A meditation on our current problems, pulled from my lived experiences. Warning, though: lived experienced of a privileged white guy.
A month or so ago, I made a bet. Its not important what the bet is (and it may be triggery), the important thing is the bet has modified twenty years of learned behaviors, practically overnight.
That's the power of economic incentive, and I think it is relevant to the explosion that happened yesterday.
Here's the thing: When acting like an ass means you make more money, you will act like an ass. This is learned behavior.
This says very little -- and is meant to say nothing -- about the character of those involved. I'm not sure "character" exists.
Several people have set themselves up as positive influences in elf games, and I support their games in part to support the positive influence.
I think viewing elf games as a revenue stream is a losing proposition, because of how it perverts the view of the gaming.
It forces you to take a position in the marketplace, to align your social media. To think of players as consumers. To position yourself and differentiate your brand.
In some cases, that brand is "insightful", "happy", or even "I make you cry" , but it makes good economic sense that one of those brands is "voldemort", so long as the market will pay for it.
Voldemort doesn't even need to believe that he is acting like an ass. The best of intentions, the best of beliefs, all surrender to economic incentive. That is, voldemort can still act like voldemort and not even realize it.
There may be no way to prevent that brand from existing, but we can all refuse to lend it our money and attention.
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Also, this post -- like most of mine -- is up for criticism and thoughts from others. Especially people who write games that make me more woke.
ReplyDeleteHey, there's a lot here that's intriguing and well put, but I just want to jump in on one small point--re: games as revenue stream--as the saying goes, creative work is, first of all, work. And work deserves to be paid!
ReplyDeleteAs a creative type, I'm finally at the point where making stuff for free has become too expensive for me (it steals time, and thus money from paying work and represents other opportunity costs). I still do some stuff for free, but it's become increasingly important to me to get paid when I can.
I am of several minds on this because I find the gift economy of gaming very beautiful. And as you point out, money can change the relationship between creator and participant (I wonder if it must do this, though!). At the same time, if we don't pay creators, then we might only get games by folks with the luxuries of leisure time and energy.
Lizzie Stark Agreed! Labor should be paid.
ReplyDeleteOne major problem is competing with amateurs, or simply those who don't need the money. I can write a pbta hack, and if I run it, it'll do what I want. If someone else runs it, it'll fall apart.
But, if you or Jason or Strix or Drew or a dozen others write and publish a game or a book of games, I know the quality is such that I can pick it up and play it without the designer.
There's a whole host of research of how our brains get messed up around money. On the consumption side, by paying for something I value it more -- and the more I pay, the more I value it. Martha Stewart figured this out, as when she upped her initial cost of pies from $5 to $50 -- she sold more pies!
On the production side, if money is tied to my work, then it actually inhibits creativity. Which is weird!
I don't know what the answer is. Maybe something close to the Patreon model, but instead of paying for content we pay for the creator to exist. That is, consciously viewing Patreon not as a means of purchasing stuff, but as a means of supporting the existence of people who improve our lives.
Speaking of, what the hell why am I not backing your patreon. Fixing that right the hell now.
Aw. Thanks William.
ReplyDeleteI think the amateur issue is an interesting one too--there's a lot of competition from amateur writers in the nonfiction fields I work in as well, and it creates this weird job market in which some large-scale publications expect writing for free, which then ends up being bad for those of us who write to pay the bills.
It particularly strikes me when I'm at an artist colony--even the folks at the top of their disciplines are hustling and working like seventeen gigs in order to get by, and that stress isn't the best for creativity. Not sure there's a solution, as I also think making art improves life and that everyone should do it.
There's also a scalability issue--if you're writing an awesome pbta hack and it works great when you run it, does that feel like a success to you? I think it should!
I think of the "designing a cool experience" thing as its own skill, and one that is separate from "writing a script for that experience that makes it penetrable to people who are not me," which is also different from "creating a finished pdf or book that looks pretty."
Re: money, you're right, I suppose. Interesting that when money's on the line for you you get nervous? Something to do with the weight of expectation, maybe?
For me, I feel guilty working for free on anything that isn't my next book project, because there's this feeling that if I'm working for free, it's stealing resources from the project that is at the top of my life goal list. Even getting paid a token--say, $20--changes that feeling.
I have the related problem of not being able to scale my efforts to my available time resources. Like, if I could give 70% to certain projects, my overall stress levels would improve considerably. Unfortunately, my brain has only two speeds "not interested" and "110%" and that's exhausting.
Lizzie Stark Agreed!
ReplyDeleteOn the issue of my pbta hack -- it is absolutely a success. I just want it to be more so. I want to have the experience of going through that process, in part to develop empathy for people who do it regularly. Also, because the exact game I want doesn't exist and I'm cocky enough to think I can write it.
On writing for free: If the intention of a work is to make money, then I'm pretty sure whoever is in charge should pay everyone fair market rates for their work, or at least a percent of the revenue. To do otherwise means you aren't valuing the work people do, and that's pretty crappy. Everyone whose work is used should be paid, whether they need it or not.
On the other hand, if the intention of a product is to be free, then maybe different rules apply. Charity is absolutely a thing that exists, and it is probably better to do what you are good at as charity rather than limiting that to money and physical labor.
And, well, I think the elf game (by which i mean all RPGs) market is pretty damn small. Most of it is D&D, so that we have left is a sliver of a tiny market. Staking the rent and groceries on that -- and on a fickle public within it! -- really doesn't sound wise. I think very few people actually do that, but even small amounts of money can really alter our perception.
These are the reasons that I eagerly look to the idea of mincome. It simultaneously lets me work on writing games and writing about games, and pays me for being a full-time caregiver (for my son - I'm a stay-at-home dad, and we have a second child on the way).
ReplyDeleteBrandes Stoddard a minimum basic income would be a fantastic solution to so many of these problems. We first need to stop thinking of people as having worth due to their economic output, and think of people as having worth because they are ... get this ... people.
ReplyDeleteWe're not there. Even Bernie says things like "adults working 40 hours a week should not be in poverty". How about "people shouldn't be in poverty." Full stop.
Full. Stop. We're no where close to there, but we can hope.
Re: Bernie, sometimes you have to sell people what you think they might be able to buy. Politics, as they say, is the art of the possible.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I love about mincome is that it has in some cases drawn bipartisan support, because it's cheaper than our current run of entitlements (almost no bureaucracy!) and offers few if any controls on individuals. It's useful to figure out how to sell progressive ideas to conservatives.
Having said all of this, let me circle back around to agreeing unequivocally with your point - just recognizing some of the realpolitik that goes into it.