Erin Hoffman's Inside Job

Inside Job: A Love Letter to Video Games

It's about being a dragonslayer and a WW2 war hero, a vigilante and a rock star. It's about leading a team of warriors into battle to save the world. This is the context of our passion and our violence. It's because, god damn it, something matters to us, and if that's unacceptable to society, that's society's problem. The essence of public videogame misunderstanding comes from outside judgment on what a player appears to be doing without asking them what they are experiencing, what drives them to passionate action. In a videogame, it's usually an act of heroism. Break into a building and abscond with a sleeping infant and you might be engaging in burglary and abduction, but if the building's on fire, society's judgment is going to be different. Context is king.

But passion of any kind is a frightening thing. It's scary to a society that doesn't understand you. But we should never, ever apologize for it, because we all have it in us to be heroes.

That is what unites us as a tribe. Some call it escapism, as if that word should be spoken with disdain - without asking what it is in the world that so many millions of people apparently desire to escape. Gamers, and game developers, whether they like to admit it or not (it isn't, after all, macho), possess as a subculture a unique empathic intelligence that gives rise to a desire for heroism. And in that heroism there can be vision.

An Age of Vision

"After centuries of dreams and prophecies, the moment had come. Man had broken his terrestrial shackles for the first time and set foot on another world. Standing on the lifeless, rock-studded surface he could see the earth, a lovely blue and white hemisphere suspended in the velvety black sky. The spectacular view might well help him place his problems, as well as his world, in a new perspective.

Although the Apollo 11 astronauts placed an American flag on the moon, their feat was far more than a national triumph. It was a stunning scientific and intellectual accomplishment for a creature who, in the space of a few million years - an instant in evolutionary chronology - emerged from primeval forests to hurl himself at the stars. Its eventual effect on human civilization is a matter of conjecture. But it was in any event a shining reaffirmation of the optimistic premise that whatever man imagines he can bring to pass."

- Leon Jaroff, Time Magazine, "A Giant Leap for Mankind", July 25, 1969

Throughout the odyssey of the quality of life 'general mission', I have always maintained that the reason why we must demand better treatment is because we are capable, as a community, of better. We are deserving of better. This community as a group possesses enough vision for a thousand countries, enough dreams and passion for a world unto itself. There is what some might call a peculiar correlation between game developers and space program aficionados; from the perspective of future vision, it makes perfect sense. Those who can envision and desire to enact fantasy and science fiction, to mold these visions out of digital paint and code, are fascinated with the stars, and with the future ascent of humankind.

We stand on the threshold of an age of vision. The signs are all present that we are witnessing videogames' greatest growth period, its final and triumphant breakdown of the barriers into the mainstream. Games are being picked up by seniors and toddlers, by housewives and scientists. As Richard Bartle says, we've already won. But with that victory comes vast potential, even vast responsibility, and the ride's not over yet. This might be the most exciting time to be working in videogames - and it might also be one of the most influential.

This month's Inside Job is about vision. It's about why we're here, and what we have that's worth fighting for.

If you ever stay in a job, anywhere, because it's what you can do, not what you want to do, it's time for a break.

I'll stand up for you. You stood up for me.

Thank you.