In late 2019, The Atlantic published a piece titled Don’t Play the Goose Game, by game designer and critic Ian Bogost. Discussing “Untitled Goose Game’s” success as a meme, Bogost pessimistically concluded that the trendy indie title found favor online because partaking in the meme culture around the game was genuinely more fun than actually playing it. The game itself, despite its goofy trappings and casual appeal, shared a characteristic with all games: It was work. “The job of a goose turns out to be the same as the job of a person: to carry out a set of tasks, recorded for you on a to-do list, by any means possible,” wrote Bogost. “Whether made from guns or geese, games will always be imbricated with work, stuck in a celebration or a burlesque of labor.”