Evan Todd

Sure. So, I'm Evan Todd. I'm 31, and I'm currently based in Los Angeles. I've been making games since I was probably about 10 years old. And, yeah, continued making games through college and while in college, started to think about games more seriously as a career. And so, graduated college, worked for a year in an iPhone game studio making free-to-play games, saved up, and quit.

Then I was an indie game developer for four years just working out in my bedroom. I released a game called Lemma. It's my one official title that I've released, came out on Steam, did fairly well, and then I started working on another project for the next three years or so and ended up running out of money. Long story that I'm sure we'll talk about. 

Ended up moving to LA, and that's where I am now, and I burned out of the game industry for about five years. And so now I'm kind of, yeah, recovering from the burnout a little bit. But yeah, it looks different than it used to. So yeah, that pretty much covers it, I think. 

When did you move? Where did you go to school? And where did you move from? 

Ohio originally. And so I went to Ohio State University, because I could go there for  free. I bought this massive "developing games in Java" book. I can still picture the cover, and it covered everything from 2D to all the way to writing your own 3D. I just immediately wanted to do that, even though I never really was into 2D views. 

For some reason—I'm not really sure why—I just like spatial stuff and spatial reasoning, and everything like that just really fascinates me. So yeah, 3D games are really my thing. The first game that I played that I think really captured my imagination was Myst. And even though it's I kind of think a bad game—

This is a thing I continue to hear. Someone told me that last week. 

I mean, I could never, like, figure out the puzzles. I don't know. I'm also really bad at puzzles, in my brain. Can't do them. So yeah, I never completed the game, or even got halfway through. But I just love the atmosphere and the sort of imagination of it all. Yeah, I just loved it. And so I think that was when I first time I was like, "Wow!" I really, really just love this kind of thing. 

I don't know if you ever leave the burnout, but maybe it just stops weighing you down as much. But let's rewind before we get to that. We just touched on a lot of life events, and even in our emails it was about two sentences: "After burning out, I got married and went to therapy and realized gamedev was partly a coping mechanism for me." I don't want to get into anything you don't want to talk about, but can you unpack that? How did you come to recognize games were a coping mechanism for you? And over what period of time was that single sentence? How long was it? How many years of your life? 

Yeah, I mean, I think that that's been pretty much from childhood. When I burned out—there were a lot of different factors. I mean, the main reason with the burnout was I ran out of money. I really tried everything I absolutely could. I mean, I emailed all these people.

You were in LA? 

Evan Todd: I was still in Ohio. There was a studio there  and I was in  was. There's a studio there called Multivarious, and they were super-kind, and they gave me an office that I was working in. It was crazy. And so, I ran this Kickstarter, and I put everything into it, I made this trailer. It's an awesome trailer, I'm still proud of it. I did all this stuff, emailed all these people, and it just fell apart. 

I think it was kind

of the last straw for me, or I was like, well, I did everything I could. I know I'm not like giving up here. I did everything I possibly could, and it's not working at all.

And then, after that, maybe like six months after that, I immediately moved to LA. I got a job slightly in the game industry. I was working on game networking optimizing for multi-player games.

David Wolinsky:  What year was this? 

Yes, this was 2018. So, in a span of three weeks. I was making games independently, blah blah blah, and then three weeks later, I was in LA, working out of the game industry. It was like overnight, I was kicked out of the game industry. [Laughs.] I think it started before then, the burnout. But it was like, I don't know. Some of the things in the game industry that I always sort of ignored, or the tropes and things that I rolled my eyes at? They started to sound more like, "Oh, this is ringing true." Like, marketing my game, I had to look at a lot of streamers and try to contact them and stuff, and it just felt like I didn't connect with any of them at all.

Any of the streamers? 

Evan Todd: Yeah, or just like this culture that has built up—like, there's a whole world built up around gaming. And I was like, "I just don't, I'm not even—I don't know anything about this. This isn't Myst!" I think I started to be like, "Oh, I'm really, like, reconsidering everything." 

And then about six months later, I met my now wife and started to attempt to date her. [Laughs.] About a month in, she hit me with this—she was like, "Listen, I really like you, but I don't think you can emotionally connect with any girl." [Laughs.] That's what she said. I was like, "What?" 

So we broke up, and I was like, "Well, she's crazy." I mean, "That's really crazy. So, we just don't fit, like, whatever." And then I was just kind of thinking about that. She said a lot of other things, you know, but kept thinking about that one line, which seemed important, if it was true. 

And so I started thinking about it and thinking about it. And I finally came to this realization like, "Wow, I'm an incredibly—I have a serious anxiety problem." And yeah, there's way much more to the story, but I sort of realized, "Wow, I think my childhood wasn't what I thought it was like, I need help. Everything is super messed up."

Are you saying that game development was a coping mechanism for anxiety? 

Evan Todd: A lot of things. I mean, yeah.

Well, one of maybe others, but, yeah. 

Yeah, just different things. I always thought that—I grew up in a pretty middle-class family, like, we were happy, everything was fine, and so I think I just was so emotionally disconnected from feelings that I actually had that whole time growing up, and even into college  that I didn't know when things were hurting me. Even simple stuff like in high school, there was a guy who picked on me a lot and was basically kind of a bully, and I just never—I sort of just was like, "Eh, he doesn't bother me." [Laughs.] The whole time. And then, when this happened,  started like—you know, I met my wife, and I started thinking about things and feeling things for for maybe the first time. I was like, "Oh, my gosh! Like, that actually kind of hurt!" [Laughs.] Yeah, simple stuff like that. 

And yeah, so anyway, all that, I started to realize that I had used games from the time that I was a kid, I'd used games to sort of as a way to process those feelings. Like, I couldn't actually—I denied that I had any feelings of hurt or sadness, or anything about anything about anything, really. And instead of feeling those things, I just used—I just went to a safe place where I could kind of get away from things. And for me, that was a computer. Like, I was totally obsessed when I was, like, 12. I mean, I would go to the library, and I'd get these 4-inch thick reference manuals. [Laughs.] And I'm, like, poring through them. I was miserable, but it was what I did. 

So, looking back, it's like, how super super-concerning behavior for a 12-year-old, you know?

Yeah. So, when did you realize that—I think burnout is a thing where you only kind of recognize it once you're past it? It's not like you hit a point and you're like, "Okay, I'm burnt out." It's more like, "Oh, okay, I've been burnt out for like a year." 

Yeah.

So, when did you realize that games or making them weren't working as a coping mechanism anymore? I guess that's sort of the story you're presenting, right? 

Yeah. I mean, I think I always knew to some extent. Or I knew that, like, 'cause this is something that I would say, like, I have a disease. I would joke with people and be like, "I have a disease. It makes me make games." 

And I would joke about it and be kind of proud of it, like, I'm just a driven individual or whatever. [Laughs.] But, that was actually real. [Laughs.] I think I always sort of knew. But, yeah, I couldn't really do anything about it. Like, it's not like I was gonna give it up, and I don't think I knew why. I don't know why I needed to make games or any of those things. And so I just kind of kept going. Yeah.

Yeah, well, you said in your email that you tried to jump back in a few times to make games. You said, " I tried a few times to jump back in but always got discouraged." Can you talk a little bit about that, and what period of time was that? 

Yeah. So, probably around 2020? Maybe 2019, 2020 I realized all this stuff, but it was weird 'cause another thing that happened during this time was I was processing all this emotional stuff. And I eventually had a traumatic flashback. And I was like, "Oh, wow! So I have some serious trauma." I didn't remember any of this stuff. And I also didn't even know that it was possible to have a memory that you didn't remember and then remember it. I didn't know any of this stuff was possible, and so I'm processing through all of this, and I think at that point it was like, "Oh okay, this is more than just a coping mechanism. This is only a coping mechanism." 

I think when you go through trauma, there's a point where you realize or where you feel like every single part of your personality is a result of the trauma. Like, there's no thing about me other than just "everything I am is just a response to what happened to me." [Laughs.]

Well, you're not alone with that, but yeah. 

[Laughs.] Yeah. So, I think that's what I felt for a little bit was like, "Oh, videogames, making games was nothing but just trauma." And so that made me feel like—I used to think, "Oh, I'm a hard worker and I love making games, and I persevered and gone through so much blood, sweat, and tears to make games." It changed from that to a weakness or a flaw. 

So, I think me trying to jump back into it was almost trying to figure out: Is there anything else there? I don't know. I don't have any hobbies. My hobbies are gone, and also it's the pandemic. So it's like, "Well, is that all there was to this? Is there anything left besides just pain and coping?" [Laughs.] 

To making videogames, you mean, or being around them? 

Exactly, yeah. 

Yeah. Well, you said—and I didn't realize because I emailed semi-recently for other reasons. And I didn't realize, because you replied pretty quickly—you have a kid now, and you're home a lot. Maybe you can tell me, because you said: "It's only now that I feel remotely healthy enough to do it non-obsessively, although there's still a huge temptation to seek validation through it, and I have to keep an eye on it." So, the "now" in that sentence, how "now" is that? Is that, like, last month? 

Evan Todd: Yeah, I mean. Yeah, no. I'm working on a project right now.

How are you—I mean, how are you? [Laughs.] How are you with all of it? Because, you know, I emailed you like it was a routine thing. I didn't realize you're embarking on—I was gonna say a high-wire, but let's say balancing beam. That's a little safer.

[Laughs.] Yeah. Yeah, balancing beam sounds right. 

[Laughs.] And I'm here to spot you, so. 

[Laughs.] Yeah, I appreciate it. 

You're welcome, you're welcome.

Thank you. It's going well. I think it's been a struggle from the beginning. I think I'm starting to get to a place where I'm understanding things. Early on—so, part of me getting discouraged was I was kind of just getting fed up with the technology. Like, I used to do everything myself, talking about obsessing about things. I wrote my own engines, I did everything from scratch myself, and so trying to go like—I don't have time to do that anymore. So, trying to go back into Unity and Unreal, I got frustrated with the whole sort of corporatized—like, they're just giant engines that are full of all this stuff, and even to just get something up and running you have to go through all these hoops and everything. It just kind of sucked the life out of it.

So back in like January I was—there's an engine called Godot that is a new cool kid on the block in game engines. It's been around for a while, but it's only recently starting to really blow up. And it's open source, it's free, and kind of the antithesis of all these big engines. Like, you can download it and start doing stuff in like 30 seconds. So, I started messing with that back in January, and since then have been trying to, yeah, just experiment with it, see if there is a spark left at all? So, yeah, dropped it a couple times in frustration, like, "Oh, I don't have any ideas left." 

Well, can you just talk about—because if you don't make games, or for people who have heard of Unreal and Unity, or if you don't make games, you still come across those names because they come up very often before your game. You know, you're waiting for your game to load. And so, I know that they're big corporate things, but if you don't make games, what does that mean? What are the frustrations that come with the big corporate engine versus something that's open source? What are there fewer obstacles to do with what you're doing now?

Yeah. So, it depends on the engine. So, I'll say—more hot takes inbound, I guess. 

[Laughs.]

Unity is probably one that if you're most interested in game development and you're like, "Eh, I just want to see what this is like," people a lot of times will pick up Unity. And it's pretty easy to get started. I think it starts to sort of spiral out of control after a while. After your project gets to a certain size, things kind of start falling apart. You know, there's a little console that shows anytime an error happens in your project—it'll show a little red message to you. As your project grows and grows and grows, you just see more and more of these red messages. You don't really know what they are, and they just kind of proliferate. Yeah. So, you're running your game normally, and it's just constantly spewing out errors. [Laughs.] And you're just like, "I mean, everything's working, but is it?" 

That's been my experience with Unity. Everything feels a little bit janky or something. I don't know. 

And then, Unreal is different. It's like, so slick and so powerful. It's like—their demos are just unbelievable. Like, they are literally—I can't even believe the stuff that they're doing in Unreal. But it's so big and so massive that it's kind of overwhelming, at least for me to get it started. I don't know. It's just crazy how much stuff is in Unreal, and you look at their release notes? Every time they put out a new release it's like, "We added human emotion. We're simulating the brain." It's like, "What?!"  Everytime they come out with a new release, it's so insane. 

Well, it sounds like you're saying you make games by yourself?

Yes. 

Yeah. So it's more than you need? 

Yeah, for sure. 

Except for the human emotions stuff. That's probably important. [Laughs.]

[Laughs.] Yeah. 

I'm sensing a theme here. But okay, I don't know. You said that you wish that there were more frequent discussions around game development that are "vulnerable about what people are making." I've always felt—and still feel, but I don't know, that there must be circles among game developers where people let their guard down and it isn't just self-promotional all the time. Or it isn't like some Machiavellian maneuvering. I mean, am I wrong? Are there not? Have you not come across that among small developer communities where people just sort of let their guard down?

Yeah, I mean, so, it's funny. When I was in Ohio, they had a really great scene there. Like, there was a meet-up group that people just came and brought their games that they were working on, and talked about games and stuff. There was a conference every year. It was really cool. I think that was probably the closest I've seen. I mean, it was in-person for one. It's like, you're actually connecting with people. 

When I moved to LA, I kind of looked for that for a little bit and didn't find it, which was kind of surprising. I think everyone maybe is too busy doing it for a living?

Yeah, so, that’s the closest I’ve seen. But yeah, I think part of it is like the whole game industry, for whatever reason, ended up on Twitter. Maybe that'll change soon with all the stuff happening right now. But it's been on Twitter for years now, and I think that affects the conversation in videogames.

I feel like most of the time people are talking about "the discourse." You know, they call it "the discourse." 

Oh, I've heard. [Laughs.] 

[Laughs.] It's always like you wake up, and everyone is talking about something. 

But it's said sarcastically, right?

 Oh no, but it’s real. 

But even if you didn't just say it in the way you said it, it's like, people say it in that way, but many people just seem to hate that that's the way it functions.

They hate it, but they're gonna keep, you know—like you hate it, but you're actually part of it, you know?

It's like going to the dentist? 

Evan Todd: [Laughs.] Yeah. Or, it's like, you know, the tweet will be like: "I don't usually jump into the discourse, but here's my thing." Yeah. 

Why? I mean, why—and then, like, what are the patterns you think that clicked together to set it up where, like, that's where we are even if the moment that seems to be changing. Like what centers of power, maybe, have you noticed influencing it where that's the world we live in around videogames and trying to find each other?

Evan Todd: No, you know. It's—I think this is maybe another thing I would like more game developers to talk about is. We talk about, oh, AAA, like, here's all the problems with AAA, all these greedy studios or whatever. But we don't really talk about our own issues or problems, or what we are a part of like, talking purely as indie. Purely as an indie—

You mean money stuff? Or what sort of stuff are you talking about specifically? 

I think with indies there's more of a starpower kind of thing. Like, "Okay, I'm at GDC, well, I really wanna talk to this person because they made this videogame that I think is really amazing." Whereas, like, this other person that I have spent more time with, like, but I'm kind of trying to get out of their social—there's the ranking, the social ranking sort of a thing. You can climb the social ladder even though—yeah, it's very, it's very implicit and no one will ever tell you about it, but it's there. I think that's kind of what is happening on Twitter as well. 

Especially with the whole "followback" thing where it's like, "Woah, this guy has 10,000 followers, and he followed me, like I'm definitely gonna follow him back." You know, regardless of whether you're actually interested in what he's doing. It's like, well, he's important, like—

Yeah. Yeah it's a climber-y thing. It's ironic because it's like, ostensibly videogames are meant to be a very fun thing but it's also, on the personal axis, a very cutthroat thing. I think it's this thing we all see but we don't want to think about? [Laughs.] So what are steps or strategies—or, what do you believe could make for more open and vulnerable discussion more broadly? Someone has to go first. 

In 2021 I had a conversation with a writer colleague. He told me—we were just talking about his writing, my writing, writing stuff. He told me, "you know, there's a lot of lurkers out there. There are tons of people out there waiting to see what happens, and you could convince someone else who's paying attention if you just go first." 

Hmm.

But I don't know career suicide-y that is for a game developer, though, you know? [Laughs.]

Yeah. I—and also, to be clear, I am guilty of this as well. I'm not—it's really hard to fight against that. Well, and I mentioned this in an email too, like, I think I see a glimmer of hope when I see like—so, recently, I haven't really been a part of game development discussions on Twitter. 

I've been reading more in the Godot community, because that's what I'm working in right now. When I read that, I see—I feel more like, I don't know, the olden days of my experience back in like 2003, you know, posting on forums and being like, "How do I do this thing in game development?" Or like, "What do you think? Should I make this better? What should I do?" So, in the Godot subreddit, I see people saying like, "Yeah, here's this thing I made, what do you think?" 

And people are responding, they're positive, but I don't know. It's not self-promotion-y. There's maybe a little bit of it. But people are just saying, like, "Here, here's what I made. What do you think?" And people are actually responding and saying, "Well, I don't like that you did this. I think it would look better if you did this little change." And yeah, so, it's like the percentage of discussion that is actually about videogames and what you're making and like "how could it be better," "how is it not so good," "how is it good," that percentage I feel is higher there compared to anything else, anything other than that topic. 

Well, another thing, too, is because there's no context for conversations online, it's easy to read a lot of things into people's intentions. Could you talk a bit about this experience about a journalist your "little janky demo" that you worked on for "several hundred hours" and them writinga bout it? Could you talk about that feeling? 

Yeah. [Laughs.]

Because I don't know if it's hard to talk about this stuff without it feeling like gloating. 

Yeah, looking back it was definitely—I don't know if it's something to gloat about, really. 

Well, you said it was validating. 

At the time, it was like, "I can't believe this." 

I was in college working on this little game in my dorm room and spent a ton of time on it. More time than I needed to, really. Didn't know what I was doing, and I was publishing—I think I was sort of just screaming into the void, pushing stuff out on different websites. You know, "Here's this thing that I'm working on!" Not really any feedback, at all. Out of the blue, out of nowhere, someone from Rock Paper Shotgun downloaded it, played the whole thing, and wrote an article about it. 

Without your knowledge? You just learned about it after the fact?

Evan Todd: I just discovered it. I can't remember how I discovered it. Maybe I saw it in, like, Google Analytics, and I saw a refer—people were clicking on Rock, like, "What is this Rock Paper Shotgun? What?" I don't even know how to describe that experience. It was like—I was just over the moon. And I was still in college, and I was just feeling like I was walking around campus and like: Nobody knows that I've arrived! Like: "I'm out of here, you guys!" 

What were you studying in school at the time? 

I was studying computer science and engineering, and I had an art minor. That was the closest thing I could to any kind of videogame thing. 

Yeah, that's pretty close. Well, you said it was validating at the time, but now we're talking about it and it sounds like, maybe not? Or you're saying there was some other flavor to that memory? 

Well, yeah, I mean, now? I realize you just kind of see it in perspective? Like, I think it was a really special—I still look back on that and think of that as so special. That's when I said, "I wish everyone could experience that feeling," because—yeah, I don't know. It's like if you're an amateur painter and suddenly someone writes an article about you in the newspaper. Wait, what? Whoa! Maybe I could do this. That was what I thought, "Maybe I could do this, for real."  

And yeah, I think I said [on email] it felt like I was pulled out of the muggle world and someone was like, "Hey, here's your spot at Hogwarts." 

Yes, you did. You did say that in the email. So, leaning into that feeling, I mean—I think also maybe it's a two-way thing. I don't know how much stuff you read online about games, but I think for writers, too, there can be this sort of—I think they forget they can have that sort of impact. Whether it translates into—I mean, what were you looking for? Were you looking for sales? What is it about that feeling that you don't think writers are aware they have that sort of power? Because all this happened without your advance knowledge, so that's even more potent. 

Yeah. I think—this is something I've been thinking about recently. Going back to the sort of like, "Oh, is there anything good or positive about game development for me? Or is a big part of it seeking validation?" Yeah, what is it that I want? 

Sales, I want success. Do I want indie people to know me? Which, I think a lot of those things is like—everyone sort of knows that that's not really going to make you happy. [Laughs.] But you still go after it, anyway. 

Yeah, well.

But, you know, I don't want that to be my motivation for making games. So then it's like, "Okay, well, what's left? Because I don't want games to—I'm not gonna just make games for myself in my basement, just for me. Like, I'm not gonna do it if no one else sees it. So, I am making games for other people to enjoy. So, does that necessarily mean, then, that it's all about, like, getting validation for them ,from them, or, you know, am I just driven by success, or whatever? 

And I think what I realized is like—you can make things for other people and not be motivated by that need for their approval, basically. So, to get back to answering your question, I think what really hit me about that article—the Rock Paper Shotgun—was, like, this guy actually played the whole game. Or girl? I can't remember. They played the whole game, and they understood it, and they had some thoughts about it, and they said, "Well, this part wasn't so great, and this part, I thought it was really intriguing." 

You know, I think what really got me was like, "Oh, this person gets it! They see what I did!" I don't need them to gush about how amazing this little thing is, but they see the good, and they see the bad, and they just see it. And that was really powerful to be like, "A piece of me is being known by somebody else." And that's really cool, I think. And that's what I've sort of arrived at now. That's what I want to have happen with my games, like, I want to make something that someone else can like connect with, that someone can experience and sort of understand a little piece of something. [Laughs.]

It does. Do different types of coverage "hit different," if you will? Like, if someone on a stream talking about your game versus someone writing it up, does it feel different for you as the developer? Or is it all kinda the same. Not in that it's dull, but that it feels like similar attention? 

Evan Todd: Yeah, totally it feels different. Like, you get written up by The New York Times versus, like, a tabloid right? I guess it can stroke your ego in different ways, I suppose.

But I think, yeah, you're asking more about what kind of coverage. I think it's really fun watching people play your game like on YouTube. If you have a recording of someone, you get to see their genuine reactions. And yeah, that's that's really fun to see, and also super-useful because you're like, "Oh, crap! That wasn't what I intended. I'm gonna I'm gonna go fix that." [Laughs.]

[Laughs.] Well, can you talk a bit about—you told me a bit about how you didn't really realize how big the gaming world was until you had to start promoting your own work. So bigger, just in terms of numbers? What was your sense of it, because it sounds like you were into games pretty young, and you were doing this stuff since you were 10.

Yeah, when I was promoting my Kickstarter, I think I realized, you know, for me games were very indie. I'm in my little indie bubble of indie game creators. And it's actually a pretty small world. 

You know, started to promote the game to streamers and realized like, "Oh, my gosh!" Like, just seeing—I was just scrolling through the active list of people currently streaming on Twitch. And it was thousands and thousands of people simultaneously, all playing videogames. And I think just the experience of doing that was like, "Oh, my gosh, okay." And all of them are playing, you know, AAA titles. and it just kind of made me think like, "Oh, this indie bubble thing is really small compared to this humongous industry of…" And these streamers are part of it. They're also making money. There's this whole economy built up around games, and I didn't really connect with any of that. It was totally separate from my little indie bubble, and so it just kind of blew my mind a little bit.

You said, too, when you saw how big it was it really underlined how much of it you don't relate to at all. Is this what you were talking about? 

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think—I didn't really relate with the culture. Like, they even spoke words that I didn't know. [Laughs.] They had their whole own emojis, and actually each streamer has their own sort of culture, right? Like, they have their own inside jokes and stuff. And so I think that's actually part of the draw is that they're all—it's a safe place that you can come and hang out and feel okay for a little bit. And that's even more attractive, I think, than the game itself. 

And so yeah, it's like, at some point it's not even really about the game so much anymore. It's about this community of people that you hang out with.

We talked about Kickstarter and YouTube and Twitter, and maybe Twitch, and I don't know—they all just become a prism for hustle culture. We've talked a bit about how alienating that can be. And I guess I just wonder: How do we focus on changing the systems, not necessarily our behavior, because we are who we are. But we just can't seem to be able to help ourselves in this current internet, and the way that it works and was designed. Because these problems you're talking about, there's sort of everywhere around games on all social media.

Yeah, I mean, it's a hard problem. [Laughs.] I think part of it for me was like—and this also happened when I burned out—was: What am I trying to do here? Am I trying to make something that is a personally expressive piece of art, or am I trying to make money? 

You know, for me, I was trying to do both, and I kind of looked down on people who were amateurs or hobbyists doing it for their own artistic expression. I was like, "Oh, you're not really serious about it." And I think when I burned out I was like, "Why did I have to be that way? Why did I have to make money from this?" 

It's incredibly hard to make something that is a personal piece of art, and it's also incredibly hard to make a sale. So why am I trying to be both of those at the same time? It's like, quadruple the difficulty. I think that's part of the struggle, is like, this need to get validation by selling a lot of copies, I guess. 

I think that's a popular thing that like in especially in indie circles, it's like: "Capitalism is the source of all our problems, and if we just lived in the Communist Utopia, then none of this would happen. We'd all be fine." I don't think that's true, but there is an aspect of that that, like, we put a number value on people based on how many sales they made.

Yeah, I mean, I think, what's behind that is a desire for us to be nicer to each other, basically. [Laughs.]

Yeah. Yeah!

I mean, it sounds so silly and simple to say. but a lot of people say it, and I think it's like—I have an awareness that that could just seem like sour grapes to some people, but I don't think that's only it. I think it's just like, you know, "Hey, we're all here 'cause we like the same thing, and we think it's fun, but why can't we just be nicer to each other?" [Laughs.] You know what I mean? 

Evan Todd: Yeah, the fundamental human problem.

Can we fix it, or? 

[Laughs.]

David Wolinsky: Well, maybe, could you talk a little bit about—what does your wife and family make of your wanting to make games? I mean, I don't know if this is still a full-time professional pursuit for you, or is it like a side of thing or? 

Evan Todd: No, no, right now it's totally just on the side, and probably will—I don't, I have no idea about whatever.

Oh, that's fine. But what do they make of it and the journey you've had with it to this point?

Yeah, I think I'd have to let them answer that. [Laughs.] But I think it's all kind of a fairly new thing. Mostly, my wife has been super helpful in processing of all the other stuff in my life that kind of resulted, or drove me to make games so excessively. So I think she's more concerned with how am I doing as a person and how am I feeling about it, and all of that sort of thing. She is really good at caring about that. So, that's sort of been her experience.

And you know, it's only recently that I've started to really dive back into it. Now she's like, "Okay, well, now I want to support you in whatever you're doing." She playtests or whatnot, or just fields ideas and whatnot. So, yeah, my wife is amazing Basically. She is super-supportive and helpful. 

I think I am very, very weary of becoming obsessive about it again and prioritizing videogames above my family. I'm super-scared of that. So, it's all a work in progress, and I have not figured everything out yet. But yeah, I'm super-thankful for for my wife, especially.

When you talked a little bit about your IRL friends around games—because you mentioned you just can't seem to keep much of a conversation going about gaming? Like, you mentioned on email you seem to think about it so differently.

Evan Todd: Yeah, yeah. It's an interesting thing. I don't know if this is just part of the disconnect that we were talking about of, like, AAA and sort of the mainstream gaming versus the indie gaming sort of bubble. I don't know if it's just that, or, you know, different people come to gaming for different things. 

And so yeah, I feel like people that I know are maybe in real life, IRL, are maybe even more into videogames than I was. I never really was a huge gamer. I appreciate games, but I've never been a three hours a night kind of person. People I know seem to be really into videogames, but I don't know—I have a hard time talking to them about it. I don't know if maybe talking about videogames is not really what they want to do, I guess? Or they take off work to play Tears of the Kingdom, right? That just came out. 

But I can't really get anything out of it of like, "Oh, it's really good." Okay, it's really good. "What do you like about it?" [Laughs.] 

Well, some things do lose a sort of specialness being put into words, and some things there are just no words for. Last Friday I was on a hang-out on Zoom with friends, as you do. Although I hate Zoom, but I like my friends. And someone came came on, kind of a friend of a friend, and she was like, "David, do you like videogames?" 

And I was like—I don't really know how to answer that, because I don't really know what they're wanting to know. And I feel like there's some special thing—I don't know if you consider yourself "extremely online." I don't know if you cringe at that. I feel like there are only certain types of people who understand the hesitation. And trying to understand that question, like, I remember one time I was in Target and an employee was like, "Hey, are you a gamer?" I was like, "Uhh." [Laughs.] So, what is that? 

Huh. That's super interesting. Yeah, yeah. What is that? 

I don't know. Hey, I'm asking the questions here, Evan.

[Laughs.]

No, I don't know. Because I think it's like, obviously, as you know, I'm super-interested in the people—I mean, the games are great, but I don't know. What sort of a conversation am I supposed to have with—

Do you think you've thought about it so much, and there's so many different things—there's so many different groups of people that you could identify yourself with by saying yes or no, or whatnot, or do you feel like, "Well, I don't wanna put myself in that camp?" Do you think it's kind of like that, or—

It's probably like, probably could have put the period earlier in your sentence where it's like I probably just have thought about it too much. 

[Laughs.]

I can only speak for me, though. I don't know what it is for you.

Evan Todd: Yeah, no, it's—it's a really good question. Like I said, I think I've never been a huge gamer. It's more about creating games. So yeah, there's this weird thing with games, also, that is like we are—there's still some shame around it, I think.

Stigma? Like a stigma? 

Evan Todd: Like, it's an industry that hasn't really grown up, or it's a hobby that is childish or something. And so—or, I don't know what. Yeah—I feel like when people ask me about being a game developer or whatever I feel like a timer starts going in my head of like, "All right, 10 seconds. I can talk about this for 10 seconds, and then we're and then we got to change the subject." [Laughs.] Like, they really are not going to care about this.[Laughs.]

Maybe it's part of that, too: "They don't want to hear what I really think."

Evan Todd: Yeah, but but what's interesting is that more people are into games—like I said, my friends in real life have a lot more games than me, but I still kind of—I don't know. It's a weird thing that I—I don't really know what it is, what I'm trying to get out there, but they're still not really getting it, even though they probably play a lot more than I do. Or, I don't know. [Laughs.]

It's a whole thing. Maybe this is in line with some of the maturity or the growing pains, but you know, I asked you on email if there is a piece of misinformation around videogames you'd like to see addressed. I don't want to put words in your mouth. I can read your quote back to you. But you basically were saying that you thought Gamergate deserves a second look, as an industry. That's probably better coming from you. Do you want to elaborate, and we can talk a little bit about that.

Evan Todd: Yeah, I thought of this and I thought it would be—I did want to pick your brain about this because my, I—you know, it's a little fuzzy now everything that happened there, for me. But I just remember seeing the response of the industry to Gamergate. You know, I remember reading all these terrible things that happened. But then, mostly I saw people respond—I didn't see Gamergate happening like it wasn't happening to me. I mostly saw people's responses to Gamergate, and my impression was that we as an industry kinda sunk to their level, almost, and it just seemed to me like the industry just kind of decided that this whole Gamergate thing is just vile, and there's no there's no need for the industry to change or humble ourselves. Like, we're we're just going to get up on our high horse, and and then when it all blew over, everyone was kind of like gloating—yeah, really, just gloating I think is a good word of—yeah. So, I'm curious what your—I guess you can release however much information you want to release. But I'm curious what your take is on all that. And if I'm just crazy, maybe I'm just crazy. [Laughs.]

Well, I mean, both things can be true.

Yeah.

David Wolinsky:  But in this case, no, I 100% agree with you. It is both the thing that shall never be named, but also the thing we talk about all the time without talking about it. And so I was kind of surprised that your sense—because I'm not a developer. I run in different circles, as you were saying. But that the takeaway can't be that gamers are terrible, and the industry is just fine. But you think that a lot of developers think that. Boy, we started off talking about repressed trauma? I mean, what about all this sort of seems familiar to you? 

Evan Todd:  What? What do you mean by that?

Well, as this thing that people just want to bury is what I mean. 

Evan Todd: Oh, all of Gamergate? 

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Evan Todd: Hmm, yeah. I mean, like I said, I wasn't personally affected by—I guess my thought was people's responses to it—they didn't want to bury it, at least right off the bat. 

I'm talking today, yeah. 

Oh, today. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's maybe it's more like a better analogy from—rather than like childhood trauma would be more like racism, I guess? Where you're like—we're in this environment today, or we're in this system today, and we are not going to acknowledge how we got here, even though the things that happened before are super-important, or they really directly impact where we are today. But we've just forgotten all those things, I guess. 

Was there anything about the responses to it that you thought were kinda hypocritical, or maybe even nonsensical?

Evan Todd: Yeah. I kind of feel like I want to ask you that question because I saw some bits and pieces of it, but I mean, I think you've probably done a lot more research. But it did it seem to people—

Yeah, but I'm just one data point, you know? It's like not there's one correct perspective. I'm just curious what yours was. 

Yeah, I guess I don't even know if it was hypocritical. It was just like not self-aware. Like, maybe you're doing exactly the same thing. You're saying one thing and then doing the exact opposite. I don't know if it was exactly that, but there was definitely like, "Wait, do you hear yourself?"

I mean, I think there were a lot of platitudes. But, you know, was it really dealt with? 

Exactly. I just remember—I don't remember who it was, but I think watching one of The Game Awards shows, and somebody came up and made a joke or something about, "And Gamergate is dead, yeah!" And everyone, like, cheered or something. Or they made some joke at the expense of Gamergaters—

Oh, I remember what you're talking about, yeah.

Yeah, and I was just like, "Woah, are you really—you just made a fool of yourself, and you don't even realize it." But, everybody loved it, you know? 

Well, it's very—what we keep coming back to is it's always been a very insular sort of culture, but it's become fractally nested insular. Which I guess just means, yeah, you could say they made a fool of themselves, but really they're sort of telling you a lot about themselves instead of how disconnected they are. 

But it's so dissonant, because people always say, "Oh, videogames are escapist." Like, I don't think it's the escapist nature of videogames that brings people to that point. Maybe it's just people not giving a shit about other people's experience? [Laughs.]

[Laughs.]

I'm thinking out loud here, so I'm not necessarily saying that, but there's possibly some truth to that. 

Or it's just good old tribalism, right? This is someone pandering to their own group. They know that "I can say this here because we in this group think the same way." Those other people think differently, but we don't care about them because I got my group here. 

I don't know. But, do you feel like—I feel like there's a gamers versus developers split or war still. 

Oh, for sure. For sure. 

Evan Todd: Yeah.

I don't. I don't know what you do about it. But—

Evan Todd: It's weird because I feel like it aligns a lot with political lines in America, but not perfectly, I guess. Right? 

Right. Well, it's just to say, it's political. 

It is political, yeah. 

Yeah, yeah, and that doesn't have to be party lines. But like, I sometimes do wonder—I think I may have gotten some insight into this, and of course you get some insight into it, like I do, which is like you interview a person who is close to a project, or they worked on it, or they—you know what I mean? Like, they were around the people who were around the people who did a thing. 

I sometimes wonder how simplistic it is like, I just wonder like, "Well, are there quote-unquote toxic Animal Crossing fans?"  there must be like like like, I wonder, like, how much does the tone of the game set the pace and the temperature for the people around it? But that's I mean, I don't know. That's kind of media theory-theorist thing. 

I just like professionally listen to people. I'm not in the theory business, but I think that's true. It's probably just a lower volume of people like that around things like Animal Crossing. But it's kind of dissonant. And I think there's a lot of stuff around videogames where people get their backs up so easily if you start saying things like that because it's just, you know, institutional memories of being blamed for shootings in the '90s, you know, and on and on. 

So I think we as a species don't really want to look at ourselves because it's not fun. And within that, you know, in videogames people do it. It's a global thing. It's not a monolith.  And we all have our own reasons for like, "Look, I'm just trying to blow off some steam. I don't give a shit, you know. This is just a fun way to unwind. And who cares if I say some awful shit to  some person online."

Videogames did not invent that. But they have a problem with it, just like everybody else. But—I don't know if that really answered your question, but I think that's the thing I've always found so fascinating about it—the unique ways it does have claims to it and the unique ways it doesn't. And then, the unique ways it sort of gets blamed for certain things—and then the ways that isn't unique.

I have a feeling—I can tell you this. Next year will be the 10-year anniversary. I think we're going to see what a lot of sincere and not-sincere introspection looks like. I guess we'll see. You know these—what is that from? The Big Lebowski? "We may be done with the past, but the past ain't done with us." Whatever? Maybe you never saw that movie. 

[Laughs.] No, I actually didn't. 

That's not usually the line people quote from it. [Laughs.] Anyway—

Evan Todd: Can I ask you a question about it? 

Oh, I'm sorry, it's from Magnolia. Different movie. Sorry. 

Didn't see that one, either. [Laughs.]

That's fine, that's fine. That's A-OK. I'm just telling you I've seen a lot of movies but can't keep them straight. So, hopefully that impressed you. 

[Laughs.] No, you're good. 

All right, cool. 

I recently was—I looked up Gamergate again: "What does Wikipedia say?" I was just curious, to jog my memory. And it was 100% about the harassment campaign. The article literally says "Gamergate (harassment campaign)." I was curious, do you think there was more to Gamergate than just the death threats and whatever, or is that really kind of the thrust of it, the main part of it? 

I think there's a critical problem with the way the internet works. It exposed that, but we don't really think about that. I just think it's like, "Those fuckin' gamers, they're so backwards." I mean, that's part of it, and not totally true of everyone, but it's sort of eclipsed looking at a lot of other stuff that I think we're lookin' at now. 

[Laughs.] So you're saying it exposes the, I don't know, the viral—things going viral and things allowing conspiracy theories and stuff to fester. Like, that kind of thing? 

I think it exposed a new way to use the internet that was latent for a long time. I mean, but there were attempts in the years before to do similar things, in, like, sci-fi fandom. It just seemed to erupt, for whatever reason, around videogames. There were attempts in the previous years as well, not in videogames. So, it's an internet thing as well, is all I would say.

Evan Todd: Like, the doxing and swatting, new weapons, I guess that people— 

Swatting, yeah, but doxing there's a long history of decades on the internet, too. That was a big reason why I started all these interviews, was just like, "Well, what's new about what's going?" 

Interesting. 

But you know, we've talked a lot about a lot of the negatives around games. So I guess I'll ask you like—hopefully, I didn't talk you out of it. But: Why come back? Why come back to making them again?

Yeah, I mean, like I said, I think I was looking for like, what is there in videogames other than just paying for me? I always wanted like—I still just like videogames, making videogames. I think they're cool. So, I'm at the point now where that's really all it is.

This is a cool thing that I enjoy, and I want to share it with other people. It's also a medium. It's not just that I think that videogames are cool. That's part of what I want to say to people. But you can then also, in addition, you can use that to say other things to people. You can communicate: "Here's what I think is cool about life." Or: "Here's what I think is good, and here's what I think is bad." You know, it's an art medium. So I think that's why I want to—not saying that I'm gonna make games forever, and I'm not making any promises, but that's what's currently driving me. It's like, "Yeah, this is a cool thing that I enjoy." 

But it's not a hobby for me. When I think of a hobby, I think of, like, model trains in the basement. Or some guy just—it's not for anyone else. He's just doing it for himself, and you know, I don't really think of games that way for me. I kind of bristled when my wife mentioned to me: "Oh, is this like your hobby?" I'm like, "No, no, no! No, no, no!" Because, like I said, if no one else is gonna play this thing, then what's the point?

This is another interesting thing that I've thought about—you know, as an art minor with my sophomore ideas about art—a lot of people talk about "what is art" and "what isn't art" and all that stuff. And I think what I've arrived at is that art is a relationship between one person who makes the art and another person who enjoys the art. Those can be the same people. You can make art for yourself, but it's always some relationship or some message from one person to another person. 

That's why, in my opinion, AI art can't really exist because it's not one person relating to another person. It's a thing, it can be beautiful, and it can be a product, or it can function as a lot of other things. But it can't really be art, because there's no one sending the message, you know?

And it can't come up with new concepts. I mean, it comes up with stuff that's cool and visually impressive, but it's just regurgitating. 

Evan Todd: Yeah. And even if it does, you know, I don't think—yeah. I just think you need a person on the other end that you're connecting with. When I walk through an art museum, that's what I'm thinking about is like, "Who made this? What was this guy like?" [Laughs.] Yeah.

I'm coming down to the last two questions here. Is there a question you'd like to pass on for me to ask others around games.

Evan Todd: Oh, wow. Yeah: "Why do you make games like, really, Why?" I think that's my whole process of burning out and then coming back, I think, really comes down to that question of why are you actually, really making games? I think that's a really hard question to actually get an honest answer for. 

It is. I've tried. 

The Bible says that the heart is deceitful above all things. It is almost impossible to know what you are actually thinking and what you're actually feeling. It's like, literally almost impossible. [Laughs.] So, tough question to honestly answer. But I think it's worth thinking about.

David Wolinsly: Well, I have another one for you here, just like it, and then I'll let you go. Which is: What have videogames accomplished?

Ooh. What have videogames accomplished in humanity or—

Any way you want to take it. 

Evan Todd: Okay. Humanity, that's too big. I'm just gonna leave it.  

[Laughs.] We'll leave that for part two.

I think it's like—videogames have accomplished, like, living. They're a part of living as a human being. What am I trying to say here? Like, living is we're having picnics with our friends. We're having relationships with people and stuff. That's what living is. And I think videogames help accomplish that, if done well. 

I think you can use videogames to not live. You know, to kind of escape from living. But I think if there's anything that videogames have accomplished, it's having a more full life. Like I said, you're connecting with someone who made the videogame. Or, you're connecting with a friend over this videogame, you know, talking about this videogame or playing it together, or whatever. 

I think it's a way to live life. [Laughs.] It shouldn't be the only way. [Laughs.]

It's part of a balanced breakfast. 

Yeah, exactly. It's like books or anything like that. It's expanding what you can do in your life, I guess.