Page 7 of Play Hard

Chapter 2

Robert camehome Wednesday evening to find his flatmate, Ben, in the kitchen cooking.

“Are you making enough for two?” he called out as he took off his coat and hung it on the peg in the foyer. His stomach was already grumbling at the pungent aroma of…he wasn’t sure what, but he knew it would be delicious.

“I always make enough for a small circus troupe.” Ben raised his voice over the sizzle of onions in the frying pan. “I thought this was one of Liam’s nights off.”

“Usually.” Robert hurried to the kitchen table to set down his computer bag. “This week he’s swapped shifts—which is great, as he’ll be off Friday.”

“Any special plans?”

“It’s the night before a match, so whatever we do, it’ll be low impact.” As Robert slid onto the chair, he opened the computer bag and withdrew his laptop.

“Och, I know how that is,” Ben said. “Evan’s a fiend about Friday-night rest. I’ll be glad when the season’s over.”

“Mm.” Robert brought up his email, eager to review the latest analytics for the test version of his Glasgow Effect game. The message had popped up on his phone as he’d left the university, where he’d been meeting with the project’s researchers.

“And yes, I know the season’s not over until May,” Ben said.

Robert clicked on the spreadsheet attachment, bouncing his heel against the wooden floor with excitement. The last report had been stellar—the game was mostly bug-free, and the playtesters seemed to be enjoying the crap out of it.

The report’s top sheet showed the performance metrics. All had remained healthy: The app rarely crashed or made its users wait more than half a second for a response. Robert gave himself a mental high-five before switching to the sheet containing engagement metrics.

He swallowed hard, his mouth gone dry. These crucial stats would tell him how often users came back to Glasgow Effect, as well as how long they stayed in it—basically, whether people liked it or not.

The numbers there were…

“Oh God.” This can’t be right. “Fucking hell.”

“Robert, what’s wrong?” Ben left the pan and came over. “Has someone died?”

Just my dreams.Robert checked the units, hoping everything was off by a factor of ten. But no, what he saw was heart-stompingly correct.

“It’s my game.” He slumped back in the chair. “It’s rubbish.”

“I’m sure it’s not.” Ben patted his shoulder, then returned to the hob. “Would it help to talk about it? Mind, I’m fluent in Javascript and Python.”

“It’s not a programming problem.” Robert scrolled down the spreadsheet and took in the catastrophic details, the worst of which had been highlighted in red. “Engagement has fucking plummeted in the last week. I don’t get it. Everyone loved it at first, but now almost all of them have stopped playing.”

“That’s troubling.” Ben shifted the pan on the burner with a metallic rasp. “Why have they stopped?”

Robert switched to another tab labeled User Comments. The entries made his stomach roll over.

Was great, but now feels like work

kinda depressing

meh…

He scrolled down.

Cool idea, no glitches or bugs. Just not fun anymore.

too much like life :(

I keep playing but I don’t know why.

Makes me wish I lived somewhere else.

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