What games are suitable for working people? Some video games can only be understood by working people

[Falcon] Gaming can be an expensive hobby,and getting a job can feel like it might enable it.

But not necessarily.

Jobs take up a lot of time,and unfortunately,they’re really necessary.

Hi folks, it’s Falcon,and today on Gameranx,10 things only gamers with jobs will understand.

Starting off at number 10,
finally finding time to game

but having that nagging feeling

you should be doing anything else.

Like, you know what
we’re talking about here.

Anyone who is an adult, and into gaming,

has dealt with this feeling in some way.

You get a little free time to game,

you push everything aside,
shut off the cell phone,

close the emails,

sit at the loading
screen for a few seconds

and think, “Wow, I’m wasting my time!”

Right about the time the
guilt almost overwhelms you,

the game starts, you playing it,

you get in about 30 minutes.

And then the task-oriented nature

of, let’s say, some open-world game

that you’ve decided to start reminds you

of all of the things in real
life we might also call tasks.

You start thinking about
an abstract quest screen

that says things like, “Zero the emails.

“Project due Thursday, et cetera.

“Be in factory.”

I don’t know what you
would call that quest,

if you work in a factory.

Stand in assembly line, I guess.

Then you start thinking about things

around the house you could be doing.

Garage door’s maybe making a weird sound.

Microwave isn’t spinning right.

Got some unread texts.

Never know what that’s gonna be.

And if you’re a parent with a job,

that means you’re a person
with two jobs trying to game.

Anytime you’re not helping out your kid,

you’re just kinda feeling lazy.

This doesn’t make you a bad parent

but you’re sometimes gonna
feel like a bad parent,

and nobody wants that.

So when you got responsibilities
other than gaming,

it can be, like, super overwhelming.

But you gotta take care of yourself.

You gotta remember everyone’s entitled

to some free time to just sit and relax.

That said, gaming can also be

its own special kind of commitment itself.

Moving on to number nine,

like, having a large
digital game collection

and only being able to
play a fraction of it.

Like, Steam is this
unending collection of games

that tends to grow because
there tends to be great sales

on a fairly regular basis.

We all know this.

That library can balloon like crazy.

I have an absolute ton of games on there.

Let me just put it this way.

My job is playing games, and
I have this same problem.

Tons of these things are
unplayed or like 5% completed.

As I’ll play it for like
maybe an hour or two,

either collectively

or one day I just felt particularly saucy.

I don’t know. It’s one or the other.

But, like, it’s the ultimate paradox.

You have a job, you have
money, you have the games,

but you aren’t playing them
’cause you don’t have the time

’cause you have to keep
getting that money.

I don’t know, you gotta pay for your house

and groceries and stuff, I guess.

You can’t just stop working
and play the games. (laughs)

At number eight, and this
is probably a lot of people

and extends maybe even a little bit past

the gamers with jobs
demographic we’ve set up here,

but I’m gonna say that it hits
people with jobs the hardest.

So let’s say there’s a
new multiplayer game,

it’s getting tons of hype,

people are talking about it nonstop,

and you’re just like, “Okay,
this looks like it’s for me.

“I wanna try it.”

You jump in, and you
realize that regardless

about the amount of time
that this game has come out,

there are people who have had

infinitely more time to
practice this game than you

because you have not had
any time to practice it.

And whether it’s been five
hours since the game came out,

five days, five weeks, somebody’s
played it the whole time

and it’s way better than you.

Like, you can’t play a
game over the weekend

because the job was like,
“You gotta come in on Saturday

“and Sunday this week.” (groans)

So you’re stuck looking at
like a wall of candy bars

as you’re manning a cash register,

while everyone is becoming an expert

at this game you really wanna play.

Then on Monday, you pop in
and you don’t stand a chance.

And number seven,

not being able to play games
for long periods of time

because of work.

And this extends past the
multiplayer games, obviously.

So let’s say you work weird
hours or you work weekends,

and you don’t really
get a lot of free time.

Or like, let’s say you work on
a fishing boat in the Arctic.

You’re gone for months at a time.

Or like the military, same thing.

There’s tons of downtime.

You can be a gamer in the downtime.

But let’s say you get deployed,

you’re gonna be somewhere
for months on end,

and you’re definitely not
going to have a chance

to play video games in the
capacity that you would

in civilian life, at all, period.

Or let’s say you are a lawyer

and you get a case and it’s really tough,

and you gotta spend all
of your time on this case.

You leave the office, you come home,

and you’re reading the lawyer
stuff with the Chinese boxes,

’cause that’s what lawyers do I guess.

I don’t know. I don’t know
why I’m hung up on that.

It’s possible I just want
some Chinese food. (laughs)

And number six, oh, having
to sacrifice either gaming

or your social life.

There is only so much time in a day,

and when you’re at a 9:00-to-5:00,

5:00 is when you get off of the day.

Most games require several
hours of commitment.

In the end might kind of be a
little cheaper to be a gamer,

even though games cost a lot of money

than somebody with a robust social life.

Like, you’re not gonna waste as many

of those hard-earned dollars

on an overpriced cocktail somewhere,

pretending that you need that
in order to be around people.

Like you finally get time to game

and suddenly, you’re quote-unquote
friends wanna hang out.

Or you’ve got a quote-unquote date

with a quote-unquote significant other

who wants to actually spend time with you.

Ugh!

It’s a good idea to try to be

with people who share interests

so you could hang out playing games.

It’s difficult though.

Not everybody wants to spend
three hours on Thursday night

playing the new game.

Some friends wanna hang out,

you just wanna finally game already.

And number five, playing late

and falling asleep while gaming.

Sleep, the biggest sacrifice
a working gamer must make.

We’ve talked many times
about the dreaded decision

that comes around at
midnight, then again at 2:00,

then again at 3:00 and
at 4:00, and at 5:00.

Do you keep gaming?

Is it time for sleep?

Is the sleep worth it at this point?

Either way, you’re gonna
feel it the next day

and work is gonna be miserable.

It’s basically unsustainable
and something a young person

is kind of the only kind of person

that can get away with it.

You get older and you do
a lot more falling asleep

while gaming than all night gaming.

Especially if you get yourself
comfortable on the couch

playing with like a headset in

and holding the controller leaning back.

I have fallen asleep many a time

in the middle of a game doing this.

And the reason it’s even in the cards

is let’s say it’s a work night,

but for some miraculous reason,

all your game friends are online

and you wanna play the
same multiplayer game.

You get wrapped up in it

and then you fall asleep
in the middle of it.

And everybody gets mad at you,

but it doesn’t matter ’cause
you’re off in dreamland.

At number four, having
to plan your gaming time

around completely arbitrary release times.

Like, all right.

So this is especially bad

when you take a day out for a game,

only to find out that it’s
not coming out until like noon

or 6:00 or even 11:00,

instead of coming out at
midnight on the previous day

like, you know, everything should.

Like, what’s the point of that?

So now one of your days
off is just wasted.

You got all these hours
sitting around waiting,

can’t do anything, so bleugh.

Or let’s say you’re stuck at work,

and it did come out at
midnight the previous night.

So you’re just at work

thinking about that game the whole day.

And then you get home and
even if it’s preloaded,

it has this huge 30GB by day-one patch.

So that eats out a bunch
of your day as well.

That’s fun. It’s great, it’s lovely.

I think that there should just
be standard release times.

You put a game out at midnight

if you’re, like, above a threshold

in terms of level of developer.

And I think once you’re like

a quote-unquote AA developer, maybe.

That’s the cutoff. You gotta
release it at midnight.

And number three, let’s say you
build the ultimate gaming PC

and you mainly use it for working.

Now, I don’t wanna sit here and talk about

all of the things that you could be

using your PC for work.

I mean, there’s PowerPoints,
there’s spreadsheets,

there’s, I don’t know, AutoCAD
and Illustrator, I guess.

I don’t know.

There’s like a limitless number of things

you could be stuck doing on
your computer other than gaming.

And that’s what you’re stuck
doing on your computer,

not gaming, working.

And you’re just thinking about
that killer graphics card

with all the LEDs on the inside
with the glass on the side

so you can see everything going.

You’re looking at it

while you’re making a
PowerPoint about sales figures.

Oh, look at that beautiful neon light.

Look at that fan whirring.

Look at all that machinery doing nothing!

At number two, when your
gaming time goes too fast

and your working time goes too slow.

I like to call this time dilation.

It’s not, I think, a real thing.

It’s more of a perception issue

that I think human beings have,

and also, birds of prey who
play video games like myself.

Remember, I am a bird.

But like, you play games at night

and you just watch the time melt away.

You start at like 8:00 p.m.
and suddenly, it’s 3:00 a.m.,

and you’re like, “Wow, what happened?”

And then you wake up the
next day and you go to work,

and you’re like, “Surely, time has passed.

“I’ve been here since 9:00 a.m.”

“Oh, my God it’s 9:30 a.m.

“It is not near lunchtime. I am hungry.

“I’m not just hungry for
games, I’m hungry for food.

“Ah, this day sucks!”

And number one, finally,
when you don’t have a job,

you desperately need one to play games.

And when you have a job, you
don’t have time to play games.

This is the paradox.

We’ve indicated this a
little bit throughout here,

but that’s the whole thing.

When you’re a kid, you wish
you had a job to afford games.

When you’re adult, you wish you were a kid

so you had time to play games.

Also, so that your body
doesn’t hurt all day every day.

I did this thing in high school

where I’d just not eat lunch,

and I would save up lunch
money to buy video games.

It felt really clever.

I don’t know if you can
still do that anymore,

’cause I think lunch is either free

or you pay into like an
account at school now.

I don’t know, stuff’s gotten super weird,

but you used to be able to do that.

Couple of real quick bonus ones for you.

Turn on the Xbox or the
PlayStation or whatever

with the intention of playing something,

and then you end up just watching
a bunch of streaming video

because that app is there.

Or like let’s say you watch

a bunch of people playing
games on Twitch or something,

rather than actually
playing them yourself.

Then there’s another one

that I don’t know that affects everyone.

But let’s say you start
up an open-world game

and you don’t bother with the story,

you just sort of dick
around in the open world.

You, like, wander around
in it for a few hours

and that’s the game for you.

Or hell, just like only
playing multiplayer games

because a single-player game
is such a time commitment

because the point is
like immersion and story

and progression and all this.

Whereas, a multiplayer game,

you kinda just gotta be good at it

and the other stuff wraps up into that.

Yeah, I mean, gaming
as an adult with a job

can be a test of will, let’s say.

Anyway, that’s all for today.

Leave us a comment. Let
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we thank you very much
for watching this video.

I’m Falcon. You can follow
me on Twitter @FalconTheHero.

We’ll see you next time,
right here on Gameranx.