The last couple months leading up to A MAZE have been difficult. The Oblivion remaster launched. Since I am so unfortunately linked to it after coming forward about the composer, it caused another long wave of harassment.
Before that, it was game journalists dunking again… either side (gamergate or game journalists) seem to go hand in hand when it comes to this sort of thing.
Sorry if that’s harsh, but I feel this is an appropriate opening when talking about the future of games crit.
I’ll leave some proof of the harassment here, in BlueSky posts which you can scroll through. Maybe it will make it more real…
twitter comments at me having a normal one.
i’m glad i don’t use twitter anymore.
social media in general has been pretty rough for me lately. this happens *EVERY time* oblivion or morowind get a press cycle. i’m sick of it.(and fwiw i told the truth www.nathalielawhead.com/candybox/abu… )
— Nathalie Lawhead (@alienmelon.bsky.social) April 30, 2025 at 8:34 PM
for example, memes like these are very common for me to see. if you do not care about the effect this has on his victims…
then reflect on how this makes the developers of the game feel. they did not invest all this work & passion just for you to appropriate it into something that hurts people.— Nathalie Lawhead (@alienmelon.bsky.social) May 7, 2025 at 7:40 AM
It’s pretty much the usual array of endless alt-right rhetoric and dunks.
It got pretty emotionally draining.
I had been invited to speak at another event, one that happens after A MAZE, to introduce a space to artgames, and I almost pulled out of it. Preparing a talk felt like agony after all that.
Knowing that this stuff passes, and then I am left with nothing afterward, I powered through it to finish my preparations. I’ll be presenting it in a couple days. It’s about “Gaming for activism: Arthouse Games as a force for good“, where I give an introduction to the hobbyist game space and show how it’s a force for positive change. I was invited because there’s very little knowledge about this type of work in Slovenia, and I could introduce people to it.
I didn’t give up. Now I have my introduction to give people. Maybe positive change can happen from that too!
i just posted the game made during the A MAZE "massive multiplayer Bitsy" workshop :)
alienmelon.itch.io/too-many-gam…
"The game posted here is the accumulation of effort from multiple teams.
As it turns out, and much like there can never be "too many games", there can never be "too many gamedevs"— Nathalie Lawhead (@alienmelon.bsky.social) May 19, 2025 at 11:53 AM
I went into this A MAZE pretty exhausted. I had a workshop that I was invited to give, and a panel that also invited me.
The panel was about curation, which I think reflected a general theme in the conversations surrounding A MAZE.
Plenty of people where talking about what the future of games crit and curation might be, especially in light of how the future of games journalism looks.
It’s burning down. What next?
I had spent about two years begging a mainstream liberal outlet that propped itself up as “the voice of the underdog” to remove an article that exploited my sexual assault, published the details of my rape, and overall put me in constant danger when it came to the alt-right.
It’s a well kept open secret that people better not bring up otherwise they get blocked or banned in certain journalism spaces.
I’ve spent most of the time after the article came down trying to deal with the backlash of standing up to these people.
The dunking continues on BlueSky, from people that now work at Aftermath… Formerly Waypoint… Formerly Kotaku.
So I say this as someone fully qualified to speak about the shortcomings of games crit and journalism: We never really had good journalists here.
I don’t believe it has happened yet.
With the fall of mainstream publications, and the rise of independently owned ones, the same issues still persist.
If you don’t count the constant catty dunking on someone like me, then it’s the fact that BDS put out a call to boycott Microsoft products, but the same outlets that are now independently owned (not answering to a parent company “forcing” them to do things) still write about Oblivion.
Some of their founders even argued the effectiveness of boycotts, much like they argued if the article about my assault can come down or not. It’s all nuanced to death, without actual stances being taken.
I have to reflect on all this and wonder what the point of being an “alternative” is if you do not have alternative values? What’s the point of behaving like a mainstream outlet when that has so clearly failed everyone?
There’s no parent company to blame anymore. No G/O Media to point to and say “they wanted this, we don’t have a choice.”
To me, the hypocrisy is obvious.
We can’t count on anything that came from the mainstream. We have to be our own answer.
– The “Weird Game Manifesto”. A two part documentary about weird games, A MAZE, and how these games matter for a positive future. By Zeph & Ramo, who’s work should also be mentioned as good curation and crit.
What was interesting about these curation focused discussions at A MAZE was how the mainstream never really worked in favor of small games. Covering them was normally viewed as an afterthought, or a small act of charity, rather than viewing them as a legitimate part of the game industry.
I’ve heard all the excuses about readers just not being interested, but I think that is disingenuous considering how much these games have been growing in terms of reach and cultural acceptance.
I could very much speak to how it has gotten easier for my work to exist here. Gamers have a curiosity for this work, and even enjoy it. Streamers very much seek it out, and (instead of how it used to be with the “mock play” where these experimental works are kind of ridiculed) actually will give them a fair chance. I do believe the culture continues to shift. Sure it’s not there yet. Not like it is with other media like music, but I see it changing.
I think there is a kind of “writing on the wall” when it comes to games crit, and that’s how the space doesn’t see how it’s alienating itself.
Games are still a fairly young medium. This is all still very new. I don’t think we ever really “figured it out” when it comes to talking about them as legitimate cultural objects.
The mainstream is dying. Outlets, even those that are independently owned, struggle to adjust because they are stuck still acting like they must have mainstream values in order to stay relevant. I think it will continue to fail, not understanding that everyone is outgrowing that.
The less “nice” part of me (the part that feels betrayed and abused by them) wants to equate current “worker owned outlets”, like Aftermath, to George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
How can you be different if you are the same awful people?
If you are an “alternative” “worker owned outlet” that answers to no one, then why is it so hard to support a BDS boycott? I see comments from people that paid subscriptions to these places saying that they are canceling their payments because these values are not being upheld. So who is this for?
Do we even have meaningful alternatives?
“Nasr said that No Azure for Apartheid also worked with Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) to add Microsoft to its list of boycott campaigns. BDS announced the campaign 3 April, highlighting how the “Israeli army relies heavily on Microsoft to meet technological requirements.””
If this post would take off I’m sure I will get dunked on again by these people, so I’ll earn that potential wave of hate by saying:
I don’t think there’s a future in that space with the way it is.
The future is in the hands of developers and hobbyists curating.
We need to advocate for each-other, and create awareness of our space and each-other’s games ourselves.
The future is something wildly different. One that will function outside of these outdated norms and compromised values.
The indie games space is made possible by the sea of people contributing to it, making it what it is. Anything positive here began in spite of the mainstream. If it caught on, only then would it be acknowledged in the mainstream because only then was it popular enough to “talk about”.
We can’t count on the mainstream to see us. We have to do that ourselves.
The future of games curation will be bloggers, hobbyists, and small people that take it on themselves to share their passion with others. Where established voices have failed us, there will be true alternatives pursuing something better.
We are our own solution.
The power structures that used to gatekeep are falling apart. Maybe that’s a good thing in the grand scheme of things. Maybe that can make way for something that would never treat a sexual assault survivor with so much disdain that an article exploiting their sexual assault has to stay up for two years to appease everyone’s egos.
Maybe it will be viewed as incomprehensible to dunk on that sexual assault survivor, with your peers who all have a huge collective following, making jokes about their suicidal ideation and mental health.
Maybe, in that future, speaking up against being treated like this, won’t result in public humiliation and constant dunking.
Maybe it won’t be something to blacklist the sexual assault survivor over.
The old needs to die.
– A photo of “Individualism in the dead internet age” at A MAZE.
“Individualism in the dead internet age” was showcased at A MAZE. It’s the type of thing that exists outside the mainstream. A challenge to the values of big tech, monopolies, and technocapitalism. It’s a celebration of the contributions that hobbyist developers have made in the course of computer history. It speaks to the continued relevance that space has.
It’s not allowed on Steam. It can’t exist there because it goes against the policies of the mainstream. It’s an alternative history of how tech is democratic. How hobbyists matter. How that culture manages to survive.
It’s about alternatives.
It will never be talked about in the mainstream.
“Under its new owners, the collegial atmosphere that had characterized the conferences I ran was replaced by a purely commercial atmosphere.”
– The Computer Game Developers’ Conference
In order to have a concept of winning, the concept of losers needs to exist too.
The very structure of capitalism assumes that there will be people beneath you.
To be the best cog in the machine, you need to compromise who you are. Is it worth it?
I had a conversation recently questioning what the point of all that is if, when you finally made it as “the top cog” in this glorious machine that eats people, you will eventually wear out anyway. The machine necessitates a constant stream of cogs. Or, in this metaphor, you are expendable.
This entire structure that we’ve built is not sustainable.
We need a completely new way of looking at this.
The indie boom was heralded as the “indiepocalypse” because, to win, there needs to be an artificial scarcity. Once abundance came in (“too many games”), this threatened the established road to success.
Current conversations about “deprofessionalization” remind me of those past discussions.
The Indiepocalypse booth is all set up at PAX East! Stop by your local hole-in-the-wall indie game shop and pick up some physical indie games! (Booth #24098)
— Andrew ?? AMAZE | BUY INDIEPOCALYPSE (@pizzapranks.bsky.social) May 8, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Over the many years of making my “weird experimental art”, things changed to become more welcoming to it.
Those times that I would showcase my work in mainstream conventions like E3 there would always be ridicule toward it, but that seems so distant now. I’m no stranger to being attacked because of my work.
Today, things have changed to where even gamers have their favorite altgames. I never thought I would see the day!
It’s novel to hear how there can be an Indiepocalypse booth at PAX, and people will buy the games. Like the booth will do well there.
You can’t tell me there’s no more interest in this stuff. There’s more interest now than when outlets where writing about this stuff back when it was controversial.
If anything, there’s an obvious shift.
I think, culturally, we’ve outgrown what took a lot of gatekeeping, backstabbing, and internal fighting, to stay relevant in the first place. Maybe we’re just ready for something better.
“In October 2023, following onslaught by the Israeli military on occupied Palestine, players of the game Roblox organised and attended virtual marches. Bearing Palestinian flags and other symbols of solidarity, writing and voice-chatting messages of support and resistance, they marched in constructed virtual spaces of their own making.”
– Scene Versus System: How DIY Software Scenes Can Resist
I can’t count the number of alternatives that have been slowly growing through the exposed cracks of this metaphoric mainstream concrete.
During the A MAZE Hypertalks, Farfama announced Exhibit Play, an initiative dedicated to sharing “hyper specific curated game lists”.
Hello world!
Welcome to Exhibit Play. We're dedicated to discovering and sharing hyper specific curated game lists.
No algorithms, no AI. All human curated.
— Exhibit Play (@exhibitplay.bsky.social) May 16, 2025 at 9:56 AM
Indiepocalypse, an initiative to curate zines and “mixtapes” of small games, has grown over the many years to a point that it’s finally considered a respected staple… Everyone I know knows about it.
Set up at the last day of AMAZE (but in the x-market this time)
— Andrew ?? AMAZE | BUY INDIEPOCALYPSE (@pizzapranks.bsky.social) May 17, 2025 at 2:10 PM
I can’t recommend Tier Review enough.
The people that founded it supported me. They had plenty of opportunity to throw me under the bus, and it would likely have benefited them more than standing by me, but they never betrayed that. The writing is incredible, nuanced, thoughtful… I wish everyone knew about them. Follow the people that founded it. It’s already a notable deep dive into good criticism.
Speaking of individual voices, Dia Lacina writes about games and often streams with Em (of Abnormal Mapping) … I feel safe suggesting Dia because Dia had SO MUCH opportunity to throw me under the bus. She could have easily been cruel. Not once. No cruelty, ridicule, justification, or dunking. Dia is one of the people that I look up to now, and follow recommendations of because I know anyone in that sphere likely has quality of character. You should know about Em & Dia’s “let’s play” videos: https://www.youtube.com/@dialacina#
Deep Hell is another that comes up frequently when talking about alternatives that actually have alternative values.
Huggable Hipster is simply wonderful, and puts out a lot of gamery gaming related work.
Find Nice Games is a new one that does some tremendous curation.
Anyone can start a blog and curate games. We all have the power to do that!
I don’t know why we convinced ourselves that there are no “good” alternatives, when there are so many that never threw people like me under the bus. Those that did are just the loudest voices in the room, and maybe we need to outgrow that.
We’re better than jumping on discourse bandwagons started for the sake of fueling ego. It alienates people.
I would like the future of games journalism, and games crit, to be one that would never even dream of doing to a sexual assault survivor what the old guard did to me.
I would like to feel safe. I would like there to be a strong distinction between gamergate and the liberal voices in games journalism… Instead of this awful treatment that has been justified for so long.
I want there to be accountability, values, and mutual respect.
That can’t happen as long as what was done to me is a known open secret that still gets justified.
What future does games crit, and games journalism, even have if something so wrong is still considered necessary?
“without them [rape photos], there’s nothing. To remove them would be, in effect, to un-report the story. Which is not going to happen.”
– “This Week In Horrible Journalism: Jezebel’s Rape Photos”
The legacy that former Kotaku created is this type of normalization to someone like me.
If you are still reading this, then I’d like you to reflect on how Gawker magazine also refused to take down a rape video even when the victim in it begged them to.
Jezebel posted an image of a woman being raped, in graphic detail.
The same was done to me by Kotaku, during it’s glory days, by one of its “best”. No accountability ever happened. I was punished by that crowd for speaking up. I still am.
These are not alt-right news sites. These where supposed to be better.
How often does that have to happen?
Is it worth it?
I’m by no means the only one this was done to, but I was the most outgoing about it. I can’t count the messages I’ve gotten from others hurt like this, by that same type of journalism. It was never necessary to do this for the sake of an article that just gets lost after a week.
I think (if you do care about true alternatives) it’s time to readjust who we give the attention and weight of influence to.
– They keynote for PLAY 2024 in Hamburg, about how gaming is used as a propaganda tool, as well as other aspects that affect the political sphere.
Attending game events in Europe has changed my perspective on what it means to be indie. We are not just artists. We have a social responsibility to do and be better.
I’m moving past these old exhausted arguments. I don’t find myself arguing the importance of art anymore. Arguing the value of hobbyist work, and that “not everything needs to be about money” isn’t really edgy here. It’s often self-understood.
Slowly I’m seeing that most of the hate I’m used to is just online noise. Something old dying out.
At A MAZE I attended a talk from a friend where I wasn’t sure if (or how much) I was still friends. When you survive these constant waves of online hate, it’s easy to default to assuming that you’re not welcome.
After the talk, I approached them to say hi. It was hard to make myself do that. What if they didn’t want to talk to me?
As soon as they saw me, their face lit up with a huge smile.
I was hugged.
This is the real world.
The real world has people in it that care about others.
The future of games crit and curation can too.
