What fire dies when you feed it?

February 21, 2014 6:46 PM

Game of the Year. Some words and a comic on success, depression, insecurities and validations by the writer of The Stanley Parable
posted by yellowbinder (9 comments total)

Not sure there's anything that can ever shut up that vicious inner critic. Hate that guy. Because it will ignore things like being on the Game of the Year lists and only remember things like Raphael, who formed the basis of the second trailer for the game.

The Stanley Parable was one of the best games I played last year. The Yellow Line Adventure Theme (thankfully on Bandcamp as Track 4), is just the most fun theme song.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 6:57 PM on February 21, 2014 [2 favorites]

I've experienced a little internet recognition for stuff I've done (many many orders of magnitude smaller), and yeah, the relocation of validation from "I made a thing I'm proud of" to "I made a thing that got all these positive things said about it on this website and this one and this one...." can really do a number on your self-image/motivation.
posted by rivenwanderer at 8:18 PM on February 21, 2014 [2 favorites]

accomplishments, success, money, whatever; everything becomes an abstraction after a certain point. excitement and a dopamine reaction gets you hooked, but then as you achieve more and more it quickly ceases to matter and all you are left with is the dawning realization that nothing fills The Void.
posted by young_son at 1:30 AM on February 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

except pancakes. they sometimes fill the void.
posted by young_son at 1:45 AM on February 22, 2014 [2 favorites]

From my limited experience with that kind of thing, I can say that comic is accurate.
posted by JHarris at 11:52 AM on February 22, 2014

This going around made me try out the game in question.

I came away from it feeling like I'd played a game that hated itself. Which might explain why he's getting stuck in looking for the high of "holy shit I'm game of the year" again instead of grinning, having some kind of celebration, then getting on with either taking a vacation or working on the next game. Or whatever he wants to do next.

That's a thing all the pros I've known end up learning how to do. Take the accolade, jump around happily, then put it on the mantlepiece and just get on with the next project. Try to make it what it needs to be instead of an attempt to capture the exact same lightning in a bottle again.
posted by egypturnash at 4:22 PM on February 22, 2014 [3 favorites]

I bought this a while ago after seeing Errant Signal's discussion of it. Still in my Steam folder, but its in the "soon" pile. I like the comic, and hope he doesn't get dissuaded by internet fuckwads.
posted by lkc at 5:43 PM on February 22, 2014

There is a misunderstanding that depression is about anything at all. You do not get depressed about something. You are first depressed, and then you fixate your depression on something. Transferring causality to the object you fixate on is just part of the disease.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 7:35 AM on February 23, 2014

egypturnash: I agree with that sentiment. The game was delightful and massively clever and true, but there was something a bit strange in making a videogame about how playing videogames is ultimately empty.

Re: TFA: how does internet celebrity compare to, say, movie celebrity? I wonder if there are fewer barriers between fans/haters and the artist online than there traditionally have been in meatspace. George Cluney's email is not public information, perhaps it is better for the newly famous to try and isolate themselves a bit from strangers' comments?

Though, it is interesting that many traditionally famous people have twitter accounts. Breaking down that barrier.
posted by macrael at 9:09 AM on February 23, 2014