Reward us for coming back, don’t punish us for being away.
We’re going to start the year off witha handful of pieces looking forward to 2022.
Sometimes we’ll just be thinking about things we’ve enjoyed and where they could lead.
Have a lovely new year all!
God, imagine if you’d waited for it before continuing your launch campaign!
Oh hang on that’s what I did.
But don’t worry about that Bertie!
Don’t worry that you bought a new console especially.
We’re going back and it will be wonderful, and there won’t be a bug in sight.
Question is: do I start again or continue where I left off?
That’s my dilemma.
You see, I don’t remember what the hell I was doing in the game.
I don’t know if I have blade implants in my arms yet.
I don’t know what that sketchy samurai contact of mine is doing.
I don’t know what Keanu’s up to (he’s in The Matrix 4).
In fact, I can’t even remember how to play it.
And you know what?
I don’t think the game cares.
It probably won’t even acknowledge I’ve been away.
It’ll just be - pop!
It gives me the wobbles just thinking about it.
Games, I think, have a re-onboarding issue.
They assume we’re good forever now, bobbing around in their pool.
But what if we go off for a hike?
What if we go cycling?
What if we come back and can’t remember how to swim?
There’s no toddler ease-in now: only the murky depths of the deep end.
If one company can dominate your time, they’re delighted.
And then you’ll find yourself in the same situation as me.
Well, I propose a radical solution!
It’s a time counter - we can just call it a clock if you like.
Take a breather, I know it’s a lot to take in.
But it’s not really, is it?
It’s not really radical.
Look at TV and all the recaps we get there.
Why can’t we have something similar in games?
Sprawling RPGs would benefit enormously from them.
Games have more to think about, of course.
There could be thematically in-keeping ways around this, though.
TakeCyberpunk 2077as an example.
What if V was doing another virtual training module?
That would make sense, and you could explain it as V keeping their skills sharp.
I’m sure it wouldn’t be that difficult to come up with a plausible scenario for every game.
With enough effort, re-onboarding could even be something people enjoy, offering a glimpse at a wider world.
After all, shouldn’t you reward people for coming back rather than punish them for being away?
But in reality, we’ve got all this other stuff going on, and all these other games.
We might need to come back to it.
So help us do that a bit more smoothly, would you?
Lots of love, Bertie.
