This is an article about Silksong, the new game from Team Cherry / the much awaited sequel to Hollow Knight. You may have heard of it even if you aren’t in the gaming sphere, because so many people were trying to download the game on release that virtually all digital marketplaces buckled under the load. But before we talk about Silksong, I want to start by talking about the startup world.
One thing that may not be obvious for people who are not in the startup world is that building a consumer facing company is very different from building a b2b company, especially when it comes to sales. Selling to businesses is very easy. You go to a business and you say "hey, you like making money?" And the business will say "why yes, I do like making money" and you will say "great, I can help you make more money. If you give me $X, I think I can make you more than $X in return." And the business owner will evaluate if you are full of shit or not, and will then give you some cash. By contrast, selling to consumers is really hard, because it's never really clear why a consumer is using or buying your product to begin with. The conversation about money above doesn't really work. Sure, some people buy products because they think said products will save them money. But people will buy products for status, or because they think doing so will get them laid, or because it will get their parents off their back, or because they want to be entertained, or even for no particular reason at all.
“Consumers behave like rational actors” is total bullshit.
And some people will pay for your product even if it actively causes them pain and stress, or maybe because it causes them pain and stress. There are people out there who will look at a bottle of hot sauce called "Sphincter melter 5000" and go "yup that's the one for me" and drop $35 to have the worst time of their lives.
This is the thought that was running through my head as I died to the Savage Beastfly for the 23rd time. That's not an exaggeration. I think this one Silksong boss killed me over 30 times total, a grim toll made only slightly less painful with the knowledge that most people were never going to get this far anyway, and that therefore my desire to feel pain makes me somehow superior to all the other people who did put this game down and did something else with their weekend.
I’ve gotten very familiar with the Hornet death animation over the last 48 hours.
Silksong as a game should not exist. It is so brutally difficult that it stretches the very definition of the word "game". Games are supposed to be fun. They are meant to delight with their whimsy. Sometimes, yes, they are meant to be challenging. But that challenge is in service of fun. My work is a world of ambiguity and stress and responsibility. Games are meant to be a distraction and a release from that. So am I having fun? I certainly don't feel joy in my heart when I fall into the lava for the seventeenth time because I missed a jump (if lava was a boss it would easily take the top spot for the number of times it killed me).
And yet.
I have played this game obsessively since it came out. I cannot put it down. I have been an unresponsive zombie for the last 48 hours, much to Mia's chagrin and dismay. She just doesn't get it. This game is incredible, I say to myself as a small grub brutally murders me for the mistake of touching its seemingly soft and cuddly body.
This dude on his way to ruin your whole week.
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