I feel like this beautiful essays ties into the current trend of seeing games as services, as implicitly bound-to-be forever games; the authors shackled to their creations that never release but ever update; always needing to grow, to accrue more value for the shareholder-players that did not pay to support an artist and a work of art, but made an investment into promises of future all-consuming CONTENT.
The authors, the artists should be grateful that the CUSTOMER graces them with their munificent time. But the time of the artist, their life that feeds their art, does not belong to the artist anymore. As soon as the work becomes successful, as soon as it reaches the dreadful audience and the global market and the top of the charts and wishlist and sales. They want to buy our humanity, I think.
And should the creator defy the AUDIENCE, make decisions that doesn't sit right with them, immediately it is followed by review bombing. People with hundreds of hours playing the game leaving negative reviews; taking the holy review score hostage as leverage in a power-struggle with the artist so that the game becomes their vicarious game, satisfying their specific pleasures, as if the ability to be curious, to listen, to observe art as something that stands on its own and that you build a relationship with, warts and all, has been lost between the wallet and the storefront. It feels like they're at war with art and with us.
Fuck the audience. Fuck players. Fuck the market, fuck the retailers, fuck the cascades of sandpaper trying to grind down every game into the smoothest marketability and RETURN ON INVESTMENTS for absolutely everyone except the artists. And in particular fuck anyone that said "dead game" about a work of art that was released and had stopped receiving the updates they're so entitled to. Them, I'll bite clean (not clean) through the whole skull.
Thank you for the manifesto and thank you for the jam.