#crunch culture in the industry is harmful and exploitative
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Insights into DAIâs development from Blood, Sweat, and Pixels
The book is by game industry journalist Jason Schreier (itâs an interesting read and well-written, I recommend it). This is the cliff notes version of the DAI chapter. This info isnât new as the book is from 2017 (I finally got around to buying it). Some insight into DAO, DA2 and cancelled DA projects is also given. Cut for length.
BW hoped that DA would become the LotR of video games. DAOâs development was âa hellish seven-year slogâ
The DAI team are compared to a chaotic âpirate shipâ, which is what they called themselves internally. âItâll get where it needs to go, but itâs going to go all over the place. Sail over here. Drink some rum. Go over here. Do something else. Thatâs how Mark Darrah likes to run his team.â An alternative take from someone else who worked on the game: âIt was compared to a pirate ship because it was chaotic and the loudest voice in the room usually set the direction. I think they smartly adopted the name and morphed it into something better.â
A game about the Inquisition and the large-scale political conflicts it solves across Thedas, where the PC was the Inquisitor, was originally the vision for âDA2â˛. Plans had to change when SW:TORâs development kept stalling and slipping. Frustrated EA execs wanted a new product from BW to bolster quarterly sales targets, and decided that DA would have to fill the gap. BW agreed to deliver DA2 within 16 months. âBasically, DA2 exists to fill that hole. That was the inception. It was always intended to be a game made to fit in thatâ
BW wanted to call it DA: Exodus, but EAâs marketing execs insisted on DA2, no matter what that name implied
DAOâs scope (Origin stories, that amount of big areas, variables, reactivity) was just not doable in a year, even if everyone worked overtime. To solve this problem, BW shelved the Inquisition idea and made a risky call: DA2 would be set in one city over time, allowing locations to be recycled and months to be shaved off dev time. They also axed DAO features like customizing party membersâ equipment. These were the best calls they were able to make on a tight line
Many at BW are still proud of DA2. Those that worked on it grew closer from all being in it together
In certain dark accounting corners of EA, despite fan response to DA2 and its lower sales compared to DAO, DA2 is considered a wild success
By summer 2011 BW decided to cancel DA2â˛s expansion Exalted March in favor of a totally new game. They needed to get away from the stigma of DA2, reboot the franchise and show they could make triple-A quality good games.Â
DAI was going to be the most ambitious game BW had ever made and had a lot to prove (that BW could return to form, that EA wasnât crippling the studio, that BW could make an âopen-worldâ RPG with big environments). There was a bit of a tone around the industry that there were essentially 2 tiers of BW, the ME team and then everyone else, and the DA team had a scrappy desire to fight back against that
DAI was behind schedule early on due to unfamiliar new technology; the new engine Frostbite was very technically challenging and required more work than anyone had expected. Even before finishing DA2 BW were looking for a new engine for the next game. Eclipse was creaky, obsolete, not fully-featured, graphically lacking. The ME team used Unreal, which made inter-team collab difficult. âOur tech strategy was just a mess. Every time weâd start a new game, people would say, âOh, we should just pick a new engineâ.â
After meeting with an EA exec BW decided on Frostbite. Nobody had ever used it to make an RPG, but EA owned FB dev studio DICE, and the engine was powerful and had good graphic capabilities & visual effects. If BW started making all its games on FB, it could share tech with sister studios and borrow tools when they learned cool new tricks.Â
For a while they worked on a prototype called Blackfoot, to get a feel for FB and to make a free-to-play DA MP game. It fizzled as the team was too small, which doesnât lend itself well to working with FB, and was cancelled
BW resurfaced the old Inquisition idea. What might a DA3 look like on FB? Their plan by 2012 was to make an open-world RPG heavily inspired by Skyrim that hit all the beats DA2 couldnât. âMy secret mission was to shock and awe the players with the massive amounts of content.â People complained there wasnât enough in DA2. âAt the end of DAI, I actually want people to go, âOh god, not [another] levelâ.â
It was originally called Dragon Age 3: Inquisition
BW wanted to launch on next-gen consoles only but EAâs profit forecasters were caught up in the rise of iPad and iPhone gaming and were worried the next-gen consoles wouldnât sell well. As a safeguard EA insist it also ship on current-gen. Most games at that time followed this strategy. Shipping on 5 platforms at once would be a first for BW
Ambitions were piling up. This was to be BWâs first 3D open-world game, and their first game on Frostbite, an engine that had never been used to make RPGs. It needed to be made in roughly two years, it needed to ship on 5 platforms, and, oh yeah, it needed to restore the reputation of a studio that had been beaten up pretty badly. âBasically we had to do new consoles, a new engine, new gameplay, build the hugest game that weâve ever made, and build it to a higher standard than we ever did. With tools that donât exist.â
FB didnât have RPG stats, a visible PC, spells, save systems, a party of 4 people, the same kind of cutscenes etc and couldnât create any of those things. BW had to create these on top of it. BW initially underestimated how much work this would be. BW were the FB guinea pigs. Early on in DAIâs development, even the most basic tasks were excruciating, and this impacted even fundamental aspects of game design and dev. When FBâs tools did function they were finicky and difficult. DICEâs team supported them but had limited resources and were 8 hours ahead. Since creating new content in FB was so difficult, trying to evaluate its quality became impossible. FB engine updates made things even more challenging. After every one, BW had to manually merge and test it; this was debilitating, and there were times when the build didnât work for a month or was really unstable.
Meanwhile the art department were having a blast. FB was great for big beautiful environments. For months they made as much as possible, taking educated guesses when they didnât know yet what the designers needed. âFor a long time there was a joke on the project that weâd made a fantastic-looking screenshot generator, because you could walk around these levels with nothing to do. You could take great pictures.â
The concept of DAI as open-world was stymying the story/writers and gameplay/designers teams. What were players going to do in these big landscapes? How could BW ensure exploring remained fun after many hours? Their teams didnât have time for system designers to envision, iterate and test a good âcore gameplay loopâ (quests, encounters, activities etc). FB wouldnât allow it. Designers couldnât test new ideas or answer questions because basic features were missing or didnât exist yet.Â
EAâs CEO told BW they should have the ability to ride dragons and that this would make DAI sell 10 million copies. BW didnât take this idea very seriously
BW had an abstract idea that the player would roam the world solving problems and building up power or influence they could use. But how would that look/work like in-game? This could have used refinement and testing but instead they decided to build some levels and hope they could figure it out as they went.
One day in late 2012, after a year of strained development on DAI, Mark Darrah asked Mike Laidlaw to go to lunch. âWeâre walking out to his car,â Laidlaw said, âand I think he might have had a bit of a script in his head. [Darrah] said, âAll right, I donât actually know how to approach this, so Iâm just going to say it. On a scale of one to apocalyptic... how upset would you be if I said [the player] could be, I dunno, a Qunari Inquisitor?ââÂ
Laidlaw was baffled. Theyâd decided that the player could be only a human in DAI. Adding other playable races like Darrah was asking for would mean theyâd need to quadruple their budget for animation, voice acting, and scripting.
âI went, âI think we could make that workâ,â Laidlaw said, asking Darrah if he could have more budget for dialogue.Â
Darrah answered that if Laidlaw could make playable races happen, he couldnât just have more dialogue. He could have an entire year of production.
Laidlaw was thrilled. âFuck yeah, OK,â he recalled saying.
MD had actually already realized at this point itâd be impossible to finish DAI in 2013. They needed at least a yearâs delay and adding the other playable races was part of a plan/planned pitch to secure this. He was in the process of putting together a pitch to EA: let BW delay the game, and in exchange itâd be bigger and better that anyone at EA had envisioned. These new marketing points included playable races, mounts and a new tactical camera. If EA wouldnât let them delay, they would have had to cut things. Going into that BW were confident but nervous, especially in the wake of EAâs recent turmoil where theyâd just parted ways with their CEO and had recruited a new board member while they hunted for a new one. They didnât know how the new board member would react, and the delay would affect EAâs projections for that fiscal year. Maybe it was the convincing pitch, or the exec turmoil, or the specter of DA2, or maybe EA didnât like being called âThe Worst Company in Americaâ. Winning that award 2 years in a row had had a tangible impact on the execs and led to feisty internal meetings on how to repair EAâs image. Whatever the reasons, EA greenlit the delay.
The PAX Crestwood demo was beautiful but almost entirely fake. By fall 2013, BW had implemented many of FBâs âpartsâ, but still didnât know what kind of âcarâ they were making. ML and team scripted the PAX demo by hand, entirely based on what BW thought would be in the game. The level & art assets were real but the gameplay wasnât. âPart of what we had to do is go out early and try to be transparent because of DA2. And just say, âLook, here, itâs the game, itâs running live, itâs at PAX.â Because we wanted to make that statement that weâre here for fans.â
DA2 hung on the team like a shadow. There was insecurity, uncertainty, they had trouble sticking to one vision. Which DA2 things were due to the short dev time and which were bad calls? What stuff should they reinvent? There were debates over combat (DAO-style vs DA2-style) and arguments over how to populate the wilderness.
In the months after that demo, BW cut much of what theyâd shown in it. Even small features went through many permutations. DAI had no proper preproduction phase (important for testing and discarding things), so leads were stretched thin and had to make impulsive decisions.
By the end of 2013, DAI had 200+ people working on it, and dozens of additional outsourced artists in Russia and China. Coordinating all the work across various departments was challenging and a full-time job for several people. At this sheer scale of game dev, there are many complexities and inter-dependencies. Work finally became significantly less tedious and more doable when BW and DICE added more features to FB. Time was running out though, and another delay was a no.
The team spent many hours in November and December piecing together a ânarrative playableâ version of the game to be the holiday periodâs game build for BW staff to test that year. Feedback on the demo was bad. There were big complaints on story, that it didnât make sense and was illogical. Originally the PC became Inquisitor and sealed the breach in the prologue, which removed a sense of urgency. In response the writers embarked on Operation Sledgehammer (breaking a bone to set it right), radically revising the entire first act.
The other big piece of negative feedback was that battles werenât fun. Daniel Kading, who had recently joined BW and brought with him a rigorous new method for testing combat in games, went to BW leadership with a proposal: give him authority to open his own little lab with the other designers and call up the entire team for mandatory play sessions for test purposes. They agreed and he used this experiment to get test feedback and specifically pinpoint where problems were. Morale took a turn for the better that week, DKâs team made several tweaks, and through these sessions feedback ratings went from 1.2 to 8.8 four weeks later.
Many on the team wished they didnât have to ship for old consoles (clunky, less powerful). BW leadership decided not to add features to the next-gen versions that wouldnât be possible on the older ones, so that both versions of the game played the same. This limited things and meant the team had to find creative solutions. âI probably shouldâve tried harder to kill [the last-gen] version of the gameâ, said Aaryn Flynn. In the end the next-gen consoles sold very well and only 10% of DAI sales were on last-gen.
âA lot of what we do is well-intentioned fakery,â said Patrick Weekes, pointing to a late quest called âHere Lies The Abyssâ. âWhen you assault the fortress, you have a big cut scene that has a lot of Inquisition soldiers and a lot of Grey Wardens on the walls. And then anyone paying attention or looking for it as youâre fighting through the fortress will go, âWow, Iâm only actually fighting three to four guys at a time.â Because in order for that to work [on old gen], you couldnât have too many different character types on screen.â
Parts of DAI were still way behind schedule because it was so big and complex, and because some tools hadnât started functioning until late on. Some basic features werenât able to be implemented til the last minute (they were 8 months from ship before they could get all party members in the squad. At one point PW was playtesting to check if Iron Bullâs banter was firing, and realized there was no way to even recruit IB) and some flaws couldnât be identified til the last few months. Trying to determine flow and pacing was rough.
They couldnât disappoint fans again. They needed to take the time to revise and polish every aspect of DAI. âI think DAI is a direct response to DA2,â said Cameron Lee. âDAI was bigger than it needed to be. It had everything but the kitchen sink in it, to the point that we went too far... I think that having to deal with DA2 and the negative feedback we got on some parts of that was driving the team to want to put everything in and try to address every little problem or perceived problem.â
At this point they had 2 options: settle for an incomplete game, which would disappoint fans especially post-DA2, or crunch. They opted to crunch. It was the worst period of extended overtime in DAIâs development yet and was really rough: late nights, weekends, lost family time, 12-14 hour days, stress, mental health impacts.
During 2014â˛s crunch, they finally finished off features they wished theyâd nailed down in year 1. They completed the Power (influence) system and added side quests, hidden treasures and puzzles. Things that werenât working like destructible environments were promptly removed. The writers rewrote the prologue at least 6 times, but didnât have enough time to pay such attention to the ending. Just a few months before launch pivotal features like jumping were added.
By summer BW had bumped back release by another 6 weeks for polish. DAI had about 99,000 bugs in it (qualitative and quantitative; things like âI was bored hereâ are a bug). âThe number of bugs on an open-world game, Iâve never seen anything like it. But theyâre all so easy to fix, so keep filing these bugs and weâll keep fixing them.â For BW it was harder to discover them, and the QA team had to do creative experimentation and spend endless late nights testing things. PW would take builds home to let their 9 year old son play around. Their son was obsessed with mounting and dismounting the horse and accidentally discovered a bug where if you dismounted in the wrong place, all your companionsâ gear would vanish. âIt was because my son liked the horse so much more than anyone else ever had or will ever like the horse.â
MD had a knack for prioritizing which bugs should be fixed, like the one where you could get to inaccessible areas by jumping on Varricâs head. âMuscle memory is incredibly influential at this point. Through the hellfire which is game development, weâre forged into a unit, in that we know what everyoneâs thinking and we understand everyoneâs expectations.â
At launch they still didnât have all their tools working, they only had their tools working enough.
DAI became the best-selling DA game, beating EAâs sales expectations in just a few weeks. If you look closely you can see the lingering remnants of its chaotic development, like the âgarbage questsâ in the Hinterlands. Some players didnât realize they could leave the area and others got caught in a âweird, compulsive gratification loopâ. Internet commentators rushed to blame âthose damn lazy devsâ but really, these were the natural consequences of DAIâs struggles. Maybe things would have been different if theyâd miraculously received another year of dev time, or if theyâd had years before starting development to build FBâs tools first.
âThe challenge of the Hinterlands and what it represented to the opening 10 hours of DAI is exactly the struggle of learning to build open-world gameplay and mechanisms when you are a linear narrative story studio,â said Aaryn Flynn.
âDA2 was the product of a remarkable time-line challenge,â said Mike Laidlaw, âDAI was the product of a remarkable technical challenge. But it had enough time to cook, and as a result it was a much better game.â
Read the chapter for full details of course!
#dragon age#bioware#video games#SW:TOR#mass effect#I've seen plenty of this info discussed in articles/thinkpieces and on online communities over the years#but it's nice to read it first hand#some very insightful stuff here#these behind the scenes looks are very valuble#a lot of DAI's elements make sense given the context and what was going on in the background and the tech challenges they faced etc#be kind and respectful to devs folks they're human beings#also in general this book is really interesting and easy to read#funny in places too#it has lots of other chapters on lots of other games including Stardew Valley#I def recc buying it#anyway hope this post is useful/interesting to someone!#oh and as always support good treatment of game devs#crunch culture in the industry is harmful and exploitative
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Every Cyberpunk 2077 Controversy So Far
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Cyberpunk 2077 may be the most anticipated game of 2020 but its long road to release can be measured by numerous controversies that have often attracted the wrong kind of attention.
From delays to questionable tweets, Cyberpunk 2077 can easily be considered one of the most controversial games in recent memory, and it hasnât even been released yet. While time will tell if Cyberpunk 2077 can âusurpâ The Last of Us Part 2 and become 2020âs most divisive game, the project is already at the center of several heated debates that are causing fans to take sides.
If youâre wondering where you stand on the gameâs most contested topics, hereâs a rundown of every notable Cyberpunk 2077 controversy (so far):
The Numerous Delays and Long Development Time
Believe it or not, there have only been three official Cyberpunk 2077 delays so far and all of them have happened in 2020.
Cyberpunk 2077âs first official release date was April 16, 2020. While developer CD Projekt Red noted early in the year that the game was âcomplete and playable,â the studio delayed the game to September 17 as part of an effort to better optimize its performance.
On June 18, the Cyberpunk 2077 team announced via Twitter that the gameâs release had been delayed again and was now (at least at that time) scheduled to be released on November 19. Again, CD Projekt Red cited a âhuge number of things to iron outâ as the reason for the delay.
Finally, on October 27, CD Projekt Red announced that Cyberpunk 2077âs final release date had been rescheduled for December 10. This time, the team cited not just bug fixes and optimization as the reason for the delay but the challenges presented by their desire to release the game across so many platforms.
Before we dive into some of the other delay related controversies, we should point out that much of the fan frustration regarding Cyberpunk 2077âs delays are closely related to the fact the game was revealed via a teaser trailer released in 2013. While we donât know what the status of the game was at that time, the popular perception is that Cyberpunk 2077 has been in development for seven years. That means that each one of the gameâs 2020 delays has stung some fans harder than they otherwise may have.
The Crunch Schedule
You canât talk about Cyberpunk 2077âs delays without talking about the gameâs controversial crunch development schedule.
Weâve covered this topic before in greater detail (you can read our full report on this subject here), but the gist of the situation is that developer CD Projekt Red had previously stated that they would not force the Cyberpunk 2077 team to work through a crunch schedule. In September, though, CD Projekt Red boss Adam Badowski confirmed reports that the studio asked employees to begin working additional hours. In exchange for the extra work, they would be compensated with overtime pay and additional funds offered by the companyâs profit-sharing program.
That information triggered two additional debates. The first saw those who opposed the companyâs crunch schedule battle those who claimed the companyâs employees were being fairly compensated for their extra work. While it was generally agreed the company was compensating its employees for overtime more than other game developers have done in the past (and that some employees anonymously stated they were fine with the schedule), many argued that crunch development is an industry problem which needs to be addressed whenever it appears.
Finally, thereâs the matter of the gameâs delays. The latest Cyberpunk 2077 delay was confirmed after the report of the companyâs crunch schedule had broke. If the insinuation was that the crunch schedule was implemented as a desperate measure intended to ensure the game was released on time, then could CD Projekt Red have skipped the crunch schedule and just delayed the game a little longer?
The PS4/Xbox One Controversy
When news broke that the most recent Cyberpunk 2077 delay was partially attributed to the struggles of launching the game across so many platforms, it didnât take long for some fans to worry about the PS4 and Xbox One editions of the game.
Why? Well, some people expressed their concern that the previous-gen versions of Cyberpunk 2077 may hinder the day one quality of the next-gen editions. CD Projekt Red has stated that the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions of Cyberpunk 2077 will benefit from day one upgrades, but the âfullâ next-gen versions of each title will not be available until a later date.
Others had the opposite concern and worried that the next-gen editions of Cyberpunk 2077 would be the ârealâ versions of the game and that the PS4 and Xbox One versions would suffer from serious performance downgrades. Thereâs currently no evidence which strongly supports that claim, but it does ring loud at a time when itâs nearly impossible to find a PS5 or Xbox Series X/S.
The Gender Tweet
One of the earlier Cyberpunk 2077 controversies involved this now-deleted tweet from the Cyberpunk 2077 Twitter account:
The tweet itself was sent in the midst of a greater debate over the use of that term and whether or not it had become a way to mock transgender people or those who sympathize with the struggles of transgender people. Basically, there was some concern that the Cyberpunk 2077 teamâs use of that term was meant as an insult
CD Projekt Red deleted the tweet and issued the following statement regarding it:
âSorry to all those offended by one of the responses sent out from our account earlier. Harming anyone was never our intention.â
As some noted at the time, this controversy was amplified by another incident in which GOG (a digital store owned by CD Projekt Red) tweeted a GIF of a Postal character urinating on a tombstone that read âGames Journalismâ and âAugust 28th, 2014.â That date is believed to be a reference to GamerGate.
cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });
The Transgender Poster
Arguably the most infamous Cyberpunk 2077 controversy involved this in-game poster:
The poster showcases a transgender model advertising a soda with slogans could be interpreted as references to transgender people. Given that this poster was circulated shortly after the aforementioned tweets, some felt that this was another example of CD Projekt Red using transgender people as a punchline.
In an interview with Polygon, the CD Projekt Red artist who designed this poster, Kasia Redesiuk, explained her thought process behind it.
âPersonally, for me, this person is sexy,â Redesiuk said. âI like how this person looks. However, this model is used â their beautiful body is used â for corporate reasons. They are displayed there just as a thing, and thatâs the terrible part of it.â
Redesiuk also stated that she had no intentions of directly offending people but did note that she was aware the image was inherently provocative.
âI would say it was never the intention to offend anyone,â Redesiuk said. âHowever, with this image of an oversexualized person, we did want to show how over-sexualization of people is bad. And thatâs it.
The Gender Choice Character Creator
Cyberpunk 2077 would once again find itself at the center of a gender-related controversy, but this one was a bit different than the others.
In an interview with Metro, Cyberpunk 2077 artist Marthe Jonkers explained that the game would not offer simple male and female gender options during the character creation process.
âYou donât choose, âI want to be a female or male characterâ you now choose a body type,â Jonkers explained. âSo you choose your body type and we have two voices, one thatâs male sounding, one is female sounding. You can mix and match. You can just connect them any way you want. And then we have a lot of extra skin tones and tattoos and hairstyles. So we really want to give people the freedom to make their own character and play the way they want to play.â
While some felt that this was the companyâs attempt to cover up for their previous actions, much of the blowback in this instance came from fans who saw this as an example of the Cyberpunk 2077 team âpanderingâ to critics. There is currently no information available that suggests the gameâs character creation process was drastically altered in response to any such criticisms.
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The Animals and Voodoo Boys
The reveal of Cyberpunk 2077âs gangs caused some to question whether or not the game was relying on racial stereotypes.
This debate focused on two gangs: The Animals and Voodoo Boys. Some fans felt that the âAnimalsâ name was intended as an insult directed towards a gang that appeared to largely be comprised of people of color. As for the Voodoo Boys, there were concerns that the gangâs name, design, and background were designed to exploit racial and cultural stereotypes.
CD Projekt Red later stated that The Animals is actually a multi-racial gang and that that the initial portrayal of them as a gang that consisted entirely of people of color was based on the specific scenario of the gameplay demo they were showcased in. Cyberpunk 2020âs creator also offered this response in regards to these controversies:
âAs for the Animalsâthe WHOLE FREAKING POINT is that they think of themselves as POWERFUL, DANGEROUS, WILD ANIMALS. Youâd have thought the Lady named âSasquatchâ would have given them a clueâŚThe original Voodoo Boys were a scathing commentary on cultural appropriation. I LOVE the idea that real practitioners of Voudon moved in and took back their turf. And they even got the Creole rightâŚWho the (bleep) do YOU think you are to tell ME whether or not MY creation was done right or not?â
The Microtransactions
Earlier this year, CD Projekt Redâs Adam Kicinski caused a stir by implying that Cyberpunk 2077 would have microtransactions despite previous implications that the game would not.
âWeâre never aggressive towards our fans!â Kicinski said during an earnings call. âWe treat them fairly and weâre friendly. So of course not â we wonât be aggressive â but you can expect great things to be bought. The goal is to design monetization in a way that makes people happy to spend money. Iâm not trying to be cynical or hide something; itâs about creating a feeling of value.â
The Cyberpunk team later clarified that statement somewhat with the following tweet:
Nothing changed. Cyberpunk 2077 is a single player game with zero microtransactions. One single purchase. No tricks. Don't believe the clickbait. https://t.co/qX0iZwsAf2
â Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) September 7, 2020
The issue of microtransactions is typically controversial in and of itself, but the debate was amplified in this instance by CD Project Redâs apparent âanti-microtransactionâ culture and outward consumer-friendly image. Furthermore, Cyberpunk 2077âs multiplayer has been its own source of controversy due to the mysterious nature of the concept and concerns its development has further delayed the release of the Cyberpunk 2077 campaign.
The First-Person Controversy
It feels so quaint now, but one of the earlier Cyberpunk 2077 controversies involved the gameâs first-person perspective.
In 2019, the Cyberpunk 2077 team confirmed the game would largely take place in first-person with third-person angles being used for certain cutscenes and driving sequences. This upset some fans who were not only led to believe the game would be third-person based on early footage (and The Witcher 3) but were concerned by the implications of a first-person game. Namely, they worried that the game would end up being a first-person shooter and that first-person cutscenes would not be nearly as âimmersiveâ as the third-person storytelling featured in The Witcher 3.
Some fans also felt that a first-person perspective would limit the impact of the gameâs character customization options, but CD Projekt Red later clarified that youâll be able to see your character in mirrors and on the inventory screen.
The post Every Cyberpunk 2077 Controversy So Far appeared first on Den of Geek.
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Introducing Slow Gaming
How a former The Witcher developer has had enough of AAA Games and is inventing a whole new genre.
Artur Ganszyniec was Lead ÂStory Designer and one of the most influential people in the deveÂlÂopment of The Witcher. At some point, however, he was tired of the stress and pressure. He left CD Projekt Red and founded Different Tales, the somewhat different studio in 2018. A studio exploring the idea of slow gaming. A studio that wants to tell other stories. Stories rooted in the common human experience. Stories that you discover at your own pace. Stories with the potential to bring about change.
Their first game is Wanderlust Travel Stories. This isnât a typical game; Different Tales name it a âÂdigital travel experienceâ. You take the role of various modern travellers, live their adventures and shape their stories. Each character has his own whishes, hopes, and fears. Youâre both the reader and the storyteller. You guide the charactersâ actions and experience ther emotions. With every choice you make, you create a journey of your own.
During his many travels Jacek spent some time in Thailand, and brought back the picture.
Wanderlust Travel Stories was created by a team of travelers, journalists, artists, and game makers and was inspired by real-life experiences. There are over 300,000 words of text in this adventure Âincluding four novels and five short stories. Relish in discovery and awe, longing and hope as you Âjourney from Africa to Antarctica, from Europe to Asia. The change brought by this odyssey will be your own. A bridge between literary experiences and gaming.
Slow Gaming Movement is a response to the rising need for deeper, more grounded games and healthier practices in the game development industry. The goal of Slow Games isnât to challenge skills and Âreflexes, but assumptions and feelings. Driven by emotions more complex than anxiety and fear of losing, they allow gamers to play at their own pace â and grow. Slow Games stem from views and ideas important to the team. They arenât designed as toys. They are tales of common human experience. Wanderlust Travel ÂStories, available for PC, iOS and Android, is such a game. We had the chance to talk with ÂCo-Founder and Game Designer ÂArtur Ganszyniec about Wanderlust and his Âstudio Different Tales.
Making Games: Please tell us briefly about your career in the gaming industry. Artur Ganszyniec: I started working on the first Witcher game as a dialogue writer, Âlater became the Lead Story Designer for the franchise, and I left CD Projekt Red a year or so before the release of The ÂWitcher 2. For the next six years I worked on mobile games like Puzzle Craft or Another Case Solved. Then I spend some time in 11 bit studios, designing a prototype for a new project. And since June 2018 I am a part of Different Tales, and our first release is a playable documentary called Wanderlust Travel Stories. I also teach Game Design on Lodz University of Technology.
Monkeys are quite photogenic, but they can also be aggressive. If youâre not a profesional  photographer, proceed with care.
Why did you turn away from AAA games and make Indie Games now? Have you ever regretted your decision? Making AAA games became just too much for me â the crunch, the constant stress of working in a big organization, the emotional cost of working on the same project for many years. One day I realized that I need something different, and quit. MaÂking smaller games provides the same, or even more, opportunities to experiment and learn. The difference is that I manage to work on smaller projects in a way that is not damaging to my personal life and mental health. I failed to do that when working on AAA games. Have I regretted my decision? Sure, there were moments when I missed the thrill and adrenaline rush of working on high budget games, but overall I think it was a good decision for me.
You call your game Wanderlust a âSlow Gameâ. What does this mean and why is this your preferred genre now? We had this idea of games that play on emotions other than fear, frustration and triumph, games that give you space to reflect on how you feel and what you think. When we started exploring the idea, we noticed many similarities to the Slow Living movement (Slow Food, Slow Fashion etc.), so we started using the term Slow ÂGaming, to talk about games like ours. I mean games that are grounded in local inspirations and personal experiences, games that do not exploit fears but encourage growth, games that trust you and treat you like an adult, games that are made in a way that is not harmful to the team. That are the ideals we strive for, and now we are discussing them with the industry, players, press, to see how others see Slow Games and what they need from such a movement.
 Joanna, who wrote about Barcelona, had lived there years ago, and Jacek flew there, especially to take the pictures for the game.
What inspired you to Wanderlust? The inspiration was very personal. My business partner, Jacek Brzezinski (which whom I worked on the first Witcher, where he was the Project Lead), is a traveller. He visited over 110 countries, went around the globe, and travelling is a very important part of his life. When we met and started Different Tales, Jacek was working on a game about travelling â a backpacker siÂmuÂlator. We took this idea and after a few prototypes, we knew that we were more interested in simulating the feelings and experiences of travelling, not only the boring logistics of the process. And so Wanderlust Travel Stories was born â a playable documentary, something between gaming and literary experience, a collection of stories inspired by the common human need to learn about distant places.
Talking about the development process: What problems did you encounter in general and how did you deal with them? The most interesting problem we encountered was that we had no benchmarks on the market. We knew that we wanted to make a playable documentary, so travel magazines, travelogues and interactive fiction were points of reference, but we had no idea, how to combine showing the world as it was, with a story shaped by playerâs choices. We gathered a team of travel journalists, writers and translators, and started with research. Only when we knew what places and what problems we wanted to document, we started designing the stories. The solution we found was that we created fictional characters with their own engaging narratives, and we placed them in a real, well-researched world. Players, by making choices, shape the experience and the emotions of the characters, while learning about the world through the charactersâ eyes. This is the magic of games as a medium â the story moves forward only because I, the player, make decisions and then experience the consequences first hand. I am no longer an observer, but an actor and the story is no longer something I read or saw, but something that happened to me. This is a powerful learning tool.
The American short story is based on Karolinaâs Âdocumentary book about Coney Island.
Which feature are you particularly proud of? I think the whole team made a great job and Iâm very proud to be a part of this production. Personally I like how we managed to show that what we see when we travel, is coloured by our emotions. In the game, the playerâs choices influence the characterâs mood, and the mood changes large portions of the text. So, for example, ÂParis can be a beautiful city when the hero is optimistic, and a dirty, overwhelming metropolis, when the hero is sad. The system works in the background, almost unnoticed, but I really like how it makes every story unique and personally aligned with the playerâs choices.
How did you finance the development? We were financed by Walkabout Games â a Polish game dev studio incubator. We pitched them the idea, and they helped us with the business side of the production and also acted as the publisher for Wanderlust.
The (lack of) state support for the games industry is a much-discussed topic in ÂGermany. What about it in Poland? The game industry in Poland is still growing, at least that is what I see, and games are becoming a hot topic for Polish politicians. There are some financing programs you can apply to, but I think that the state is still trying to figure out how to approach the matter, as the biggest state-funded program GameINN, doesnât work very well, at least in my opinion. Most of the devs reach for private funding, try their luck on the stock exchange, or work with various accelerators or investment companies.
The Wanderlust team. From left: Jacek, Artur, Piotr, Mateusz, Joanna, Karolina and Marta.
How satisfied are you with the reviews, the feedback from the community and the sales so far? We knew â when we were working on Wanderlust â that this would be a tough Âproduct to sell. Many of our perfect Âcustomers are not gamers, but consumers of culture in general, and reaching them is a tricky thing when you come from a gaming background. We managed to reach outside the gaming market in Poland, but not in the USA, at least not yet. The reviews we received were great, and so is the feedback from the community, so we keep working to bring Wanderlust Travel Stories to as many platforms as we can, and hope for the best.
Artur Ganszyniec Co-Founder and Game Designer
Having grown up isolated behind the Iron Curtain, Artur was fascinated with books about the wonders of the world. He was the Lead Story Designer on The Witcher â a game awarded for its immersive narrative. Artur is also the person behind Puzzle Craft, the winner of Best of App Store 2012 in New Ways to Play. Now heâs crafting the Wanderlust experience.
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Divest From the Video Games Industry! by Marina Kittaka
https://medium.com/@even_kei/divest-from-the-video-games-industry-814a1381092d
This piece seeks to contextualize the problems of the video games industry within its own mythology, and from there, to imagine and celebrate new directions through a lens of anti-capitalist and embodied compassion.
My name is Marina Ayano Kittaka (she/her), Iâm a 4th gen Japanese American trans woman from middle class background. I work in a variety of different art forms but my bread and butter are the video games I make with my friend Melos Han-Tani, e.g. the Anodyne series.
I am not an authority on any of these topics, and itâs not my intention to speak over anyone else or offer comprehensive solutions, only to be one small piece of a larger conversation and movement. I use declarative and imperative sentences for clarity, not certainty.
I seek to follow the leadership of BIPOC abolitionist thinkers such as Ejeris Dixon, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, adrienne maree brown and Ruth Wilson Gilmore, along with the work of local (to me) groups like Black Visions Collective and MPD150. I welcome feedback, especially if you believe that something Iâve said is harmful.
This piece is inspired by the latest wave of survivors bravely sharing their stories (it is June 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic and global uprising against anti-Black racism and the unjust institution of police). I believe and stand with survivors.
The Problems
The video games industry has many deep, tragic, and intertwining problems. Itâs beyond the scope of this piece to examine the entirety of games culture (I will focus on development and, to a lesser degree, distribution). Itâs also beyond the scope of this piece to convince anyone that these problems exist, but Iâll be moving forward with the assumption that we agree that they do. Here is an incomplete list:
Pervasive sexual abuse
Workplace abuse, bullying, crunch, burnout, generally exploitative labor conditions
Sexism, racism, and other bigotry â the above abuses are accentuated along these intersections (e.g. the sexual abuse of marginalized genders or the exclusion of racial minorities).
Supply chain problems including conflict minerals and exploitative factory conditions
Heavy environmental impacts
Non-Judgement
This conversation may spark hurt or defensive feelings. I want to address this directly. Many people love video games, and not only that, but are deeply invested in the world of games. Iâm particularly sensitive to marginalized creators who have fought hard to find a foothold in the games industry and deserve to follow their dreams. I exist more on the periphery of the games industry and my goal is not to center my personal anger or disdain â but instead to push toward a world with better games, played by happier audiences, made by creators who feel safe and appreciated.
Additionally, this conversation is not about the merits of any individual AAA (large studio) game. Itâs not about creating strict rules about media consumption. Itâs not about shaming people into certain beliefs or behaviors. When we try to act like our personal tastes must align with our most high-minded ideals, we encourage shame or denial â things that distance us from others.
Nor is this exclusively about AAA. This is about any situation where the power becomes the point. There can be gradations of industrial complexes and power complexes existing from the smallest micro-communities to the largest corporations. We can divest on all levels.
The Industry Promise
I believe that many of us as game creators and audiences have (consciously or not) bought into the idea that happiness and wonder are scarce and fragile commodities â precious gems mined via arcane and costly processes. Life can often be isolating, alienating, and traumatic, and many of us cope by numbing some parts of ourselvesš. The poignance and pleasure of simply feeling becomes rare.
In answer to this perceived scarcity, The Industry swoops in with a promise that technological and design mastery can âmakeâ people feel. It does this not only blatantly in marketing copy or developer interviews, but also in unwieldy assertions that games can make you empathic, or through the widespread notion that games are an exceptionally âimmersiveâ art form due to âinteractivityâ. Embedded in this promise is the ever-alluring assumption that technological progress is linear: games overall must be getting better, more beautiful, more moving, because that is simply how technology works! Or perhaps it is the progress itself that is beautiful â each impressive jump towards photorealism delivering the elusive sense of wonder that we crave.
At this point, I could argue that the benefits are not worth the cost, that the aforementioned Problems outweigh even this idealized vision of what games provide. But Iâm guessing many of you might find that unsatisfying, right? Why donât we simply reform the system? Spread awareness and training about sexism and racism, create more art that engenders empathy, encourage diversity? Isnât it throwing the baby out with the bathwater to âhaltâ technological progress in order to fix some issues of bad leadership here or abusive superstar there?
Here we come to my main purpose in writing this piece: to expand the imaginative space around video games by tearing out The Industry Promise at its roots. If wonder is not scarce and progress is not linear, then the world that rises from the ashes of the Video Games Industry can be more exciting and more technologically vibrant than ever before.
Precious Gems
Take a deep breath and picture some of the happy moments of your life. Maybe some of them look like this:
Staying up late and getting slaphappy with a friend; looking out over a beautiful landscape; a passionate kiss; collaborating with friends in a session of DnD or Minecraft; a thoughtful gift from someone you admire; a cool drink on a hot summer day; making a new friend who feels like they really see you; singing a song; a hug from someone who smells nice; getting junk food late at night and feeling naughty about it; the vivid colors and sounds of a rainy city evening; drifting to sleep in the cottony silence of a smalltown homestead; getting a crew together to see a new movie; the scent of the air at sunrise; having a meaningful conversation with a nonverbal baby.
Picture the games you loved most as a child, the games that felt full of possibility and mystery and fun. Were they all the most technologically advanced? The most critically revered?
Maybe your happy moments look nothing like this. Or maybe you canât recall feeling happy and thatâs the whole problem. But my point is that happiness, joy, fun⌠these things are at their core fluid, social, narrative, contextual, chemical. In both its best and most common incarnations, happiness is not shoved into your passive body by the objective âhigh qualityâ of an experience. Both recent psychological research and traditions from around the world (e.g. Buddhist monks) suggest that happiness and well-being are growable skills rooted in compassion.
Think of all the billions of people who have ever lived, across time, across cultures, with video games and without, living nomadically or settling in cities or jungles. In every moment there are infinite reasons to suffer and infinite reasons to be happy². Giant industryâs monopolistic claims to âartâ or âentertainmentâ have always been a capitalist lie, nonsensical yet inescapable.
The Narrative of Technology and Progress
Is this an anti-technology screed? Am I suggesting we must all go outside like in the good old days and play âhoop and stickâ until the end of time? Letâs start by unpacking what we mean when we say âtechnologyâ. Hereâs one definition:
Technology is the sum of techniques, skills, methods, and processes used in the production of goods or services or in the accomplishment of objectives. â Wikipedia
Honestly, technology is such a vague and broad concept that nearly anything anyone ever does could be considered technological! As such, how we use the term in practice is very revealing of our cultural values. Computing power, massive scale, photorealistic graphics, complex AI, VR experiences that attempt to recreate the visual and aural components of a real or imagined situation⌠certainly these are all technologies that can and have grown in sophistication over time. But what The Industry considers technological progress actually consists of fairly niche goals that have been artificially inflated because capitalists have figured out they can make money this way. Notably, I donât use ânicheâ here as an insult â arenât many of the most fascinating things intrinsically niche? But when one restrictive narrative sucks all the air out of the room and leaves a swath of emotional and physical devastation in its wake⌠isnât it time to question it?
What if humans having basic needs met is âtechnological progressâ? What if indigenous models of sustainable living are âhi-techâ? What if creating a more accessible world where people have freedom of movement opens up numerous high-fidelity multisensory experiences? These questions go far beyond the scope of the video games industry, sure, but in the words of adrienne maree brown, âwhat we practice at the small scale sets the patterns for the whole systemâÂł.
What We Hope to Gain
The kneejerk reaction to dismantling an existing structure tends to be a subtractive vision. Here we are, living in the exact same world, but all blockbuster video games have been magically snapped out of existence⌠only hipster indie games remain! Missing from this vision is the understanding that our current existence is itself subtractive â what we cling to now comes at the expense of so much good. The loss of maturing vision and skill when people leave the industry due to burnout, sexual assault, and racist belittlement. Corporate IP laws and progress narratives that disincentivize preservation and rob us of our rich and fertile history. The ad-centric, sanitized, and consolidated internet that chokes out democratized community spaces. The fighting-for-scraps mentality that the larger industry places on small creators with its sparing and self-interested investment. Our current value system limits not only what AAA games are but also what everything else has the capacity to be.
Utopia does not have an aesthetic. We donât need to prescribe the correct âaltâ taste. Games can be high and low, sacred and profane, cute and ugly, left brain and right. Destroying the games industry does not mean picking an alternate niche to replace it. Instead, we seek to open the floodgates to a world in which countless decentralized, intimate, and overlapping niches might thrive.
When we decentralize power, we not only create the conditions for more and better games, we also diminish the conditions under which abuse can flourish. Many of the stories of abuse hinge on the abuser wielding the power to dramatically help or harm the careers of others. The consolidation of this power is enhanced by our collective investment in The Industry Promise (not forgetting the wider cultural intersections of oppression). Mythologized figures ascend along a linear axis of greatness, shielded by the horrifying notion that they are less replaceable than others because their ranking in The Industry evidences their mystical importance.
Whatâs Next?
Here is a fundamental truth: we do not need video games. Paradoxically, this truth opens up the world of video games to be as full and varied and strange and contradictory as life itself.
So. Say you agree with all or part of my assertions that collectively we may proceed to end the video games industry by divesting our attention, time, and money, and building something new with each other. But what does that look like in practice? I donât have all the answers. I find community very difficult due to my own trauma. Nonetheless, Iâll do some brainstorming. Skim this and read what speaks to you personally, or do your own brainstorming!
Center BIPOC/queer leadership
I.e. people who have been often forcibly divested from the majority culture and have experience in creating alternatives. Draw on influences outside of media e.g. transformative justice, police abolition, and prison abolition. Books like Beyond Survival and Emergent Strategy are based in far deeper understanding of organizing than anything written here, and are much more relevant to the direct and immediate issues of things like responding to sexual assault in our communities.
Divest from celebrity/authority
Many people will tell you that their most rewarding artistic relationships are with peers, not mentors and certainly not idols. Disengage from social media-as-spectator sport where larger-than-life personalities duke it out via hot take. Question genius narratives wherever they arise. Cultivate your own power and the power of those adjacent to you. If you feel yourself becoming a celebrity: take a step back, recognize the power that you wield over others, redirect opportunities to marginalized creators whose work you respect, invest in completely unrelated areas of your life, go to therapy.
Divest from video games exceptionalism
Academics have delved into video gamesâ inferiority complex and the topic of âvideo games exceptionalismâ, which is tied into what I frame as The Industry Promise above â the idea that video games as a technological vanguard are brimming with inherent value due to all the things they can do that other forms of media cannot. This ensures that gobs of money get thrown around, but itâs an ahistorical and isolating notion that does nothing to actually advance our understanding of games as a form (Interesting discussion on this here, which reminds me of Richard Terrellâs work regarding vocabulary).
Reimagine scale
Rigorously question the notion that âbigger is betterâ at every turn. With regards to projects, studios, events, continually ask âwhy?â in the face of any pressure to make something bigger, and then try to determine what might be lost as well as what might be gained. Compromising on values tends to be inevitable at scale, workplace abuse or deals with questionable entities. For me this calls to mind the research led by psychologist Daniel Kahneman suggesting that the happiness benefits of wealth taper off dramatically once a comfortable standard of living is reached. Anyone whoâs ever had a tweet go viral can tell you that itâs fun at first and then it just becomes annoying. Living in a conglomerated, global world, we regularly have to face and process social metrics that are completely incomprehensible to the way our social brains are programmed, and the results are messy. Are there ever legitimate uses for a huge team working on a project for many years? Sure, probably, but the idea that this is some sort of ideal normal situation that everyone should strive for is based on nothing but propaganda.
Redefine niche
Above I suggest that AAA is niche. I believe itâs true broadly, but that itâs definitely true relative to their budgets. What do I mean by this? AAA marketing budgets are reported to be an additional 75â100% relative to development costs (possibly even higher in some cases). Isnât this mindblowing? If a game naturally appealed to proportionately mass numbers of people by virtue of its High Quality or Advanced Technology, then would we really need to spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars just to convince people to play it? For contrast, Melos estimates that our marketing budget for Anodyne 2 was an added 10% of development costs and it was a modest commercial success. Certainly marketing is a complex field that can be ethical, but to me, there is something deeply unhealthy about the capacity of large studios to straight up purchase their own relevance (according to some research, marketing influences game revenue three times more than high review scores).
On a separate but related note, I donât buy that all the perceived benefits of AAA such as advancements in photorealism will vanish without the machine of The Industry to back them. People are astonishing and passionate! It wonât always necessarily look like a 60 hour adventure world, but it will be a niche that we can support like any other.
Ground yourself in your body
Self-compassion, mindfulness, meditation, exercise, breathing, nature, inter-being. There are many ways to build your capacity to experience joy, wonder, and happiness. One of the difficult things about this process though is that if you approach these topics head on, youâll often be overwhelmed with Extremely Specific Aesthetics that might not fit you (e.g. New Agey or culturally appropriative). My advice is to 1) be open to learning from practices that donât fit your brand while also 2) being able to adapt the spirit of advice into something that actually works for you. The benefit of locating our capacity for joy internally is that it reveals that The Industry is fundamentally superfluous and so we are free to take what we want and throw the rest in the compost pile.
As a side note, some artists (who otherwise have structural access to things like mental health services) fear becoming healthy, because theyâre worried that they will lose the spark and no longer make good art. Speaking as an artist whose creative capacity has consistently increased with my mental health, there are multiple reasons why I donât think people should worry about this.
You carry your past selves within you, even as you change. âOur bodies are neural and physiological reservoirs of all our significant experiences starting in our prenatal past to the present.ââ´
You can lose a spark and gain another. You can gain 6 sparks in place of the one you lost.
What is it that you ultimately seek from being âgood at artâ? Ego satisfaction? Human connection? Self-respect? All of these things would be easier to come by in the feared scenario in which you are so happy and healthy that you can no longer make art. Cut out the middleman! Art is for nerds!
Invest outside of games
Games culture often encourages a total identification with video games. This pressures developers into working and audiences into buying, conveniently benefitting executives and shareholders to everyone elseâs detriment. Investing in interests wholly unrelated to video games is beneficial in many ways and thereâs something for everyone! Personally, I love books. A novel is âlow-techâ in nearly every way that a AAA game is âhigh-techâ, and yet books are affordable, data-light, easy-to-preserve, stimulating, challenging, immersive, and entertaining. What is technology, again?
Another pertinent thought: while thereâs nothing inherently wrong with dating a fellow game developer, you should not enter industry/work spaces or events looking for romantic connection. Particularly if you have any sort of institutional power, you will inevitably put others in uncomfortable situations and prime yourself to commit abuse. If you want sex, relationships, etc, find other outlets, shared interests, and dating pools.
Work towards a more accessible world
In the context of an often systemically ableist world, video games can â at their best â be fun, valuable, and accessible experiences for disabled audiences. Consequently, when I say âdivest from the video games industryâ, I donât want to gloss over the fact that divestment comes with a different cost for different people. Certainly accessibility within video games continues to be as important as ever, but if Iâm asking, e.g., for people to âinvest outside of gamesâ, then a commitment to a more accessible out-of-game world is also extremely vital. For instance, non-disabled people can be attuned during this particular moment to the unique perspectives and leadership of disabled people regarding Covid lockdowns and widespread work-from-home, and be wary as we gradually lift restrictions of reverting to a selective and hypocritical approach to accommodations.
Invest in alternative technological advancements
What might we have the resources, attention, and energy to grow if our industry werenât so laser focused on a constricted definition of technological advancement? For example, audio-only games appear to me an incredibly fertile area for technological advancement that has been under-resourced. How about further advancements towards biodegradable/recyclable microchips and batteries? A fundamental rethinking of the âhome consoleâ model in which each successive generation strives to obsolete the last and sell tens of millions new hardware units? Something like an arcade or those gaming lounges (but do they all have to have the same aggressive aesthetics?). The success of Pokemon GO seems to gesture at potential for social, non-remote video game experiences with broader demographic/aesthetic appeal. At the Portland (Maine) Public Library, thereâs a console setup in the teen section where local kids would play and they also had a selection of console games for checkout â that was really cool! Local game dev organizations like GLITCH creating events where local devs show and playtest games with the publicâŚ
Look to small tools
Small tools such as hobbyist-centered game engines very naturally and successfully act as springboards to community. Look at ZZT, early Game Maker (e.g. gamemakergames), OHRRPGCE. Look at bitsy, PuzzleScript, Pico-8! Look at Electric Zine Maker by Nathalie Lawhead as well as this post they wrote on small tools. Small tools, by virtue of their limitations, tend to lend themselves to particular aesthetics and goals. Whether youâre ultimately playing to or against the core gravitational pull of a small tool, I think it grounds you within a certain design conversation that is conducive to community. Participating in these communities as a child (even though I rarely interacted directly) fundamentally instilled in me ideas like: people make their own fun; wonder is uncorrelated with budget; being strangely specific has value. Can other structures learn from small tools? Events, meetings, parties⌠what happens if we think of these as communal âenginesâ â structures built around a conversational core that people can use to create things or express themselvesâŚ?
Something that crosses my mind often is that it may be fundamentally healthy for us all to be âbig fish in small pondsâ in one way or another. The idea that there exists One True Big Pond that reflects all of our collective values simultaneously is a harmful myth that serves to direct all admiration and energy towards corporate interests and robs the rest of us of our accomplishments.
Sucking as praxis
âProfessional artistryâ as the capacity to maintain the shared illusion that there are indisputable measures of beauty and worth. When you allow the illusion to fail â often against your will â 1) capitalist powers will be disappointed in their inability to wield you with proper efficiency and 2) fellow small creators will be heartened because you bypassed the illusion and still offered something worthy. Failure in a backwards system can be strength. Growing as an artist can be a gloriously paradoxical affair.
Fight for history
We miss out on so much when history is lost to us, and video games are extraordinarily susceptible due to their technical dependencies on ever-shifting hardware. The Industryâs current incarnation goes beyond history-apathy to a downright historical hostility. Sustaining the narrative of linear technological progress inevitably involves shitting on the past (there are a chosen few old games that are kept accessible, but they feel like exceptions proving the rule). Emulation is a vital resource, ever on the verge of outlaw (See Nintendoâs legal actions), Internet Archive is under attack, and Disney warps copyright laws to keep their stranglehold on media intact. Overviews and longplays of difficult-to-play older games are incredibly valuable and Iâm truly grateful for people who do this vital work. Off the top of my head, Iâve enjoyed Nitro Radâs comprehensive work in 3D platformers, and Cannot Be Tamedâs retro reviews. See also: the Video Game History Foundation.
Public libraries could be a vital ally in this cause. What if libraries had access to legacy tech or specialized emulation software that made playing, researching, or recording from old video games more feasible? What if small creators or defunct small studios could get grants or support in preserving their own old work? Would disappointing institutional responses to Gamergate have played out differently if knowledge of and respect for the ongoing historic contributions of BIPOC, female, and/or queer developers were built into the core fabric of video games spaces? Would it be so easy to accept the AAA model as the pinnacle of technology if we contextualized the astounding complexity of past games like Dwarf Fortress, or the Wizardry or Ultima series â technological complexity that would not have been possible had the games been beholden to modern AAA priorities? (Talking out of my ass here, as I have never played these games. See also: modern work on Dwarf Fortress). See also: The Spriterâs Resource and itâs affiliate sites.
Expand government arts funding
I donât know a lot about this, but⌠there should be more of it! I see it happening more in other countries besides the US.
Labor organizing
We can look into studio structures like co-ops. We can join unions. Those unions must be intersectional to the core (see recent events regarding GWU international). How about dual power? Many small studios could combine in overlapping networks of varying formality. They could integrate their audiences, cross-promote, build collective power so as to not be totally beholden to the will of corporations. Iâm not an expert on labor though, look to others who know more.
Collaborative / open source resources
E.g. The Open Source Afro Hair Library, Open Game Art, Rrrrrose Azertyâs prolific CC0 music and the broader Free Music Archive community.
Give money
Normalize mutual aid. Normalize buying small games. Contribute to things like Galaxy Fund.
Just Play!
Play something totally random on itch.io (or another community-oriented site) with no outside recommendation. Compliment and/or pay the developer if you like something about it!
Conclusion
Thank you for engaging with these thoughts! I hope that they spark thoughts for you, and that we can all learn from each other. Feel free to reach out to me on twitter or via email: [email protected]
[Edit: at 11:20PM CDT, 6/25/20, I changed the audio games link from a wikipedia article to the more relevant-seeming: https://audiogames.net/]
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