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Image: Archi Banal
Image: Archi Banal

InternetMarch 23, 2022

Inside the Dunedin studio making a ‘nice’ video game

Image: Archi Banal
Image: Archi Banal

Before We Leave is a ‘non-violent, slow and chill’ city-building game, and it’s a big hit. For IRL, Shanti Mathias chats to the team behind it to find out why. 

Sam Barham still seems slightly stunned by it all. The video game designer wears a blue sweater and sits in front of a poster depicting the landscape of Before We Leave, hexagonal tiles of otherworldly forest and ancient ruined technology. This office in Ōtepoti – complete with an army of monitors and colleagues laughing at him on the other side of the video screen – is very different to the small home study where Barham started working on the game five years ago. 

Before We Leave is a city-building game, an incredibly popular genre often made up of frenetic tradeoffs between water drainage and new skyscrapers. What makes it different? “It’s a largely non-violent, slow, [and] chill game,” says Barham; he describes the studio and the game’s players as “a nice community playing a nice game”. In the game, “your people are reemerging from bomb shelters where they’ve been hiding for centuries after some galactic disaster,” he explains, “[so] they need to rebuild and rediscover the world around them.”

Barham, affable and emotive, exudes the same positivity as the game. His eyes widen, emphasising his astonishment that he’s here at all: it’s “incredible” that the game has thousands of players around the world; it’s “amazing” that in the space of three years he went from being funded by the Kiwi Game Starter award to sponsoring it himself; it’s “awesome” to have the freedom to make creative decisions with his team; and it’s “really cool” playing the game itself and seeing the plans for a city rise up before your eyes. 

Perhaps the amazement is because of how long it’s taken him to get here. “Computer games have always been part of both our lives,” says Anna Barham, Sam’s wife and joint owner of the Balancing Monkey Games studio. When they were dating, she would go to Sam’s house and watch him play Tomb Raider, “eyes glued to the screen like a movie”. 

Fifteen years later, after she finished her masters thesis in psychology, the Barhams stuck to a promise they had made: it was now Sam’s turn to spend his evenings and weekends in the small study at the back of their house, experimenting with the concept that eventually became Before We Leave. “I’ve always been a conscientious sort of person,” Sam says; using friends and family as testers, he slowly developed a working prototype. 

The Balancing Monkey Games team at work. (Photo: supplied)

For a medium so widespread, accessible, and lucrative, the video game industry has received little attention in New Zealand, despite global hits. “New Zealand is one of the most expensive places in the world to make a video game,” says Leanne Ross, director of the New Zealand Game Developers Association (NZGDA). Although there are many success stories, New Zealand’s video game community lacks the financial policy incentives (the kind put around the film industry) to develop games, and, until recently, a lack of training for the industry at the tertiary level.

To foster new entrants to the gaming industry, NZGDA runs the Kiwi Game Starter, a competition where people submit their games with a business plan. The winners get $25,000 to develop their game into a commercial product. 

You don’t even need to win the competition to benefit from it. Though Barham’s game did not win the 2018 competition, his entry caught the eye of an investor, who gave him enough money to quit his software development job and work on the game full time for a year and bring in some artists, which led to him winning the competition in 2019. This early support meant the game could be marketed; it launched on the Epic Games store in 2020, and on Steam in 2021. They’ve now sold over 150,000 units of the game across different stores, as well as having thousands more players through Humble Choice and Xbox Game Pass.

“It’s possible to express really complex and interesting ideas through games,” says Anna Barham. “Sam had always wanted to make a game with a positive impact, or a positive story –playing computer games can have a big impact.” Gareth Schott, a professor in media psychology at the University of Waikato, says that as the video game medium expands, so does the “games for social change” movement which “recognises the power of games to educate and communicate about important issues” – everything from mental illness to the experience of refugees

As a layperson (read: somebody with a very lightweight laptop who browses Steam when I feel lonely) with considerable experience of city-building games (read: I’ve occasionally made inane comments about urban design while watching my boyfriend play Cities:Skyline), I enjoyed Before We Leave. This is not to say that I was good at it, but it didn’t matter. Even slightly clunkily rendered on my laptop, which is not built for anything more complex than Tetris, the game was interesting. 

The hexagon tiles reminded me of long childhood afternoons playing Settlers of Catan. I set up a wood mill next to a forest, so I could build huts for my people, but I had to think carefully about how much of the forest I used. The characters, called “peeps,” are vaguely humanoid; they trudged happily through their world, exploring what they’d left behind. I built them a library, so they could connect with the knowledge of their ancestors. I built them a ship, so they could voyage the ocean of their planet.

Gradually, the village became a city busy with vehicles, roads, and rocket projects. Some of the buildings produced pollution, so they got sad; I planted more trees. It was intensely satisfying, but never stressful. As an inveterate eavesdropper, my favourite part was the soundscape: against light string music and the sounds of industrious sawing, my people were talking to each other in indistinguishable language as they worked, in the land of their ancestors, exactly where they were meant to be. 

Before We Leave is a game set on a planet recovering from disaster.

In a film, you can’t control where the camera goes or what people say, and your opinions as a reader have little to do with what comes next in a book. But a game lets you make choices; choices thoroughly considered and determined by the developer. “You’re the one in charge, so you have agency – it’s more personal, specific to you,” says Emily Latta, Balancing Monkey’s community and media manager, who thinks about this a lot.

What kind of choices did Barham make as he designed Before We Leave? “Deliberately, there’s no other tribe; there’s no-one you’re fighting for territory,” he says. Environmental resources must be used thoughtfully. There’s also no money in the game, and no hierarchy: all the peeps are equal, and they’re not trying to accumulate cash. “It’s a utopia in a way,” he adds. 

Was it a political statement? “Sure, why not. Some people complain and say that games shouldn’t be political, but every choice is political, whether you want it to be or not.” 

Many video games have a reputation for violence, to the extent that games are sometimes used for recruitment and training by militaries. While there are some theories that playing violent video games encourages people to act more violently, Schott says that “the very mechanics of playing [games] occur within the bounds of an established set of rules. This is opposite to the way we understand aggression in the real world as an act that is out of kilter with how people normally behave.” He says that when simulating violence on a screen, players are very aware that they are acting as the game invites them to, engaging in play. The moral panic over violent video games is not a priority for many researchers. 

The game is Sam Barham’s fourth attempt at making a tile-based, world-building game.

Barham, too, says that “there’s a place for violence in games,” and plays many games with violent elements himself. But when it came to designing a game, Barham chose not to make elements of violence integral to the gameplay. Violence is a debated term: Before We Leave players pointed out that the use of laser cannons and planet-eating sky whales was not strictly non-violent, prompting Balancing Monkey to remove the “non-violent” descriptor from their game summary.

“We’re not making a statement against violence in games,” Barham says. Instead, he made Before We Leave because he was interested in the idea of tiled hexagons, in levitating whales – and in creating a game that could have strong morals and still be fun. 

Key to Balancing Monkey’s success has been community. It’s a sort of vague word, one every company wants to capitalise on – to create a culture of people dedicated to its product. For the company, the community around the game ensures that the players are invested, and it’s a rich source of feedback. As the team were preparing to launch Before We Leave, Barham was given some advice. “You used to have to sell a game via magazines, then the right game development press websites, then get it into the hands of the right streamers,” he says, “but these days, what matters is creating a community.”

The values of Before We Leave translate to Balancing Monkey’s working conditions, too. Latta says that the company is very different from the other studios where she’s worked. “There’s a lot of care and empathy and if you’re not feeling so crash-hot you’re supported.” She hopes people see Balancing Monkey as an example: “We don’t sexually harass people and we can still make a viable product.” The company also instituted a four-day work week last year in response to the pressure put on a remote employee living through the Auckland lockdown. 

How does the care for the product and community balance with the bottom line of running a business? “It can be challenging making those decisions and walking the line between financial success and integrity, producing in a timely fashion and maintaining staff wellbeing,” says Anna Barham. Ross, the NZGDA director, says companies with business practices like Balancing Monkey as important for the health of New Zealand’s gaming industry. 

Before We Leave isn’t a perfect game: Barham mentions several features he’d like to improve, aware that it was a first attempt. Balancing Monkey isn’t a perfect studio, either: the team is more than half women, but very white; finding game designers in Dunedin is difficult, but it’s an area where Barham says they want to improve.

So what comes next? They’ve just announced that last week’s Before We Leave update will be its last, bar any necessary bug fixes. “We’ve just started production on our next game,” says Barham, though he refuses to give me any details. “The path to a [new] finished game is winding – it’s just too early to say.”

Met the love of your life in a strange way online? Currently embroiled in community Facebook page drama? Got a weird internet job? IRL is keen to tell your story: contact irl@thespinoff.co.nz. 

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InternetMarch 22, 2022

How dipping a toe into ‘Covid truth’ can lead to a very deep pool of conspiracy

IRL_FeatureImage_DylanConspiracyTheories

Someone ‘doing their own research’ on vaccines can quickly find themselves convinced the Christchurch mosque attacks were faked, Putin is fighting for good and that a global paedophile cabal runs the world. Dylan Reeve explains for IRL.

Three years after Aotearoa and the world were shaken by the terrorist attack in Ōtautahi, online conspiracy theory claims about the event are increasing in popularity, and finding an audience among people pulled into rabbit holes by conspiratorial claims of Covid lies and vaccine harm.

A recent “documentary” about the event, which claims the entire attack was staged and victims were actors, was ruled objectionable by the chief censor because of its inclusion of the shooter’s livestream video. But the same claims are made in many other places, and they’re increasingly being shared on local Telegram channels.

This is just one example of the type of reality-defying conspiratorial belief that has become more popular online in New Zealand during the Covid-19 pandemic. People seeking a “truth” they instinctively feel is being withheld find themselves in sometimes quite extreme online communities. 

Recently we were witness to an unprecedented riot on parliament’s grounds. It was the result of a protest that was, despite assertions otherwise, ultimately based upon conspiracy theories. The predisposition to conspiratorial thinking even saw some protesters donning tinfoil hats and, unsurprisingly, the fiery end of the protest itself became the subject of conspiracy theories.

Conspiracy theory is a loaded term. Many of the people somewhat predisposed to believing conspiracy theories will cite a conspiracy theory that claims the term was invented by the CIA in 1967 in order to discredit those who doubted the official account of JFK’s death. 

Regardless of the origins (not the CIA), the term is often used in a pejorative way that amounts to dismissing the claims in question and, as “conspiracy theorists”, the people making them. 

But the reality is we don’t really have a better way to talk about these things. More accurate terms exist to describe facets of the underlying culture and communications around these ideas – disinformation, misinformation and malinformation among them. But to capture the general concept in a way that everyone understands, we’re left with “conspiracy theory”.

Protesters outside parliament in February (Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone, additional design by Tina Tiller)

The current climate

Conspiracy theories are nothing new, but they have become more relevant to all of us in the last two years than perhaps at any time in the past. With the entire world facing the same crisis, and understandable anxiety about the pandemic, there has never been a better time to promote conspiracy claims.

One aspect of conspiracy theory culture that’s often overlooked in reporting on the issue, and even by those embracing some conspiracy theories, is that there are no borders – that is, no defining lines between one conspiracy idea and another.

This has become increasingly evident within communities that are, at least in principle, established around certain Covid-related claims. On Facebook there are a few groups that manage to keep a fairly tight control on what’s posted with heavy moderation, but even there, among comments or just a couple of clicks away on many of the approved links, will be the tendrils of conspiratorial ideas that go far beyond a recent pandemic and the responses to it. 

On Telegram, where oversight is almost non-existent and all manner of diverse believers congregate to share content from all over the platform, there are constant reminders of the all-encompassing suspicion and paranoia that colours the perception of so many.

The majority of Aotearoa’s conspiracy Telegram channels are big tents, encouraging all to share their beliefs on all subjects. While those channels aren’t devoted to Covid, the users there still spend most of their time discussing matters directly connected to New Zealand’s Covid response, and broader questions about the virus itself, or the very existence of germs as a concept.

But other channels are, or were, intended to primarily address topics directly related to Covid, and they still tend to be filled with other ideas, theories and interpretations of world events.

In all these venues you will see posts about NZ government actions interspersed with content forwarded from US QAnon and alt-right channels. 

“If they have their way, it will end with the extinction of the human race through bioweapons like this jab,” writes Onyx in an official Voices For Freedom community chat channel. “Bill Gates and his pedophile ring won’t have anyone to prey on.”

This claim, on the very Covid-centric Voices For Freedom channel, brings together multiple conspiracy theories that predate the discovery of the 2019 novel coronavirus – it implicates the decade-old idea that Bill Gates wants to depopulate the planet, and the Pizzagate/QAnon panic about global paedophile rings that has its origins in the 1980s satanic panic

Elsewhere in the same Voices For Freedom group, Paddy promotes the since-banned conspiracy theory film that purports to prove the March 15 Christchurch terror attack was a government-orchestrated false flag. “Adern [sic] will be doing everything she can to stop the doco,” he writes.

Another Telegram channel, New Zealand Pro Choice, theoretically created to promote an end to mandated vaccinations, has lots of similar content, with user Pamela sharing many links to online articles and videos allegedly proving the Christchurch attack was faked.

Elsewhere in the channel, Gareth brings up the same issue, but takes it a step further. “It was the [Christchurch shooter] incident that prompted me to discard my previous ambivalence to Jews,” he writes. “I realised the guy is innocent, it was a plot to grab NZer guns, for Jews to ultimately take over NZ.”

In fact, Gareth has a lot to say about Jews. The only obvious pushback he receives from other members of the channel is for saying the quiet part out loud where people like me can see it. “Meanwhile, you taint ‘the cause’ and give MSM the ammunition they need to hold against us,” rebukes Calvin.

Two Telegram messages expounding on anti-Jewish conspiracy theories
Gareth expands on his thoughts about Jews in a Telegram group

The filter of conspiracy-tinted glasses colours all discussion of current events. “This is not an attack on the people. Putin is taking down the Deep State quarters and their filthy biolabs, ie. Biden, Clinton, foundations, Rothchilds foundations etc,” writes Bea, but in all caps, in the Hikoi For Truth channel, originally founded to support last October’s Sovereign Hīkoi of Truth.

Many of those convinced that the Covid vaccine is a deep-state bioweapon are also very open to the idea that Hillary Clinton is trafficking children, the Tongan volcanic eruption was a military operation and Vladimir Putin is a good guy, actually. The theories aren’t actually connected in any meaningful way, but if you’re going to buy into one massive global conspiracy, it’s easy to accept others too.

A deep certainty that the powerful are always lying and are fundamentally evil or corrupt makes it easy to latch on to any claim and spread it like children playing the whisper game, especially if it can somehow be connected to high-profile events. In recent months this has even seen elaborate, highly detailed and entirely false allegations made about criminal issues faced by the prime minister’s partner, Clarke Gayford.

A collage of conspiracy theory messages from Telegram
A collage of conspiracy theories from Telegram

Conspiracy underpins it all 

Even where these theories aren’t being openly discussed, the ideas are percolating just beneath the surface. Across most of the Telegram groups and elsewhere, including in person at the now-defunct parliament protest, it’s widely accepted by opponents of the government Covid response that some or all aspects of that response are directly connected to UN Agenda 21 and/or Agenda 2030. The popular spectre of these UN development plans is itself a conspiracy theory – one that, like so many others, ends up pointing at “the Jews”. 

For the most part, initial scepticism and fear about vaccines wasn’t driven by any facts about the vaccines themselves, but by long-standing conspiracy theories that suggest evil forces, often helmed by Bill Gates, are seeking to depopulate the world. Claims of hidden vaccine harms, or even impending death, are manifestations of those existing well-worn conspiracy tropes. Certain people know that the vaccines are harmful because they know that the elites want to kill people with vaccines.

Likewise, long-standing conspiracy theories about 5G were rapidly wrapped up into, first, the Covid pandemic itself and, then, the vaccines. Specifics weren’t important, the existing truth was that 5G was bad, and therefore a new bad thing must be connected to it. 

It is functionally impossible to bow out of the mainstream reality of Covid and find alternative information that isn’t rife with far more extreme conspiracy theories than just those about the virus and its treatments. Instead, any dive into Covid truth becomes a dive into a very deep pool of conspiracy. Even staying away from the various online communities doesn’t help – the majority of online anti-mainstream Covid information is hosted on sites that promote countless other conspiracy claims.

The same pattern exists with the war playing out in Ukraine. People who are certain that nothing happens without a deeper secret agenda just need to search through their internalised catalogue of Bad Things to find one that fits. In the case of Ukraine they look to Covid-related ideas that the virus was deliberately engineered by the deep state and then project forward from that in order to decide that Putin, a Good Guy in their minds, is striking against efforts by the same deep state to create a new pandemic. 

Always a new conspiracy 

If one idea, prediction or plan of action doesn’t play out, there are always many more ready to be adopted.

When predictions of swift and unignorable deaths from vaccinations didn’t come to pass, the ideas adapted. Some suggested that only some people were getting the real (supposedly poison) vaccine, while others received a harmless placebo. Still other explanations suggested that the harm was more long term, and that the vaccinated would “start dropping like flies” in months or years.

Likewise, protesters from Wellington who were unable to affect change with their convoy and occupation were soon presented with an alternative by Australian conspiracy theorist Karen Brewer, who told them that a direct appeal to the governor general was the key to their freedom.

In her regular Telegram videos, Brewer loudly proclaims that Freemasons, who she contends are literally satanic, are in control at all levels of government, business and society. She also promotes ideas about a global paedophile network, and even lost a massive defamation suit in Australia for levelling allegations of involvement in that network at an Australian MP.

But Brewer’s claims of paedophiles and satanic Freemasons don’t immediately seem to put off people who were, just a week earlier, chanting “peace and love” and insisting it was all about mandates. 

From what I’ve observed, and people I’ve spoken to, it seems that encountering extreme ideas (the Christchurch massacre was faked; there’s a global paedophile cabal; Putin is the good guy; Jews are taking over the world) doesn’t push people away from these groups. Instead they simply compartmentalise – ignoring the things and people that offend them, while taking in the things that appeal. 

However, after a while, with enough repetition and “evidence”, people’s perception of what is an offensive idea shifts. Small wedge issues, like the idea that the US election was stolen, start to seem reasonable, forming new foundations on which more claims can find a firm footing.

Essentially, to all intents and purposes, one conspiracy theory is all conspiracy theories. Not every person who disappears into these rabbit holes will adopt all that they hear, but the claims are complex and interwoven, and someone who is simply “doing my own research” about Covid or vaccines will soon be learning about global cabals, paedophile rings and maybe even shape-shifting reptiles.