If somebody were to ask me what the biggest pain-in-the-ass is about being a published game designer, I would answer, without hesitation, the Fame.
Even the miniscule, niche-market fame that we get is problematic. Fame makes you do stupid shit, like play to the audience instead of staying true to your inspirations. Fame can draw the attention of some seriously disturbed people (for those of you new readers on LJ, I’ll have to relate the ongoing saga of my stalker some time). Fame leads to you being the subject of debate.
Recently, over on the RPGnet’s forum, a thread was begun with the title “Why Are Game Designers Liberal?” (I was forwarded the contents by a friend of mine, because I no longer participate on those fora. See above for a slight hint as to why.) The thread was started by a guy named Anthony W. Roberson, who posted:
“Ok, I read a lot of role-playing game designers blogs and I have sort of gotten used to all the Bush-bashing and being told I was an ignorant, racist, redneck shmuck because I lived in the South, but something I read yesterday just pissed me off completely.
I found out that Underworld was going to be available by PDF and so I surfed over to Gareth-Michael Skarka’s blog to see if I could get some info about it. While there, I read that he actually believes the whole ‘EVIL Republicans stole the election with rigged electronic voting machines’ conspiracy. And I’m going to give this man my money?? I think not.
Are all game designers so liberal? What is the connection between designing RPGs and being a leftist? Sheesh.”
That’s Fame, folks. Somebody deciding that they don’t want to buy a product because they can’t separate the creator from the creation, and because they think “Liberal” is a Bad Word.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go beat my head against a brick wall until I bleed.