2068: Personality is Like a Cube

“Personality starts off like a cube,” says The Fruit of Grisaia’s protagonist Yuuji in Yumiko’s route. “When we’re young, we clumsily bump our corners against other people in the form of childish conflicts. Eventually, our sharp edges are worn away to leave something more like a sphere. That’s more or less what people are describing when they say someone’s ‘softened’.

“Moderate collisions with others help us mature. But when those first impacts are too strong, they can have a different effect: instead of losing our corners little by little, we splinter in strange, harsh ways, warping into crooked shapes. Once crooked, it’s hard to become a sphere. Even as the people around them mellow, their sharpness only grows harsher, and everyone who approaches ends up getting hurt.”

I immediately liked this analogy when it first scrolled across my screen following Yumiko’s revelations about her past. And, not for the first time, I found the writing in a visual novel resonating with me somewhat. While I’m in no way comparing my life situation to the struggles Yuuji and Yumiko have to deal with in The Fruit of Grisaia — struggles which I won’t discuss specifically here, for those who are interested in reading it and wanting to avoid spoilers — I could certainly relate to a lot of the sentiments involved.

Most recently, I’ve been becoming conscious of how I’ve “softened” somewhat in the last few… months, maybe? My own personal struggles over the last five years — and even earlier than that, to a lesser degree, if I’m completely honest — have certainly chipped away at my original “cube”, and there have been more than a few crooked splinters here and there that make me into a not-exactly perfect specimen of normalcy. But then, who is “normal” anyway?

Some of those sharp edges feel like they’re wearing away a little bit, though, after a long time. I contemplate my new part-time work in retail and realise that I’m actually quite enjoying interacting with other people, both colleagues and customers alike, even despite my long-standing struggle with social anxiety. I contemplate my fight against my once-constantly rising weight, and how I’ve scored a resounding victory over it so far by shedding just under five stone since February of this year. I can look in the mirror now and not hate myself; I can speak to other people now and not worry that they hate me.

In other areas, there are still sharp corners and splinters, though, preventing me from becoming that perfect “sphere”. I still harbour a considerable degree of resentment towards people who have done unpleasant things or treated me unfairly in the past, and I just can’t seem to let go of those feelings. There are nights when I can’t get to sleep because my mind insists on replaying some of my most upsetting memories over and over again — sometimes with slight variations depicting how I wish I’d acted, sometimes unfolding exactly as they did in reality — and this makes it clear that I’m still rather more “crooked” than I’d like to be.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be that perfect “sphere”; by this point, I feel like I’ve “splintered in strange, harsh ways” so many times that it probably won’t ever happen, but I can at least try to round off as many corners as I can and make the best of things, one day at a time.

1619: Reflections on Working in the Games Press

As I’ve noted a few times recently, my time with the games press is shortly coming to an end and, short of an amazing offer coming my way that I’d be a complete idiot to turn down, I’m not going to be pursuing further work in that enormously competitive industry. It’s fairly unlikely I’ll be pitching many freelance pieces, either, although I may find the time to do a few in between other things.

Since this is largely, then, the end of my career in the games press, I feel it’s probably an appropriate time to reflect back on my time doing it and what, if anything, I’ve gained from it.

Let me preface this by saying that working in the games press was something of a lifelong dream for me, ever since I grew up with both my father and brother working for Atari magazines. My brother John, when he left home, began working on various magazines over the years and built a career for himself that eventually culminated in high-profile positions at 1up and Gamespot as well as the launch of his own site, the sadly defunct What They Play. His career was an inspiration to me that I hoped, one day, to be lucky enough to follow in the footsteps of. Because, frankly, there’s a significant amount of luck involved in getting anywhere in the games biz… much as there’s a significant amount of luck involved in not suddenly finding yourself without a place of work.

I contributed a number of pieces to various publications over the years as I proceeded through school and on to university. I wrote reviews and articles for the same Atari magazine my father and brother did; I wrote reviews and walkthroughs for UK games magazine PC Zone (may it rest in peace); I wrote tips books and guides for The Official UK Nintendo Magazine, in the years before… well, let’s just say we don’t see eye to eye. But I didn’t seriously pursue a full-time career in the business — it didn’t seem like something feasible, and in the meantime I was at university studying and trying to work out what I was going to do with my life. (I opted for teaching, which turned out to be a Bad Choice from a mental health perspective.)

Whizz forward a number of years and I’m in a bad place. My wife has left me and I’m staring down the oblivion of my life as I knew it. But there was a small glimmer of hope — I was writing for a small site named Kombo. Kombo didn’t pay particularly well — certainly not enough to live on — but it was something. I was writing professionally, gaining some important and helpful experience and getting great feedback. It was a start.

Eventually, Kombo folded and, through various combinations of circumstances, I found myself working for GamePro, a site and magazine that my brother had been in charge of previously, but had since moved on to pastures new. My work for GamePro was initially sporadic and occasional, but over time it grew to a proper part-time gig and eventually a full-time position on a wage I could actually live on.

I had to make a choice partway through my time with GamePro, though. I had an interview with a software company in London, who actually offered me the job. At the same time, GamePro offered me the full-time position. The wages were similar, but the software company required me to move to London (expensive, plus not exactly friendly to my then-burgeoning relationship with Andie, with whom I now own a house) whereas the GamePro gig allowed me to work from home.

It seemed like a simple choice. I turned down the software company and told GamePro I’d continue working for them full-time. Eventually, I got to a position financially where it was practical for me to leave home again and start living with Andie.

All appeared to be going well for a while, until the collapse of GamePro one December. It was a quiet death; I came down to start work one morning, checked my email and discovered a message thread already in progress with everyone seemingly panicking about what was going on. The site was closing, it seemed, and so was the magazine. Everyone was being laid off. There was nothing we could do.

Thankfully, a former colleague at GamePro was working for a business-facing site that focused on mobile and social games, and she offered me regular work for a very generous pay package indeed. Mobile and social are two of the most objectionable parts of the video games industry for numerous reasons, but work was work and the pay was great for what I had to do, so I sucked it up and continued, happy that I had the opportunity to write and still leave myself time to pursue other interests.

But it didn’t last.

I realised something was wrong with the site when all my colleagues suddenly announced their departure within a day or two of one another. The new management who had taken on the site were… not great, to say the least, and it was looking very likely that the generous pay packet I’d become accustomed to every month was soon to shrink to literally less than a tenth of its size.

I jumped ship. Fortunately, around the same time this was all happening, a former colleague from GamePro got in touch about USgamer and, well, you know the rest. Now, almost exactly a year after the site officially launched, I’m staring down unemployment, again through no fault of my own, but due to a shift in the way the site is doing business.

I’ve worked hard for every outlet I’ve had the privilege to work for professionally. I’ve graciously accepted feedback to improve my work — a particular shout-out to Mr Jason Wilson (formerly of GamePro, now of VentureBeat) here, whose copy-editing skills helped me refine my craft in a way no other editor had done in the past — and made an effort to improve and challenge myself as and when I can.

And yet even with a work ethic like that, there’s no guarantee of a stable job. Each time a site folded or restructured and left me without a position, I’ve effectively had to start again from scratch, often with a big gap of unemployment leaving an unsightly hole on my CV in the meantime.

For me, this isn’t an acceptable or desirable way to live. I cannot, in good conscience, look for another job in the games press knowing the inherent instability and volatility of the business, particularly now I’m a homeowner and having no money has even more severe consequences than in the past. My dream is crumbling into dust, but it’s been crumbling that way for a while now; what I really wanted to do, it turns out, was to write for magazines, but that hasn’t been an especially viable option for many years now, thanks to the Internet and the way in which we consume media these days.

More importantly, the way in which outlets make money — you know, with which to pay their staff — has changed. Readers on the Web expect their content for free — attempting to get people to pay money for text is a losing battle. As such, there just isn’t the same amount of cashflow coming in as when a magazine is pulling in money from every sale from the newsstands. It also leads to “clickbait” articles, whether these are top 10 lists designed to encourage readers to read, agree and/or disagree, or provocative, inflammatory op-eds about whatever social justice issue is on the Tumblr sociologists’ radar this week. Overall quality of content suffers as a result, and good quality writing about specific subjects goes all but ignored, leaving the games press a shadow of what it could be, and all outlets looking like slightly reskinned versions of each other.

And then there’s the growth of video to consider, too, but that’s probably a matter to discuss another day.

In other words, then, a career in the games press is simply not a viable option for me any more. Eternal respect and well-wishes to my peers out there who can make it work — whether on a salaried or freelance basis — but I simply can’t do it any more with my current life situation. It’s sad, but oddly I’m less cut up about the death of my dream than I thought I would be; it’s become increasingly apparent over the course of the last four years that the games press I’ve been working in is not the same games press that I wanted so desperately to be a part of for so long. That games press is long-dead, replaced by something very different that I’m not entirely sure is sustainable in its current form.

But it’s not my problem any more. I wash my hands of it all. I’ll continue to write about games on my own time, for the love of it, and if I can make a bit of money off it, so much the better. But career-wise? I’m looking elsewhere. And I’m not looking back.

#oneaday, Day 167: Introversion and Chaos

I’m an introvert. For many nerds, that comes with the territory. Enjoying the more cerebral pursuits that life has to offer often means enduring the ridicule of the “cool kids” who are into things like drinking, smoking and fighting. At least it did. As computers and the Internet have become more and more widespread over the years, there are certain things it’s more socially “acceptable” to do nowadays. Video games. Communicating online. That sort of thing.

But for nerds of a certain age such as myself, we grew up in a time when it was less socially acceptable to proclaim yourself a gamer. And this meant a certain degree of withdrawal, leading to introversion. This is a gross oversimplification, of course. But it’s a contributing factor in the whole shebang.

Introversion has its benefits. Being able to picture situations in your mind and mentally run through conversations is, at times, a useful skill to have. At other times, it’s a pain in the ass. Especially when you know there’s an important conversation you need to have. You end up thinking about all the things you know you really need and want to say, and then end up not saying any of them.

Sometimes you do say them, and the conversation you played out in your mind doesn’t go the way you expected it to. This can be good. Or it can be very bad. In my past experience, conversations I’ve “rehearsed” in my head are almost inevitably completely wrong by the time it comes to actually have them. This may be down to me not saying the things I thought I would. Or it may be a surprising reaction from the other person.

One thing’s for sure: there’s so much chaos in the world that it’s ridiculous to try and predict what will happen before it’s happened. When I think of things that have happened recently, there are a whole string of events which could have very easily not happened had I not made one particular choice.

One of my newest friends, for example. Had I not downloaded the Gowalla geotagging app for the iPhone, and had I not allowed a few random locals to add me as friends on it, and had I not looked at one of those locals’ profiles and found she had a Twitter page, and had I not followed her on Twitter, and had I not spoken to her on Twitter, and had I not gone to that first Tweetup I’d gone to, I wouldn’t be sitting on the sofa I’m currently sitting on writing this. That’s a peculiar thing to think about. It would have been so easy to miss any of those steps, and to think, missing one of those steps would have been an enormous life change. But they were little things; instinctive things. I didn’t rehearse them. I just did them. And things turned out pretty well there.

There’s a lesson to be learned in this somewhere, I’m sure. Be more impulsive? Say what you mean? Grow a pair?

Yep. All of those things. I’m working on it.

#oneaday, Day 152: After Midnight

What is it about the middle of the night that brings the mind to life so? Whether it is dwelling on the incidents of the day – good or bad – or feverishly expressing some sort of creative muse, the hours after midnight always seem like the perfect time to do this. For me, at least.

Or perhaps it’s not necessarily the hour, but simply that time when your body relaxes and your brain realises it has no pesky motor functions to take care of. In other words, it’s free to think.

Whether or not your brain feels it necessary to sit and think a while depends on what came immediately before, of course. Spend a busy day doing activities that exhaust your body and mind and you’ll probably drop straight to sleep. But have an evening that’s just pleasant and you’ll have some time to reflect on that pleasantness before sleep. Similarly, negative events often monopolise the brain, particularly when it doesnt have anything better to think about.

Perhaps it’s the mind keeping score, a mental totting up of the goods and bads. Awarding of XP. Achievement unlocked. That sort of thing.

Or perhaps I just find it more difficult to get to sleep than some other people and I’m just making this nonsense up to make myself feel better.

Either way, I wish you a very good night.

#oneaday, Day 150: Milestone

[PETE takes the stage. He walks up to the podium, not looking at the audience, not least because he isn’t really expecting anyone to be out there.]

PETE: (squinting at the bright lights in his face) Good evening everyone. Thank you for coming. It’s a real pleasure to see you all here. Even if the bright lights on the stage mean that I can’t actually see any of you. Regardless, it’s a pleasure to know you’re out there.

[PETE pulls out an old-style white plastic Apple Remote and clicks it at the screen. Nothing happens. He clicks it again.]

PETE: Oh, right. (pulls out iPhone and starts Keynote Remote app) There we go.

[A slide with the big number “150” appears on the screen.]

PETE: One hundred and fifty days ago, I joined a very exclusive club. A small collective of bloggers who made a very simple pledge: to wake up each day and, at some point before they got into bed and fell asleep at the end of the night, to write something on their blogs every day. This “something” didn’t have to be good. It didn’t have to make sense. It didn’t have to be “for” anyone. The purpose of the exercise was twofold.

[PETE taps his iPhone. The next slide appears with a crude stick-figure drawing of him sitting at a writers’ desk, scribbling in a book.]

PETE: One: to prove we could do it. To prove that it was possible to express your creative side at least once every single day, even if the final product was complete garbage.

[PETE taps his iPhone again. A crude drawing of him with a thought-bubble above his head appears.]

PETE: And two, to awaken those otherwise-latent skills that we all possess. Those skills of creativity, and imagination. Those skills to spin a magical tale with words, whether it’s about actual magical things like unicorns and robots and monsters even though robots aren’t really “magical” as such, or about the mundanities of everyday life.

[PETE taps his iPhone, this time with a flourish. Another crude drawing appears, this time showing several faces displaying different emotions.]

PETE: (starting to pace across the stage away from the lectern like a university lecturer) Sometimes these posts are funny. Sometimes they are silly. Sometimes they are nonsensical. Sometimes they are serious. Sometimes they are angry. And sometimes they are very sad. (stops and faces the audience, spreading hands wide, a bit like Jesus but less religious) All of them are valid expressions of something. All of them reflect the essence of that day. Even if they don’t mention anything about what happened.

[PETE taps his iPhone. An image of a calendar appears on the screen.]

PETE: (pacing back towards the lectern) 150 days might not be a huge proportion of your life in the grand scheme of things. But a significant number of things can happen. In the one hundred and fifty days since I started posting on here every day, many things have happened. When I began on the 19th of January 2010, I wasn’t to know it, but I was at a crossroads in my life.

[PETE reaches the lectern and leans on it in a Phoenix Wright style.]

PETE: I wasn’t to know that some one hundred and five days after I began that my whole world would be brought crashing down. I can’t pretend that I wasn’t expecting it to happen, but I wasn’t expecting it to happen in quite the way it did. Nor was I prepared for the amount of pain it would cause, and still does.

[PETE slams his hands on the desk, clearly channelling everyone’s favourite Ace Attorney.]

PETE: But I wasn’t about to give up. I felt like shit. I was angry. I wanted to destroy things. (slams fist on desk and hunches over it like Edgeworth when he gets pissy) I wanted people to hurt. I wanted people to hurt as much as I do, and more so, so they’d understand. (pauses, stands, calmer) I still do feel these things, sometimes more than ever. But I was not going to give up, and am not going to give up.

[PETE taps his iPhone, and a crudely-drawn stick figure image of several different people appears on the screen.]

PETE: New people came into my life at just the right time. They helped me understand things, to see some good in myself at a time when all was darkness. They gave me courage, gave me strength, spurred me on to try new things. Other friends proved themselves to be true friends instead of just acquaintances. The disastrous collapse of one relationship led to a new-found closeness in many others.

[PETE taps his iPhone again, and a photograph of PAX East appears.]

PETE: Right as I reached the point of no return at this crossroads – it had one-way streets in all directions – I discovered something. That it’s OK to be me. As I set off down the road I’m still on – which is winding, twisting, turning and regularly plummets into a crevasse – I was a new person. Or rather a person I’d always been. But more aware of it.

[PETE points out into the audience dramatically.]

PETE: One thing you can always be sure of in these last one hundred and fifty days is that it’s been all me, for better or worse.

[PETE slams his fist on the desk again.]

PETE: And one of the things that one of the new people in my life taught me, or should I say reminded me, was that not everyone goes together. Not everyone likes everyone else. If we did, sure, it’d be easier. But that’s not the way the world works, either on a tiny person-to-person scale, or on a huge nation-to-nation, culture-to-culture scale. And acceptance of that fact is what makes living that little bit easier.

[PETE taps his iPhone. A picture of a chav appears on the screen.]

PETE: I don’t like this guy. He’s a twat. He thinks I’m a twat, too, and thinks it’s amusing to insult me in the street even though I’d never seen or spoken to him before in my life.

[PETE taps his iPhone again. The image shatters.]

PETE: But it doesn’t matter. He is long gone. (pauses) Not dead. I didn’t kill him. Though I quite wanted to at the time. No. I have never seen him again since. And if he can’t deal with who I am, then he can go fuck himself.

[PETE emerges from behind the lectern again.]

PETE: Given that the eventual goal for everyone involved in this little experiment is to write something every day for a year, the number one hundred and fifty is actually not all that important. Halfway through day one hundred and eighty-two? That’s important. That’s the halfway mark. But one hundred and fifty? It’s a symbol. A milestone. Perhaps a new beginning, perhaps not. No-one can say. All I can say is: thanks for being there every day.

[PETE pauses for a moment.]

PETE: Also, you can blame Alex Connolly for telling me to make a speech. Good night everybody.