I like playing video games. Depending on who you ask, I like playing them too much. That’s not what this is about though. I tend to stick to single-player RPGs (Role-playing games) though I’ve been known to dabble in sports, FPS (first-person shooters), puzzle, and racing games on occasion. I enjoy exploring the worlds the designers have created, figuring out puzzles, and swinging make-believe swords/guns/whatever at animated bad guys. It’s great!
I also think that if given enough time and money I could make the greatest video game of all time. So, because I want to share with the world my potential greatness, I am asking for one of my many billionaire readers to cough up some dough. Barring that, I am asking for one of my lesser-heeled readers to come up with a way to con $100 Million (US) out of a billionaire and give it to me so I can make a video game. An eminently reasonable request.
Hello! It’s such an honor that you’re reading the newsletter! So cool. This is just a reminder to subscribe if you don’t already. It’s easy and all the hip people are doing it. What’s not to love? Always good to support local art! If 500,000 people subscribe I’ll have that $100 million in no time!
I should be clear here. I will not be programming the game. I can’t code, don’t know how to use game engines like Unity, I don’t have the time or patience to learn, and there are already like a million people better at it than me. By the time I’d learned how to make some words jump up and down on the screen it’d be like 2034. So, I’ll hire programmers to do that for me. I’ll have $100 million to work with after all. That money isn’t just for me.
The same goes for the art. I can’t draw to save my life, let alone model a 3D character. The best I could do would be something that looked like a precocious 1st grader made. Not something that would make people ooh and ahh. That’s what the money is for after all. To hire people who can make cool stuff.
Before you ask, no. I will not be using AI to help with any of this. I’ve already discussed my feelings on AI and art here. You can read that if you want. In short, it doesn’t work. Worried that there won’t be enough people interested in such a job? Don’t be. Video game companies have been laying off talented people left and right. There are plenty of people who want to be paid well to work on an awesome game.
Speaking of workers, some ground rules. There will be no crunch at Dang Dude Studios (DDS), in addition to the ban on AI. For those not in the know, crunch is a pervasive video game industry cancer, where workers are expected to work 16-20 hours a day in the lead-up to launch. It’s an awful exploitative practice that destroys families, careers, and often leads to bad video games. No thanks! Also, DDS will be fully employee-owned and operated so everyone gets an equal share of the profits and a generous salary. Why not after all? It’s someone else’s money. Something else to note, our generous benefactor will not receive their money back, they will get a free copy of the video game. So that’s nice!
If I’m not programming and I’m not making art, what exactly would I be doing? I have described this as my video game after all. I must make some part of it. Simple. I’d be directing it. Curating the vibes. I’d be the Rick Rubin of this whole thing. I know what I like, and I know almost instantly whether I like something or not. It’s a very valuable skill for a big project like this. I’m also good at working with people, which is a talent that you most certainly need when managing a project of this scale.
I do have the grain of an idea for what themes I want this game to explore. They’re themes that pop up time and again throughout other creative projects that I’ve done. How religious institutions work to try to gain or maintain power, the power of unified action by a group, and how individuals should live in a society that is not meant for them. I’d want it all to take place on an alien planet full of crazy-looking creatures. If those sound like highfalutin ideas for a video game, you have not been playing video games recently.
One more question remains. Why $100 Million (US)? That’s a pretty standard cost, if not a little low, for a modern AAA video game. Video games like the one I’m imagining take hundreds of people years to make. Programming, modeling, debugging, and the thousand other things you need to do all take time, computing power, and a bunch of legwork. I could start off with a smaller game, but no thanks! I’ll have $100 million (US). Of course, Dang Dude Studios would not have to pay the salaries for corporate executives who don’t do anything, so we’d save on some costs there. If there’s money left over, well, then I’m sure everyone will deserve a nice company-paid vacation when the game is released. Maybe in the Bahamas. Or Rome.
Of course, I know that no one will give me $100 million (US), unless…? Even if I did get this newsletter in the hands of a billionaire and it convinced them enough to hand over the moolah, I don’t even have an LLC registered for Dand Dude Studios. I’m not that literate about financial law, but I’m pretty sure you can’t write a check for a cool hundred million without there being some wild tax implications. I certainly wouldn’t want it in cash either. That’s too many bills. However, if someone were to turn up at my door with a Brinks truck I’d have a very hard time turning it down.
Some of this is not a joke, however. I have thought long and hard about what type of video game I’d like to make. I even have a couple of Word Docs going with some broad strokes of ideas not just for plot and characters, but for skill trees, gameplay, puzzle ideas, and all the other stuff you need for a video game of this magnitude. I add to it whenever I can.
I’m certainly being over-confident here. I have never made a game in my life nor directed anything remotely like this. I would mess things up constantly. Directing video games is as much skill as much as programming is one. But then again, I’ll never know whether I’ll be good at it or not unless someone gives me the money. Wouldn’t it be sad if I was the next Miyazaki and we never found out because everyone was too afraid to give me just like a little cash?
I think so.
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