There's a future where you and this bucket that fits over your head decide what a game meant to say, not the useless idiots that made it | Rock Paper Shotgun

Pails by comparison

It's not far away, you know. The promised land of never having to experience a game the way it was intended again. That long sought after holy grail of sticking your fingers in your ears and going wahwahwah. But it’s not going to be something created by people with talent, vision, expertise, drive, a dream, or a story in their hearts. No, as with everything in our imminent future, it will be achieved by putting a bucket over your head.

Wait! Before you throw up in your lap at the merest mention of buckets - I know, I strongly dislike many things that I then go on to evangelize at length - this is actually, potentially, unbelievably super duper exciting when it comes to not having to engage with any art on its own terms ever again.

If your algorithm looks anything like mine (and what a weird turn of phrase that is, especially as you don’t actually look at an algorithm, you look at the results of an algorithm) then you’ll have seen ‘bucket gaming’ (or ‘bucking’) all over the internet, where traditional game playing is fed through the medium of a big fucking bucket the player wears on their heads.

These buckets may look a bit strange now, but think of what they could mean for our future. If these buckets could be fused into our flesh, resulting in some kind of unholy man-bucket hybrid, we wouldn’t even need to put them on our heads anymore. Think about it!

What’s going on right now is content creators, such as YouTuber IReplacedHalfMyHeadWithABucketAndIFeelFineActually, are playing existing works of art, many of which bafflingly ignore the simple truth that the history of game making is a straight line towards a single, perfect, objectively superior creation. Then, through the power of buckets, are just ignoring all the bits they don’t like and narrating their ‘reimagined’ versions to enraptured audiences.

And while these versions are obvious dogshit to anyone who’s ever felt an emotion in their lives, it’s hard not to see the potential if we just Keep Adding More Buckets. Think of how much more they could ignore with two buckets. Now three buckets! Four buckets! I could go on. And I will. Five Buckets. Six!

It’s actually something that’s kinda been bothering me as a liker of my own narrow conception of the human experience. Why do these games keep showing me the fruits of other people’s shitty imaginations, and how do I make them stop? With a cleverly arranged stack of gradually larger buckets, every game would be the same safe, comfortable, predictable black void. Who needs artistic intent or a carefully crafted atmosphere or ideas and emotions expressed through symbols? Bucketless shmucks, that’s who!

Wanna replay GTA IV, but have a hankering for more of a “I literally can’t see or hear shit because I’ve got a large bucket on my head” vibe? Sure, a lot of people are going to lose their jobs when publishers realise the audience aren’t paying attention, but what have those useless, soon-to-be-jobless parasites ever done for me? From the very first time I compelled - through sheer force of will - the little plumber man to jump, one thing was clear to me: I made this game. I am the reason it exists, and every person in this list of credits owes their livelihoods to me.

Hang on, is it alarmingly hot in here? No, of course not. I simply have several big fucking buckets on my head.