Leveraging

I'm watching a movie by the name of Waking Life. There is a scene that has four guys walking and see a man who has climbed a utility pole and is just holding on. One of the guys asks the man if he needs help getting down. The man responds "I don't think so". One of the guys then says to the other guys in group something to the effect of the man being stupid. Then one of the other guys explains the similarity between them and the man on the pole. He says that the man is all action and no theory and that they are all theory and no action.

It seems that this sort of connection exist in many areas of life. For myself it exist right now, as I am nearing the completion of my degree. On another level that is close to me is game design. I personally hate the direction of mainstream American game design. It looks like we've found a box that was once a haven of comfort and have been here so long that we've forgotten that we were once hunters and foragers.

Perhaps my perception makes me a foreigner in my own land but, I value the game designers of Japan because they realize that games are not merely graphics and stories. Here, at home, we have become bent on the graphical elements of games and lost sight of the content.


Here's what I see:
Systems exist. Whether or not these systems are intentionally or unintentionally created is not relevant for this matter. Systems can be patterns or collective sets of desire, or acceptance or anything for that matter.

Our gaming culture is such that we are becoming professional re-inventors. Several times have we created the same game with different stories or delivered the same story with a different skin.

Tina Turner had a song (Proud Mary) with a lyric that read "Working for the man every night and day". Perhaps we are doing exactly that. Perhaps the man is actually the mean. We serve the man. We serve the system. The system that we begot. Yet, we do not serve ourselves.

Again, I'm watching Waking Life so my mind is sort of on another plateau, please forgive my
lossiness.

What do you suppose would happen if someone were to begin to make games not for a particular group but, merely because they wanted to make a game? What would that game be?

I'm basically arguing that those games that we once enjoyed so much are becoming a prize in the zoological art collection of the economy.

I mean seriously, how many people play games not because they are fun but, instead because they occupy their time? I'm not saying that isn't your privilege or anything. I just miss the fun.

While I need to be able to survive, the last thing I want to hear about when deciding to make a game is how much money it will make me. I don't want to make games because they are the best of what is available at the time. Anything I find worthy of making will lend itself not to industry but to people. At least that is what my sane self says.

This is going to be a lonely journey it seems. Who cares? I think its better that I be a lonely designer than one who creates that which I would soon loathe.

After seeing these things. The act of trying to acquire the world, as it were, I'm beginning to see that my shoes are trying to sell me shoe laces.

Seriously, that was the wrong direction.