A videogame confessional forum to mitigate and contextualize the industry's growing rifts

WHAT IS THIS?
don’t die is a game industry-focused website where I interview people who make games and people who used to play them about the same thing: Ways they’d like to see the medium improve.
The answers are always different, sometimes the questions are the same. Everyone is always honest.

It is not about talking about the amount of units that have shifted, who in the space has it “figured out,” or what the coolest new game is. It’s two people who have not talked before speaking at length about an industry and the systemic issues that are choking it.

It’s meant to be a place of hope, introspection. Think of it as a Sunday-afternoon read. An online magazine only with in-depth Q&A’s.

It’s about humanizing an entire industry, one voice at a time.

Be they producers, artists, lead designers or -- you know -- the people this industry is ostensibly meant to serve: people who once bought and played games.


WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?
I used to joke that videogames would never do anything fun. I used to have a shittier attitude about games in general -- but that isn’t true today, not anymore.

I’ve written professionally about videogames for eight years, on the heels of growing up playing them and ascending to such phenomenal accolades as becoming the 1995 Blockbuster Store Champion at Donkey Kong Country (I won a year of free rentals). But I never have been a staffer at a games outlet, just had casual acquaintances who have been developers and Internet colleagues I’d Gchat with who also write about games. I never felt I had a community of peers I could talk with about games as more than just products to geek out over.

Geeking out is fine -- but my point of entry with games has always been from the side. I helped create The Onion’s games section in the late aughts as Chicago city editor there because I was in the position to help do so and because games deserve legitimacy and equal footing with the rest of entertainment coverage.

They’re still fighting to get there. Struggling. Flailing. Honestly, they are failing.

The occasional impressions videogames get to make on the mainstream are not positive. They are toxic. They are death and rape and bomb threats some sections of the audience are levying against others over their purchasing preferences being “wrong” or against developers for wanting to make the “wrong” kind of games.

None of this has anything to do with videogames, and yet it has everything to do with videogames.

We, as a community, are losing focus.

I found myself 10 years into my career as an entertainment journalist, despite having attended several game conferences and reviewed countless titles, surprised at how little I knew about the way this industry works. I found it embarrassing. Even more surprising was the nagging sense I had that people from other sides of the aisle knew just as little about me as I did them.

I came to the conclusion that if someone who is as rabidly and annoyingly curious as me can spend a decade working around games and know so little -- the same could also be true for the audience at large. For other writers. For people who make games. For everyone.

It is my belief that a great deal of the friction, in-fighting, and unwillingness to listen to one another in videogames stems from the way games have been marketed: People only able to talk in context of a product. Not about their working conditions. Not about things they’d like to see progress or change. Not about the ways they’d like to see things improve. In 2014, on an assignment to write a preview of a big-budget game, I asked that title’s writer what his inspirations were and he told me could not tell me. The PR person standing between us suggested I ask about the weapons you could craft in the game instead.

This is not the sign of a healthy, growing industry. It does not matter the amount of dollars being poured into it: If you are not respecting your audience and its desire to grow, you will be trampled by those who refuse to be scared away or off by jerks online.

I’m doing this because I want to see videogames be fun again and not have to wear blinders. Because I want to be pleasantly surprised.

And because I just want to listen.

If you also want to be interviewed for the site, you can read more here, and also. Following and retweeting quotes -- via the site’s official account from anyone who’s ever talked to me helps spread the word, too.




WHO ARE YOU?
I write about videogames for Kill Screen Magazine and co-produce a biweekly games podcast called The Electric Cybercast II: Online. I’ve been a professional writer-editor for a decade -- the latter half as a freelancer -- slinging words and criticism for The Onion A.V. Club, Adult Swim, IFC, Comedy Central, NBC Chicago, Wired, and many games publications and outlets that are now gone. A partial list of those include Nintendo Power, GamePro, EGM, @GAMER, Edge, and Joystiq. I’ve also taught and created courses for games programs at DePaul University and Utah U. For a full list of the places I’ve contributed and worked, you can check out my LinkedIn profile.

At a quick glance, though, here are some recent pieces I feel are most exemplary of the direction my writing has taken after the last decade and their impact on the community:

• An essay on why Shenmue and all open-world games are inherently hollow and alienating.
• A review of Sunset Overdrive that harshly takes it to task for claiming punk-rock inspirations while demonstrating a fundamental lack of understanding about it.
• A longform article on why we forget gamers behind bars.

WHY PATREON?
This is not possible at any existing outlet in the videogame space, nor outside it. Few independent platforms for videogame journalism exist, and alone the prevailing concentrations (reviews, previews, and features) will not move the needle to advance positive change in the industry.

The issues affecting the videogame community are systemic and require a level of analysis which is not possible through current media outlets and models of funding. So, again, my point of entry here is from the side.

I do not allow comments on my site -- it is intended as a place for listening, and to influence the conversation happening elsewhere online. That said, I intend to offer analysis as time permits on other outlets whose wheelhouses share some overlap with my intent and spirit. A recent example of this comes via a piece I wrote for Unwinnable, an online bastion for fandom of all ilk. I wrote about my findings and feelings after two months of doing interviews before launching this site, March 2014. I wrote about why everyone in the industry is losing and also appeared on the Built to Play podcast talking about the project.

This is a monthly subscription, and it will provide me with funding which will support the meager accommodations writers grow to love. Paying in for this is patronage. You will be funding the kind of writing I want to see and want others to read. This is about being able to do this, period.

Also, your support might even foster actual change in the games industry -- something if you’ve read this far you undoubtedly feel is overdue. We can do this. Together.