Just Press Start
An interview with owner Keith Johnson of The Basement VR
There was a time when video games asked very little of you. You got home from work, turned on your favorite console, and—most importantly—you pressed Start. No logins. No accounts. No pop-ups.
Today, it’s a little different. You finally sit down to relax, fire up a game you’re excited to play… and you’re greeted with an update. Then you see it: Estimated time remaining — 2 hours. You sigh, put the controller down, and wonder how playing a game became this much work.
“I love where gaming has gone technologically,” says Basement VR owner Keith Johnson, “but somewhere along the way, it also got… complicated.” He laughs and tells a story that will feel painfully familiar to a lot of players.
Recently, he tried starting a modern sports game—no need to name names—and before he could even get to the menu, he was met with a disclaimer so long it made him stop and stare. “It was more pages than the refinancing paperwork for our house,” he jokes. “I literally asked out loud, ‘What am I signing??’ I just wanted to play a game.”
That moment perfectly captures why The Basement VR exists. The goal isn’t to strip away depth or innovation—it’s to remove friction. “People don’t come here to read fine print or wait on downloads,” Keith explains. “They come here to laugh, compete, and experience something cool together.”
One of Keith’s favorite moments came from a customer who walked in and said, very honestly, “The last video game I played was Pong… am I even going to be able to play VR?”
Instead of a long explanation or a complicated setup, the team did what they do best: they put on the headset, explained the intuitive controls, and let her try it. Seconds later, she was off to the races—serving burgers in one of their favorite team-based games, calling out orders and laughing like she’d been gaming her whole life.
“That’s the magic,” Keith says. “VR can look intimidating, but when it’s done right, it’s incredibly natural. You don’t need to download an update, sign up for a Facebook account that secretly creates a Meta account, authenticate it on two different mobile devices, dust off your fax machine, and print, sign, and return 82 pages of terms and conditions. You just put on the headset and play.”
At The Basement VR, that philosophy guides everything. Experiences are chosen to be easy to jump into, whether you’re a lifelong gamer or someone who hasn’t touched a controller in decades.
“When the headset comes off,” Keith adds, “people are smiling, laughing, and usually saying, ‘Okay… I didn’t expect that. How many other games do you have?’” Keith grins. “About 20 more!”
In a world where games sometimes feel like they require patience, passwords, and paperwork before the fun begins, The Basement VR is a reminder of what made gaming special in the first place.
Sometimes, the best instruction is still the simplest one of all:
Just press Start.