Last Week Was a Shitty Week…in Games

At 2 AM Eastern Time on Sunday, June 12th, Omar Mateen approached Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and began hours of absolute terror on their Latin-themed night. Utilizing legally purchased weaponry, he murdered over 49 people and injured 53 others, involving some in a hostage situation before dying from police gunshots.

At 4 PM Eastern Time on Sunday, June 12th, after a brief, unbroadcast moment of silence, Electronic Arts (EA) began their yearly official Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) press briefing, showcasing new video games in jovial fashion.

Gamers, but most notably, LGBTQIA and Latinx members of the gaming press, were given 14 hours to find a way to cope with the violence their communities and those communities' intersections had suffered earlier that morning. But those had been a busy 14 hours. As is common for any mass shooting, social media and the press were alight with input. With each new detail — body counts, details about Mateen himself, the weapon of choice — opinions flowed in like water, and, to keep the simile going, washed over us as we tried to make sense of it all.

I woke up at 8 AM to prepare for a flight to LA, where E3 is held, in the afternoon. Scrolling through social media before really getting up, I learned of the shooting. I had to get ready. I tweeted out a continually updating Buzzfeed article at 8:30 AM, expressed foreboding displeasure at having the validity of the lives of my community being debated at 8:38 AM, and got up to take a shower right afterwards. I didn't say anything to my husband at the time, mostly because I did not want to distract myself from what I needed to do — because I didn't want to cope yet.

In the car on the way to the airport, I was absolutely glued to Twitter, retweeting other people's commentary, occasionally making my own. The politics had begun well before my plane took off at 12:30 PM. Folks were debating increased gun control versus "good guys with guns" theory; was it likely at all that queer and trans' lives would be the ones to inspire Congress to increase regulations? I saw debates, even, about what is and isn't an AK-47, y'know, besides the rifle model used to slay and maim so many people that morning.

I witnessed erasure as politicians, including the Florida Governor, Rick Scott, appropriated this tragedy into the greater American population. I called him out in what is likely to be my most popular tweet for this month (as opposed to the shitposting I'd rather be known for) because the lives of the LGBTQIA community, people of color, and immigrants are barely considered American 364 days out of the year by conservative politicians that I couldn't see what made them American on this one all of a sudden.

And 13 minutes later, I was in the air. And I felt alone and maybe a little scared to be cut off from the constant feed of information. Maybe as long as I kept learning more, I'd understand more. Maybe I'd stop being so angry and tired and upset while feeling physically unable to show it in an airplane full of strangers. Why did this happen?

***

Each E3 press conference featured some show of support, though some were not shown on camera. Except for EA, the telecasts featured prominent figures at each company wearing LGBTQIA pride ribbons. Ubisoft, Sony, and Nintendo included broadcast moments of silence or respect for the victims of the Orlando massacre, whereas the others did so before turning on the live feed.

I was in the audience for the Microsoft conference on Monday morning. As people finished taking their seats, all the music in the theater stopped without any explanation. Was one needed? Many of us didn't think so. This was a moment of silence. But before Phil Spencer, head of the Xbox division of Microsoft, emerged amidst the sea of fluorescent green and reflective black to tell us what was going on, numerous members of the press took the music stopping to mark the beginning of the upcoming show. The discomfort was palpable as those who did not get it cheered and whooped in excited anticipation of what was to come. Less than one second after Spencer terminated the silence, Microsoft's flavor video started playing on the screen. I felt an offense I barely understood.

Between Sunday and Monday, thus excluding Nintendo's long internet-only broadcast, for at least five uninterrupted hours total, members of the gaming press were asked to give a shit about games — games that were not even out yet. No doubt, many of those in attendance wanted to do so, myself included. Though I was not emotionally prepared for E3 by the time I touched down in LA, I actively sought the distraction.

Yet for how much I would manage to keep my mind off the tragedy, basking in a sea of lights and sounds, my favorite medium in this world, I would receive sobering reminders that life is not so simple. How many times across those telecasts did we see an assault rifle? In fact, at least seven of the featured games across each of the conferences, by my count, featured militarized violence during a time when people were feverishly arguing why anyone but the military needs an AK-47.

To anyone not dealing with the ramifications of the tragedy in Orlando, especially those who are not members of either the LGBTQIA or Latinx communities, I'm sure this doesn't seem remarkable. I mean, every year, we see violent games with guns glorified at these presentations. And without arguing the merits of violent video games — I do enjoy plenty of them — I still feel the need to express this circumstantial dissonance that comes with seeing these games featured minutes after paying respects to victims. We're sorry about gun violence, they said, but let's worship the gun violence.

Ubisoft, about three minutes after Aisha Tyler's touching expression of sympathy and solidarity with the victims of the Orlando shooting and only several seconds after suggesting Ubisoft's teams have been "flexing their creative muscles," introduced yet another Ghost Recon game. Dubbed Wildlands, this entry, according to lead game designer, Dominic Butler, asks "What if a Mexican drug cartel moved in" to Bolivia, a country whose economy runs on coca leaves? Butler's answer, unsurprisingly, is that armed Americans covertly invade and kill a ton of Latin Americans.

The day before, an armed American did the same.

***

For a time spent running through the gamut of emotions — from enjoying myself to questioning my enjoyment of gun-focused games to feeling deeply saddened by the loss of my siblings in Orlando — I had a nice time. I focused as much as I could on my work, writing articles with much better timing and skill than I had the previous two years. (And, for the sake of acknowledging this blog, I cannot believe that less than four years of writing my first article here that I'd be attending my third E3.) 

And I felt comforted by sharing a hotel room with my queer friends from Game Revolution: Nick Tan, Jessica Vazquez, and Kevin Schaller. These were friends with whom I could express joy in seeing folks wearing pride ribbons for us, even those working at Nintendo, who expressly suggested that same-sex couples weren't fun or families a few years ago. I cherish them for keeping me company and making me feel like there's some sense in a world that felt like madness.

Also, I valued the good, messy cry I had on Wednesday in the hotel room. It was the first time since I found out about the slaughter in Orlando that I had been completely alone in a room. I received a voicemail from a client checking in on me and my husband in light of the violence, and I just lost it. Almost halfway through the week, I finally let myself find emotional release that wasn't by taking violent action on someone else in a video game. What an odd instance of gratitude I felt.

***

That's it. This is your rambling thinkpiece that's supposed to find a way to relate real-world tragedy back to games somehow. For how much some gamers like to pretend that video games are these apolitical safe havens for meaningless fun, the worlds in games and the world of games are inextricably related to our lived realities. And sometimes, when it hits close to home, when you authentically worry that you will die because you're attracted to people of the same gender, your mind takes a highlighter to the events of a week that you would otherwise like to be apolitical, a safe haven, meaningless, and fun.

But VR does look like cool tech.

Indie Game: The Movie Review

Experiencing the dark vacuum between failure and success.

As much of a mystery that video game development remains to most gamers in general, it would appear that the world of indie game development maintains a more nebulous reputation. It is often easy to just imagine two guys goofing off in their parents' basements lobbing ideas back and forth at each other in a creatively nurturing environment. You can almost smell the Hot Pockets. I, too, am guilty of imagining my favorite indie games being produced in such a fruitful atmosphere. Indie Game: The Movie offers a stark contrast to the buddy comedy imagining of independent game development, and it drags the viewer into a rather dark emotional place that could exist in all of us; it just takes the right close-to-home project to suss it out.

Fez creator, Phil Fish, laments at his hotel's bar.

Kickstarted before kickstarting was cool, James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajot have crafted a fascinating tale of the development of two games, Super Meat Boy and Fez. Despite the naïveté with which I approached the film, the fun of video games is not present here, not that it has to be. Although the are struggles witnessed remain specific to the video game industry, the film ends up being more about coping with being on the cusp of finishing your life's work. The developers featured here find themselves in a state where not finishing their games is no longer an option, and the idea that success is not guaranteed weighs heavily on them, their families, and their qualities of life.

The two games featured in Indie Game: The Movie follow different paths towards the end of the film. Super Meat Boy is near the end of its development cycle, and two friends, Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes, are both cracking under the pressure of completing the game to make a special deadline for Microsoft (the game was developed for the Xbox 360). Edmund, a noted graphic artist and video game designer, lives far from Tommy, in a house shared with his wife, Danielle. It is clear that the couple dreams of a better life for themselves involving a bigger house and a sphinx kitten, but the long time it's taking to finish the game has left money tight, and the amount of time Edmund spends working each day leaves his relationship with his wife less than idyllic. Tommy, the main programmer, on the other hand, lives at home with his family, but while he lacks his own family and property to support, he clearly fears the void that would be left by an unsuccessful game launch. He remarks that his parents had to refinance their mortgage four years before paying it off, and he clearly wants to reward them for their continued encouragement. These two friends clearly have a strong bond, but there are not a lot of good times or laughter to watch. Perhaps in an effort to build tension from the start, Indie Game starts with the Super Meat Boy launch day, and a frantic Tommy is panicking because the game is no where to be seen on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Tommy Refenes, Super Meat Boy programmer, works alongside an obscured Edmund McMillen.

Phil Fish, creator and artist behind Fez, has a largely insular experience throughout the film. His programming partner, Renaud, notwithstanding, he goes through the full gamut of emotions and depression entirely by himself. Whereas the viewer can sympathize with the weight of the work Edmund and Tommy have to do, Phil's story demands a part of the viewer's soul. It has been nearly five years since the game was revealed to the public in 2007, and after three overhauls and several missed deadlines, his visions of failure are continually exacerbated by the criticism he receives from Fez fans on the Internet. Like a nightmare indicative of the sorts of drug-induced hallucinations one would see in a thriller, these anonymous voices turned from resounding support to sickening death threats, and they ebb at Phil's already crumbling psyche. The pressure continues to build when Phil is faced with a potential legal battle with his former partner, which could prevent him from revealing his life's work at PAX East in Boston. Being unable to demo Fez to the public after years of waiting could mean the end of the game's development as a whole, and Phil reveals to the interviewer, whether literally or figuratively, that he would kill himself if he can't finish.

These are some dark tales, and the filmmaking never severs the disparity felt in Indie Game: The Movie. Save for a few moments, the interviewer remains absent, and there is no narrator. The developers tell their stories either to the camera or through their actions as they reach certain milestones on the way to the end of the film. Although video game fans are already aware that both games were successfully released to critical acclaim and significant sales numbers, these facts do not lessen the drama. To the film's credit, it never tries to make any statements about the video game industry itself, nor does it directly critique Microsoft or other publishers of digital content. It remains focused on these two development stories, perhaps in a futile effort to remind the fans that there are real people behind these games, and critique is not dispersed over a team of a thousand designers and programmers. Jonathan Blow of Braid fame is also featured for commentary. Although his game had been released to the public several years before (and Edmund McMillen contributed art to it, which was never used), Blow's presence offers a dissenting opinion on the aftermath of success; what happens when people love the fruits of your labor, but they don't understand it the way that you do? In his case, you take to the Internet to explain yourself.

For your consideration.

The whole of the documentary is filmed in very high quality, and much of the cinematography involves skewed angles and strong closeups on the people involved. The environment plays a large role in the trip into the developers' psyches, and the camera is often aimed at all the tiny elements that reveal the games' influences outside of the computers they were created on. However, sometimes the film reveals shots from their hometowns or outside convention centers, which do not contribute to the immersion the viewer needs to fully appreciate the tales told here. Ironically, the most irrelevant image is the one used for the bulk of the documentary's promotion: the SNES controller hanging from power lines. Despite the influence games of the SNES era may have had on the games featured here, there is no clear tie-in between this random shot and the developers. I would even argue that the fact that the SNES did not feature digital downloads or independent game development only harms the core themes of the film. But I digress.

Minor missteps aside, Indie Game: The Movie is a worthwhile and unexpected trip for the psyche. You will not learn how games are made or the secrets behind game publishing. Most likely, you will come away from the film with the understanding that choosing to work on a huge project with minimal help has major consequences, and the risk of failure becomes the elephant in the room the longer it takes to complete. Wrought with emotional tension and drama, it is a must for video game fans who are remotely curious about what happens before the fun.

Images taken from Steam.