What Gaming Journalists Are Playing This Week: Trolls, Nostalgia, and Self-Sabotage

What Gaming Journalists Are Playing This Week: Trolls, Nostalgia, and Self-Sabotage

Eurogamer's weekly gaming diary returns with another peek into what the publication's writers are actually playing—and it's refreshingly honest about the messy reality of gaming in 2024.

This week's edition captures something genuinely relatable for the gaming community: the chaotic intersection of entertainment, friendship, and the games we choose to spend our time with. While many outlets focus on blockbuster releases and critical analysis, Eurogamer's recurring feature strips away the formality and reveals the human side of gaming—the moments that stick with us long after the credits roll.

Connor's experience with a friend who "takes great joy out of my suffering" is particularly telling. In an era where multiplayer gaming often feels sterile and competitive, there's something wonderfully authentic about the kind of gaming where friends deliberately torture each other for entertainment. Whether it's a brutal puzzle game, a challenging platformer, or a competitive title designed to humiliate, this dynamic represents gaming at its most social. For collectors and enthusiasts, these personal gaming moments often matter more than critical scores—they're the reason we keep certain games in our libraries for years.

Chris's revisiting of an "all-timer" speaks to another collector impulse: the need to recontextualize beloved games. Games don't exist in a vacuum, and replaying them years later reveals how our own perspectives have shifted alongside technological and cultural changes. What seemed revolutionary might feel dated, or alternatively, timeless qualities might shine even brighter. This pattern of revisiting games is core to collector culture—understanding how titles hold up across decades.

Then there's Bertie's self-inflicted ruination of a game through their own choices. This scenario deserves more discussion in gaming circles. Players can absolutely sabotage their own experiences through metagaming, rushing, or overthinking. It's a reminder that how we choose to engage with games fundamentally shapes our experiences. Some games require us to surrender to them, to resist optimizing every moment.

For collectors and gaming enthusiasts, these personal testimonies matter because they cut through hype cycles and marketing noise. They remind us that gaming is fundamentally about human experiences—whether that's the joy of watching a friend suffer, the comfort of reconnecting with a classic, or the painful lesson of ruining something good through our own choices.

Eurogamer's approach to gaming journalism remains refreshingly grounded, celebrating gaming not as a competitive medium worthy of constant analysis, but as a space for genuine human moments.

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Source: Eurogamer