Welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship podcast, Van Toilets.

I'm your friend David Pierce.

And can I just complain about something just for one quick second?

When did video games become homework?

So it was just the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, which means I spent a few days,

mostly not in front of screens,

playing games with my family and reading.

It was also my kid's birthday, so we did a lot of birthday stuff.

And then I come back and I turn on my switch to play some FIFA or EA Sports FC, whatever

you want to call it.

And it's like, here's all the limited edition, Black Friday stuff that you missed.

And now everyone you play against is way ahead of you because they got all these cool upgrades and things that you didn't because you weren't on your console for 12 hours a day all weekend.

I generally love that video games are more multiplayer than ever and are more sort of global than ever and that there are lots of different modes

and ways to compete and you're kind of doing other things against real people all the time.

But that comes now with this idea that you have to be in it all the time or risk being left behind.

I get why the game companies do it. I hate it. I hate the feeling like I have to be in a discord

and I have to grind. People call it a grind now.

Video games are not supposed to be a grind. I hate it. I'm going to keep doing it and I'm going to

keep playing it because ultimately I like the game and the game is fun when you're good at it and it's

less fun when you're bad at it. And that is what these companies know. And it's how they get you. But it drives me nuts. Anyway, that is not what we're here to talk about today. We are here to do

two things. We're back from Thanksgiving. We got lots to do. News is still happening. Lots to talk about.

First, we're going to talk to Thomas Ricker, who is the Verges, I guess, like unofficial van life correspondent, he is going to tell us about his

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