Climbing Games Are Fun Because They're Not Fun

0:00 All right, so I can't be the only one that's noticed this, but why

0:04 the hell are there so many games coming

0:06 out right now that are all about climbing?

0:09 Seriously, it seems like out of absolutely nowhere,

0:12 this whole new genre of games has

0:14 suddenly appeared that every indie developer out

0:16 there who's not making a bilateral knockoff seems to be trying their hand at.

0:19 And with one or two exceptions, up until like 5 years ago,

0:23 this kind of game may as well not have existed.

0:26 But now they're everywhere.

0:28 Just off the top of my head, we've got Peaks of Y, Jant,

0:31 a difficult game about climbing, Valley Peaks,

0:34 Only Up, Chained Together, Bet and Brutal,

0:36 Lawn's Lure, the upcoming and already excellent Ken,

0:40 Baby Steps, and White Knuckle,

0:41 as well as the recent mega hit that inspired this whole video, Peak.

0:45 There is an absolute avalanche of games in this very specific

0:48 micro genre with more on the way every time you look.

0:51 And while I'm hardly the only person to have pointed this out,

0:53 and while not all of these games are actually, you know,

0:57 good, the question remains of why is this happening now?

1:01 Because let's be real here,

1:02 it's not like Climbing is some sort of recent fad in the real world,

1:05 like the way everyone tricked themselves into thinking chess was

1:07 cool for exactly 8 months after The Queen's Gambit came out.

1:10 And it's not as if games have undergone some sort of major technological

1:13 or control systems leap that suddenly

1:14 made developing these kinds of games possible.

1:17 And yet, that's not stopped a genre so recent

1:20 that it doesn't even have its own theme tag

1:21 from exploding in popularity to the point that some

1:23 of its entries are the most successful games of the year.

1:26 So, that begs the question,

1:29 where did this recent wave of climbing themed games come from?

1:32 And why do I think it's important enough to be worth making a whole video about?

1:36 Well, it's because I think Peak, Getting Over It,

1:39 and all those other games are secretly part of a growing

1:41 trend in video games that's only getting more popular.

1:44 one that operates entirely at odds to conventional

1:47 design wisdom and offers us a unique

1:49 kind of experience that until now most developers have been unable to give us.

1:54 What is that, I hear you ask?

1:56 Well, I suppose the simplest way to put

1:58 it is that climbing titles and other games like

2:00 them are distinguished by the fact that they aren't

2:02 afraid to offer us a little taste of hostility.

2:07 See, the thing that characterizes this recent trend of climbing

2:09 games more so than anything else isn't just that they're difficult.

2:12 These titles are without exception mechanically demanding, very tense,

2:17 and if you screw up a single jump or misjudge your stamina for a second,

2:20 incredibly punishing.

2:22 Playing almost any one of these games,

2:24 from the hellish chained together to the horror themed white knuckle,

2:27 is downright exhausting.

2:28 With every meter you climb, the consequences for failure only get larger,

2:31 and your brain only gets more and more fatigued,

2:33 having to deal with both the pressure of not

2:35 messing up the handhold in front of you,

2:36 but also the precise route planning required to get

2:38 to the next even more unforgiving leg of the climb.

2:41 These games are hard work to play, and frankly,

2:44 they're not even that enjoyable while you're playing them either.

2:47 The momentto moment experience of playing one of these climbing

2:49 themed titles is dominated by negative emotional stimuli.

2:52 There's none of the exhilaration you get from an action

2:55 game or the eureka moments of a puzzler.

2:57 The only constant in a climbing game is

2:59 that your mind is being put under strain, and often your body is too,

3:02 because god damn do these games love deliberately fiddly

3:05 control schemes that make your hands ache after a while,

3:07 which only reinforces their inherently stressful nature.

3:10 And the really interesting thing about this recent run

3:13 of climbing themed games is that their punitive, tiring, and well,

3:17 hostile design stands in stark contrast to how climbing has

3:21 been portrayed in mainstream games for the past few decades.

3:24 If you look at stuff like Assassin's Creed, Uncharted, Dying Light,

3:27 or really any big AAA game with climbing in it,

3:30 you'll find that it's designed to be so

3:31 buttery smooth and so forgiving that it's practically automatic.

3:34 And it's designed at every turn, not to frustrate or exhaust you,

3:37 but to give you a feeling of nice,

3:39 simple empowerment, or to just nominally occupy

3:41 your brain while some terrain loads in the background.

3:44 Everywhere you look, there are nice,

3:45 clearly signposted handholds that Nathan Drake kindly

3:48 does all the work of navigating for you.

3:49 And if you just so happen to mess up one

3:51 of the few incredibly generous failure states, then don't worry,

3:54 you'll get put right back where you started

3:56 instead of at the bottom of a mountain

3:58 with nothing to show for your efforts except a wasted hour and tired hands.

4:02 However, as you might have guessed,

4:04 it is the very fact that the gameplay in this new

4:06 wave of hostile indie climbing games is in equal parts frustrating,

4:10 mentally taxing, and at times downright unfair that is key to its success.

4:14 And by positioning itself as a polar opposite experience to the shallow,

4:17 empty spectacle of mainstream climbing,

4:19 these new hostile games stand to offer us a much deeper,

4:22 more satisfying experience, albeit one that we have to work much harder for.

4:26 As anyone who's climbed to the peak in peak

4:28 or tried their hand at getting over it can attest,

4:31 these climbing century games remain incredibly

4:33 compelling and weirdly addictive in spite

4:36 of the fact that they are frequently not that fun to actually play.

4:39 I've lost count of the number of times I've just barely misjudged

4:42 a jump in white knuckle and ended up hurling away an entire

4:44 run leading to me rage quitting the game only to find myself

4:47 guilty booting it back up half an hour later for another go.

4:50 And just as frequently,

4:52 me and my friends have spent the better part of 2 hours yelling at each

4:55 other and stressing out about our dwindling

4:57 resources and the terrain generation in Peak,

4:59 only to find ourselves fondly reminiscing

5:01 about those very same grueling exercises

5:03 of masochism a few days later as we prep for another run.

5:07 Basically, what I'm talking about is

5:09 that climbing games and other similarly hostile

5:11 titles draw their appeal from a fundamentally

5:14 different place than many other games.

5:16 namely the cathalis that comes from that brilliant release of stress

5:19 and pressure that can only arise after a stretch of exhausting stressful effort.

5:23 And this puts them completely aligned

5:25 with more mainstream design principles that are

5:27 all about hammering your brain's reward mechanisms

5:29 as hard and as fast as possible.

5:31 Games with hostile design are unique in the fact that they're

5:33 actually kind of miserable and stressful while you're playing them.

5:36 Almost as if the designers hate you

5:37 and are deliberately wishing a bad time upon you.

5:40 But once the struggle is over and you're able to look

5:42 back on that hostile experience with a bit of distance,

5:44 all the suffering you went through suddenly transforms

5:47 into a compelling and emotionally involved story about triumphing over hardship,

5:50 just one you were unable to appreciate while it was actually happening.

5:54 And this is what makes hostile games

5:55 of varying kinds from survival titles to souls likes

5:58 to climbing games feel deeply satisfying over the long

6:01 term rather than just being a quick thrill.

6:04 The fundamental appeal of hostile games has also been described

6:07 as type two fun in certain corners of the internet

6:10 and is a term you may recognize if you

6:11 are sufficiently poisoned by social media like I am.

6:14 And it's a pretty apt turn of phrase because

6:16 the distinction between exhausting but satisfying catharsis and traditional,

6:19 more immediately enjoyable type 1 fun was originally coined

6:23 by a professional climber to describe the fun of real life climbing.

6:26 And I think the fact that games are starting

6:28 to experiment with new kinds of relationships with us players,

6:31 especially ones that don't rely on a transactional exchange of dopamine,

6:34 is a really exciting step in their development,

6:36 particularly when you consider that many of these hostile

6:38 games would have been a completely impossible cell.

6:41 Both the publishers and the gaming public at large as recently as a decade ago.

6:45 If you don't believe me about how

6:46 quickly attitudes to hostile games are changing,

6:48 look at how much people, myself included,

6:50 hated and didn't get Death Stranding when it came out.

6:53 and now it's a rightly beloved classic

6:55 with the sequel being received to universal acclaim.

6:58 However, even though we can confidently say that hostile games

7:01 are on the rise and compare them to more traditional titles,

7:04 the question remains of how these kinds

7:06 of cathartic type 2 fun games actually work.

7:10 What is it that transforms struggle

7:12 and effort into a sense of deep satisfaction?

7:14 And what separates a good,

7:16 deliberately designed cathartic experience that artfully uses negative

7:19 emotional stimuli to torture and stress you out towards

7:22 a greater aim from a title that is

7:24 just straight up not fun because it's badly designed.

7:27 These new kinds of games work so differently

7:29 from typical mainstream design that it can be

7:32 ironically kind of a challenge to articulate their appeal

7:35 and understand why we end up enjoying them.

7:37 So, in an attempt to get the ball rolling, to my mind,

7:40 it all comes down to carefully balancing

7:42 the buildup of pressure and stress with the eventual

7:45 satisfying release that catalyzes all those negative

7:48 feelings into a sense of long-term satisfaction.

7:51 And while that might sound simple, maintaining that sense of tension,

7:54 not to mention paying it off in a satisfying manner,

7:56 is much harder to do and requires way

7:59 more clever tricks than you may have initially anticipated.

8:02 Let's start by looking at the idea that hostile cathartic games

8:06 can only work if you actually get to the catharsis part.

8:10 The feeling you get of reaching the peak of a huge mountain

8:13 after going through all the trials and tribulations along the way is great.

8:16 But if you hit a roadblock or die halfway up and decide to just bail completely,

8:20 then you get an incomplete unsatisfying experience

8:23 because all those negative emotions were never resolved.

8:26 And so a huge part of the design of cathartic

8:28 games lies in maintaining a sense of heightened tension.

8:31 the biggest possible payoff, but not piling on so much that it snaps

8:34 and we never reach the resolution we're looking for.

8:37 You see how difficult this is to pull off all the time in rogue likes.

8:40 The whole appeal of this genre comes from being hurled into a random setup

8:43 with a high level of difficulty and being

8:45 tasked with making the most of limited resources,

8:47 often against some sort of time limit with the promiso that if you fail,

8:50 it's all getting taken away.

8:52 As you can imagine, this is a recipe for some great stress and tension

8:56 that requires you to struggle against the game

8:57 systems just as much as the enemies.

8:59 that all gets finally resolved once you reach the end after god knows

9:02 how many attempts and you get to breathe a sigh of well-earned relief.

9:05 However, many rogue likes, particularly ones of the old school persuasion,

9:09 are so punishing and take so long to reach any kind

9:12 of resolution that it doesn't matter how deliciously difficult they might be.

9:16 Most players emotionally check out long

9:18 before they've even understood these games,

9:19 meaning that they only get half an experience and it's not the fun half.

9:23 Conversely, many modern rogue likes that are too forgiving and dampen

9:27 the threat of failure by guaranteeing you'll get a consolation prize

9:30 in the form of meta progression resources often fail to generate

9:33 enough tension for getting to the end to be truly satisfying.

9:36 The trick lies in striking a balance

9:39 in making setbacks feel appropriately dangerous and threatening,

9:42 but always keeping the destination in reach.

9:44 The battle of attrition in games like Into the Breach

9:46 or Pacific Drive where setbacks and difficult choices are happening constantly,

9:50 but no single one is going to completely wipe you out,

9:53 for example, are great at keeping the pressure up and maintaining

9:55 that allimportant feeling that you're struggling

9:57 against the game without being unnecessarily punitive.

10:00 And Spelunky, king of the modern rogike for a reason,

10:03 instead gives the player multiple chances to resolve

10:05 their tension based on their skill level.

10:07 For a new player, the struggle to just get to the end of the first

10:10 zone and get past this bastard is a heroic struggle all of its own.

10:13 while more experienced players can concern themselves with getting all the way

10:16 to the bottom and enjoy a commensurately

10:18 larger payoff that doesn't exclude newer players.

10:20 It's just something bigger to shoot

10:21 for once you're more comfortable with the game.

10:23 The key thing to remember is that the arc of struggle to eventual

10:26 payoff happens entirely in the player's mind

10:28 and is subject entirely to our perception.

10:31 How challenging a game actually is is

10:33 much less important than how hostile it feels.

10:36 Just look at for example,

10:38 a climbing game that I quite enjoyed on its own merits,

10:40 but definitely fails in the hostility department.

10:42 And it's for one simple reason.

10:44 It doesn't matter how grueling his climbs may be

10:46 or how many cool leaps of faith you've got to make.

10:49 When you've got this big blue omnipresent safety line subconsciously reminding

10:53 you that there's no penalty for failure and that you're always safe,

10:55 it robs some otherwise cool climbs of their tension and thus also their payoff.

11:00 Conversely, the sort of proto climbing game grow up is similarly not

11:04 very hard at all and has loads of affordances in the player's favor,

11:07 but uses some great camera trickery and a sense of scale to make it seem

11:11 like you're on much more precarious terrain

11:12 and in much more danger than you actually are,

11:15 making scaling its big central space plant incredibly exhilarating,

11:18 in spite of the fact that you've got stuff like

11:20 a little mini glider to bail you out if you fall.

11:22 And of course, I would be a fool not to mention

11:24 climbing games of the rage platformer persuasion inspired by Getting Over It.

11:28 These games love making any setback seem

11:31 much larger than they actually are by suspending

11:33 you above what appears to be empty air

11:34 or by making your fall long and humiliating.

11:37 Artfully obscuring the fact that they usually

11:39 just dump you somewhere relatively easy to bounce

11:41 back from, giving you all the stress

11:42 of potential failure to keep that tension level high,

11:45 but with much less of the potential for you to rage quit when you eventually do.

11:49 This is a very clever aspect of design

11:51 that is sadly not present in several streamer

11:53 bait games like only up and its various

11:56 derivatives where you can stand to lose hours

11:59 of progress from a single mistake which rather

12:01 than encouraging you to tackle the climb again

12:03 and this time conquer it usually just leads

12:05 to people giving up and never coming back.

12:07 Of course, these tricks get used in non-climbing games as well.

12:10 Many of our most beloved hostile feeling games across a whole variety

12:14 of genres feel oppressive and cruel and like they're not playing fair.

12:18 But in reality, that's a carefully calibrated illusion,

12:21 serving to put us in a stressfilled

12:23 frame of mind while still making progress possible.

12:25 Lisa the Painful constantly has you making

12:27 gruesome sacrifices and getting victimized by RNG,

12:30 but extra party members are common place,

12:32 and even though something like losing an arm is a gamewingly memorable setback,

12:36 it doesn't make combat that much less easy.

12:38 In Rainworld, the opaque enemy behaviors and brutal deaths

12:41 serve to make its post-apocalyptic environments feel incredibly threatening.

12:45 But this is all in service of making you learn what makes them tick,

12:48 which is a very rewarding process.

12:50 And yes, in my sweet son XCOM, soldier deaths and the constantly evolving

12:54 alien threat do seem incredibly overbearing,

12:57 but actually losing the game is relatively difficult to do.

13:00 It just always feels like you're on the brink.

13:02 This brings me neatly onto the idea that games

13:04 can only do so much to create tension.

13:06 Ultimately, we have a responsibility to make things difficult for ourselves

13:10 in order to create a worthwhile reward in the end.

13:13 Now, if that sounds counterintuitive, then you would be absolutely correct.

13:17 All of these negative emotions that we go through as part of a stressful,

13:20 tense experience are things that we naturally don't want to be happening.

13:24 But if we deliberately mitigate them,

13:25 then we won't get the reward for having gone through them.

13:28 Essentially, games have to encourage a bit of masochism.

13:30 And that's often easier said than done because human brains love to optimize.

13:34 And when we set ourselves to optimizing risk and stress out of something,

13:38 we're usually pretty good at it.

13:39 So, it behooves games to incentivize risky and dangerous behaviors that are

13:43 against our own interest going to put us in more stressful,

13:46 more demanding situations that will eventually

13:48 lead to a better cathartic payoff.

13:50 The simplest interpretation of this idea can

13:52 be seen in climbing games like Peak,

13:54 where icy fog is constantly rising from below and your food

13:57 level is slowly ticking down until you pass out and die.

14:01 This adds a constant worry in the back of any player's mind that they

14:04 aren't going fast enough and pushes you

14:06 into taking dangerous leaps and risky climbs, which is where the best,

14:09 most stressful gameplay can be found rather than giving you as much time

14:12 as you need to play it safe and have a much less interesting,

14:14 less stressful climb as a result.

14:16 Equally, The Tough as Nails White Knuckle doubles down

14:19 on its oppressive horror theming by deliberately obiscating its stamina system.

14:24 The only way you can tell how much stamina you've got left is by looking

14:27 at how red your hands are with this opaque factor creating much more stress

14:31 and more importantly encouraging you to hurry

14:33 and take risks much more readily than if there was a nice clean bar allowing you

14:36 to plan around your stamina much more effectively.

14:39 White Knuckle also has a sort of push your luck

14:41 element where the more climbing tools you take with you,

14:43 the heavier and slower you get,

14:45 punishing you for overpreparing and subtly encouraging riskier,

14:48 more danger play styles.

14:50 Limiting factors in general are a great way to encourage tenser,

14:53 riskier, and more stress inducing gameplay.

14:56 Loads of work simulator games like

14:57 Hotspace Shipbreaker and Uncle Chop's Rocket Shop,

15:00 which are about disassembling and fixing spaceships, respectively,

15:03 use time limits and the threat of getting paid less

15:05 for being slow to encourage you to cut corners and act recklessly.

15:08 Because these situations are going to lead

15:10 to interesting setbacks and disasters to recover

15:12 from if you fail and a heightened level of stress even if you succeed.

15:15 But an even more effective way to put players under pressure is to have

15:19 optimal efficient play directly lead

15:21 to an everinccreasing sense of risk and danger.

15:24 11-bit Studios, creators of a bunch of superbly masochistic management games,

15:28 do this wonderfully.

15:29 In The Altars, for example, which is all about making clones of yourself,

15:33 it's clearly efficient to make as many copies

15:35 as you can to give yourself the biggest workforce possible.

15:37 But this is complicated by the fact that every clone has its own bespoke issues

15:41 and flaws for you to deal with that you don't get to see in advance,

15:44 leading to some nasty surprises.

15:46 To give an early game example,

15:48 you might naturally gravitate towards minor Jan as your first alter.

15:51 But you'll soon find that, oh, whoops,

15:53 he's actually got a body dysmorphia and is addicted to painkillers and will

15:56 generally be a massive liability and there's no way to get rid of him.

15:59 Good luck.

16:00 He still is a increase to your base's overall efficiency,

16:02 but him and his varied mental breakdowns also

16:05 introduce a bunch of new problems that you've

16:07 got to deal with on top of potentially

16:08 starving or getting scorched to death by the sun.

16:10 The up andcoming new hotness that is extraction shooters also play

16:13 on this dynamic extensively in order

16:15 to create their legendarily high stakes gameplay.

16:18 The better gear you bring into a mission, the more likely you are to stand

16:21 a chance against the AI baddies and other players.

16:23 Not to mention that you'll probably be able to haul more loot back as well.

16:26 But in the event it all goes wrong, you've got way more to lose.

16:30 Meaning that even when you're at your most powerful,

16:32 things are still super tense,

16:33 and you've got to make decisions about whether you want to risk getting even

16:36 more booty or whether just escaping

16:37 with your cool rare gear is the sensible move.

16:40 It's great.

16:41 On the subject of increasing player skill, it's not enough for games to provide

16:45 merely a constant level of stress and pressure

16:47 if they want to reap the rewards of a big cathartic payoff at the end.

16:51 Not only are we naturally going to attenuate and get

16:53 used to a background level of stress over time,

16:55 but our skills are going to be constantly increasing,

16:58 reducing the level of pressure, the more our confidence grows.

17:01 No otherwise great hostile game proves this better than Death Stranding.

17:05 Towards the start of the game,

17:06 when you're hoofing it across rugged terrain on foot,

17:09 having to stay constantly vigilant in order to keep your balance,

17:11 where a BT attack is a terrifying threat, and you got to really carefully plan

17:15 your route to manage stamina and your weight.

17:17 The game is this fantastic exercise in draining,

17:20 high pressure work that feels very rewarding

17:22 to finally resolve through nothing but your own perseverance.

17:25 But the problem is Daddy Kajjima loves nothing

17:28 more than giving us new toys to play with.

17:30 And so by the end of the Midame, you can carry hundreds of kilograms in one go.

17:33 Simply shoot BTS that dare to show their face.

17:36 And you can pop down overpowered buildings more

17:38 or less for free to recuperate whenever you want.

17:40 And that's not mentioning the truck,

17:42 which lets you ignore all the smaller obstacles

17:44 that make the early game so enjoyably tense.

17:47 If the pressure a game has to offer

17:48 doesn't keep pace with our rising power and skill,

17:51 then the cathartic element is going to go with it.

17:53 Look at any survival game that's too easy.

17:56 Clawing your way up to a position of stability and safety,

17:59 and battling against the elements, scarcity,

18:01 and probably some monsters as well feels absolutely great.

18:04 Because when you're confused and in unfamiliar terrain,

18:07 it's easy to create the impression of a world being overbearing and hostile.

18:11 But the more we master the unchanging rigid systems of these games,

18:15 the more difficult it becomes for them to feel appropriately hostile.

18:18 Minecraft's first night is pretty scary, especially for a newer player.

18:22 But the moment you've built a little dirt hovel and planted some food,

18:25 the survival portion of the game is essentially over.

18:28 and it's impossible to feel meaningfully

18:30 challenged by the monsters and hunger system

18:32 because they don't grow or change to match your increasing power and skill.

18:35 By contrast, better survival games keep pace for your growing mastery by adding

18:39 in new threats every now and again to keep the stress level nice and high.

18:42 Abiotic Factor gradually adds stuff like creepy mist

18:45 monsters and this bastard who's constantly stalking you.

18:48 Darkwood starts sending events and raids after

18:50 you that get worse the further you progress.

18:52 And in Pathologic, the disease initially starts out more or less contained,

18:55 but will spread rapidly as the days go by, exponentially increasing

18:59 not just the amount of work you have on your plate,

19:01 but also the risk of exploring.

19:03 This is a dynamic present in many of the best climbing games, too.

19:06 It's not enough to have a linear increase in difficulty.

19:09 There needs to be an exponential increase in the level of pressure

19:11 the player is under in order to keep pace with our growing confidence.

19:15 In Peaks of Y, for example, the first few climbs can be completed

19:18 in a matter of minutes and only contain easy handhold,

19:21 meaning you never have to worry about running out

19:23 of stamina or losing too much progress if you fall.

19:25 But as you progress, the mountains don't just start introducing crumbly, slippy,

19:30 and stamina draining rock varieties,

19:32 meaning you have progressively fewer chances to catch your breath.

19:34 But they also get longer, too.

19:36 Both increasing the consequences of failure

19:39 and demanding a greater level of psychological endurance.

19:42 What this means is that even once

19:44 you're confident with all the game's tricks individually,

19:46 each new mountain will still leave you

19:48 feeling drained and exhausted upon reaching the top,

19:51 creating the perfect payoff when you look back

19:53 down and realize just how far you've come.

19:55 Both in a vertical and a personal growth sense.

19:59 And that is sort of the secret to this particular kind

20:02 of game that I've been keeping not so secret the whole time.

20:05 While cathartic, hostile games make a big show

20:08 of being mean to you and stressing you out,

20:10 all that masochistic tension is just a means to an end.

20:13 And what they're really all about is getting

20:15 you to struggle against and eventually exceed your limits.

20:18 And that can really only happen when you're

20:20 forced to push yourself beyond an area of comfort.

20:23 Deep down, all the best hostile games are actually incredibly supportive.

20:27 They don't want you to give up.

20:28 They encourage you to take risks and extend your reach through their design,

20:31 and they don't let you rest on your laurels

20:33 when they know you're capable of more.

20:35 In fact, you can judge a badly designed hostile game, of which there are many,

20:39 by the fact that they either just want to crush and humiliate

20:42 you with challenges they know you won't be able to fairly overcome,

20:45 or when they don't trust you to be capable

20:47 of the resilience and insight it takes to grow and improve.

20:50 That is where the satisfaction of triumphing over hostile games,

20:53 and especially climbing games, comes from.

20:56 Not just the knowledge that you've achieved something difficult,

20:58 but the sensation that prior to right now, you wouldn't have been able to.

21:02 This idea that hostile games are actually about

21:04 giving us a chance to push ourselves and come

21:05 out the other side stronger also casts their increased

21:08 recent popularity in a much more clear light.

21:11 It's no coincidence that people are

21:12 gravitating towards games that make life difficult

21:14 and require work and sacrifice to progress

21:16 through at the exact same time that simple,

21:19 frictionless, and emotionally flattering games are also in their ascendancy.

21:23 There is only so much that the flashy lights

21:25 in a media reward systems of hero shooters, survivors games,

21:29 and uh anime horse girl ga gambling,

21:32 really people play that can do to fulfill us

21:35 when they never demand that we grow or change.

21:37 And I think whether they realize it or not, a lot of people who are dissatisfied

21:41 with video games right now are subconsciously crying

21:43 out for something that's going to make them work for their reward for a change.

21:46 Something that's going to provide a proper challenge and an opportunity

21:49 to deal with stress and excess energy the only way we know how.

21:52 That's putting it to use, doing something challenging but worthwhile.

21:57 So when next you're playing a game that seems too much like hard work,

22:00 where every bit of forward movement seems draining

22:03 and stressful and you feel like it would just

22:04 be so much easier to go and do something

22:06 else that will let you turn your brain off.

22:08 Resist that impulse.

22:10 Sometimes we need to struggle and persevere in order

22:13 to reap greater rewards in the long run.

22:16 A reward that only comes after getting tired

22:18 and sweaty and going for 22 whole minutes talking

22:21 about working hard and building up pressure for a big

22:24 rewarding release without making a single masturbation joke.

22:28 Honestly, I deserve a round of applause.

22:30 Oh, thank you.

22:33 Hello and welcome to this the after the video segment.

22:36 That part of every single video where I complain about the fact

22:38 that my graphics card is dying and Adobe

22:40 Premiere has already crashed a few times, robbing me of hours of work.

22:43 It is now 3 days later.

22:45 I am adding this section in after the fact.

22:47 This video was supposed to come out the better part of a week ago.

22:50 I am sorry.

22:51 But enough about that.

22:53 Instead, I'm here to talk to you about some very important things.

22:56 As I'm sure you're aware, if you've been about on the internet at all recently,

23:00 this has not been a good few weeks for video games.

23:02 A variety of terrible things are on the horizon slash have already happened.

23:06 from video game publishers not letting people

23:08 play games they own to harassment campaigns sponsored

23:10 by American far-right religious weirdos stopping games from being

23:14 sold to various governments just sort of generally

23:16 making the internet a bit harder to use for no real reason it's bad and while

23:21 individual voices complaining on social media are barely

23:23 going to make a dent collective action stands

23:25 a chance so instead of promoting anything

23:27 in particular today what I want you to go

23:29 and do yes you the person who thought they were going to get away with being

23:33 lazy Steve is go and sign a petition Go write an email or go contact your local

23:38 political representative about these issues affecting video games

23:41 and make a bit of a goddamn difference.

23:43 Because if you don't do anything,

23:44 these horrible things are here to stay and video

23:47 games are going to become a bit worse forever.

23:49 And if you're watching this in 3 years time,

23:51 viewing this video constitutes a thought crime.

23:53 The police have already been called.

23:54 And speaking of collective action,

23:56 this video would not exist without the generous support of my patrons.

24:00 The very special people who go out of their way to throw a few

24:02 bucks a month in my direction and let me do weird videos like this one.

24:06 Let me tell you, I could make way more money making

24:09 slop engagement bait craziest free V-Bucks hack Fortnite with Roblox Mr.

24:15 Beast content.

24:16 But the support of people like you means

24:18 that I don't have to do that sort of thing.

24:20 So, if you like the channel and you want it to keep going,

24:23 please consider giving me some cash, and in return,

24:25 you'll get earlier access to videos,

24:26 behind the scenes goodness, extra update videos,

24:29 other assorted bonus stuff, and of course, your name in the credits.

24:33 For my $5 and $8 pals, you are off to the side over there.

24:36 And for my 10 buck mysterious benefactors,

24:38 you get a special voiced shoutout instead.

24:41 And those special people are Ali Wright,

24:44 Andrew Lebrano, Alan 94, Bobby Brian Atariani, Constantin Amend,

24:50 Cosmix 360, Daniel Medz, Durk, Jan Carbeld, Diglettier,

24:54 Diss Ellie, Ectton, Edward Franklin Woods, Edwin the Space Bun,

24:58 Eric Walston, Eugene Bulin, Fulleraxi, Furious Hulk, Gazol,

25:03 How, Heckit, Noah, Jacob, Dylan, Riddle, Jinkaloid, Kevin,

25:07 Help, Comv, Kangi, Luke, Kakorin, Mace window 54,

25:13 Maxim Filipov, Mark Valant may contain fox-like substance.

25:17 Mika Oi, Michael C, Mike Oxlong, Nate Graph, Oliver Mahhoffa, Patrick Roberg,

25:23 Peter Thomasick probably contains fox-like substance.

25:26 Redditex, Regal, Reax, Ceslux, Silver Fulfy, Tyler Duncan,

25:32 Timothy, Specs, Whimsical Wisp, Zack Brandt, and Ciao.

25:37 Okay, that's it from me.

25:39 I will see you around.

25:40 Bye.