The Unsatisfied Mind: Grappling With Depression in Game Development

[Music] thank you for that lovely [Music] intro hey everyone thanks for coming um all right we've only got half an hour so let's get into it I'm Joshua bogs and I'm a game designer and director prior to framed I've been in the industry for about 8 years now some of the time spent in AAA and some of it at various other Studios um I've been independent for about four of them now um I've been lucky enough to uh receive a bunch of awards or accolades um but that's not all there really is to me I'm also an attention seeker and this talk is kind of about how that addiction for approval and recognition ultimately damaged significant parts of my life um I'm going to try and keep it together so forgive me if um things get

a little bit dark but um yeah this talk is basically for those that may be going through something similar or for those who can see someone they care about doing something similar and they that they just can't recognize it okay uh so you don't if you don't know what framed is framed is a Noir puzzle game we rearrange panels of a comic book to change the outcome of the story um we've managed to um achieve a fair amount a lot of stuff that that i' kind of put on my bucket list of whatever I wanted to do in life um and we managed to get a lot of attention um yeah so why did I do this like what was my goal um to be honest I don't really think I'm alone in this um I was just really unsatisfied with my life I didn't really grow up in the best family and I was pretty much just told consistently that I could achieve anything

um and hindsight this is clearly biased and privileged but that upbringing that desire to be more than what I came from never really went away um so no matter what relationships or achievements I had in my life I was still unsatisfied I always needed more I needed to fill that hole in my life I needed to be like relevant to be remarkable um and it kind of all started like when I was my teens I used do this little thing called the deathbed experiment and it's basically just like you know we don't like to talk about death a lot but um you can use it in a really powerful way to make important decis decisions about your life um and the way it kind of works is you just fully imagine yourself on your deathbed looking back on your life you know like what are you proud of what hasn't happened yet what's meaningful to you so when I imagine this like I I just imagin myself needing to leave some sort

of Legacy um I want to be remembered for pushing the medium forward that we all love so much um so I threw myself into my work and um did I achieve what I set up to do yeah I I I did I did take off everything on that list um I had every ma major festival and took home or was nominated for almost every award going on the circuit but did that make me happy at all not at all and it's because I wasn't the I wasn't getting the recognition I felt to deserve or more importantly it felt that I wasn't getting the recognition that I felt I deserved I felt my whole life was leading to this and I was going to achieve it no matter what I needed more I was getting praise that I needed but I just wasn't satisfied with it so rewind just really slightly um we first flew to Japan um and submitted to

igf China and to your A game show and that was kind of like the beginning of the addiction I guess um but should have been a Bru and confidence became the start of an addiction an addiction to approval and external validation and attention I thought I was prepared for it but I didn't really realize that the destination had changed it was no longer like a ride to the top it was a ride into hell and I was hooked I was finally being recognized ized by people I'd respected and looked up to for so long and you can see the signs of it in the previous slides and if you saw my other talk as well that focus on Awards all the time you know I lie to myself when I say that it's all for the PR but that's not really what it's for I want people to see how good we are well I guess how good I am I I need the recognition the the validation the attention I need to be relevant

and I I wanted to be the next big thing and I wanted that by any means necessary the goal originally came from a place of you know good intentions to you know be respected but you know they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions ultimately like many artists I just want to be known and respected for what I create I want to build a legacy that's what I need I need to be remembered when I'm gone I don't feel I'm alone in that we all feel that we need to leave some part of us on this earth when we're gone and I confuse that with Fame and I imagine that's a significant reason we all create if you're really honest with yourself why why do you create games Once Upon a Time Fame was sort of bestowed on those who earned it you know for saving lives or heroic Deeds today Fame is more of a form of currency it's a social currency

and like any form of currency it distinguishes the classes of people defines the class of its social media citizens it defines who is influence who is power who will be listened to and we're addicted to it and you can see this in almost every post someone makes their features themselves or tweets curated specifically to get as many likes or retweets as possible just sort of Everyone crying out to be noticed we are basically a generation of creators crying out to approval for our parents and I did it because I felt that validation would fill me with some sense of satisfaction and one thing about perceived success is that it always seems greater from the outside than it is on the inside on the inside all you can think about is how you're not doing enough you put on that facade that you're happy and satisfi side you look

in the mirror and you put on the mask that happy face that you need to greet everyone with that friendly demeanor you put it on because without it you you just won't succeed you tell yourself it's for the pr hoping that someone will believe it but at the same time the expectations of yourself and your teammates at this point become unrealistic you chastise yourself for not being a front page everywhere for not doing more you fool yourself into this childish fallacy that if you just try harder you can achieve anything that everything is in your control so you continue you continue to push yourself you continue to lie to yourself that it's for the game that it's for PR but deep down you know what it's really for you know the real reason you're projecting your own unrealistic expectations onto

others why you've pushed everything else in your life to the side the real reason your game is so awarded prior to release why you've got a spot on the Silver Screen before the main film rolls and why you've lost sight of your values why you need another drink it's not because you worked hard for it it's definitely not because you deserve the success either it's because you're an addict but it doesn't really matter cuz all you can think about is that next head of validation when people talk of cost they they often talk about the time they spent building a company or you know a certain product or a game or anything really they talk about the dinners they missed and that is valid that it is a valid sacrifice but for a lot of like entrepreneurs and um people who really throw themselves into their work it's

not really what they're talking about what people really mean when they talk about what they gave up to ensure they succeeded what they're really talking about is that they sacrificed themselves they lost sight of those values that made them who they were what they held themselves up to what they hoped to pass on to others they gave them up to succeed to take that goal off their list and I did the same I turned my back on everything that that made me strong my skills I discarded more relevant ones my values I threw away so that I could become someone who can maybe fulfill that dissatisfaction and emptiness I hav in here and this is your brain on attention you

submit to every show you can knowing that no matter what happens you can only possibly feel worse if you win or recognize and you get your hit and you manage to maintain your feeling of normaly if you don't get if you don't though if you don't get mentioned at all you crash you're flooded with feelings of inadequacy insecurity and failure and the culture in our scene breeds this the independent scene does breed this everyone is congratulated you and reaffirming that what you're doing must be right so you continue you fall deeper into that vicious cycle and IND these scenes across many art forms are breeding grounds for this kind of behavior we're told it's necessary to succeed you know how will we get people to give us money for our work they don't know who we are we get Fame confused Fame does not be come before virtue Fame does not get bestowed before success there's a really good quote um by uh

this person called Daniel Borstein about it and he says the celebrity is a person who is known for their well-known they are neither good nor bad great nor Petty they are the human pseudo event and we like to think that as artists we're complicated you know we're deep but we're really not we're the kids screaming for more attention we are driven by feelings of inadequacy desire for relevance we are rewarded for never maturing and we're paid to indulge in now habit and myself I was very guilty of this I trembled over others to reach the top lots of I guess you could call allies and enemies or acquaintances and colleagues but friends real friends not so many some of us are friends yes some of us are very good good friends some of

you in this room but to many people you're an asset utility to help them Reach the top it's labeled as business or hustling but when people use these terms in a non- business sense when they apply them to you know friends getting together it highlights their intentions it highlights the goals and values and more than anything it highlights how they see themselves and why do they do this well they're addicted too they need that headit of validation because they're not going to get it from themselves they need to move up the ladder to achieve what they're truly after and what they're after is that attention and I did this too I very guilty of that and I've probably done this a lot worse than many others have so in the fall of 2014 FR was finished and I sacrificed so much for this and in the end like despite everything we achieved despite achieving

virtually everything I'd set up to do I still felt empty it still meant nothing my whole life had been leading up to what I thought would bring me happiness but it just didn't I felt worse than ever in fact I kind of just lost my mind I lost some of the closest people around me you know I neglected friendships and deserted family members and they needed me because I needed to get that fixed for myself I neglected all of my relationships but really before all of that I deserted myself I changed you know not for the better I became something I never wanted to become and in doing that I just ended up losing or giving up everything else around me I sacrifice what makes me who I am and there are times I wish I could take it back I wish I treated and valued

those around me better than I did I wish I had the strength and insight to see what I was doing to myself and those around me so with Jack and Jimmy by my side I kind of soon followed what was a year-long downward spiral of self-destruction it's filled by denial anger resentment regret and an unhealthy dose of alcohol I drank literally every day it's not an exaggeration from Shipping till the end of 2015 I drank literally every single day and I blamed everyone everyone else but me you know I blamed my parents for not staying together I blamed my friends for needing me as much as they did I blame my teammates for not living up to my

unrealistic expectations I blame those that had my back for not noticing what was really going [Applause] on I wish I saw my family more was it all worth it wasn't did everything achieve or satisfy what I needed to achieve no it didn't didn't achieve what I needed because what was I really seeking to achieve you know you can say it was the awards or the respect but like I said it's the validation the attention things that no matter how much you receive will never be enough the issue with satisfaction oh sorry the issue was that satisfaction was not tied to my internal sense of values anymore but to external validation and

attention and it's really easy for us to fall into that trap as creators cuz that's the only obje of measurement we really have so would I change anything of course you know I sacrifice myself what I held dear the things that got me to where I was my values for success I threw away my sense of self so that the public image of Joshua bogs would appear greater than it really was and it worked for a little while I felt good in the beginning I was getting more gratification by being associated with particular people and using them to further my own means as well and it's really bad say I I knew exactly what I was

doing if you saw my previous talk at all you maybe would have known that I'm quite good at reading social systems and people inside them so with all that said you know how did I get out how did I turn it around well as I began to lose myself my insight in myself my understanding of who I was changed dramatically lots of running away from my problems leaving cities and a lot of drinking helped for a little while at least but a year later I'm kind of happy to finally say that I have found some sense of happiness in my life I've never really sought happiness so I've only ever stried for success but that Pursuit had destroyed me and I was still unsatisfied particular people who stood by me helped me a lot and a lot of acceptance of what I done wrong and lots

of therapy have brought a greater understanding about myself and it's really hard to accept help particularly you know with mental issues because your mind is the problem and as creators it's really hard for us to understand that because we trust those instincts so passionately right they are what make us great at what we do but it also lies to us shopau once said an artist never is happy but spends their whole life in striving after something which they think will make them so they seldom attain their goal and when they do it is only to be disappointed they are mostly Shipwrecked in the end and come into Harbor with Mast and rigging gone I remember when I was at EA um right there was there was someone there who was leaving um who I really looked up to and I asked him they were leaving like why were they giving up on their

dream they were leaving the games industry all together and they said something that I find I think more and more about and it's he said the difference between dreams and reality is that a dream can't really be lived right if it can be lived it's too narrow and if it can't it shouldn't be a goal rather than dream you should wake up and build a life that really fulfills you and a dream is Just an Illusion don't ever tell people you are living the dream all it proves is that your dreams are shallow being a superstar or Indie sensation doesn't mean a God damn thing when you have nothing left so like I said after being in the darkest and lowest point of my life for a year I sought help no person is an island and if my issues are stemming due to my need for approval of others I'm also going to need the help of others to get up too I'm going to state right now also that if you going through this yourself

please seek help if you notice someone on your team or a friend going down this path whose goal is set to becoming famous or acclaimed please Point them towards the talk or get them help tell them that you know they don't those Awards don't mean anything because if it's unreasonable to judge someone poorly based off of their lack of achievements stands to reason that you should shouldn't also judge someone highly based off their achievements right when you Embrace this idea goals kind of become meaningless so rather than set goals set what I like to call an UNG goal and an UNG goal is really just a goal that's not really a goal it's more of a value goals are a way to measure our achievements measure our values our values stick with us and represent us as people but the only way we can really measure that as creators is by achieving

goals the problem is however that it's very easy to replace your values with your goals you hear about this all the time only in different language you hear about selling out losing yourself corrupt achieving goals doesn't prove or disprove your value as a person and as to say it doesn't really measure your value or your worth as a person values can't be achieved or ticked off they can only be lived and really we all just want to be remembered for our values um I don't want to be remember for my achievements anymore I want to be respected as a person and I want to be a loving and caring person to those around me I don't want to make games for fame or attention or anything so shortlived I I want to make games to share a part of myself with everyone to speak and listen to humanity and the generations to come who will be here when we're not

so one thing I kind of learned in in therapy recently um was different to the deathbed experiment the deathbed experiment was focused a lot on your own bubble your own internal measurements on goals and achievements other people and the meaningful relationships in your life are never really considered the funeral experiment is just slightly different it just asks what will you loved ones say about you at your funeral and it's different because the funeral the funeral experiment is based on character it asks what lasting Mark you will leave on those around you did you make anyone's life better did you help people are you a good person it asks how you will really be remembered interestingly this happened to me kind of out of the blue um so just in case you don't know um kajima at some point at the end of 2014 name framed his game of the year and for

me it meant a lot um this was the one person who kind of like inspired me you know as a kid to make games to try and push things forward to be authentic in what I create and whose dedication and focus shape the values that would become me as a person so to have to have that sort of connection and have your career come full circle in that way it was something that I finally felt hopeful about it reminded me that of my core values again made me finally not want to kill myself really it was more important than any kind of flal or any award nomination I wouldn't give it up for anything so should you really chase your

dreams it's kind of a trick question cuz what are your dreams really if we really look inside ourselves as independent creators or artists no matter whether you're independent or not really I'm going to wager that our dreams are to be very similar to things that I sought we want respect we want validation and acknowledgement from people which is really kind of just other words for fame the desire to be remembered however to achieve those goals you need to become a more public figure by doing so that changes you from someone with a private set of values to a public Persona suddenly everyone feels they have the right to comment or critique or praise your decisions and achievements this changes your goals it changes you feels good to have that attention and so by extension your goals no longer match your internal values when you achieve those goals no

satisfaction is gained anymore it's just aead of validation and tiing something off an arbitrary list so was it all worth it and again no it wasn't worth it at all did I achieve everything I sought after initially yeah I did but didn't it make me happy just not at all cuz taking a goal off your list will never bring you real satisfaction would you still seek it if social media wasn't as big as it was I'm betting the desire wouldn't be so large if we rewinded time 10 years which leaves us with that one question again why do we seek it out and again my answer to that is for fame and attention social relevance and respect among those peers that we look up to

and I don't know if I'll ever properly be able to forgive myself for feeling that way and for what I kind of sacrificed for being so resentful and hateful of other people who were really just there to support me I don't know if I'll ever really reclaim that youthful hope [Music] again but maybe all isn't lost maybe it can make it worth it if maybe it can make it mean something if there's some way to warn others to really give meaning to what IID lost so was it all worth it well if it helps anyone here today I'd say it is thank you [Applause]

[Music] [Applause] um I don't know if we have time for questions minut two minutes if anyone asks questions otherwise we don't need to [Laughter] I'm wondering if your experience or your addiction um affected how you saw other uh independent developers if you saw them more as competition or as Idols you know when you're you know when other people are getting Awards and things like that yes the question was how did that addiction affect how I saw other people right um and yeah it definitely did taint things

um uh not necessarily like you know they want something and I didn't but more just you look up to them and you sort of uh are trying to constantly do better to try and be remembered and and that does cause a sort of negative um yeah influence on you so yes it does thank you um hi uh you said uh if you um are going through this too that you should uh get help and I was wondering if you could elaborate like maybe um if you mean like uh therapy and if so uh a specific kind of therapy um I can't really like give out medical advice or anything but um and everyone's kind of different so just um I mean even if you just start by telling people around you um you know what you're going through and that's one of the great things about this community is um like I would never give this talk anywhere else I give it

here because I know that we're all a community and we can all help each other um so it's not necessarily like any specific kind of therapy it's just you know being able to actually like voice that and and have other people support you yeah thank you uh when you said you kind of lost your sense of self and your values how did you reconnect with yourself and kind of figure find yourself again yeah I think um stopping drinking is a good one uh yeah I mean um alcohol like for some people makes them like further depressed and it definitely did that to me um but I think it was just a lot of um like accepting what I had done helped a lot in that um and I I did seek therapy which has only just kind of now slowly made me feel like I can go on again and

thanks hi um I don't really have a question but more just wanted to say thank you for giving this talk I really applaud you for being able to use the platform that you achieved through framed to talk about this which I think is something that's Universal to everyone who has a natural drive and ambition so I can imagine that this was tough to do and thank you so much for speaking about this thank you me a lot yeah I think that's it sorry all