It’s 2002 and I’ve simply unstuck my legs from the varsity bus seat, run by way of the entrance door and up the steps utilizing all 4 limbs, and rocketed into the pc room. I push the ability button in, hear for the static hum, and when that blue sky and open subject load up, my buffet of laptop recreation icons invitations me in.
In 2024, sitting all the way down to play PC video games is a bit much less romantic. For one, there’s no laptop room — it’s all laptop in every single place on a regular basis now, which is a nightmare my 2002 self thought can be a dream. I’m additionally now not 7 years previous, so I spend my day working, in the identical room and on the identical laptop that I rework into my gaming den within the night. However one factor is identical as again then: When it’s time to recreation, I shut all my packages out and peruse that smorgasbord of colourful shortcuts on my desktop.
There’s no actual purpose to make use of desktop icons at this level. I exploit search to search out all the things I want on all of my units, and Steam’s library is a superbly effective place to launch video games from. But it surely’s not enjoyable. I wish to have a look at my fairly assortment of video games lined up and arranged; I wish to attempt to determine what gadgets or characters the designers selected for the icons. Only a candy, nostalgic double-click and I’m in Baldur’s Gate or Arranger or Sims 4 — and what a pleasant reminder, too, that we don’t must hold CD-ROMs close by to run sure video games anymore.
I feel there’s one thing extra tangible to all of this, although, and that’s the fact that recreation platforms are continuously attempting to promote you on new video games and DLC. I often browse my Steam discovery queue or try what of us are saying on boards, however after I’m actually simply sitting all the way down to play, my gaming time can get eaten into by worldly context and massive pink gross sales and recreation updates and different alluring titles to take a look at.
Utilizing marketplaces like Itch.io, which has virtually completely digital rights management-free video games, and GOG, which is solely DRM-free, makes it simpler to separate the online game procuring from the online game enjoying. While you actually personal your video games, you usually don’t must take care of promoting earlier than you begin enjoying the sport — or, on the very least, you possible received’t see advertisements that push you to obtain different video games. My desktop shortcuts imply I can take away these distractions, as a result of the publishers and studios — in addition to gamers like me — have a vested curiosity in completely immersing you within the recreation you wish to play whenever you wish to play it.
Launching video games proper from the desktop makes me really feel like my video games are the escape I like them to be, away from the paradoxically banal promise of extra, new, higher. So if you end up spending the primary 10 minutes of your gaming time scrolling by way of your platform’s market, give the previous desktop shortcut one other go and bear in mind with me the simplicity of these CD-ROM years.
