How to Write Games for the Internet without Embarrassing Yourself 

"Never ever market your game on the inclusivity; just [use inclusivity] because it's good storytelling." I'm so positively surprised to finally have heard _these_ words on a GDC talk. Let's hope this approach eventually makes way into the heads of all the other creators.

*One of the main takeaways:* It's very tempting to throw memes and references into your work, but you *really shouldn't*. If you can keep your finger on the pulse of the demographic/culture that you're writing for, and write a story that truly resonates with them, your work will BECOME the meme, the reference, the trend. Which, ultimately, is a far better outcome.

I came to learn about game development...I got an accessible guide to modern culture.

Don't use a meme, become the meme

Oh, please, someone get this woman hired as consultant for every terrible tv series and movies depicting what older people (like myself) think is "kids today".

The guy right at the end: "I came to the talk thinking it was about how to put your game out there without being embarrassed, but I think what I understood was the opposite, it's like... being embarrassed IS the way."

This is actually really good. Keep in mind that not every writer/designer is a born public speaker, she did well.

Alternatively, use really old memes that have somehow preserved relevance, like the written word, the invention of fire, and the rick roll.

I... didn't expect to learn anything from this. Nice talk, thirsty lady.

She's. Fucking. Awesome! - Talks about narrative, which is a topic that is sometimes heavily subjective, and inside in a niche of narrative (appealing "the internet", as in, making a memeable story/game), so, hardcore-level talk; - Explains the core behind it using art history and the basics, in a way anyone can understand (no hard vocabulary, no "you need to have read this reference to properly understand it"); - Explains and complements arguments, building them progressively, with practical examples, like a boss; - *EXPLETIVE*; - Opens feelings, shows insecurity, imposter complex, and still nails the whole talk; (I wanna have at least half her courage and skills one day)

Okay, based on the title, I wasn't expecting much from this talk, but the point about good writing oscillating between extremes is _dead on._ SNES-era JRPGs are solid examples this - silly in-game dialogue and animations, dead serious story about the fate of the world. And sometimes Ultros shows up.

NOBODY IN THE AUDIENCE CAUGHT "Sorry for leaving you hanging" ; _ ;

This was a really funny yet informative talk... almost like they used the things in this talk to create this talk... also hydration is key.

So you're saying that metamodernism is essentially just tsundere- sincerity wrapped in cynicism? Also Leighton Grey throws back water like somebody taking shots of vodka.

Sighing thirsty lady talks about memes for 57 minutes.

"Favourable Fathers" sounds like a period version of Dream Daddy...which would actually be kind of awesome. xD That aside, what a fun talk! Thanks for sharing so many good tips and a whole bunch of great analysis.

I think this is the most I’ve ever learned from a GDC talk.... I’m still only halfway through! Thanks so much for this one!

Oh gosh. I just had a mid life crisis. I thought my love for irony in my writings, where I put very bright comedy and upper message in dark themes, or the other way around, is an unique thing. Turns out, I'm just another memer in the internet. I'm predictable, I'm a derivative of similar artists, like Bo Burnham.

This is a fantastic talk, AND it's honestly SUPER refreshing to see another game designer who so deeply reminds me of me and my own social circle up on stage at GDC. You always hear horror stories in this industry about poor retention for younger folk entering it. Nice to see someone similar to me making use of a big name platform like GDC and thriving in the industry!

This game isn't for me, but I can 100% respect the work that went into it and Leighton Gray is awesome as a speaker. I think I'll need to add a lot more positivity into my future games to counteract my natural cynicism. Thanks for the talk!

Leighton Gray did a version of this back at Full Indie 2017 and it was great! Awesome to see this here at GDC. 💖

The best thing about hearing Leighton talk is how she comically sighs in the most deadpan 90s slacker protagonist way IMMEDIATELY after she delivers some really insightful observation like, EVERY TIME. This is the shit I live for.

Now that is what I call an amazing talk! I haven’t checked out the game yet, but now I’m definitely going to.

I did not have high hopes for this talk, but wow, I learned something pretty valuable.

15:19 That joke just went flying high over everyone's head Also... How dare you! (But seruously, such an interesting talk! i'm having a blast!)

I wasn't expecting too much but i really learned a lot and enjoying every second of this conference. Now I want to play Dream Daddy

I can tell she's doing this talk using her social nervousness as her only fuel source, so she's in a delicate balancing act of POWERING through this presentation and slowing down to deliver the important points, at times disarming her own anxiety with her humor. She comes off as a more enthused, engaging speaker for it. So thanks Thirsty Lady, you've shown people who have stage fright how to deliver a good presentation while still being stage-fright. The content of her presentation is great, too. I think a lot of creators have an inkling of what metamodernism can do for their work and their appreciation of other creative works, but they lacked the vocabulary to articulate and analyze, and thus understand in-depth. This content should be shown in other entertainment fields.

21:38 tag yourself, I'm Pickles.

That was the most entertaining GDC talks Ive watched so far

That was so amazing!!! Funny, interesting, smart, easy to listen to. Wow!

I didn't really know what I expected when clicking on this, but it certainly wasn't being glued to an expertly crafted talk about metamodernism. I'm learning so much! Also, I just started watching Season 2 of Ricky Gervais' "After Life" and I'm really curious what Leighton would have to say about that show! :D

Fantastic talk ! Thank you ! Wonder if I should actually start paying attention to Dating sims now !

Man, I don't feel like I'm smart enough to really understand this talk (plus I'm not even a game dev) but your humor is amazing. Great presentation

she is so relatable, I love the talk

Absolutely lovely talk, this only makes me wonder if they knew that by adding the joseph secret ending discourse would only boost their game

Neat. I'd classify MGS2 as leaning into this metamodern category, with its initial seriousness devolving into self-referential madness eventually pushing through into some kind of cathartic ending. Though I don't think it necessarily has the awareness of many of the games listed in the talk.

Great talk!

I just realized... Despite the fact that I'm a mouth breathing filthy Call of Duty player, jumping onto usually only the most popular and widely known games, the only games I've ever really shared with others are those that follow this formula and touched me on a personal level. I've never even considered recommending something like Call of Duty or Halo to someone, but Life is Strange, or Dragon Age? Absolutely have I tried to spread those.

24:49 I haven't played dream daddy but I always viewed it as a game that's enjoyed for being funny regardless of you being a gay single father or not. Much of what she has said seems to indicate that as well. So Dream Daddy shows that inclusivity is not something that kills games, it's not a financially draining topic. What I think might be a strong argument for inclusivity in games is that there's currently a large audience that celebrate these games, very relevant to the title of the talk. I suspect that what she says at 24:31 is not a driving factor. The success of dream daddy is probably not owed to single gay dads specifically (or just gay people). That's what it sounds like she's saying to me. Unless she's about to make the argument that they're a huge influence on her marketing success. The audience that's actually swayed by inclusivity is likely to be much bigger is what I'm saying.

I really enjoyed this talk. Dream Daddy is mostly flying under the radar now, but it was an entertaining game. I enjoyed the humor. It's interesting to see what the thought process was behind its creation.

I love Leighton so much. That whole crew is top notch

good talk, this can be applied to just about anything

Great talk content, very funny and a super likeable speaker

This was a great talk

Great talk

I chuckled a bit at that DDLC joke. Then I cried for hours...

Interesting talk, hadn't thought about how to go about presenting things to an internet audience in this way. And the speaker was great, but really down to earth and friendly vibe going on.

That was delightful.

Some really good takeaways. Still thinking about how to apply it to different narratives. If I consider something like Darkest Dungeon, it's a real grimdark story without much ingame humor at all. It's a purely serious game with purely serious narrative. No jokes of any sorts really. But the community around it loves to make memes around the narrator's purple prose and the characters regardless. Did DD succeed because of the tone or despite it? Hmm. Lots to think about. Still don't know how best to go about trying to apply this to my own writing. I guess one thing would be to make it less serious and more silly? Or be so serious that it goes around to being not able to be taken serious at all? Boy really questioning the narrative direction here.

I came to this video to get some tips about story, script and so on, and I tried to be interested in this topic of metamodernism & inclusivity, but like she said : this is not for me.

Loved the lecture, favorited after the dad pun.

Really interesting presentation by a really wholesome presenter

I didn't know Metamodernism was a thing, and now I am convinced it is and I am going to be using it! Thank you! This was a great talk!

amazing talk

"Will they remember you, solicitors hidden in a dark tower? Or will they remember me, their faithful, pantry pal?"

Incredible talk and feel bad that I've only seen it now

Some really insightful cultural analysis in here. Very interesting stuff. Ignore the trolls in the comments who are already reacting without reflecting on the material.

God damn, this is a phenomenal talk. Well written, well delivered, funny, sharp, illuminating. I thought postmodernism was defined by the recognition of contingency, and that modernism was defined by something like metacognition and epistemological/aesthetic self-awareness and reflexivity. I hate myself a little bit for writing the previous sentence, but if I'm wrong, I'd love to know.

Wow bae, that talk was on fleek.

I usually put some conference video to put me asleep and now I can't sleep ... great speaker and super interesting content. (and how did you find out about my anime shitposting?)

this made me realize that I actually put out storytelling in the way of tag me memes on character sheets... god #relatable

Must be weird to have "Game Grumps" in your game dev title. Not bad by any means - just weird.

Homestuck is THE quintessential metamodern text. Prove me wrong.

i'm not even a minute in, but I find it highly ironic someone behind dream daddy is giving this talk seeing as how controversial it was.

As something of a connoisseur of Dad jokes, I just had to stop at the 9:00 mark to comment. This talk is so good!

That was a really good talk

She's so great!

Charming!

I've always been nervous when speakers drink and talk too soon after, that they'll get it in their throat. now that I've seen it, my fear is gone. thank you.

17:56 is a good summary of the whole thing

I don't think Dream Daddy is, like she said herself, "a game for me" But this talk was really interesting nonetheless

Oh God, I love her so much UUUGHH

This was a great talk, id be nervous too if I were her lol! This game would definitely have fallen flat on release if it didn’t have such an engaging social media presence and anyone dismissing this is pretty narrow minded and definitely doesn’t understand the concepts she puts forth. Game grumps and other popular lets players have played a ton of gimmicky games like this and none of them have had the success of dream daddy purely due to their exposure. It takes good content (or a legacy) to have a successful fandom but the grab is equally important. It takes a lot!

Great wisdom

This was golden.

this needs more attention

That was a great talk with a great speaker (don't stress, you did great, holy shit)

Why does like....the water bottle and the coffee cup look like they're moving at a significantly faster speed than the audio equipment on the other side of the podium, even though they're all stationary objects?

I felt nervous on her behalf, but fuck she did great despite the obvious agony of being up there. Well worth watching.

i love her.

Is "Community" a metamodern TV show?

SORRY TO LEAVE YOU HANGING 15:26

I haven't wathed it yet but this topic is exactly what I was looking for

"Sincerity wrapped in cynicism" omg. I'm shook. This is so accurate.

Missed a key point with Katawa Shoujo - it needs a mention at least over Hatoful Boyfriend. Katawa Shoujo was a big starting point for this metamodernist movement of internet games (it was made as a 'joke' by 4chan and the big talking point about it is that it makes people cry).

i love this

I think metamodernism might be more about tribalism, being young and identifying with "your group" in "your time" with the age old "twist" of being clever (ironic) in a way that makes your group unique. It's a, the more things change the more things stay the same, senerio, imo. I don't think sincerity can contrast with cynicisim, I think sincerity can contrast with irony, or having openness can contrast with cynicism. It might be mostly postmodernist to say sincerity can contrast with cynicism, but the words logically don't contrast, and it's more a play on words. Though I think she uses the dynamic as more of what she calls a trojan horse, which is more about tribal signaling than dynamic poles, as a way to provide agency to ideas. Not sure if metamodernism is a thing, seems to be a just a tool in this day an age. Though I have to say kids being ironic as a form of identifying with your group feels like a new revelation to a person growing up, but it's not unique it's unique to the times, but not unique to the psychological development. It's more a method of dealing with the world around you as you grow up and it becomes an identity.

I just don't see the difference of the games and media of "Postmodernism" and "Metamodernism" given. Portal is quite deep and has meaningful messages... I really feel "Metamodernism" is just something like "We do better Post Modernism, because we are better" more than a real definition

Community was really Streets Ahead on this whole Metamodernism thing

I can feel my brain growing

Give this lady a cookie! Eeemm... a bottle of water!

Audience member n° 4: "this is the most humane talk I've been to" SAME

57:31

I unconsciously watched this in 1.25x and hooooo girl it's like a kick in the brain

15:25 Audience left the speaker hanging (except the one dude)

I looked at the comments and I realized that even this freaking speach fallows the principles layed in the speach! God damn you! On a somewhat more serious note, I wonder if they actually really put so much thought into the design and writting. It really seems like they just though; here's a silly idea that might get some clicks and they went allong with it based on the initial response. And on a very serious note, I've seen metamodernism explained similar but different enough that it matters. Going back to Shia's example, he was appologising for plagiarism. Did anyone make a connection? Nope, I didn't. Some smart people talking about metamodernism made that connection. He did a celebrity stunt art project because people wouldn't believe him. They were not buying into the cynical; originality is dead argument either. So he needed to convey feelings of remorse but detach it from any meaning. He wanted people to feel without him being sincere. And it worked! As such I don't think DDADDS is metamodern. Undertale definetly is not. It's a subversion. A cRPG with monsters? Let's kill them. Oh... they are actually nice people with their own personalities, families, lives, hopes and dreams? Subversion. DDADDS is a silly dating sim game? It talks seriously about a very small seldom mentioned group, their struggles, lives, hopes and dreams? Subversion. The speaker talks about how metamodernism is sincerity wraped in cynicism(it's irony), but you have geniuan moments of sincerity in the game... that doesn't sound metamodern. It definetly doesn't sound like what Shia did. You can argue that tears were sincere, but were they? He's an actor and I doubt that he was crying there for several hours strieght. Ironic presentation, sincere feelings. Definetly not Undertale (when you kill Cowmama, whatever her name was, you feelt like shit and you knew why, and the game immediatly called you out - again, subversion). In similar way DDADDS seems more like a subvertion (ddin't play the game, just guessing) since the genre is looked down uppon and a very successful memable marketing + design. TL;DR: Speaker says their game is meta-modern, it's not. It's a subvertion of expectation based on a memable marketing and game genre.

4:44 channeling maria bamford moment

23:28

oh, I like her

I got a ton of really good info from the talk and I really enjoyed the Q & A afterwards 😂🤗♥️💯