Emphasis on “Crisis”

It’s been a long time since my last update to this blog or my website in general. This post is going to be a bit messy and introspective–if you’re looking for exciting new project updates, you won’t find them here. But I want to write this because I value voice. I believe people have important things to say, and I often find meaning in the things other people have written and shared. For a long time, I’ve been afraid to do the same, even in smaller, more private circles. I’m challenging myself to do this today because I want to assert that I deserve to show up and speak up in the world.

Work has been difficult for me lately. By work, I’m referring to both my full-time career as an animator and my creative side projects–most of which would belong under the Fridgecrisis Games umbrella. Obviously, it’s been at least a year since I released any sort of finished project, and the last one was just an empty box.

That’s not to say I haven’t been working on anything. Most of the days of my life have involved making some kind of progress on whatever project I’m most excited about at the moment. But I haven’t been exercising the kind of discipline it takes to finish something. And all of that chaotic excitement has built up a kind of graveyard in my mind of half-finished ideas and intentions that were never realized. Some of the work I’ve done on these projects came at a cost to my time, wallet, and relationships, but I told myself that the progress was worth the cost. That someday it would pay off. And now, when I stop and look around this mental graveyard, I’m not so sure that’s true. These half-built projects that could have been amazing are reminders of my failure to execute. It makes me feel like a fool, that I’ve lost touch with reality and how to actually succeed in the culture and economy in which we live. The amount of further time and effort it would take to finish all of these projects to the level of quality I had originally intended is astronomical and unrealistic, if not impossible. Especially alone.

Meanwhile, other game designers are successfully releasing new games. Publishers and retailers are adding more products to store shelves. Players are buying and enjoying them. And it seems to me that the average quality of these games (at least visually) is constantly going up. I was blown away at my last visit to the game store by how beautiful and immersive so many of these new games are. I can visit the video game section of the electronics store or browse the new releases on Steam and see dozens of beautiful gems that I’ve never heard of before.

At the same time, I’m uninterested in almost all of them. I’m overwhelmed by the amount of choices I have, and I very rarely decide to buy something new unless I’ve been seeing it and hearing about it for a long time. And if I’m not willing to drop $20 on something that the developer has clearly put years of their blood and sweat into, what makes me think anyone would do the same for mine?

Even at the game studio where I work, where players actually are spending enough money on content to sustain a business, I have near-constant doubts about the larger meaning of my work. The game has been around for a long time, and was very successful early on. The studio has been coasting on that initial success ever since. The yearly layoffs and downsizing are pretty clear indicators of what’s really going on. The people I started working with are almost all gone at this point. They were my friends, and they were each suddenly laid off, with hardly any warning or time to process what that meant. New projects and the communities around them were shut down and cancelled. And yet, each month, I’m still producing more of the same kind of content for the players’ consumption. It’s gotten old. The occasional email or comment from an excited player reminds me that it still means something to someone, but I can’t help but wish I could be doing something with more positive social impact.

All of this, together with the constant negativity of the news and state of the world in general, has led me to some kind of breaking point. Is making games worth it anymore? Is this really what I want to put myself through? Why am I doing this? I don’t have clear answers to these questions. I’ve been turning my attention toward other things lately–spending time in-person with local non-gaming communities, researching gardening and woodworking, and spending a lot more time on my relationships, to name a few. I’m not sure if this means I’ll be giving up on making games. I think I’d prefer to find some way to bring these two sides of myself together, and work through the inconsistencies and unhelpful patterns that are keeping me from realizing my intentions. But as for what that looks like right now, I don’t know.