Fix stylistic inconsistencies (headings)

content/articles/2024-04-03-psychology-of-pixels-vol-i/index.md

@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ toc: true
 
 Anxiety, burnout, depression, and that modern career malaise, the very well-known “impostor syndrome”, are frequently (and alarmingly) reported by those who work in the development sector. While these symptoms are exacerbated among independents and freelancers, it’s no secret that the video game industry has been traditionally adopting practices such as “crunching”, a frequent reality that involves overworking to an inhuman point in the months preceding the release of a title; in other words, the result of poor management, often interpreted as the one and only proof of being committed to (or passionate about) one’s job. On the other hand, those who switched to an independent career (normally, after experiencing unfair treatment in their previous companies), reported a constant sense of job insecurity accentuated by their achievements and skills being constantly scrutinized. Their completed projects, metaphorical badges inseparable from their identity as creators and workers, eventually led to the dissolution of clear feelings of adequacy, thus to the realization that the constant process of self-branding is as devastating as the impossibility of proposing structural changes in their field.
 
-# Narratives of profoundness
+## Narratives of profoundness
 
 The definition of a "deep video game" is partial and limited. Although we could simply assume that these artistic artifacts try to address the complexity of social and personal lives to a deeper degree than the majority of video games, the truth is that they also aim to represent abstract concepts and habits of thought in order to make such emotions not only accessible or visible but _playable._ Furthermore, what we understand as "deep" or "meaningful" works, games that have the unique ability to provoke deep, socially based emotions triggered by choice and consequence, have proved to efficiently frame mental health, promote empathetic understanding, and above all, facilitate a dialogue that involves both the creators and the objective public of their digital creations, as the existence of certain proposals has a grip on a well-known lack of cooperation between mental health specialists, game designers, and gamers themselves.
 
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ What happens when creators try to overcome what seems to prevent video games fro
 
 Is the convoluted state of the industry _itself_ a reason facilitating the existence of such works?
 
-## That dragon, incomprehension: Ellie Miller
+### That dragon, incomprehension: Ellie Miller
 
 Before diving into the present state of the sector, let's explore a specific case demonstrating how intentions are not always effective enough in delivering their initial message. As it shouldn’t surprise anyone, [The Last of Us Part 2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_Us_Part_II) became one of the most recent victims of the distorted and inadequate perception that exists _inside_ and _around_ the media - recent, because new disputes spark even some years after its original release. Naughty Dog’s most controversial child focused heavily on Ellie’s grief and PTSD, including the display of symptoms like flashbacks, hyperarousal, disconnection, weight loss, and apathy. Neither this symptomatology nor the anticipation of it were entirely new, though; as seen in the first part of [The Last Of Us](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_Us), Ellie was raised in a world that normalizes death and violence, with the experience of loss, horror, and trauma forged and presented as a normality their inhabitants must learn to deal with. In Ellie's case, witnessing, living through, and surviving different forms of violence eventually led to an urge to reclaim humanity and autonomy that could only be achieved through self-sacrifice - an externally denied form of offering for the last remnants of society, though.
 
@@ -58,9 +58,9 @@ Are these problems linked to the public perception of artistic products only, th
 
 ---
 
-# Capitalizing invisible wounds
+## Capitalizing invisible wounds
 
-## Fractured spaces
+### Fractured spaces
 
 Although the days of stigmatizing mental health issues or prolonging harmful cultural beliefs and practices should be over, our cultural spaces are still influenced by an individualized and gendered narrative of competitiveness, hatred, precariousness, and meritocracy. Within this context, however, the development of video games making sense of these social, emotional, and professional factors is interpreted by its participants as one of the few ways to facilitate exchanges of autobiographical experiences that, otherwise, would be regulated (and therefore, dismissed) by the norms of professional networking. We will analyze this phenomenon later on, but before doing so, there is something we should bear in mind independently of our specific relationship with the industry: the saddest part regarding this matter is the instrumentalization of individual and collective failures, which happens to be a matter that goes _beyond_ (yet it's still affected by) the public's perception and reach.
 
@@ -70,7 +70,7 @@ Learning to be a successful indie developer is often presented as a process of s
 
 > "Anxiety for AAA developers is significantly different from anxiety for indies," Edwards says. "For the AAA developers, often it's the deadline, it's the manager, it's the performance review. (...) But in the indie space, it's the same anxiety as the entrepreneur or small business owner has." Online tools have made it easier than ever for folks to work from home, but this evolution can be a double-edged sword, keeping developers from engaging with nature, friends, strangers, and the non-digital world in general.
 
-## A "b(l)ooming" sector
+### A "b(l)ooming" sector
 
 As if some inherent working conditions weren’t harmful enough, the site [Game Industry Layoffs](https://publish.obsidian.md/vg-layoffs/Archive/2024) reported that in the first six weeks of 2024, the industry had announced more than 6.000 job cuts, including 1.900 jobs from Microsoft’s gaming division some months after its [¢69 billion acquisition of the famous publisher Activision Blizzard](https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/microsoft-activision-blizzard-acquisition-impact/), or the 900 staffers that PlayStation let go by the end of February, among others.
 
@@ -80,7 +80,7 @@ No one would dare doubt that incredibly high investments were made due to the CO
 
 Irremediably, the entirety of a concerning atmosphere like the one the sector has been facing these recent years pays off. Affecting studios of all sizes, the production pipeline of video games is, as we explored some paragraphs above, generally powered by rigid marketing plans and extenuating periods of crunch. Although this process seemed to work enough to culminate in incredible games over the years (2023 gave great proof of it, being [the strongest year dating back to at least 2001](https://www.theringer.com/video-games/2023/12/21/24011192/2023-greatest-video-gaming-year-of-all-time), according to Metacritic), the truth is that such a situation has also been detrimental to developers’ mental health, as there is now no proof of long-term job stability either.
 
-## State of decay
+### State of decay
 
 Uncertainty provides an unsettling panorama in this titanic, expensive, yet volatile industry - even a backdrop for the hype coming out of the sector itself, as examples like the successful 2023 seem to tell a tale of two industries: a tale of greatness, and a different one where no one _in_ the industry is happy, independently of the millions of people _externally_ enjoying their creations. The situation is not as recent as we might perceive it is, though. As Jason Schreier highlighted back in 2014 with an article called [“Why Game Developers Keep Getting Laid Off”](https://kotaku.com/why-game-developers-keep-getting-laid-off-1583192249), layoffs happen _all the time_, “yet, paradoxically, the video game industry is booming”. Layoffs are, and were back in 2014, a routine:
 
@@ -92,15 +92,15 @@ As helpless workers are the common profile and success can be hit-or-miss at any
 
 ---
 
-# Loop (anti)heroes: invalidating experiences
+## Loop (anti)heroes: invalidating experiences
 
 For clarification purposes, this is not only about the impact of depression, anxiety, or grief having a crucial role in the indie creators’ lives. As we previously explored, the pains of mental distress keep spreading and crossing the entirety of the sector - and it is not something unique to the independent side of it. However, these small productions are not handcuffed to audience or shareholder expectations as much as AAA games are, a difference that allows them to craft narratives that are more direct, poignant, and less biased than the ones presented in bigger games. There are no clichés required. There is no need to mark any harmful “supernatural phenomena” checkbox as a necessary element whenever portraying mental illness. It is not required to present little or no hope for recovery, as if certain illnesses were nothing but a dramatization of a distorted, endless battle with the mind and oneself. If anything, these common misconceptions only perpetuate two problematic behaviors: marginalization (the separation between the concept of “us” and “them”) and discrimination (behaviors that deny social participation or access to resources).
 
 ![An alphabetical rune from Journey.](./journey-symbol-05.png)
 
 Closely related to the previous paragraph, it feels adequate to affirm that fidelity is uncommon across most media depictions, no matter the subject itself. As a mere example, “madness” or specific spaces, like asylums, used to be a go-to trope for Horror and Gothic traditions that _still_ persist as a crucial element in our conception of certain genres, as it happens with survival horror in the gaming sphere. Now, let’s think of the many times mental health patients acted as shorthand for a threat to an audience to elicit fear. Let’s keep in mind video games like [Manhunt 2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhunt_2), [Outlast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlast), or [The Evil Within](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evil_Within), where institutions and individuals were stigmatized alike, clearly demonstrating how ingrained the portrayal of the mentally ill as violent has become within our culture at large.
 
-## The harms of villainy
+### The harms of villainy
 
 The way society is growing desensitization towards certain disorders is utterly perplexing. Given how intensely player-character interactivity and player proximity to the game world may impact people's sensitivity, it's simply unacceptable to perpetuate a turn to a base notion of "insanity" in order to explain seemingly inexplicable acts of violence perpetrated, more precisely, by game's villains. Indeed, one of the most common and arguably most damaging misrepresentations is, by extension, the incorporation of the "crazy villain" as a trope constantly oscillating between lazy writing, personal bias, or just plain misinformation. From [Far Cry 3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_Cry_3) to [Final Fantasy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy), [Call of Duty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty), or [BioShock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioShock), among many others, video games are full of antagonists whose sole reason for villainy is mental instability. Although many creative industries use "insanity" as a crutch to avoid thinking of any actual motivation for wrongdoing, few do so with such raw abandon as video games, where it appears thrown in as an "interesting" game mechanic or mischaracterized as the sum and whole of a character's personality.
 
@@ -112,7 +112,7 @@ That's what we do with the ones struggling with psychological difficulties: vill
 
 ---
 
-# Reclaiming misplaced spaces
+## Reclaiming misplaced spaces
 
 Video games are still relatively young as a medium, but that doesn’t mean they’re exempt from any form of criticism. Similarly, our position as part of the general public shouldn’t prevent questions, concerns, and healthy guidelines from existing either. We do lack empathy - and we do lack spaces to foster it. Whatever escapes from the margins delimitating (and often imprisoning) our reality, is considered as a threat, then automatically discarded due to the difference in a shape we don't even bother to stare at. Although the active involvement of the media is essential for success, if we truly want the media to be used effectively, its motivations and limitations must first be recognized and understood.
 
@@ -126,15 +126,15 @@ Now, let's take a moment to consider the words of [Tom Bissell](https://en.wikip
 
 Certainly, even the greatest messages may fade unless the audience decides to process, discuss, and even use to their advantage the many qualities that artistic works have to deliver. If we started delving into "deep video games" and their effectiveness in facilitating dialogue, it is precisely because when a game explores a creator's personal experience, what may seem to be a problematic portrayal could help to give a voice to someone who has experienced mental illness or trauma. Moreover, these perspectives may serve to openly communicate and normalize the experience itself, and in addition, provide players with the chance to assess a stigmatized view and, ultimately, challenge their own thoughts.
 
-## Save/safe rooms
+### Save/safe rooms
 
 There is hope in the sector - and it's not due to its youthfulness. Although video games are still tackling mental health with mixed results, multiple works out there try to avoid games in which the player perceives and approaches "madness" as inexplicable, chaotic, and uncontrollable. [Ninja Theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninja_Theory), for example (and no matter the [many aspects they got wrong about mental health](https://www.polygon.com/2017/9/15/16316014/hellblade-senuas-sacrifice-mental-illness)), showed a great deal of willingness to adapt its ideas in order to achieve not only realism but also sensitivity in representing the character of [Senua](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellblade:_Senua%27s_Sacrifice), who suffers a schizoaffective disorder after her tribe is murdered by a Viking raiding party. Other games, like [Celeste](<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celeste_(video_game)>), offered a story of anxiety, challenge depression, friendship, despair, and hope - a story that, above all, told the player that trying is already a lot. While we will explore how to efficiently represent some examples in the following article of these series, the list is as varied as it is invigorating: [Gris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gris), [That Dragon, Cancer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_Dragon,_Cancer), [Omori](<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omori_(video_game)>), [Night in the Woods](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_in_the_Woods), [Spiritfarer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritfarer), or [The Beginner's Guide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beginner%27s_Guide) are just a few indie options approaching trauma, loss, and mental illness through respectful and delicate perspectives.
 
 ![An alphabetical rune from Journey.](./journey-symbol-07.png)
 
 Undoubtedly, the industry is willing to openly discuss mental health, and that is because it _genuinely_ needs to express itself more maturely and solidly. Taking back the interview with Hotline Miami's creators, one of the most significant excerpts of it comes right after highlighting that indie developers indeed face a very specific brand of pressure, much of it internal. What brings hope to the table, however, is captured in a simple statement, which reads: "They're willing to talk about it, that's the most important thing", according to one of the interviewed members. That's key.
 
-## Kapitel 4: Gestaltzerfall
+### Kapitel 4: Gestaltzerfall
 
 Identifying and structuring meaningful change is hard. Just like we analyzed before, developing video games often translates into an extreme focus on productivity, leading to workplace stress, a lack of work-life balance, burnout, turnovers, and so on. In this sector, in contrast to the software or start-up industry's discourse, indie success is very rarely defined in terms of growing a studio in scale or profit. Rather, success is linked with the capacity to "keep on keeping on", which is simultaneously challenging and psychologically demolishing. Devastating. Considering this, it is natural that if there are no organizational structures nor institutions efficiently supporting the pillars of their companies (this is, their workers), then such support must be sought in the artistic artifacts themselves, as they indeed may work as platforms giving voice to what seemed to be a silent reality. For those works to succeed in complete terms, however, the paper of the public plays an essential part, too.