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Sometimes it's just too much

(Big content warning for general despair, existential dread and me just not bothering anymore)

In a way this email from the organisers of “The Game Awards for Games who can’t afford the Game Awards” is the perfect summary of how this entire year went for me.

I was thinking about being a bit more publically angry about this whole thing back when I got this message (as well their general lack of communication and anything else), but to be honest: What’s the point?

Of course the event that paints itself as something for the less affluent members of Videogames is about as good as the rest of this wretched space when it comes to supporting and valuing the work of people who are on the lowest end of the income spectrum.

So why shout about something and risk being painted as some kind of sore loser (which I admit I also am, but I also know that you can handle this stuff better than these people did.)? It’s just another one for the pile of rejections that I accumulated this year.

I really tried to change my situation this year, well at least for the first half, then I just thought to hell with it all. I applied for jobs, I worked on my presentation, I tried to wrestle Virtue’s Heaven into something that excites people that aren’t me and it was just nothing. Rejection upon rejection, not once did I get a chance to explain, or even prove myself. No, it was always the same, disarmingly polite language that nonetheless told me that whatever I thought about my qualifications was definitely not what they thought.

When I had a bigger nervous breakdown in November, thanks to an appointment at the Welfare office that I would describe as traumatising, I began to wonder if maybe I’m just incapable of properly talking to people. No matter my approach over the past decade and beyond, the outcome was mostly the same: Polite rejection without much consideration.

It’s hard for me to describe how exhausting this process is. Having to convince myself that this time it’ll have a different outcome, only to be proven wrong. Having to endure the same kind of advice over and over again. Showing my material (be it portfolio, CV, Steam store descriptions or trailers) to people who know more about how to present yourself than I do and getting positive remarks, only for it to not matter.

Having to endure the German Welfare office’s constant assumption that I actually like being stuck with them, and that the only reason I’m still there is just personal laziness, when I’m desperately trying to find a way out that doesn’t involve me completely obliterating myself.

Having people who don’t know me and have no interest in knowing me, tell me that I’m apparently not qualified for a task I know I’m qualified for, without having any means to just prove them wrong, over and over again.

Being filled with so much frustration and anger about a situation I’m only partially in control of, without any real means to funnel them into something constructive.

The breakdowns, the unintentional harm they cause to whoever was unfortunate enough to trigger them. The constant mental recontextualisation (“hiring managers get so many applications, they have to be superficial”, “Another person getting the job you wanted doesn’t mean that they’re evil, or incompetent, you don’t know what hell they went through”, “Don’t blame the people, Capitalism hurts us all in equal measure”, “You can’t really complain, when some of your friends live in countries that don’t even have the joke of a welfare system that you have”). Having to find a way forward past all the pain and frustration.

To get a bit metaphysical:

Earlier this year, I started to wonder if maybe we all do live in hell. Think about it: The moment anything exists in this universe, it’s immediately faced with the threat of obliteration. Everything is under constant competition for space, energy and resources and those that lose get pushed aside, punished and destroyed. Worst of all, Humans build a society that celebrates this idea of existence. Not only do the laws of nature push us towards obliterating other forms of existence to keep existing ourselves, people looked at this and thought that everything has to work like this. That being good at obliterating others is a sign of virtue.

I know that this a deeply irrational and flawed way of thinking and interpreting the way we think the Universe operates. That whatever hell we all experience is the work of people, and not of some universal law of nature. But especially this year for some reason, I felt like my life was just an endless chain of being punished for existing in the first place. That I’m doing life wrong.

Whatever the case, I’m not stopping, because stopping would mean that those who tell me that I’m bad at living correctly, that my desires for creative expression and connection are unwanted and that I’m just not competent at them, are correct.

I’m too full of myself to ever admit that, and if anything I’ll keep trying to make videogames work for me, just to punish that space for implying that I do not belong.

Aside from that, here’s a list of things I would like to happen next year:

• I would like for something nice to happen to me.
• I would like to be done with getting Welfare.
• I would like to get an appointment with my old Therapist.
• I would like for Virtue’s Heaven to be done (I’m not that delusional to think it will do well, or be any good).
• I would like to work with other people on a videogame project.
• I would like for good things to happen to my family and friends.
• I would like for me and the next German chancellor to NOT share the same last name.
• I would like for the German left to get its shit together.
• I would like for the genocide in Gaza to end and for its perpetrators to face justice.
• I would like for Capitalism to crumble.

And if none of that happens, at least have a Toyota win the 24 hours of Le Mans.