“We’re the ones that care about the industry; the ones that want to change the world.” – Choose Your Own Adventure
“In a world that’s been gamified to within an inch of its life, maybe indulging in pixels, bits and bytes can be a subversive act.” Mike Pinnington on FACT Liverpool’s gaming symposium, Choose Your Own Adventure…
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The Virtual World’s A Stage
In its still short lifespan, gaming has come a long way. It enjoys something approaching a ubiquitous presence, one whose reach extends to impacts social and political, as well as cultural. 2018 saw a major milestone for the industry, seeing its profits eclipse those of the film and music industries combined. A couple of years later, the Covid pandemic precipitated yet another explosion in popularity, with many turning (or returning) to virtual worlds to escape the real, locked-down one.
2024’s Grand Theft Hamlet, which finds a pair of out of work actors finding solace in Rock Star Games’ notorious flagship game, GTA – an outlet for the frustration, boredom, and no little angst we all experienced during the pandemic – is testament to this. But, not satisfied (indefinitely at least) to use the game merely as the stage for random acts of violence – which, having never played it, is my own limited understanding of its appeal – Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen eventually landed on the idea that they’d use its open world settings for more. Much more, in fact.
Happening upon an amphitheatre in the gameworld, they decide that, amid the carnage and feral unpredictability the game promotes, they will stage a production of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Of course, things don’t go smoothly, at least not at first. But, miraculously, little by little, other players come on board, a cast of characters is confirmed, there is broad buy-in from a largely well-behaved, growing, audience; even if, predictably, enforcers are required from time to time to ensure progress with rehearsals and, ultimately, a full performance.
Grand Theft Hamlet demonstrates the – often surprising – potential that gaming offers; not simply for escapism, avoidance or rejection of the ‘real world’ for an indeterminate amount of time, but for experiences that can, sometimes, transcend simple pleasures (like a casual life of crime). It was in this space for such potential and analysis of the industry that FACT Liverpool’s gaming symposium, Choose Your Own Adventure, positioned itself, and sought to explore the ‘world-building, agency and collective experience’ offered by the medium.
Rerendering And Reflecting Reality
Applaud the ingenuity of those involved with Grand Theft Hamlet’s success and subsequent acclaim though I do, this wasn’t the first time the blockbuster game’s environment had been co-opted and subverted to alternative, fruitful effect. Sat on CYOA’s first panel of the day was David Blandy. Along with fellow artist, Larry Achiampong, he had, from 2016, employed the virtual realm of GTA5 to explore and develop ideas around identity, post-colonialism and more in the innovative and expansive FF Gaiden series. (If you’re unfamiliar with the work, you can check it out here.)
Alongside Blandy – who, these days, you’re more likely to find developing a new TTRPG than digital masterpiece – was another artist no stranger to the digital realm, in Jazmin Morris (an associate lecturer at Central Saint Martins, Morris’ Insta bio reads ‘artist putting the culture in computation’), who asserts that “artists approach games in a disruptive way.” Between them, appropriately employing the role of gaming dice to decide on the framework for discussion, they ran the gamut. Considering the increasing overlaps of (and the cracks in-between) life, society and how elements of each have resonances in gaming – and vice versa – subjects included: the enshitification of the internet, relationships formed in gaming worlds (“emotions happen where people live – often in the virtual space”, observes Blandy), and our connection with and attachment to characters and avatars in videogames.
Gamification, which, says MIT Technology Review, is ‘just behaviourism dressed up in pixels and point systems,’ stripping any fun and creativity from the equation, soon rears its head. “I can imagine a future where death has become entangled with gameplay,” says Morris. It’s a chilling thought, one that I find myself nodding to, knowing, while unsure of the practicalities, that this, somewhere, is already in the works of our dystopian capitalist near future. Predictably, it’s not long before talk turns to Black Mirror (so often a reflection of our world as it might look in the next five minutes) created, of course, by sometime games journo, Charlie Brooker.
Toward the end of a lively, fun and thoughtful exchange, deriding the recent sale of Discord (with moves to a different financial model pending), Blandy asks, frustratedly: “How do we stop everything from being monetised?” It’s a good question, setting up nicely the next talk of the day.
Everything To Play For: Politics, Labour, And Community In Gaming
Capitalism, re its many ills, was more explicitly to the fore in Everything To Play For. In her book, which lent the talk its title, author and insider, Marijam Didžgalvytė, makes the point that we must acknowledge that gaming is an industry, one of frequently “appalling work[ing] conditions,” in which “precarity is the norm.” Today, however, she says she’s “feeling optimistic” – in large part owing to the opportunity Choose Your Own Adventure provided to find what she described as “a more sophisticated way of understanding the medium.”
If Didžgalvytė had briefly designated herself good cop, Game and Media Studies academic, Aleena Chia was, if not bad cop, very much playing the role of realist. Countering the positive opening, she cautioned: “there’s a difference between symbolic gestures and real change… it’s not easy to differentiate…” But, responded Didžgalvytė, citing trade unionism, greater academic rigour and critical engagement (frequently currently lacking), there is a multitude of options open to those wishing to instigate real and lasting change in an industry one senses is, as yet, still on the road to full maturity.
Chia and Didžgalvytė, mature, erudite and frank, made good foils for each other, often coming at issues from different perspectives while always leaving space for one another. In many ways, their conversation exposed the grubby underbelly hiding beneath the industry’s shiny surfaces, tackling urgent issues beyond the emancipatory, fun and largely positive community- and world-building possibilities for which it is so often celebrated.
It was both sobering and a signal of how far gaming has come – at least in terms of discussions outside of those we’d typically expect from mainstream commentators (who, let’s face it, tend to steer clear of anything more difficult than reporting on prevailing trends, or the quality of graphics and gameplay). For those with an eye for a greater depth of discussion, Chia and Didžgalvytė are in the vanguard.
Roll For Initiative
One of a number of CYOA’s sessions programmed by Anne Duffau A—Z (including a morning character design workshop), art collective Babeworld served up the palette-cleansing Roll For Initiative. Like a frisson-inducing mini-game breaking up the day’s regular levels, it was a funny, candid and confessional insight into the decision-making processes at play when deliberating over whether or not you can possibly accept the opportunity/challenge of performing at a gaming symposium. This was all left, appropriately, in the lap of gaming dice gods. Music taste, snacking choices, broken sex toys – as with many of the best videogames, it was both complex and accessible; Duffau covered a lot of ground, and raised many a chuckle (and perhaps the occasional wince) in the process. And, dare I say it, more than a few knowing nods of recognition.
Boss Level (Plenary Session)
It had been a long, invigorating, and thought-provoking day. The panel (of Blandy, Didžgalvytė, Chia and Morris, joined by FACT’s Lesley Taker) reconvened, looking like they’d come through – by the skin of their teeth – an especially competitive day of hard-core gaming. There was much talk of wine.
Before they were let loose on the alcohol, though, our challengers tackled many a thorny, well-considered question; and an obviously engaged and well-informed audience played their part. The idea of radical play came up time and again (having first been mentioned by Taker in the morning intros). Politely dismissed as little more than an oft-repeated soundbite by Chia, a consensus among others emerged that saw value, perhaps even comfort, in such a philosophy, that it represented something that transcended figures on spreadsheets: play in and of itself as an act of resistance. As Morris said, “I feel like calling in sick counts as resistance,” so why not actively engaging in a little – or a lot of – Switch? In a world that’s been gamified to within an inch of its life, maybe indulging in pixels, bits and bytes, as gamer, developer, artist, or all of these things, can be subversive.
A key takeaway from the day on which we can probably all agree is that gaming is not one homogenous thing. Sure, there are its front-facing, high profile players, the Nintendo, Sony and Microsofts of its gleaming glass and metal ivory towers, who dictate much of what goes on. But away from the mainstream lens, gaming is a multi-faceted organism; still growing, evolving and capable of surprising us. We needn’t be content with the status quo. Indeed, as Didžgalvytė said, if things are to change for the better, there must be “avenues for resistance… we’re the ones that care about the industry; the ones that want to change the world.”
Mike Pinnington
Mike attended Choose Your Own Adventure at FACT Liverpool, 25 April
Choose Your Own Adventure was produced in collaboration with cultural producer Anne Duffau. The symposium included an edition of Always Coming Home, a series of events by curatorial platform A—Z that further the ideas of immersion, speculative worlds and conscious listening.
Photography by Sophie Keogh
