The Twitch streamer Chance “Sodapoppin” Morris has become so immersed in the roleplay at GTA 5 Online that the job he performs in the game has become overwhelming. The 27-year-old is now quitting the game. He feels like he really has to work there.
Why does Sodapoppin feel so much stress in GTA 5? Sodapoppin plays GTA Online on the extremely popular “No Pixel 3.0” server, where roleplay is taken seriously. If someone doesn’t put in the effort and just flirts with women cheaply, they get kicked off the server.
The streamers play a fixed character and live their life when they are online on Twitch. While in normal GTA 5 criminals engage in wild chases with police and deal drugs, on the roleplay server, you can also play someone who goes to work every day and grills burgers.
Sodapoppin’s character is named Kevin Whipaloo, a businessman who runs a restaurant and keeps getting accidentally tangled in crimes. But the problem is: Sodapoppin took the businessman role so seriously that he felt like a real manager with employees, customers, and issues. In a live stream, he now says:
“GTA RP, in the position of Kevin, is a real job. It was actually work. It was brutal. It was: manage this, manage that, damn employees want something, I have a problem with the cops.”
Sodapoppin
Sodapoppin has to serve customers who want burgers:
Sodapoppin is overwhelmed by everything in GTA 5
Sodapoppin says he no longer has any fun in the game. Usually, he likes to do really stupid things, just escape and hop on a bike and ride off. But that is no longer possible because he has “damn employees” and “damn customers.”
It all overwhelmed him. He says:
“The fault lies mainly with me. I maneuvered myself into a situation with serious commitments. It brought me to a point where I no longer enjoyed it. I overestimated myself, I don’t like it anymore. It’s too much.”
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What happens now with the character: Originally, Sodapoppin had planned for someone to dramatically kill Kevin Whipaloo. But that did not happen.
The server operators even offered to get rid of people who were harassing him because he is such a big streamer – but he didn’t want that either.
The Twitch streamer also considered coming up with a complicated in-game explanation for his absence, but he discarded that idea as well.
Sodapoppin is now simply quitting the role-play and taking an indefinite break.
Always these customers complaining about the burgers:
When games feel “accidentally” like real jobs
This is what’s behind it: It’s amusing that a Twitch streamer accidentally slips into a “real job” like many of his viewers have, and it becomes too much for him.
People with “normal jobs” have to deal with being in a situation with many obligations that isn’t always fun for them. But Sodapoppin can quit and go back to doing “stupid stuff.” Not everyone has that option.
Sodapoppin had too few scenes of “stupid roleplay” in his job:
What Sodapoppin experiences in GTA 5 is a phenomenon in many MMOs, even without roleplay: When you engage in a multiplayer game, you make social commitments. Anyone who has raided in games like WoW or even taken on a guild leadership knows this. You quickly end up with a lot of obligations, have to stick to fixed dates, have tasks to complete, and expectations to meet.
That indeed feels like a second job.
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