New Video! The Existential Nightmare of Fortnite (patron version, no ads) (Patreon)

Hey everyone!

Just to let you know that the new video is now available! I like to think of myself as pretty au fait with all things video games, but recently I watched something that truly reminded me of my age; of how quickly time is marching forward, and how I'm losing touch with a medium I love. On a recent family trip, I watched my nephew play a match of Fortnite—a game that has changed so much in the years since I last played it, that I could barely tell what I was looking at.

Rather than make me sad though, this got me thinking about all kinds of things—the potential for games to help people bond; the wild path of this industrial titan of a video game; how my parents felt watching me play games like Metal Gear Solid as a kid and the mechanical abstractions within; the dangers of growing up with games like Fortnite, hellbent on getting you to buy your way to popularity, and how my experience with similar crazes might help guide my nephew through the scarier aspects of this industry. Let's talk about how this daft game sent me into an existential spiral, and reminded me how much I love this medium.

So yeah, as you can see, this one goes to some pretty wild places. This is one of those scripts where I'm sure people who are really into Fortnite will be able to pick apart everything I mention about the game, but I didn't really intend for it to be about Fortnite specifically, as much as it was a reflection on the idea of growing older and how games play into that—how I might understand my parents' view of games more fully, as well as potentially avoid some of their (unintentional) mistakes, all while using games as a means of bonding with people. I'm quite proud of this script honestly, and I hope you enjoy the accompanying video as much as I enjoyed making it.

I've still got the bigger projects in the works that I was hoping to get out this year—Mad Max, Yakuza cinema, etc.—and those are still coming, but honestly one of the more unexpected turns I've taken with the channel this year is that I've gotten into writing more personally again. There was a while there where I kinda thought "those kinds of videos can get a bit esoteric, I should probably just focus on games rather than trying to feature myself too deeply."

But, and this is crucial, with that initial burst of support at the start of the year thanks to that update video, I decided that I now had an avenue to explore that stuff more freely again, the algorithm be damned. That is to say, your continued support allows for these weirder, more personal videos to get made. The videos on criticism, ludonarrative dissonance, music, family, all of it (of which I've gotten messages from people saying they think it's my best work, which I am unbelievably flattered by), are all a result of you. Otherwise I simply wouldn't be able to take time away from thinking about dumb algorithm bullshit and how well my channel was doing. What your support allows me to do is say fuck it, people are supporting this for precisely the opposite of that. I can write about what I want, and hopefully even if it isn't on a subject you fully understand yet, or a game you think you might not be into, you can still get something out of it, knowing that it's something I felt I had to write about. For that, I seriously cannot thank you enough.

You might remember I posted the script for this one a while ago, and so don't worry—you won't be charged for this video. I decided that, despite its slightly more personal nature, that I'm going to post this to the main channel as I kinda want to give people a taste of the type of patron-exclusive video people might expect going forward. I hope that's OK!

(also, for those new here, I compiled an unlisted playlist of the Patreon exclusive videos that I'll try and remember to put in every post from now on, so people have easy access to all the exclusive stuff - hopefully it works for you, and please don't share it around!)

Anyway, whole lot more to come in the very near future. I hope you're as excited for it all as I am.

Thanks again!

Hamish

Writing on Games