something i think a lot about is community, social and individual needs, and the conditioning against community in the united states.

mutual aid is a fascinating case study to me. online i’ve seen it pejoratively referred to as “ebegging” – even by people who do it. outside of the gross insulting version of this to discourage others from asking for help, i assume this is some type of admission of guilt or shame associated with engaging in the act and it makes me very sad we can reach a point like this, but it also makes a lot of sense to me. americans tend to be very proud of their individual achievements and aren’t very good at recognizing their involvement in groups or communities. many often suffer in silence because they feel as if their needs are too insignificant, or perhaps even that they are not in need enough to ask for help. worse yet is when someone believes they’re not worth helping.

however, when i talk to others about how would want to help others, they’re very passionate about all the ways they’d love to do it. paying off debts in creative ways, offering highly advanced and unique skills that are hard to find. they really want to show value in a way that is nuanced, personalized, and lasting. it’s very sweet and endearing but also really interesting – both to hear the contrast of accepting help versus providing it but also how grandiose it can be. i suspect many of them would not accept the help they would want to offer to others. why?

aside from the variety of personal reasons that someone could have which can’t be generalized in a nice, neat, analytically useful way, i suspect that much of it comes from wanting to be valued by others. they want to be uniquely desirable and helpful to those around them. i can’t be certain but it’s the best explanation i can come up with. one of the reasons i think this is because of our tendency to compare ourselves on the global stage. it’s not satisfying to be a big fish in a small pond but also because most of our exposure to our specialization and interests leads us to discover the most prolific identities and personalities associated with that thing. the most commercially successful artists, computer scientists, engineers, and so on; the absolutely most recognized and disproportionately advantaged individuals become our baseline for comparison. if we can’t be as good as them, how can we ever hope to be useful to our in-group?

with all of that in mind, i can’t help but feel that there’s an incredible amount of pressure to be highly proficient at something and expect nothing in return. almost like a real life hero. we become so good at something that we can solve problems for others in a way that is completely unique to our skillset. i think that’s a really cool thing and leads to a lot of amazing innovation, but i think it’s not so useful for framing mutual aid.

most people i know who desperately need mutual aid don’t need a hero. they need someone to help with the dishes, or look after their pet while they’re at work, or maybe even just be around to keep them company to feel like they’re worth it. sure, it’d be nice to meet batman or superman who could instantly pay off our mortgage or finish the home repairs in 0.5 seconds, but i think we equally need someone who is just willing to do the boring, mundane stuff too. groceries happen every week or so, cleaning happens.. well, seemingly constantly. it’s a lot. and i think that’s what community and mutual aid looks like. it’s doing what’s needed, and we need a lot of really boring regular stuff.

also lmao “skill inflation”

inflates your skill making it big and round

in 2011, Soren Johnson wrote, “Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game.” that idea has bothered me ever since i first heard it and i haven’t really known why. i hear it repeated in GDC talks, GMTK videos, game design podcasts, forums, and practically anywhere else where a game has any type of optimal strategy.

i’ve forever subscribed to the notion that game designers and developers aren’t the ordinants of fun. they don’t identify some objective sense of fun and build a set of rules in order to codify that fun experience. this type of mentality is most apparent in board games but can be seen anywhere. inevitably, someone will criticize a game by saying it’s not fun and — equally as inevitably — someone will reply “you weren’t playing it right.” it seems that there’s a belief that strict adherence to the designer’s vision will infallibly lead to fun and it’s the deviance which ruins the experience. i have separate, even stronger opinions about that but that’s for another time.

in my mind, game designers are more like sociologists – they try to observe what different demographics of people find fun and identify patterns. all of our information comes from observing players, not the other way around. it’s silly to think that we tell them how to have fun.

to be clear, i think the soren johnson quote has truth, particularly so when faced with issues like the skill inflation problem. in games like Overwatch, TF2, LoL, etc where as the community matures and the average skill level increases, it becomes much harder for beginners to play. the game has been so heavily optimized by the core players that outsiders can’t join (which, of course, is an eventual death sentence for the game).

but where i think the quote doesn’t make sense is when applied to single player games or games where one style of play won’t affect other players of the game. as far as i can tell, this application of the quote insinuates that players don’t know what’s most fun for themselves and, because of their overwhelming desire to win and do better, will eschew the fun modes of play for optimal ones. because of this phenomenon, we decreers of fun must protect players from themselves lest they ruin they ruin the pure vision for us, themselves, and everyone else!

who says being rewarded for playing optimally isn’t fun? obviously not everyone enjoys it, but that’s where the subjectivity of fun becomes relevant. but i’m pretty sure this is the entire appeal of puzzles – being rewarded for correctly solving it. using binding of isaac as an example, the creator lamented not adding item descriptions despite it being a deliberate design choice. he wanted to capture the sense of mystery that old games had and encourage experimentation. however in the age of the internet, it’s really hard to preserve any game mysteries so players just made wikis with all the item info. who is “at fault” for this – the players for playing incorrectly, or the creator for designing incorrectly? both? neither?

i also think it’s misguided to assume that players will play a game long-term without having fun. instead, i think that fun matures and evolves with the player. i really like melee and symphony of the night, but i most certainly don’t play them like i used to when i was young and i definitely don’t play them the way they were intended by their designers. i like to speedrun symphony of the night and i used to enjoy playing smash competitively. it’s because the games are fun that my style of play continues to change.

alright i’m realizing this should’ve been a post on my blog, it’s way too long i’m sorry. i’ll probably have more to say on this later but it’s just something that constantly bugs me.