2016年8月31日
https://youtu.be/bKMAJ8vOMDg

Hi everyone, thank you for having me.
My name is Davey, as you said.
I'm actually just curious before starting this, how many people are students here at the university?
Most of you, awesome.
How many people are studying games, games or game design?
Oh, actually only a few of you.
So the vast majority of you are doing stuff other than games.
Really, that's interesting.
Uh, are there any none student, just developers, game developers around?
No, so this is one, okay.
So this is like all students, various things.
That's actually really cool.
Thank you so much for coming to this talk about Stanley Parable.
I assumed that at least some of you...
Have people played, who's played Stanley parable?
Who knows what this is about?
Okay, cool!
So like actually the majority of you don't don't know this.
That's perfect.
That's really good.
This this will be fun.
This will be a fun talk.
Unfortunately I don't really have a PowerPoint or anything because I wrote
the talk and the PowerPoint wasn't right for it.
So I have this nice image up here.
This is, this is an image from Stanley Parable and it's representative of what making video games is like.
It's pretty much just this.
Yeah, okay, so cool.
Thank you very much for all of you showing up and I'll say, I'll say the
things that I wrote down.
Okay.
So on July 15th 2014, I got an email from Alex.
Is Alex is here?
Somewhere.
Where is he?
He's running around.
It's okay.
Okay.
So Alex is of course one of the organizers of the Games Now program and and in in his email he tells me about Aalto University and about the Games Now speaker series and he tells me that he's interested in having me talk to the students about game narrative and storytelling and about the making of the Stanley Parable.
Three weeks before, I got that email, on June 23rd 2014.
I had begun going to therapy for depression and anxiety.
I was at a point in my life where I felt I had no one who was going to continue to be there for me.
Everyday my emotional state was wildly different.
I felt cold and disconnected from the world and was generally just in a mindset of wanting everyone and everything to go away.
So I get an email from Alex: Do you want to come to Europe to a university and give a talk?
Do you want to tell students about game design, about storytelling, about process?
And I start wondering what do I want to say to a group of university students.
If I wanted to put something in their heads that would actually matter to them, what would it be?
If I could tell them something that would shape them going forward possibly in some way or if that would in in some way affect the course their game development or whatever it is that, that the rest of you are studying.
That would have some impact on them, what would I want to come and say?
Well what if I talked about Stanley Parables development?
I can tell them stories of the design and of the process and how we got to many of the stories that are in the game like for instance how one of the central features of the game was added only by accident.
So there's a there's an office that you continue to come back to over and over throughout the game and the layout of the office often changes at random. And each time that you play through it.
deterrent /d?'t??nt/ : something that makes somebody less likely to do something
fatigue /f?'tig/ : a feeling of not wanting to do a particular activity any longer because you have done too much of it
And originally this was a feature that we added because we were afraid that the players would become really bored by having to walk through the same office halls over and over and so really it was just meant as a deterrent against fatigue like oh look at this new little thing come in come in and explore like what's different now.
It wasn't until we actually put that randomization in the game that we realized that it was becoming a central feature in many players experiences of the game.
They thought that it was meant to be a part of the central narrative that liked the office layout was changing and of course we didn't tell anyone that this was not intentional.
We just sort of went, oh yeah， that's that's the thing you remember most from your experience.
All right, cool!
Yeah, that's what it was we meant to do that so.
takeaway: an important fact, point or idea to be remembered from a talk, meeting or event
The takeaway is that you create better experiences for your players when you let go of the effect that you intended for something to have and simply listen to the experience that your players are actually having and develop the game to support that instead.
Or I could tell you about a section of game where you throw yourself off a platform repeatedly while the narrator in your ear begs you not to and how originally it was exactly the same except that the narrator had trapped you here and was forcing you to throw yourself over and over and players hated it.
coerce: to force somebody to do something by using threats
They hated that they were being coerced into an action and they couldn't do anything about it and when the only change that we made was we reversed the
dialogue and made the narrator upset about what you were doing.
People suddenly loved it so we learned that it wasn't the specific action that they were doing that was important.
frame: express something in a particular way
rebellious: unwilling to obey rules or follow generally accepted standards of behaviour, dress, etc.
It was what they were being told about why that action was important in the first place, in this case purely by framing the player action as rebellious.The action itself became enjoyable.
anecdoe /??n?kd??t/ : a short, interesting or funny story about a real person or event
hypothetically /?ha?p??θet?kli/ : in a situation that is possible and imagined rather than real and true
It was as simple as changing the tone of the voice so either of those anecdotes and many many many more could each be the subject of its own talk that I might hypothetically deliver to you today.
So, I'm not going to do that.
I'm not going to talk about design or narrative or production or storytelling and here's why.
roomful /?r?mf?l/ : a large number of people or things that are in a room
This is a roomful of university students heading off into the world to make games or whatever it is that you're studying and to do great things.
You're at the start of something and you have so so so much time ahead of you and that means that right now today, you're in a position where the things that you think about are going to trickle down through all of your work to come.
You know what you think about today will affect the the things that you make a month from now and then the things that you make a month from now will affect the things that you think about two months from now and that will affect the stuff do you make after that and so on and so forth in this cycle.
So the question is what do you want to think about, what's important.
What's so important that it's worth influencing the entire cycle of things that you make for the rest of your lives.
And yeah, you know I don't, I don't mean what's your idea for a game.
I mean what's important in your life and I'm not saying that I don't enjoy talking about design and structure and narrative and all that fun stuff.
propose: to suggest a plan, an idea, etc. for people to think about and decide on
tremendously: to a very great degree
In fact we're gonna do a Q&A after this and I'm sure that, you know, some of you will have questions for me along the lines of the very thing the very topics that I just mentioned here and and I'm really looking forward to it but for the purposes of this talk I'm going to I'm going to propose to you that beyond all of the designs and the systems and the mechanics and the roads and the structures and the choices and the narrative that there is something tremendously more important to think about when it comes to doing creative
work and it has it has to do with the deeper reasons for why you're doing the
creative work that you're doing, the deeper reason behind creative work is unfortunately something that almost no one who makes creative work ever thinks about.
by/in virtue /?v??rt?u?/ of something : by means of or because of something
It is so vast and so important that 99% of people will never even notice that it's there, it's hidden by virtue of its size.
The deeper reason is also entirely personal to you so the best that I can really do is to show you what it looks like for me in as much detail as I can to help give you a reference point for how to see it in your own life.
fortitude: courage shown by somebody who is suffering great pain or facing great difficulties
It's very difficult to bring this huge invisible thing into focus but if and when you do as I hope you all do what you find on the other end is an incredible amount of personal fortitude well-being happiness and the strength to create beautiful beautiful art.
So now, let's get dirty.
I'm going to try to convince you that the kind of game you make is way less important than the reason that you made it.
Which of course is a very simple thing to say and Aalto University paid several hundred euros to fly me out here and they put me up in a very lovely hotel not too far from the city centre and so I think I owe it to them to get much more specific and much more personal about why the kind of game that you make is less important than the reason that you made it.
So in order to convince you of this, I'm going to tell you a story about a thing that happened to me.
dredge up: to mention something that has been forgotten, especially something unpleasant or embarrassing
I'm going to tell you about my life in a lot of detail that makes me kind of uncomfortable to dredge up after all this time.
But it's important and it's not important that I was depressed or that I did some shitty things to myself.
clarity /?kl?r?ti/ : the quality of being expressed clearly
It's important to think about why I did those things and if you can go to this place, if you can really see the why, why did I do this, then you begin walking the road to clarity, that will strengthen you as an artist, in a way that nothing else in the world can.
Ok, so let's talk about launching Stanley Parable.
It launched in 2013 but things have been building up to that launch for quite some time.
In 2011, I had put a free half-life 2 mod out onto the Internet also called the Stanley Parable that was essentially a prototype for the full release in 2013.
Before that, I was at film school at USC in Los Angeles.
I had been making stuff for years.
parody /?p?r?di/ : a piece of writing, music, acting, etc. that deliberately copies the style of somebody/something in order to be humorous
I wrote silly parody songs for a mock folk band in high school.
I made animated short movies which I put on Newgrounds.
vignette /v?n?jet/ : a short piece of writing or acting that clearly shows what a particular person, situation, etc. is like
I wrote a series of vignettes tile short stories on my own in college.
At film school, I made a bunch of movies some of which I liked.
None of the movies that I liked were also the ones that my professors liked.
Basically I had been making stuff for years and not really ever gotten much response.
I would have some friends who liked my work sure but nothing really beyond that.
resonate (with somebody/something) : to remind somebody of something; to be similar to what somebody thinks or believes
Some of you may resonate with this, while I know that I was never doing yet any of it just to get recognized.
It's really hard to separate your creative work from your ego, no matter how much that you really believe it's just for you just for your own personal pleasure.
Eventually you find yourself looking around and thinking does anyone else like this?
Do you guys think this is cool, I think this is cool, what do you think?
Do you, what do you what do you and you want that.
It's impossible not to have those thoughts or it's impossible for me anyway. But you keep making stuff anyway because you'll love it.
You know you can't help yourself.
You just have to do this.
Every time that you make something special that gets completely ignored.
You use it as fuel to prove them wrong the next time and you do this over and over and over until maybe one day you're like me or you decide that you're just not really cut out to be the creative type and maybe you plan to go into a different field.
I was literally weeks away from abandoning game development and just running a bar somewhere.
When the free version of Stanley Parable hit the internet and suddenly overnight I had tens of thousands of eyes on me.
So, wow!
What does that do to a person?
I had convinced myself that my sensibilities just weren't cut out for public consumption and I probably wouldn't ever really have an audience and suddenly I'm given the audience that I'd been dreaming of for years.
validation: the feeling that others recognize that you are right or good enough
It was validation like you cannot even imagine, for a few weeks thereafter the game came out, I was a god.
smash: break record
I felt like I could not fail that anything I made was instant gold and remember this was my very first video game so as far as I was concerned I had a 100% smash hit record.
It was amazing and I learned pretty fast that I was not a god.
The thing that happened after the game came out.
That's the clearest and most? painful memory of learning just how human I actually was.
Shortly after the game came out, these guys from a, you know, at like slightly well-known gaming podcast contacted me about going on their show and doing an interview and I'm thinking to myself - Yes, here it is. I get to be center stage finally.
commandment: the law given by god
peon /?pi??n/ : a person with a hard or boring job that is not well paid and not considered important
I will, you know, descend from my mountain and deliver the commandments of game design to these peons or whatever, I had never been so excited for something to finally be given personal recognition and I went on the podcast and the interview was like an hour and a half and oh my god I did not shut up. I just fucking talked and talked and talked and I think they got to ask me like six questions total.
I had to say everything, right, it was so bad it was really really bad and I off the call and I just felt so empty so incredibly empty.
I cannot tell you.
indulge: to allow yourself to have or do something that you like, especially something that is considered bad for you
wiggle room: the freedom or opportunity to do something, or to change your mind and do something differently if that is what is needed
whatsoever: not at all; not of any kind
It was like this was the one thing that I've been waiting for and I so completely indulged myself in it with no wiggle room and I came away from it with no satisfaction whatsoever and it felt awful you know like I'd been lied to, like this thing that I had really wanted really wanted to be interviewed and to be asked my opinions that it had given me no comfort, whatsoever, I was really sad about that and I decided I would never listen to the podcast again though.
Actually last year I did go back and I listened to it again for the first time
and was pretty much just as bad as I remembered.
snooty: treating people as if they are not as good or as important as you
pretentious: trying to appear important, intelligent, etc. in order to impress other people; trying to be something that you are not, in order to impress
I had all these weird little quirks during the interview like often times after saying something very snooty and pretentious about game design or life or whatever.
I would then say something to be effective but of course it's not like I'm a genius of game design and then often times after saying that I would follow it up with but you know half a million people have played my game so you know I'm probably doing pretty good.
Oh well it was really bad, very bad.
So anyway, please don't look that up.
So, so I did that interview and after that I calmed myself down a bit.
I kept doing some interviews but you know I was like kind of getting better at them and not long after that I found a young guy in England named William
Pugh and the two of us began working together on the high-definition remake of the game.
Okay, so, I want to pause for a second.
Let's look back at what I've just told you so far about the original Stanley Parable about who I was going into that and how I responded to it.
Why did I make that game?
Why did I spend two years killing myself over that Maude.
There's no simple answer to that.
For one thing, one big piece is that I really wanted to get a job at valve which for those who don't know is a very large game development company and I was hoping that this game would make for a good resume piece but is that the only reason?
I know that a few of you have played Stanley Parable so of course you know but for those who don't that it's about a man who discovers that he's all alone.
Everything that he thought would be there for him has left.
solace: help and comfort when you are feeling sad or worried
He's given no choice but to wander the empty halls of his office alone searching aimlessly, given no solace but the voice in his own head.
So again, why did I make Stanley?
It's because I was alone.
I felt very very alone and it's not like I didn't have friends you know?
vastly: very much
I had great friends and yet the burning thing on my mind was the story of this man who's completely vastly alone.
It wasn't enough just to have friends.
I wanted to be seen.
I wanted to be liked for some much grander reason.
I wanted to be told that I was great.
overhear: to hear, especially by accident, a conversation in which you are not involved
I wanted to hear, overhear a conversation on the bus.
Hey, Davey Wreden's got a new game out.
What a geniuss!
paragon: a person who is perfect or who is a perfect example of a particular good quality
What a paragon of brilliant narrative design!
I wanted to be made complete through the validation of someone else.
A few months after the game came out, I talked to a friend who who described the way he described it was that Stanley Parable had been like me reaching out into the void and by some improbable means. The void had reached back. And to be sure you know I got a lot of I got a lot out of the reception to that game.
I made a ton of friends.
I moved to Austin where I live now.
Moved in with the people that I live with today, I made friends and lovers and found a whole community but the reception to the original mod was while it was big, it was not exactly overwhelming, I dealt with it.
You know, I kept making games.
I've gotten quite a bit of validation from the experience to be sure.
But in some way it still wasn't enough, there could be more.
I knew there could be more and I continued to pursue it and again there were so many reasons why I was making this thing and why William and I both continued pushing so hard all that time but undeniably I had gotten a taste of being in the spotlight this thing I'd never had before and I wanted more than anything for it to continue so I kept making the new game with my partner William and we worked on it for two years.
By the way, funny note is that William and I never actually met in person for that entire time.
The whole thing was done just over Skype voice call.
No, no video.
We met in person for the first time a month after the game launched.
Anyway, so it's a long and difficult battle to get the game made and then in October 2013, we finally do it.
We launched the first commercial video game that either of us had ever made and it was a crazy smash hit to the complete and total surprise of both of us.
So we'd actually had a number in mind for like the total amount of the game selling like in its entire lifetime that would mean that we would be able to keep doing this and to you know pursuing whatever was that we wanted to do and that would be like the number that would make us the total happiest from all the work that we'd put in and we hit that number in the first 24 hours.
So overnight, our work became a kind of phenomenon and the two of us were at the center of it.
outlet: a shop or an organization that sells goods made by a particular company or of a particular type
In fact primarily I was at the center of it largely because I had been the sole creator of the original game and so as a result many media outlets focused more on me as the face of the operation.
enquiry /??nkw?ri/ : a request for information about somebody/something; a question about somebody/something
My email address was the one on the website so I received 100% of the enquiries about the game.
Ok, so, now here's where things are gonna start to get dirty and where we need to ask some very important questions about why did things go this way.
You may be noticing two details about the story that have the potential to converge in an interesting way.
One is that I wanted to be recognized and validated personally for my work and the other is that I had an open line of communication to anyone who wanted to get in touch with me when the game launched.
vaccine /v?k?si?n/ : a substance that is put into the blood and that protects the body from a disease
substance: a type of solid, liquid or gas that has particular qualities
Now you might look at these two details and say gosh that sounds great, sounds like everything is going to work out really awesome for you and in serious, yes, you're right but the problem is that validation is not a vaccine you don't just take it once and then the disease goes away.
You have to keep taking it, like hunger.
sate: to satisfy a desire
It returns every single day, you cannot sate the desire to be praised.
In fact, the very opposite the more you feed it the stronger it grows.
I was going into this launch trying to get something that you actually cannot get, to be 100% validated by others.
So the response starts coming in and at first everything seems like it's going great in fact when I tell you that I was deeply depressed for months after Stanley Parable came out at the time I'm not sure I would have thought of it that way you know?
Like I was getting response, I was getting requests for interviews to
be on podcasts and web shows.
I was getting messages and emails from people who had incredible experiences with the game, people who wanted to put it in museums and festivals, people wanted me to come and give talks for them or to submit the game to their awards.
Publishers are reaching out to me about potential deals.
Distributors want to partner with us.
Holy crap!
This is it, this is the promised land I can do anything.
I can have anything.
I responded to all of them.
I responded to every single email.
assemble: to come together as a group; to bring people or things together as a group
I assembled paperwork and art assets for festivals that wanted to show the game.
I got on calls with every person who asked to do an interview.
I wrote long email responses to every person who sent me written interview requests questions.
I sent out a dozen copies of the game for review every single day.
I accepted every opportunity to travel somewhere to give a talk.
I got on phone calls with every publisher who wanted to chat.
I responded to every single email that people wrote me, every single one, every email where they told me about their experiences with the game told me about their lives and what they've been thinking about lately and what was scaring them and about the games that they were trying to make and their own ideas and their careers and their hopes and asking for advice and friendship and comfort and I responded to every single one of those emails.
Hundreds of them, in a few days or weeks or however long it was.
This was my life.
I didn't do other things.
scenario /s??n?ri??/ : a description of how things might happen in the future
batch: a number of people or things that are dealt with as a group
I pretty much just responded to emails and the tough thing about this scenario is that as long as you're even looking at the email subject line your brain automatically gets invested in the contents of the email especially when you see it's a personalized email right like something if someone actually typed to you and didn't just send in batch.
adrenaline /??dr?n?l?n/ : a substance produced in the body when you are excited, afraid or angry. It makes the heart beat faster and increases your energy and ability to move quickly.
Your brain pumps just like this very small amount of adrenaline through your body.
Every time you even look at the email you don't even have to respond.
acknowledge /?k?nɑ?l?d?/ somebody/something: to show that you have noticed somebody/something by smiling, waving, etc.
pulsate /?p?lse?t/ : to be full of excitement or energy
It takes that small amount of energy just to acknowledge the person on the other end, to listen to what they have to say, to relate to them, to feel their life pulsating even if they don't get real deep in the email.
project: to present somebody/something/yourself to other people in a particular way, especially one that gives a good impression
You know they might even write you like 10 words but because you know so little about this person, you start trying to fill in all these other details about them and projecting yourself onto them and then when you actually respond to that email, it takes even more of your energy.
It's amazing how when there is someone else trying to connect, you automatically give them a piece of yourself.
You can't not.
You know?
How could you not?
I'm sure some of you may have had an experience like this before.
genuinely /?d?enju?nli/ : truly; in a way that is exactly what it appears to be and is not artificial
You know like maybe you're at a party and someone starts talking to you and
and they seem genuinely interested in talking and maybe right at this moment you're tired or you've got something else big on your mind right now or you generally just don't like talking to people at parties or maybe it's really loud in this room and you wouldn't think you'd have the energy to talk to this person but you know because they seem like really genuinely eager to talk to you of all people, you just get like sucked into it and that energy is infectious you know?
And from somewhere inside of you, you find the energy and then you're having that conversation right?
It's not like you're expecting an hour-long conversation with this person so you can give them you know just like a small amount of your energy and and you'll feel just fine with it.
Okay now imagine that you show up at the party and you're tired or it's loud or you got something else on your mind and there are 200 people who all want to have that conversation with you and yes you could turn around and just leave the party, go back home where it's quiet except for one very big problem - this is what you've always wanted.
You know it.
You know in your heart of hearts that you have always wanted this, for everyone at the party to come to you.
You've been dreaming of this for years.
You don't have the energy, so what?
This is what you've always wanted.
This is why you started making games in the first place, isn't it?
Isn't this why you've been making stuff so that you could be at the party and 200 people would all want to talk to you.
That sounds great.
You have to talk to all of them.
You have to, talking to them is the only important thing.
It's the only thing that matters.
You've been telling yourself this for years.
Talking to them is the only thing that matters.
I hope you can see the dots that I'm trying to connect here.
isolated /?a?s?le?t?d/ : single; happening once
I was driving myself into the ground trying to respond to absolutely every piece of communication that came my way and it wasn't an isolated incident.
It wasn't like this had just come out of nowhere.
I've been setting myself up for this for years.
The intention, one of the big reasons that I'd been making games was to be liked.
monolithically /?mɑ?n??l?θ?kli/ : in a way that relates to something large whose parts are all the same or all behave in the same way
I had to find that goal so strongly and so monolithically that there was no room for other things like I don't, self-care or mental health, no, be liked, be praised, make connections, talk to people.
There was no limit to it.
This won't end, just be liked, forever, infinitely.
ounce of something /a?ns/ : a very small quantity of something
That's the rest of your life, spend all of your energy, every ounce of strength that you have.
It's all worth it.
This was my why.
This was the purpose that drove me.
hairy /?heri/ : dangerous or frightening but often exciting
And now this is where things start to get kind of hairy and when I talk to you about the depression that resulted from this, I'd like to clarify something.
Today I'm doing great.
I really am.
I climbed up out of it.
I mended all my relationships with people.
I still go to therapy.
sympathy /?s?mp?θi/
I'm without a doubt the happiest I've ever been in my life by far so when I tell you about these the happened to me a year and a half ago, I'm not asking for your pity or your sympathy.
relay: to repeat something
I'm relaying this to you to try to illustrate for you what is at risk, if you're not being mindful about why you're making the things that you're making.
What do you stand to lose?
How bad could it really be?
Well, things got really bad for me a week or two after the game launched.
controversy /?kɑ?ntr?v??rsi/ : public discussion and argument about something that many people strongly disagree about, think is bad, or are shocked by
We had this very minor controversy where someone pointed out that a piece of imagery used in the game was racially insensitive and I agreed and said I would change it and then the person who had pointed out went and talked to the press who asked me for a quote and you know again.
Here I am.
circulate /?s??rkj?le?t/ : if a strong, an idea, information, etc. circulates or if you circulate it, it spreads or it is passed from one person to another
propaganda /?prɑ?p??ɡ?nd?/ : ideas or statements that may be false or present only one side of an argument that are used in order to gain support for a political leader, party, etc.
integrity: the state of being whole and not be divided
In this mindset of all recognition is good talk to everyone so I did and then the story circulated and suddenly I'm receiving dozens of pieces of hate mail from people who thought that I was buckling to politically-correct propaganda and sacrificing my artistic integrity and people called me weak and self-centering
and a self-censoring and a spineless coward and for maybe a week this was a huge amount of the email that I received.
It was so hateful and so angry and again, I'm in a mindset where I need to connect with all people.
I need to read their emails to hear their thoughts and their pains and get to know their world.
So of course I had to open up every single email and read them all the way through and I responded to most of them too.
I tried to explain myself.
I just didn't want them to get the wrong impression about me even when I didn't respond, I would still get sucked into the emotions of the email.
Like I said, sometimes all you do is you read the subject line and you get pulled into this person's world just that small amount and then you get dozens and dozens of these emails and suddenly all you see when you close your eyes is anger and hatred and the belief that someone else, someone you've never met is wrong.
I had to.
I didn't have a choice.
defining: that describes or shows the essential meaning of something
The defining motivation was to be recognized by all people and remember I was already the absolute end of my energy.
drained: very tired and without energy
By this point I was 100% drained by all the communications and emails and interviews and and stuff so now this next big thing happens and it takes me down to less than nothing.
I had less than nothing to give.
I felt like less than a person.
So here's what happens when you have less than no energy.
Normally, I'm someone who enjoys socializing being a good friends and making regular connections communications with people in my life.
Suddenly in the weeks after launch, I disconnected myself from everyone.
I didn't even realize I was doing it.
The way that it occurred to me at the time was that suddenly all at once everyone was intentionally trying to piss me off.
I remember once I was sitting at a table in our living room and one of my roommates came up and put a cup down on the table and I had felt that the table ought to be my personal space and I remember he put the cup down
and and the thought that went through my head.
furious: very angry
I became furious and I'm thinking to him.
How could you?
You really hate me?
miserable /?m?zr?bl/ : very unhappy and uncomfortable
You really want me to be miserable, don't you?
mentality: the particular attitude or way of thinking of a person or group
That's the mentality that I was in.
intrusion /?n?tru??n/ : the act of entering a place that is private or where you may not be wanted
assault /??s??lt/ : the crime of attacking somebody physically
remote: not very great
I had less than no energy for anyone in my life so even the remotest intrusion into my personal space equated to a complete and total assault on my very being.
onslaught /?ɑ?nsl??t/ : a strong or violent attack
I was shutting myself down in order to protect myself, in order to try to get myself away from the onslaught of opinion and feelings that I had allowed myself to be subjected to.
subject sb/sth to sth /s?b?d?ekt/ : to make sb/sth experience, suffer or be affected by sth, usually sth unpleasant
It was a defense mechanism against myself.
Of course I wouldn't have put it that way at the time but looking back I realized that I was trying to protect myself from my own need to please everyone.
So I was already in this mindset and in the process of withdrawing from the world.
When the end of the year rolls around and all of the media outlets start handing out Game of the Year Awards, I wrote a blog post about this a year ago so some of you may already be familiar with it.
So I'll try to be brief.
obsess: to completely fill your mind so that you cannot think of anything else, in a way that is not reasonable or normal
Basically if you've ever thought that you aren't obsessing enough over your self-image and what strangers think of you can.
nominate /?nɑ?m?ne?t/ : to formally suggest that somebody/something should be chosen for an important role, prize, position, etc.
I recommend getting yourself nominated for a long string of Game of the Year awards.
It'll really put the fear of judgment in you.
I would obsess over every single award and nomination.
frantically /?fr?nt?kli/ : without controlling you emotions because you are extremely frightened or worried about something
I would read each of them frantically looking for Stanley Parabel.
Every single other game on the list was totally meaningless to me and honestly
Stanley Parable was pretty meaningless to me too.
I would barely even read the little like quotes that they'd include alongside the nomination or the award or whatever.
All that I was here to do was just to make sure that we're on the list.
I didn't even get that much of joy from seeing it on the list.
sounding: careful questions that are asked in order to find out people's opinions about something
It's like a drug where eventually you're just taking it to not feel awful you know and of course being addicted to something just to keep yourself from feeling awful is itself a profoundly awful experience and again you might say to yourself: But Davey, why don't you just not read Game of the Year Awards and again the answer to this very simple sounding question is because it's what I had wanted from the beginning.
From the beginning I wanted to be recognized in shows and festivals.
I wanted news outlets to talk about me and my work.
reiterate: to repeat something that you have already said, especially to emphasize it
I had assumed that all of it was good and so when I started getting it, it did not occur to me that I might stop reading them so let me reiterate that.
It literally did not occur to me that I might not read award nominations, turn down interviews, ignore emails.
It was straight up not a part of the world that I was living in.
This is the power of your intention.
Your intention will dictate the things that you think are not possible when what you want most is recognition and not say mental health.
withdraw: to move back or away from a place or situation
It will not occur to you to turn down recognition even though it is literally causing you to withdraw from the world in depression.
When I was younger I always kind of laughed at the idea of being addicted to something.
You know like cigarettes, right it just seemed ridiculous if you want to you know?
If you don't want to smoke cigarettes then just throw them out or you don't like just don't go and buy cigarettes right.
How hard could that be?
But in being addicted to praise for my work, I learned in a very real and very brutal way that you physically do not have a choice.
You've surrendered your decision-making power to something else that you signed a contract with years ago.
A contract which declared with authority that praise and connecting with people are the most important things above all else.
You really thought that at the time.
The Game of the Year stuff ended but then I agreed to do all of this traveling, most of it work-related, and remembered this is shortly after the game came out and for most of that time I've just been doing support for the game so I've not taken a break from work.
For three months, at the beginning of 2014, I was in a different city on average every four days.
I said yes to every thing.
I agreed to go everywhere, to be at every event to talk to every person who would have me.
I had zero energy and I continued to say yes to everything, to talk to everyone.
That's how binding the contract is.
Always say yes, respond to every person.
I'm sure it's obvious to all of you now how awfully I was treating myself and of course it's obvious to me as well but at the time you're so deep inside of it that there's no way you can possibly see it going on.
Halfway through traveling, I got sick and remained sick for two straight months well after I had gotten back home my body was physically unable to take anymore.
I got back home to Austin and for the first time in months allowed myself to just stay in one spot but I was still paying the consequences of everything that I had put myself through.
Now that I was no longer moving around and distracting myself from myself.
I had to deal with the fact that I was completely withdrawn and depressed.
During this time, I would have wild mood swings every single day.
One day I would feel okay then suddenly for two straight days would feel absolutely nothing.
No emotion, nothing whatsoever, then the next day would just be sadness, you know, like nothing but sadness all day.
Every single day was unpredictable, I had basically no control over my emotional well-being.
Robin, who's my roommate and one of my best friends, I started treating him
really badly.
sloppy /?slɑ?pi/ : that shows a lack of care, thought or effort
irresponsible /??r??spɑ?ns?bl/
I felt like everything that he did that he was trying to do to hurt me personally.
I thought of him as lazy and sloppy and irresponsible and I would tell him that.I would point out his character flaws to him you know like suggest ways that he might be more likable.
Now keep in mind, Robin and I were best friends for over a year before
this.
We live and work together.
He did the sound design on Stanley Parable.
He was and and is the one of the closest people in my life which is perhaps why I unleashed my anxieties on him and then that summer almost a year ago or a little under a year ago, he pulled me aside one day and sat me down and told me that when he was around me when I was in the same room that it made him feel physically ill and that's when I realized for the very first time what a shit bag I was being.
I didn't realize up until this point how out of hand it had gotten.
How really awful I was being to myself.
therapy /?θer?pi/ : the treatment of problems with somebody's mental health by talking with them
It took nine months since the game came out and I started to figure it out and with the help from friends, I started to get myself back on the right path and eventually about a month or two later, I started going to therapy and that's when my life really turned around and and I started to exercise the anger and to remember that I'm actually a good person and I made it back out of the hole and today I'm far happier than I ever was before any of that because I realized how incredibly important it is to treat myself well and I really started doing it.
I started to actually treat myself well.
I stopped doing basically all interviews or going on shows.
I removed myself entirely from twitter and social media.
I began turning down opportunities to travel and give talks, though obviously not all of them, but I started doing all of the things that I should have done months ago.
outlook: the attitude to life and the world of a particular person, group or culture
sustainable: that can continue or be continued for a long time
It took that level of depression and anger and making life hell for people around me to realize that perhaps maybe maybe every single opportunity for praise and talking to people and every single person bringing every single person into my life was not necessarily a healthy outlook on life and I'm sure that for many people that actually is totally sustainable.
Right a lot of people do have the energy for that.
I don't.
But for whatever reason I had it in my head that I did.
So why, this is the big question right?
traumatic /tr??m?t?k/ : extremely unpleasant and causing you to feel upset and/or anxious
Whenever anyone goes through something traumatic, you always look back and you want to understand why it happened.
And I'm not gonna stand here and pretend that I have an exact answer for you and that if you just do this one thing then you'll never get depressed right but I do think there's one pretty central thing that brought a lot of this pain down on me.
A big part of why I was making games in the first place was to be loved in a way that I did not feel I could be loved without my work.
I felt that like this is like this is the way it goes I as a creative person can cultivate a certain amount of love and happiness you know like like me being with people and then I make work and then it's up to my work to do the rest.
Right like I do half, my work does half, and so I'm thinking as I'm making Stanley Parable you know I'm thinking to myself when I put this out you know people who already know me sure.
They'll see the work and then they'll see me and then they'll really know me and then they'll get me because I put so much of myself in this game and then I'll get the full hundred percent you know I'll get to really connect with people then they'll really like me once they play my game.
I needed to be loved so badly that I would willingly hurt myself to get it.
I would give far more energy than I actually had.
I would wear myself to the bone and then keep going.
I would be incredibly depressed and still respond to interviews.
That's how important it was.
Okay, cool!
That's my big shitty story of how sad I was.
Sorry about that.