I remember feeling so optimistic in the New Year 2020. It’s hard to say when exactly that optimism was shattered by the pandemic. Like many with the privilege of doing so, I started working from home for as many weeks as possible before it became mandatory. Maybe unlike others (or more like other journalists), I consumed a lot of news. At the beginning of 2020, I listened to about four news podcasts a day and read online. This meant hearing from numerous sources and various experts to prepare for the worst.
I was scared, not only of the virus, but also of losing my job and changing all aspects of my life. I started using games as a coping mechanism more and more. I was lucky to review Animal Crossing: New Horizons, giving me access about a month before launch. There, we had a small escape, not only in the game, but also from the pressure to see how everyone else plays.
At the time, I was the editor of the games section for Digital trends, which meant I had to lead a team while remaining at the forefront of every game launch. Covering up games for work is truly remarkable, but it can also be tiring and easily turn something fun into something stressful. As nice as it was to have games with which to avoid reality, they were also part of the reality that tired me.
As spring turned to summer, Digital trends and everyone who worked there had another problem. Amid Black Lives Matter protests over the killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Jacob Blake and others, current and former Digital trends the employees initiated a series of racist or otherwise insensitive actions that had taken place at the company.
A pandemic, protests against an unfair police and judicial system, and my company’s internal calculation meant little time for non-work-related games, the escape to be condemned.
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However, that involved the game The last of us part II for two weeks in a row, sleeping a few hours during that time before moving on The ghost of Tsushima. I’m incredibly lucky that’s my job. But it’s still a job and nothing makes her feel so much more than playing a game until 3 in the morning, not because it’s so good that I can’t take it down, but instead because with I really can’t take it down if I go to review it on time.
And then I was free.
Well, I was fired.
I suddenly lost my job at the end of September, along with many other talented editors, writers and producers. I have an excellent care system, but losing my job and health insurance on the same day, in the middle of a damn pandemic, so to speak.
Being out of a job made me lose my sense of self. If I didn’t do my job, then what would I do with my life? I choose not to examine what this says about how much I value myself or how far we are in late-stage capitalism, but it wasn’t great. Having ADHD, I also feed on the structure and accomplishment of things. Without this structure, I quickly began to fall apart, becoming a less functional member of society. My brain is not very good at ordering things, so I have to build my life around something solid. Now, I had nothing to organize and nothing to make me feel like I should be organized.
Eventually, games became my de facto job. I slowly crawled back to the games as I had to fill my time – this time, not because I had to, but because I wanted to have fun.
It wasn’t the same as when I was paid to write about games and run a games section. I played what I wanted and ticked the boxes I cared about. I made spreadsheets to collect certain objects or creatures The passage of animals. I watched my progress on the altar in a new play Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I couldn’t tell you how many charts I had Stardew Valley.
I know that playing this game probably sounds awful to most people, but it made me fall in love with games. It gave me a way to sort things out by sending a job application upon request. And he gave me an escape in which I could worry about defeating a boss, rather than how long it would take me to find a job or if my parents became convinced.
For a few hours, I didn’t have to think about anything and hell if that ignorance wasn’t happiness. Some people who are not interested in games do not receive such a healthy management mechanism. But it was an outing that brought me joy in a time of real shit.
As we come to a year since the world came to a standstill, I know I’m extremely lucky. Working on Kotaku it was already such a joy, my parents got their vaccinations and I end up writing about games for a living. Maybe I haven’t learned anything in the last year, because I’m feeling optimistic again for the first time in a while.