Is The Escapism Worth It?

Borderlands 2 is my favourite game of all time, but I hate Borderlands 3 with an undying passion. I go back every now and again and just reconfirm my disdain. The gameplay is better, the balancing improved and the character’s skill trees more complex, but I just hate playing the game. Some of that is down to a story which feels about five years too late to the party with the annoying streamer shtick and some of it is because all the earnestness and self-awareness of the previous games was replaced with unlikeable, holier-than-thou caricatures of former complex characters. But, honestly, it isn’t either of those things that make me hate it. I got over just as big flaws in some of Borderlands 2’s DLCs and even some of the most grating parts of the Pre-Sequel, such was my adoration of BL2 and infatuation with that universe.

Despite ranking Borderlands as one of my favourite franchises I still haven’t gone back to the DLCs for BL3.

The real reason I hate Borderlands 3 is because I know too much about Gearbox. I know for a fact that Borderlands 3 was created by hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people. But every time I reinstall, I can only think of one person. As start shooting all I can think of is “I wonder if he really did embezzle money from this game’s budget” and by time I get to the looting it’s “MEDIEVAL TIMES USB FULL OF MAGICIAN PORN”. I know this is a me problem, but it’s one I face every day playing games, and recently it has become a great deal more serious.

As for many, throughout my life games have been a sanctuary of escapism. Don’t worry, I’m not talking about “HUR DUR DUR, I REMEMBER WHEN GAMES WEREN’T POLITICAL”; the opposite in fact. Games have been a sanctuary in the way that they acted as a ball pit for me to grow as a person, they are escapism in the way that they reflect the real world. Games were never a place where my opinions are reaffirmed but challenged. Games were a place to contemplate moral ideas as much as they were a mindless distraction. Thomas Was Alone was where I first learnt to accept others for who they were, Borderlands was my first exposure to normalised queer characters and even now Kentucky Route Zero managed to radicalise my political beliefs. However, using games to grow as a person or reflect on the goings-on of the world has become almost impossible for me to do in the last few months.

On second consideration, some games have more problems than just David Cage….

While the outside world is burning, the games industry had to come to terms with its own awfulness time and time again in a constant deluge of reckonings. This has happened before; reports of crunch at studios didn’t start with the EA spouses scandal, outing of creatives and those in positions of power as abusers didn’t start when the MeToo movement did and us having to come to terms with the artists being inherently inseparable from their creations didn’t start when David Cage first said some dumb shit. This is nothing new.

But the events of the past few weeks have had me asking. Can video games still be the point of reflection? And even if they are, is the escapism fucking worth it?

I wanted to get something out of The Last of Us Part II but every time I started to contemplate its themes all I could think about was the overworked staff, allegations of abuse, and the game director throwing continuous hissy fits at critics on Twitter. This isn’t a problem for 90% of people playing these games, I’m entrenched in this industry’s goings-on, and most consumers will be able to get artistic fulfillment from whatever they’re playing without knowing all of this. 

But fuck, should they?

When you have an industry that preaches moral messages in their stories and encourages the examination of ideals while being continuously complicit in taking advantage of the vulnerable, the subjugation of workers and allowing the abuse of whole demographics within it, why the hell should anyone look to them for artistic enjoyment, moral direction or even just a mindless distraction?

Before corporate meddling led to yet another video game critic hanging up her hat. Heather Alexandra wrote “Games Criticism Is a Kindness” and I wholeheartedly agree; it is a kindness to give something your consideration, to think about it. But right now the industry doesn’t feel like it deserves much more than ire and disdain. But that doesn’t solve anything, that just leads to more spats and infighting. What the games industry needs is your energy, your protests, your passion to reform. What it needs if you want to be able to have your escapism without a guilty conscience. Until we clean house of the rot, until we respect those inside and around the industry and until we make the escapism worth it again it’s hard to believe games are worth the escape.

Is the games industry deserving of kindness right now? Probably not, but needs our help if we ever want it to be a sanctuary again.