A Tale of Bees

One day, I started working in video games. That dream quickly took a U turn into making my own games in my spare time. It’s been a decade. I still wonder if one day I will manage.

Sad story, etc. This is not a new subject in this space, but humor me while I rant about it again.

While feeling guilty during the Christmas break for not actively creating anything, I came to realize it is not just a matter of not finding the time or the energy, but also of self-pressure. I put so much pressure on myself to make my own thing; the inner dialogue blames me for not trying to put my voice into creations of my own, for not experimenting, for not, for not.

That’s where working with games reveals a special type of cruelty. Most of us who work with this do it out of love. You rarely dream of a career making games if you are not completely enamored with video games themselves. It’s what we do for a living and also what we do for fun. To a lot of people it is the main gateway through which they push their art out there in the world. It’s a language you speak fluently all of the freaking time.

So there’s pressure to perfect your language, to keep doing it, to ALWAYS do it. Be better, do better, do more. So many innovative games come out every day, why are you not doing THAT? Where were you while other people were making something great? Such questions fill me. Overflow. I feel like every spare minute should be put into my own projects, pushing me to an anxious state where I end up doing the exact opposite; my brain responds by refusing it, subverting it, and actually enjoying a good break like a loser would. But why does it matter, who am I trying to prove something to?

Here I pause to remind myself why I got into games in the first place. I repeat it like a mantra, over and over, because most days I need it. I need this push. I chose games because here my voice is multiplied. It’s not just mine, it’s someone else’s too. Someone on the other side of the screen is making this their own story, and I’m here for it.

There’s something about not owning a story that attracted me like a magnet, and kept me somehow hanging on to the spot I carved for myself with time, sweat and tears. Does it matter if it’s novelty, if it’s art, if it leaves a mark? Ideas are stubborn, they take roots really fast and spread at high speed. Our job as people who create entertainment in fact is to polinize and spread ideas, tiny possibilities that may or may not take roots... It doesn’t matter. I just need to keep spreading them.

And I know for a fact not everyone buys into this logic if they don’t see value in the final product. The niche of video games I work in is constantly frowned upon and, believe me, I understand. I understand why some game devs call to their principles and refuse to work with free to play, trust me. But I am exhausted of feeling guilty or ashamed for doing a job I actually care for. I'm not making my own indie gems or game poetry because, well, not everyone will. There are different perks to what I do, and maybe they don’t appeal to everyone, but they do to me at this point of my career. Plus, keep in mind the words of the great (and fictional) Deborah Vance:

A gig is a gig, kid.

So shake your bee butt and polinize the heck out of it.

-Maíra

Recommendations for a happy new year:

• (Play) Everybody already knows about Wordle but I don't care, just shaking my bee butt here

• (Drink) Let's keep this issue on brand with a recipe for Bee's Knees that sat for too long among my browser's open tabs until I tried it

• (Read) I recently was reminded of one of my favorite TV fun facts, Tommy Westphall's Universe, the actual greatest crossover of entertainment. Polygon wrote a nice article about it back in 2019