Why Aren’t There Games About [Blank]?

There’s a common narrative occurring for people whose lives have been touched by videogames in their formative years. First intrigued by the novelty of interaction and control, you become enamored with the concept of manipulating a digital avatar until you achieve a certain kind of mastery over the process. Timing thumbstick rotations with button presses becomes a second language. A fluency in the average game experience emerges.

Yet as you mature, the straightforward, childlike adventures you loved grow ever so slightly less appealing. You start to wonder why, when film, TV and literature address complex, deep subjects on a regular basis, games repeatedly serve up tropes of rescuing princesses and gunning down masked men.

Why aren’t there games about life in a small town or sexism or the struggles of minorities?

There have been plenty of calls to create games dealing with a greater variety of subject matter. Aside from the Bioshocks and Spec-Ops, most triple-A games seem content to revisit safe, proven ideas. We see it in the power fantasies, the revenge tales, the epic struggles between good and evil. And with budgets for triple-A games now soaring into the tens or hundreds of millions, it’s good business sense to stick with what works.

Indie developers are much more likely to address unconventional topics, with results ranging from the thought-provoking to the understated to the pretentious and every shade of gray in between.

Yet the freedom from answering to the suits upstairs means their projects are fueled by whatever they’re passionate about – whether it’s narrative-free minimalist systems with emphasis on mechanics or interpretations of existing game tropes or some other topic that doesn’t make your top 10.

Why aren’t there games about falling from grace or mental illness or raising a family?

Indies are able to make these games because their talent, passion and drive overlap into projects meaningful enough for them to devote significant chunks of their lives bringing into reality. Whatever their motivation, their desire to see their vision brought to life has outweighed the inertia of inaction.

Which brings us to the answer to this question. Why aren’t there games about more nuanced topics that concern the human condition, areas of interest outside fast-paced battles and easy to digest rescue stories?

Because you’re not making them.

The sheer magnitude of the triple-A business makes riskier projects much less attractive. And it can be hard to remember, but the indie development community is a wide collection of individuals from a great assortment of backgrounds pursuing their own dreams. If there’s a topic you really care about to the extent that you burn with righteous indignation at the fact that no game addresses it, then the task has fallen to you.

But luckily, should you wish so violently hard for this topic to finally be addressed meaningfully in a game, you have all the chances in the world to make it a reality. If you’re a game developer, your nights and weekends will easily fall to project fueled by such passion. If you’ve never made a game before, don’t let that stop you. Learn to program, use Construct 2, write a TWINE game, even make a paper prototype version if all digital means fail.

Maybe you’ll discover an even greater truth about the topic than you knew before. Maybe you’ll realize, by iterating on possible mechanics yourself, that this topic just isn’t suited for the medium. After all, not everything needs to be a game.

But by taking action other than rushing to a pulpit to rant-slash-raise awareness of your topic, you do yourself and the game-playing public a service – adding to the deepening pool of experiences possible in games, helping push the medium forward one game at a time.