When IT Support Games Get Too Real: The Day a Player Asked for Actual VPN Help in 'I.T. Never Ends
Have you ever questioned reality after a long day in tech support? Developer u/Euphoric-Series-1194 certainly has, after a player of their demo—"I.T. Never Ends," a simulator about being an IT worker in a cursed office—used the in-game feedback form not to comment on the game, but to beg for real-world VPN help. Yes, you read that right: a simulated hell became so immersive, someone mistook it for the help desk at their actual job.
If you’ve ever worked tech support, you know users can blur the line between reality and absurdity. But when the circle comes full Ouroboros—where the game about IT support starts fielding genuine IT tickets—well, that’s a new layer of digital Dante’s Inferno.
When Life Eats Its Own Tail: The Ouroboros of IT Support
The saga began innocently enough. The demo for "I.T. Never Ends" features a handy feedback tool, DEMO_FEEDBACK.exe, letting players share thoughts or frustrations. It all pipes straight into a public Discord channel, fostering transparency and community-driven development. But as u/joerice1979 quipped, “The snake has eaten its tail, life has imitated art while imitating life. The circle is complete.” And complete it was—because amid suggestions and bug reports, the developer received an earnest, multi-paragraph plea for help fixing a real VPN issue.
Why did this happen? Maybe the game’s immersive depiction of IT hell tapped into deep-rooted trauma. Or maybe, as OP wryly put it, “I made a game about people submitting nonsense tickets, and now I am getting actual tickets through the game.” Alanis Morissette could have burst through the door at any moment, strumming “Ironic” on her guitar.
Peak Immersion or User Confusion? Welcome to IT Purgatory
This wasn’t just a one-off moment of confusion. The community immediately saw the darkly comic brilliance in what had happened. “You did it. You became the real life protagonist from your game,” joked u/BrokenFerrariFan. Others speculated about the next escalation: would players start submitting tickets about why their toaster won’t connect to Wi-Fi?
Even the lack of details in the VPN ticket was painfully on-brand. As u/herrmanmerrman noted, “They included a realistic lack of details or screenshots, so the only info you have to go off of is it seems like a VPN issue to a user lmao.” In true tech support fashion, the form (never intended for real troubleshooting) was somehow less helpful than the average ticketing system. The developer was “almost impressed that this person thought to do so,” marveling at the player’s determination to get help—wherever they could find it.
And, of course, the feedback form wasn’t built for this. OP had to quickly scrub the Discord channel of personal info: “Truth be told I can't even recall what it was, I hurriedly deleted the post off of discord and replaced it with the screenshot above after somebody smarter than me reminded me that it's probably not a great idea to have people's email addresses floating around.”
Tech Support War Stories: VPNs, Notches, and Keyboard Graveyards
If “I.T. Never Ends” aims to capture the chaos of real support work, the Reddit comments delivered a buffet of war stories and black humor that could fill sequels. VPN tickets, it turns out, are a universal trigger. As u/rhoduhhh summarized: “Authentication failed means you either messed up your username/password, your company revoked your VPN access, your MFA/2FA is broken… or a whole plethora of company specific things that random strangers on the internet most likely aren't gonna be familiar with.” No pressure, support staff!
Others shared tales of VPN misery: weird authenticator app bugs, password sync mishaps that required literal road trips to the office, and even a user whose VPN icon was hidden behind an Apple screen notch. “The notch was never a good idea. Neither is the camera hole. Just accept that some not-screen components belong in the front of the device and house them in a sensible bezel,” lamented u/lord_teaspoon, sparking a nostalgia trip for the days of chunky, functional bezels (and forward-firing speakers).
And let’s not forget the hardware side. u/trro16p suggested adding a “closet full of keyboards” to the game, while others reminisced about piles of mice, the eternal tangle of cables, and “Cordian Knots” that would stump even Alexander the Great.
From Satire to Surreal: The Future of IT Support Simulators
What started as a satirical take on tech support has crossed into performance art. As u/Professional-Emu7786 lampooned, “Hold down SHIFT and CTRL while simultaneously processing A and F. Do that twice in a row. Now run around the outside of your house. Wait, is today’s date divisible by two? If it is, then prepare a sacrifice...”
The community’s reaction has been a mix of sympathy, encouragement, and the kind of gallows humor you only find in IT. Some immediately wishlisted the game, while others warned the developer to brace for an onslaught of “real” support requests through the feedback form (OP: “please do not use it to submit IT support tickets, I am very small and very tired”).
For those who’ve lived the help desk life, “I.T. Never Ends” is a cathartic echo chamber. As u/Snowenn_ put it after sharing a horror story: “Users are strange creatures.” And so are we, for building and playing games about our own professional purgatory.
Conclusion: When Art, Life, and Tech Support Collide
When your game about tech support is so good players start submitting real tickets, you know you’ve struck a nerve. Maybe that’s the highest form of immersive storytelling—or maybe it’s just IT support hell leaking into every corner of life, even our escapist fantasies.
So, if you’re brave enough, check out the demo—but please, heed the developer’s plea: don’t submit your real VPN woes. Instead, share your funniest IT support story in the comments below. Who knows—you might inspire the next level of “I.T. Never Ends.”
Have you ever had a tech support moment so surreal it felt like a game? Let us know below!
Original Reddit Post: I'm working on a game about IT support in hell. Someone just used the ingame demo feedback form to request real IT help with their vpn.