I’m a relative newbie to playing video games. Sure, I played Duck Hunt and Mortal Kombat with my cousins growing up, and I’ve watched a lot of Halo, but it wasn’t until I started playing them myself that I became ensnared in a gear-related Gordian knot.
I got a Switch. Then I tried Stadia because the Switch doesn’t have enough processing power for bigger games. Then Stadia died. The problems seem never-ending: I want to play Call of Duty with a coworker, but he’s on a PlayStation, but I want to play first-person shooters with a keyboard and mouse! But I don’t want to spend even more time holed up in my office. I like playing in my living room, making myself a small nest of nacho crumbs on the sofa, yelling and drinking beer with my spouse.
I went around and around in my head for months, my oddly specific desires irritating everyone I knew as I ignored everyone who told me to get a PS4 and shut up about it. But then the answer came to me on a cold March night—specifically, in the form of a $200 Amazon link. Since March, I have played exclusively on a Roccat Sova lapboard in my living room.
