The Usual Suspects

Remember when we dreamed of a unified game launcher? The top panel shows all the major platforms (Battle.net, Epic, Rockstar, EA, Ubisoft, Steam) marching along like they're going somewhere important. The bottom panel reveals the grim reality - all of them dead and buried in a graveyard... except Steam, who's still trucking along like the immortal cockroach it is. Eight years and 17 launcher installations later, my SSD is basically a digital cemetery where game launchers go to consume resources and force updates when I'm trying to play literally anything. Yet somehow Steam endures, probably because Gabe Newell made a deal with some eldritch horror in exchange for eternal market dominance.

Ah, the Steam library paradox – where we shovel money into Gabe Newell's pockets during sales with the enthusiasm of someone who definitely plans to play all those games... someday. That tiny shoveled patch labeled "Games I played" compared to the vast snowy wasteland of "Games remain on my Steam library that I bought but never played" is the digital equivalent of buying gym equipment that becomes an expensive clothes hanger. The backlog grows with each seasonal sale, while our free time mysteriously shrinks. It's almost as if buying games has become its own separate hobby from actually playing them.

The four horsemen of the apocalypse: World of Warcraft, beige computer tower, Mountain Dew, and pepperoni pizza. Back when your biggest worry was whether your guild would show up for the raid, not whether your Docker container would deploy correctly. The "work from home" setup before it was mandatory – except you weren't working, you were grinding for epic gear while your parents yelled about the phone line being tied up. Twenty years later and I'm still staring at screens, drinking caffeine, and eating delivery food... just with better resolution and more expensive hardware.

The commitment to the bit is strong with this one. Some developers spend decades mastering languages and frameworks for practical career advancement. Then there's this absolute legend who spent seven years learning game development just to recreate a goose from Animal Crossing for a dad joke. This is the same energy as writing a custom sorting algorithm when you could just use Array.sort(). Or building your own JavaScript framework because React "doesn't meet your specific needs." We've all worked with that developer who takes the scenic route through hell when npm install would've done the trick. I'm not even mad. I'm impressed. This is what peak dedication looks like. Ship it.

That smug feeling when a non-programmer is absolutely blown away by a game glitch you could fix with a single if-statement. Sure, let them think you're some kind of wizard for understanding that the collision detection just needed a simple boundary check. Meanwhile, you're sitting there knowing it's basically the "Hello World" of game development fixes. The superiority is just *chef's kiss* delicious.

The eternal lie we tell ourselves before opening Steam or our closet. "I have nothing to play" says the developer with 347 unplayed games in their library. Same energy as "I have nothing to wear" while staring at a closet that could clothe a small village. The difference? At least clothes don't go on sale every other week tempting you with "90% OFF! BUY NOW OR REGRET FOREVER!" Wallet and storage space - the real victims in both scenarios.