Advocacy of Laziness - The Lethargic State of Gaming

You walked into a fast food place. You didn't want to cook. You simply looked at your task of things to do and didn't have time to cook that day. You plan on grocery shopping later, and cooking later in the day anyway. So you went over to your local fast food establishment and walked inside. There at the entrance where everyone orders their food is a large red puddle with a yellow plastic sign plastered on top of the puddle: "CAUTION: FLOOR SLIPPERY WHEN WET." Out of sheer fascination that someone had spent the time to place a caution sign without considering to grab a mop. Maybe they're just busy. The red fluid stagnant, certainly going to be staining the floor for the extensive time it has been there. You determined it had been an extensive period of time due to the number of red foot prints throughout the vicinity of the restaurant.

Begrudgingly you order. You looked at the red stain doing everything you can to avoid it. Thoughts roll through your head: "Hm. Perhaps this front service person is busy. Maybe they will be cleaning it as soon as everyone has got their order." Out of sheer fascination to the state of lethargy, you sit down to watch the events unfold.

Customers roll in and roll out, walking around the red stain. More red footprints of sticky residue. The front service person had finished paying out all orders and stood by, chatting with workers. They walked back and forth, meandering. They head off to the back. Glorious. Maybe they will be coming back with a mop with cleaning agent in the mop water, perhaps now you get to see a satisfying grace of results in the minor chaos. No. They come back. Stare at the stain, do nothing. Go back to chatting with co-workers. No mop bucket was retrieved for the 20 minutes you decided to be there. For you witness advocates of laziness.

This is not a story of you, but my own story. A small portion of an uneventful life like anyone else. Yet you look at this and you go home in disdain. You think: "Why didn't they clean it? Why wouldn't they spend some time to clean it? Why did they stare at it for a moment only to then do absolutely nothing about it even with not being that busy?"

At the same time, I look at the system of products being produced, namely in the video game industry. Games like Fallout 76 about to be released at the time of making this article. People screaming at the overall lack of content that exists in their game. Buggy messes released at full $60 price tags. The game not even finished, and to get into the beta you get to pay the $60 price tag. They need to make their money somehow and at the same time not have to deliver a decent experience. Reports come out of bugs talking about how when trying to play, it happens to delete your 50gb of content, only for you to go through an error with your log in. The game is so buggy, it wouldn't even let you play without deleting your game content first, and start over.

To top it off, when you do finally get into the game you find out that the entirety of the game lacks a huge amount of content. Yet you gave the game company $60 for your product. You also see microtransactions in your beta game confirming that the game is requesting even more money for less product.

I want to point out that video games are a very difficult medium to get into requiring hundreds of people spending years to deliver a premium product. At the same time, it appears that you have smaller companies able to release amazing content with much less resources than the larger companies. Or you have some that have taken it above and beyond. Companies like Rockstar Games is a perfect example. CD Projekt Red. They are an advocate for hard work and toil. Meanwhile a game company like Bethesda looks nightmarish in comparison. Simply lethargic. They could release a better game. They could work on a better game. But within the same spirit of the front serviceman who would not clean that stain, are also an advocate for laziness.

This is when you wield a sword of might against the beast of lethargy. You watch in disdain and say no. You vote with your dollar. The beast cannot survive unless you give it your money. Refuse. Do not let it gain your money unless it delivers a product that is good enough for you personally. Obviously if you like the current state of lethargy, by all means. Order a game like Fallout 76. Keep the state of lethargy around, or punish that which shouldn't exist. A company that merely exists to receive money and deliver a lethargic product.