Excuse me, can I make a game, please?
This afternoon, I was reflecting on how most of the time in the games industry, marginalized folks almost need to ask for permission in order to make games.
It’s not only doing the thing itself. It’s generally an atmosphere that I feel we can breathe in every corner and not only in creative industries but in everything that white males have claimed as their own.
I’ve felt it all the time since I started making games around 4 years ago. It’s been a journey of amazing stuff, great talks, beautiful events, meeting awesome peeps; but also a fight for making myself a path, endless justifications on why I thought I could be a good game designer, evenings of taking out of my brain the “All Times Games’ Encyclopedia” in case of interacting with a male that was not 100% sure that I do play videogames.
I think this feeling of “asking for permission to “the ones that got the power” it’s something that it’s not only transmitted between generations, but also a thing that is stamped on our DNA. It’s incredible how many things we carry on our DNAs and our roots from very old times, even behaviours and instincts.
Three lines ago I said that I do play videogames. Well, it’s true.
But I also,
I want to make videogames
And what do you need to make videogames? If I make a search on Google, I find a total of 36 million results. I bet that more than 80% won’t mention the most important thing you need in order to make games of your own as your primary occupation. That thing, friends, is…
Good old money.
And I don’t want to enter into publishers, funds and that kind of stuff right now but as a marginalized developer, things get much more complicated when you need to reach out to people that have the money you need to create your game.
I think this is another example of asking for permission. Many times when good friends and people I appreciate told me about procedures for getting funds, they told me that in order to get a deal you need to deliver a prototype. Fair enough, right? But I feel that one of the problems is to normalise the fact of expecting people to make prototypes for free with the quality that investors are naturally going to require.
“[…]one of the problems is to normalise the fact of expecting people to make prototypes for free.”
I’m not an investor but I don’t need an MBA to know that I neither would invest in a thing that looks like a potato. And my question is, how to deliver then the expected quality for free when you need x professionals to help you out?
The next thing that my peeps with funds’ knowledge would tell me was that teams that have just started are unlikely to sign deals.
Completely understandable. But, if no one gives us the money, how can we ever start?
It’s impossible.
And here is when, once again, comes the fact that margins devs need to constantly ask for permission, even beg, in order to be able to do things.
I want to make videogames
I’m not going to give up on my personal odyssey because I’m very stubborn but, I wonder how many amazing titles and professionals we are losing because of all the begging and tiredness of listening to the same excuses.
