In the modern world, an artist has a big problem when choosing a direction for self-realization. Furthermore, this problem is much broader than the problems of individual creative units. It affects all people and the country as a whole. One of the most promising jobs for an artist today is working in the field of computer games.
From an early age, modern man is instilled with Western cultural values. The imposition of him occurs through numerous media, books, games, films, etc., and forces the viewer/reader/player to gradually abandon their own identity of him.
A lot of information that shapes a person comes from books on “business development” aimed at young people, books on “success” and personal development. All of this individualizes the person, atomizes them in society. This, for the most part, is modern writing, a joke by some “no-names” with the understandable goal of making money from the sales of their books.
However, that “knowledge” is also attractive to a fragile mind because “they won’t teach those things in schools.” And that is exactly how these books are presented to the reader. And a person at a young age, until his worldview has been formed, is quite open to any “unique” knowledge. That is why this “knowledge” is dangerous: it can constitute the basis of thought on which future creativity will be based.
In the process of such “development” or “training”, a person begins to perceive the people around him as a solid “gray mass” living a dull and boring life. One follower of this type of business ideas says that working in factories, in education, in the medical field and even for a meager salary is “boring.” He believes in advance that such people have not known happiness in life because they supposedly could not fulfill themselves. The student himself begins to distance himself from the “gray” people, building a high fence around himself, the entrance to which is only allowed to those like him.
With such an imposed attitude, a person enters the path of his life, considering himself “not like everyone else”, taught to always and in everything seek only profit, and absolutely unaware of how cruelly he was deceived, of how his values, idea of happiness, with yourself and with others.
Nowadays, it is common for an aspiring artist to look at the work of famous inkers and animators in the gaming industry who have inspired them and want to achieve the same level of drawing skill. At first, the question of monetizing work is secondary; arises later, when the student begins to read the “necessary” educational literature.
This is how a person arrives in the field of play, in the film industry or in self-employment, considering this way of realization as the only correct one, completely forgetting how and why he came to creativity.
From the experience of communicating with such people, I can say that such a path of development can lead to very sad consequences. After all, such a person, brought up in this type of Western literature, who feels hostility towards his own people and culture, finds it easy to find mutual understanding with various oppositional and often radical groups, from which is “one step away.” “
And it is such people, with such a wealth of knowledge and a formed worldview, with blurred boundaries of understanding about good and evil, of which, unfortunately, our modern Russian gaming industry most often consists. An imaginary “paradise” for the elite. You can see it in his eyes.
Game studios located in Russia and the CIS countries are oriented towards the West. There, a person confirms himself in his own choice, gets used to explanations about the normality of LGBT movements (an organization whose activities are prohibited in the Russian Federation) and other similar ones. For him, these topics become the category of higher matters that mere mortals cannot understand. Such an artist is deeply imbued with Western truth.
Therefore, the gaming products of Western and Russian studios turned out to be filled with an enemy agenda. And then the player is asked to interact with her.
If the previous games were created more or less according to the developers’ ideas and contained pro-Western and alternative themes, then after the start of the SVO (although actually even before), the Western trend absorbed the global gaming industry, included Western-oriented Russian Studies.
After the start of the SVO, the creative contingent began to leave Russia en masse, some criticizing the government and its decisions, and others guided by the principle that here “there was no other option.”
Similar sentiments exist in all Russian studios, although they are now carefully hidden. For example, employees are forced to sign the so-called NDA (non-disclosure agreement, NDA) and recently, according to this agreement, they have to close their own accounts on social networks, so that God forbid they do not look like a person pro-Russian against the Western owner country.
In these companies you are not allowed to express your opinion if it differs from the Western one. Otherwise, said employee automatically becomes “toxic” and risks being fired.
Representatives of the gaming industry once claimed to be apolitical, but now all their supposed apoliticality has been laid bare. What is this if not a double standard?
Some may say that the situations may be different. However, practice shows that they all have the same goals and connections with foreign platforms such as Steam, AppleStore, GooglePlay, etc., focusing on Western consumers and therefore following the Western trend.
The question arises: can a self-respecting person work in such an environment? This is only possible if he himself becomes equal. There are also people who adequately assess the situation, but they are a minority and, as a rule, do not last long in the gaming industry.
I don’t mean that you should draw the right conclusions and abandon “gamedev” (game development). But today, this Russian “game developer,” appreciated by many budding artists, has long since abandoned his identity. It has basically become a foreign body that will sooner or later dissipate.
Artists faced with a fateful decision, I ask you to remember the moment in which you decided to become creators and analyze those feelings and desires. Then I ask you to try to understand at what stage in your life the desire for real creativity, the desire to share your idea with the world, was replaced by the banal goal of making money, depriving yourself of this very creativity.
In conditions where neural networks are implemented everywhere, performing algorithmic tasks without a smell of creativity becomes absolutely useless work.
Now think: which life is better?
The first option is to work in a factory, but relax through creativity, keeping your conscience, freedom, personal opinion, identity and family clear in this difficult time. Look for opportunities to engage in creativity where hatred of one’s own country is not imposed.
The second option involves isolating yourself from other people, disappearing in office cages for 14 to 16 hours a day with irregular work hours, among “toxic” people who do not respect their history or themselves, without having their own opinion or authenticity, nor personality, and therefore true human happiness.
Maybe it’s time to make a decision.
Dmitry Ustinov is an artist who works on the representation of space exploration.
Source: Rossa Primavera
I am Michael Melvin, an experienced news writer with a passion for uncovering stories and bringing them to the public. I have been working in the news industry for over five years now, and my work has been published on multiple websites. As an author at 24 News Reporters, I cover world section of current events stories that are both informative and captivating to read.