Not every game is for everyone. Not every part of every game, every expansion, every accessory is for everyone.
Games aren't about the thing. They are about finding your tribe, the people you can relax with, the community where you belong, and often the game gives you a frame of reference - a shortcode, a 'human shopify tag'. Where folks can gather around the water cooler and talk about last night's episode of Wandavision, gamers get to bond over their chits and painting, the goofy stuff their player characters did that one time.
That's the hobby.
Nobody can play it all, let alone buy it all.
People ask me all the time, "What is the best game" and my answer is always the same. "The one people will play with you".
This lockdown has been hard on all of us. If you work in retail or hospitality or entertainment, it hasn't just been a threat to your health, but a threat to your livelihood. Your identity - well, your economic identity.
We say games are a third space, because that's where we make society happen. Our own society. Our own culture. A third space - not work, where your relationship is defined hierarchically with bosses and interns and juniors and salary differentials. Not home, where your relationship is defined by your function within a family unit.
Right now all our spaces are mixed up and jumbled, crammed together between four walls and a computer terminal. But even in this dystopia we can still dream. Of the games we will play, and the people we will play with.
In that respect we are lucky.
