Video games have often been a target of moral panic in the United States. The 1990s were fraught with worry that consuming violent content in video games would lead to violent behavior in the real world. The 2010s had its own controversies with the immense popularity of franchises like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto. Video games have had a litany of bad press for things they might cause, but we don’t give them nearly enough credit for what they actually have – a remarkable ability to foster social joy and whimsy. 

Take Kerbal Space Program, a spaceflight simulator that is delightfully cartoony, with its little green player characters and charming music, and brutally punishing with its orbital physics. I have my own fond memories with early versions of the game. As a middle schooler with an interest in outer space, the game motivated me to get into model rocketry and scratched the itch to explore the solar system on my own terms.

As an adult who has abandoned a career in aerospace engineering for one in the social sciences, I still find myself picking up the game every once in a while. I’m not alone. Per SteamDB, the game has roughly quintupled its player base this past spring. This is far from the norm for games this far into their lifespan. While games occasionally see spikes in popularity due to sales, it’s incredibly rare to see sustained popularity on this scale.

Data visualized by the author. Source: SteamDB.info

I think the reasons for this spike are quite clear. March and April of 2026 were big months for public interest in space exploration. The breakaway box office success of Project Hail Mary, a film adaptation of Andy Weir’s 2021 sci-fi novel, brought a hopeful and optimistic portrayal of space travel and cooperation into the public consciousness. It was then quickly followed by the successful launch and completion of the Artemis II mission, sending four astronauts on a lunar flyby further away from Earth than ever before. 

Sociologists and social theorists have long written about the role of play as a tool to make sense of the world. Georg Simmel and Erving Goffman wrote about play as a form of human interaction, wherein there are distinct rules and routines to play that players know how to abide by to perform a successful interaction. In this setting, play is just something that humans do, not fundamentally different from other forms like work or competition. 

In contrast, historian Johan Huizinga argued that play is a primary force in the construction of human culture. In Homo Ludens, Huizinga asserts that play always exists as a representation of something else, that it serves as a layer underneath the “serious” that allows for people to alter the character of otherness. Put more simply, play serves as a space and time set aside to learn, to test, and to grow without consequence. In this way, play as a practice predates culture, predates civilization, and humans have “added no essential feature to the general idea of play.” 

Following Huizinga, Thomas S. Hendricks writes about play as a fundamental pathway of behavior and experience, on the same level as work, ritual, and communal engagement. In Selves, Societies, and Emotions, Hendricks argues that play serves as a space to focus on processes rather than an end goal. Play therefore becomes a “test ground”, where glory can be sought in the unpredictable. Through play we can cultivate awareness of our own capabilities. This testing ground is precisely what players – especially new ones – will experience in KSP.

“good news, i landed on the mun for the first time. Bad news, i don’t have any fuel and now jeb is stuck” -stompe444_ Source: r/KerbalSpaceProgram 

KSP‘s sustained boost in popularity is an example of how we can use play as a measure of public interest. As Huizinga argues, play never happens without it representing something meaningful. And whether this boost in popularity continues to hold stable or eventually declines back to baseline, I can’t help but be optimistic about the fact that more people than ever before are getting involved in the time-tested tradition of launching Jebediah Kerman to the stars, and what that means for the optimism that people have for a future in space.

The Artemis II mission cost billions of dollars, and the Artemis program itself has cost an order of magnitude more. At time of writing, Kerbal Space Program currently costs about $40 through Steam, and less if it is on sale. Even if only a fraction of those players end up turning their play into work, it’s worth it just for the fun of the ride. We often criticize video games for being time wasted at best and harmful power fantasies at worst. But it’s important to recognize how sociologists can use them to study social joy and public interest.

Jack Leatherman is a PhD Candidate at the University of Massachusetts Boston focusing on intersections of culture and technology. You can follow him on BlueSky.