As a novel chapter in the history of digital entertainment unfolds, a fusion of technology and play is emerging that could well alter the way that we interact with online content. The collection of more than 75 free games now rolling out to all users of YouTube’s Playables are at once a novel development and a return to a simple form of play. This article takes a look at this development and the way that it could find itself integrated into people’s daily life on their laptops or other gadgets, and what that could mean for the future of digital pleasure.
YouTube’s launch of Playables signals a new era in the burgeoning fusion of entertainment and technology, where mobile and desktop websites have made interactive games available to anyone, anywhere. Playing on laptops becomes not just an act of entertainment but an immersive experience, broadening our perspective of the world. And games, the preferred medium, comes to us wherever we are, whenever we want.
But what makes YouTube’s Playables unique is not merely its library, but the ways in which it allows for a consistent user experience across devices. You can play a game on your lunch break at work on your laptop, or on your desktop at home after dinner, but the easy interface and ubiquitous nature of the site highlights how laptops and their ilk are the driving force behind blurring the boundaries between work and play in our digital lives.
Specifically in this new style of gaming, however, the advantage of the laptop plays out in a new way. Laptops give users direct access to entire online worlds, as well as the kind of wandering that’s available to the videogame’s digital nomad. Leisure and work, destined to be conflicting forces in life after Covid, are even becoming complementary, as the tools of online labour collide with the entertainments meant to distract from that labour. YouTube’s Playables show us the value of the laptop as an entertainment device. It is hard to argue with the utility of having a high-performing device, whose role in our lives is only growing.
Playables caters to anyone who likes to take on puzzles, seek adventure, or engage in strategy – in other words, it’s for everyone. The tech behind Playables is broadly and deeply appealing. Taken together, the new YouTube, TikTok, Netflix, and HBO Max present a world that is not distinct from our own but is a different way of engaging with our still-shaping digital realities. When these platforms say ‘Using YouTube is like using your TV,’ or ‘When you open TikTok, you’ll enter an entirely new world of possibility, extravagance, and entertainment,’ or ‘Netflix is about stories that defy ad buys and paywalls … HBO Max is about establishing a brand-new world of storytelling destinations’ (all quotes from Netflix and HBO Max homepages), they aren’t talking about mere websites – they’re talking about tools that mould the digital world like clay. Whether a digital executive uses the metaphor of story instead of software is less important than the underlying shift in business tactics: streaming services and similar subscription tools are racing to capture your other online attention. Like the new YouTube, but more clearly and intentionally, these new tools aim to replace your default mode of using your computer – which, in most cases, is still opening Google, your email inbox, a browser window, a Zoom app, and the occasional spreadsheet. The storytelling metaphor equates the digital spaces of production and imagination with a heightened experience of being human. Growing up online means that we no longer have one primary way of thinking about our world, and it became unsustainable for Silicon Valley to have only one experience of the web in mind. YouTube, Netflix, and TikTok exist in worlds that are not exactly the same as ours.
YouTube’s Playables are more than just a service, however. They represent a new era of digital content consumption. As laptops and similar devices evolve, they continue to merge elements of our lives. Content creators and developers have the opportunity to tinker and develop further.
Something else that often goes unsaid is the fact that it is incredibly difficult to make sure these games work on all kinds of devices and all internet speeds. Once again, laptops come to the rescue: the ability of laptops to connect via different networks and run in disparate settings means that the largest possible audience can experience what YouTube’s Playables have to offer.
But as we stare into the neon-lit abyss of our third wave of digital-entertainment culture, we’d do well to remember that YouTube’s programme and its Playables aren’t about games at all. They are about the inescapable (and maybe highly desirable) digital augmentation of our lives and environments facilitated by devices that keep us online, entertained and engaged. YouTube’s Playables might be a first step, but they are a promising peek at a future that more gracefully blends play with the new requirements of productivity.
To conclude, it’s interesting to take a closer look at the key part that laptops play in this digital ecosystem, not just as the devices that let us do work but also as the motors driving the digital economy of content and entertainment. The laptops are the locus of technology and human creativity working side-by-side to not just allow users to engage with things like YouTube’s Playables and other forms of highly interactive digital content passively, but also to allow users to create and share their own forms of creativity and content. And it’s likely that, with advances in technology, this potential of the laptops as central hubs for both content creation and consumption continues to see its trajectory open up for bigger and better things in the future of digital entertainment and beyond.
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