“Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”
As far back as I can remember, I’ve loved video games; the way they draw you into their stories and their worlds, at times simply as an entertainment but during others an escapist fantasy. They give us something to fixate on and enjoy while dealing with life’s inherent and unpredictable difficulties, the only things we need in those moments being space and time.
I’ve written in past newsletters about how 2022 hasn’t been a great year for me personally, but one thing I haven’t mentioned, largely because I don’t want to offend or make anyone in particular feel like I’m calling them out, is how the streaming community that I was part of, enjoyed being a part of, has almost completely and utterly collapsed.
For the past three years, hanging out with folks in their streams and getting to know them and their communities while they played the games they were passionate about was one of the few things I truly enjoyed doing; staying up after three in the morning as someone explored Death Stranding for the first time, cheering on speedrun attempts of old platformers, and watching powerful foes be felled in any given From Software game.
For completely normal, understandable, and relatable reasons, none of those people stream anymore.
“But Bon”, you may say, “there are hundreds of thousands of streamers on Twitch; why don’t you go find some new communities to hang out with?”
Because they’re not those people.
I miss spending time with those people.
As weirdly parasocial as it may be to say, I love those people.
I recently streamed the entirety of the story of Monster Hunter: World, a title I had purchased near its launch in early 2018 and just last weekend completed in any approximation of the word. It was the second-longest game I’ve ever streamed; a complicated, 70-hour campaign that, despite that amount of time, was a fairly smooth experience, with the exception of the eight-plus hours of attempts at fighting Nergigante.
And I had a bunch of new people come into chat and follow me, inquiring if I wanted to play the game with them. I don’t really understand why people do this, though it was the lesser of two evils. What irked me far more were those that came in to “help”; who identified all of the things I should be doing instead, and became frustrated when I didn’t do those things.
Maybe it’s cynical to think this, but neither of those types of people actually cared about helping; they just wanted to insert themselves, and were only there because of the game. When it becomes clear I won’t be playing any more Monster Hunter, I doubt I’ll see any of them again.
As much as I love video games, as much as they’ve been there for me in times I needed them to be, I would happily give up streaming for the relationships I’ve made as a streamer.
I get it. In 2022, an awful year for me, one filled with life challenges and anxieties, the worst tendencies of my work-goblinism have unsheathed their horrifying claws and left me burnt out beyond my own recognition. Amidst this, my passion for video games and streaming can only be charitably described as inconsistent. A notable example is that I ordered my Playdate sixteen months ago, it arrived early last week, and it’s still in the box it shipped in.
But one of the things I miss the most is being able to have new experiences and explore new things with those people, my friends.
So, to quote Tim Rogers:
I’m here.
I’m right here.
I will always be right here.
This is the last edition of Want to Be Free.
Thank you for reading.