D.B. Weiss

“Cartridgeration has its consequences. Prolonged exposure to this fragmentary method of relating to the world inculcates in the gamer the belief that he can have it all, serially, within a very short time span, regardless of whether any two pieces of It are mutually exclusionary. He can be chasing em down… and on the run. Safe… and under fire. Cute and harmless… and imposing and dangerous. As he toggles from cartridge to cartridge, game to game, goal to goal, identity to identity, his mother’s long-standing promise that he can “be whatever he wants to be in this world” seems fulfilled, given a broad enough interpretation of “in this world.” This is not entirely a bad thing. The ability to simultaneously entertain contradictories can be useful… but it comes at a price. The Cartridgeration process leads one to a mode of thinking that stresses the inadvisability of choices. Any definite choice and subsequent course of action puts the gamer on one path at a tremendous possibility cost to all conceivable others. Through definitive actions, he pares the ür-configuration containing all his possible worlds to a stunted fraction of its former self. How many brilliant futures are ruled out with each step, with each decisive word? Billions, in a very real sense. The further he gets himself into any situation, the more severe the pruning of his possibility tree. Thus his inability to focus on any enthusiasm for too long, a metaphysical fickleness that functions as a defense mechanism against the death of possibility.”
― D.B. Weiss, Lucky Wander Boy