I used to have real trouble with SF as a gaming genre outside of space opera. The solution turned out to be in the very problem statement.

As you identified, there's just so much bewildering *variety* in science fiction in terms of genres, tones, scales, et al that it's almost, but not quite, a useless term.

Once I figured out that the reason I had problems with the genre outside of space opera was precisely because space opera is a very specific subset of science fiction, the rest fell into place: now I don't play science fiction games. I play "space exploration". Or "world settlement". Or "interplanetary trade". The key was always in my hand, without my recognizing it: focus.

Nice article that brings back so many years of frustration and its eventual resolution for me.

I didn't really understand SF gaming until I played in RoboG's game. I went for a computer technician and loved making up all kinds of stuff with cyber jargon. It's like you get to be a hacker without having to do all the work. Essentially every computer, data jack, cable, or robot became a path to more information. I enjoyed that.