Benjamin Rivers

Since most of my social media time is spent talking about our games, I realized there wasn’t much reason for me to have my own personal social media presence. So I merged and/or transferred accounts and content, and now I am personally free of all major corporate social media!

I enjoy posting for our studio well enough, and there’s always something to talk about there, but it is a relief to not feel that unspoken pressure.

I hope it makes for a healthier 2026.

I feel like I use too many similar programs and devices for multiple things, and it contributes to that feeling of being overwhelmed. I notice that when I have too many variants for a single “thing” (e.g. ways to do X), I get frazzled. I prefer having one clear option (even if it’s technically inferior to something else). It all takes of precious memory in my tiny brain.

Since I use both a PC and Apple devices (iPad, iPhone), I have all these redundancies. Two browsers (which sometimes means two sets of passwords); multiple messaging apps (Apple-focused ones, more cross-platform ones, work-related ones, etc.); even two sets of keyboard shortcuts to memorize!

Even with social media (sigh), if I want to get something out there, of course I have to post it in multiple places, at multiple sizes, often in multiple formats. What used to take two minutes to bang out a clever idea or image now requires what feels like an entire production cycle to produce, edit, export, and manage.

I’ve noticed too that with leisure activities, especially games, I enjoy myself much less when I have too much choice. On which console should I play this new game? Which controller should I use? Which graphics mode (quality? Performance?) should I enable? Which settings should I toggle? If I’m going to draw, should I do it on paper, or digitally? Which brush should I ink with? On and on it goes.

There was this beautiful sweet spot many years ago where I had one computing device (a desktop computer; at the time, a Mac), no smartphone, and one main game console, which had almost zero options other than “power” and “eject”. I had one main way to listen to music (put a CD into my stereo) and that was about it!

Everything had its place and there was very little friction whenever I wanted to do something. In an age with infinite choice and capability, I think it’s important to introduce constraints, even artificially, to regain that sense of ease.

I’ve noticed that when I do this, I’m happier. So I’m trying to do a bit more these days.

I feel like I use too many similar programs and devices for multiple things, and it contributes to that feeling of being overwhelmed. I notice that when I have too many variants for a single “thing” (e.g. ways to do X), I get frazzled. I prefer having one clear option (even if it’s technically inferior to something else). It all takes of precious memory in my tiny brain.

Since I use both a PC and Apple devices (iPad, iPhone), I have all these redundancies. Two browsers (which sometimes means two sets of passwords); multiple messaging apps (Apple-focused ones, more cross-platform ones, work-related ones, etc.); even two sets of keyboard shortcuts to memorize!

Even with social media (sigh), if I want to get something out there, of course I have to post it in multiple places, at multiple sizes, often in multiple formats. What used to take two minutes to bang out a clever idea or image now requires what feels like an entire production cycle to produce, edit, export, and manage.

I’ve noticed too that with leisure activities, especially games, I enjoy myself much less when I have too much choice. On which console should I play this new game? Which controller should I use? Which graphics mode (quality? Performance?) should I enable? Which settings should I toggle? If I’m going to draw, should I do it on paper, or digitally? Which brush should I ink with? On and on it goes.

There was this beautiful sweet spot many years ago where I had one computing device (a desktop computer; at the time, a Mac), no smartphone, and one main game console, which had almost zero options other than “power” and “eject”. I had one main way to listen to music (put a CD into my stereo) and that was about it!

Everything had its place and there was very little friction whenever I wanted to do something. In an age with infinite choice and capability, I think it’s important to introduce constraints, even artificially, to regain that sense of ease.

I’ve noticed that when I do this, I’m happier. So I’m trying to do a bit more these days.