-game goodies. None of it is essential for progression or anything like that, but if you want that special starship or to be able to enlist the help of Mass Effect’s Normandy in your frigate fleet, you’re gonna want to do them. And if you fail to complete all the predetermined tasks before the event ends, you’re out of luck. Unless you’re playing on a computer and don’t mind editing your save file, at least.
Zenless Zone Zero (and a multitude of free-to-play games that are like it) does this as well, with special characters you can only potentially unlock during a specific event period, and special in-game events you can join to earn extra in-game items and premium currencies. Once the window closes, you’ll have to wait for the next event to kick off for bonus items, but you’re SoL on that special character unless they pop up again at some point in the future for another event – which thus far hasn’t happened since the game’s initial launch about five months ago.
This is where the “work” starts to seep in. Limited time events like these aren’t inherently a bad thing, Hello Games isn’t bad for offering them and people aren’t bad for participating. But it does suck when you don’t always have the time to play games or the desire to play one specific game when you do have time. Hence my bellyaching. When a game has limited events like this and you want to get what they offer, you have to play. Maybe not every day or for hours at a time, but it is a requirement.
It bothers me a little less (but just a little) with free-to-play games because they need to earn a profit and make money to continue support. Still bothers me a lot either way, though.
Like a lot of people who play videogames, I do so for the purposes of my own entertainment. Sometimes I want to unwind, or feel immersed, or derive satisfaction from a fictional task, have fun, laugh, see where a story goes, and so on. What I vehemently do not want to play games in my downtime for is some misguided feeling of obligation. I get enough of that shit with my “not even barely scraping by despite juggling three freelance writing gigs at the same time” day-to-day. So, of course, one of the last things I want when I’m trying to enjoy myself is to have that feeling of yet another time-sensitive task hanging over my head.
As per usual, I don’t have an answer to any of this. It’s a thing and I hate it, but I know it’s not going to change anytime soon and I’m not even sure it needs to if I’m being honest. This is ultimately just an aspect of some modern videogames that I don’t like. It sucks for me, and probably at least a few other people. But sometimes it’s the only way I’ll stay engaged with a particular title during a given week.
Is that a good thing? I don’t necessarily think so, but it’s not a blatantly vile thing either. I suppose I do wish that non-free games would do me the kindness of introducing events without giving them an expiration date, at least.
I just know I hate the way it is now and wish it would stop.
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Rob Rich is a guy who’s loved nerdy stuff since the 80s, from videogames to Anime to Godzilla to Power Rangers toys to Transformers, and has had the good fortune of being able to write about them all. He’s also editor for the Games section of Exploits! You can still find him on Bluesky and Mastodon.
