finite and infinite games except it’s about the distinction between video games that end and let you put them down vs. video games that want you to keep playing forever with a constant stream of new “content”
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gamers be like "ooh samsara just came out with a new update maybe this one will be permanent, satisfying, and/or me"
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this tweet from 2019 was so good wtf. i can’t write tweets like this anymore. i’ve gotten dumber and less funny somehow
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WoW, fortnite, overwatch, every gacha game ever, it’s increasingly “most of them” tbh
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It's funny because it's the latter that made me notice impermanence. The game was always changing, so my skills were always degrading. Why was I playing then, if i could not get good at it long enough for me to feel accomplished and use it as a source of self esteem?
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i unironically believe for this and other reasons that video games make an excellent dharma gate
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That second category deserves further breakdown into "artificial infinite games" and "natural infinite games." The former include WoW, where new content stretches the game. The latter includes MGSV, where secrets in the cutscenes are still discovered years later. The diff is sig
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I think we can identify games that don't meaningfully change the underlying experience but tweak just enough with each update to keep a feeling of freshness, vs a game that has depth that was always there and is discovered with repeated playtime. The lines will hard to draw tho
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