Why Care About Wholesome Games Anyway?

Thank you everyone for coming today. This is why care about wholesome games anyway. Uh before we get started, I was asked to uh ask everyone to silence your phones. Uh I'm very clumsy, so if something goes off, I'll probably be startled and fall off the stage, so please keep that in mind. Uh today we're talking about wholesome games. It's a genre of games that's grown a lot in the past few years, but maybe isn't the most clearly defined or best understood yet. Um so, we're going to be trying to uh shine some light on both of those things today. My name's James Tillman. I've been working in games for about 8 years. Currently, I'm working on a game where you run a sushi restaurant and you play as a cute little robot. Uh it's called Rolling Hills, and I'll be the moderator for today's discussion.

Our first panelist is Jenny Windom. She's from Portland, Oregon. She's a producer at Softnotweek, a senior influencer manager at Kepler Interactive, and she's a streamer who some of you may recognize as the host of the annual Wholesome Direct Showcase. Next up, we have the very beautiful and very talented Matthew Taylor. He's the founder of the Wholesome Games organization. Uh he started the Wholesome Direct Showcase, and currently he's the creative director at Catch and Release working with me on Rolling Hills. He gets it, too. And finally, uh this one will need no applause queue. This is uh on the end here is Victoria Tran. She's the community director at

Innersloth. She's worked on hit games like Among Us and Unpacking. She was part of the Forbes 30 under 30. You've seen her as a co-host of Wholesome Direct, and she's most importantly the only member of this panel who's ever appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Uh now, one thing that I wanted to mention before we get started is uh you probably noticed from the introductions that all of us are involved with an organization called Wholesome Games. Um and today we're talking about a genre called Wholesome Games. We're not here to promote Wholesome Games or Wholesome Direct or anything like that. We just have had the benefit of uh front row seats to this genre because we've of our work with Wholesome Direct. Uh and we want to share some of the data we've gleaned from that and let you draw your own conclusions about it. Um so, with that in mind, uh any time today that I'm talking about

Wholesome Games, the organization, the capital W Wholesome Games, I will do my best to call that out and draw attention to that distinction. Uh otherwise, you can assume we're talking about the genre. Uh finally, I'm going to slip into the shadows very soon, so we can keep the spotlight on our panelists. Sorry if I hit you today, Jenny. Um Yeah. Um but I just wanted to mention my role as moderator, I feel is to be your voice on this stage. Um not everyone here is an expert on Wholesome Games already. Um I've been involved with the organization for a while now, so I like to think that I am. Um but I'm going to try to forget everything I know about that and approach this as someone who maybe came here because they just saw it on the schedule and thought it was interesting or has heard about Wholesome Games in a tweet or something like that. Uh and with that in mind, I think the best place to begin is what are Wholesome Games?

That's a lovely and big question to kick it off with. Um I think there are three words and concepts I usually go back to every time I refer to Wholesome Games. Um they're titles that often offer compassion, comfort, and coziness to player through elements like the narrative, the gameplay mechanics, art and sound, and so on. And what's really interesting to me personally is while some of these can be really more clearly defined and articulated, a lot of what's cool about Wholesome Games to me is the amount of subjectivity that it provides um because not the same the these same things aren't cozy for everybody. Um and I did want to say there's a sort of a synon- what is it? Synonym that we're using between cozy and wholesome. I think if you really want to nerd out with me, I will go into why I think there are differences between the concepts of coziness and the concept of wholesomeness, partially because I think Wholesome Games can address sometimes

uncozy topics in a really um gentle and compassionate manner, but we can we can talk about that later. Um but we'll use it pretty synonymously, I feel like for this panel. Matthew, a lot of the discussion of Wholesome Games comes from or traces back to a Twitter account that you started. Um could you give us any when Well, here are a few of the games that you've curated on that Twitter account. Uh could you give us a little insight into why you choose games like these? First of all, pardon the earthquake happening next door. Uh well, they're great games. I mean, first and foremost, there's not a game up here I wouldn't recommend just as a game. Uh the mechanics are all very different, but I think they're united by a feeling, right? That they allow players to do good and feel good. Uh and being united by a feeling is really the core of what Wholesome Games has always been about. It's like a genre that's not about a particular mechanic, but it's about a feeling. So, I think all these

games are united by a feeling, and if you play them, I think you'll you'll feel that. How do you think uh your curation has impacted how other people think about Wholesome Games? Uh I I hope it gives people a baseline to start with. Like, I don't want to define the conversation, but if we can start that conversation, that would make me really happy. So, like if you look at the Wholesome Games Twitter or watch Wholesome Direct or something like that, you're going to have like a vocabulary instantly, I think, to talk about this kind of stuff. So, I hope at the very least it's given people a baseline. Jenny mentioned cozy games as a term. Um did you consider any other names when you were creating that Twitter account uh that started it? Um is cozy games something that entered your mind? It didn't at the time. I I know a lot of people are using that term really well and really descriptively now, but I feel like at the time I just thought wholesome was a little more inclusive. Like, I feel like cozy is one type of feeling that I'm describing. And I think

wholesome can contain a lot more than that. Like, I know it's not a perfect term. I know um there are a lot of people who have feelings about it, but I feel like it's really simple and evocative, which is what you need when you're creating something like this. Victoria, um you've been a professional in the games industry for a while now, and you're the newest member of Wholesome Games the organization. So, I just wanted to ask you uh what was your first impression of Wholesome Games? Like, when you encountered this term, what went through your mind? Yeah, I thought, "Oh, jeez." Sorry. I was like, "Damn, that's my voice." Um yeah, I thought I thought it was really cool, and I'm not going to lie, the one of the first things I saw was the uh absolute discourse behind Wholesome Games, so that was really interesting. And what do you what do you mean by the discourse? Yeah, I think and I totally get it and for a lot of a lot of reasons, um I think I've seen that there have been a lot of critique of the word wholesome and kind of it's used to maybe skirt

around accountability and or deeper subjects kind of embedded within uh the game space. Hm. So, is toxic positivity a concern when dealing with something like a a term like wholesome? Yeah, I really think so. I think terms like wholesome uh have to be treated with a lot of respect as a creator and honestly as a marketer um because it does risk losing a lot of like trust and goodwill with the kind of genre that comes with it. Um so, especially with the audience, right? Like, they're usually expecting some sort of um manner and some sort of values, I think, behind it. And I think kind of similar to how you can see an oil company that uses like, you know, like, "Oh, it's green, and here's a leaf, and you know, we're actually saving the environment." I hope there are no like oil companies here. Um I if you want to fight, we can do that outside. I heard that I'm against destroying the environment.

Wow. Strong words. I know, but um but yeah, so that's why it's like it's one of those things where it's like using the kind of branding and all that kind of thing needs to be really care we need to be really careful with it because I think a lot of we could possibly use it to skirt a lot of like thoughtlessness or um something offensive and really seeks to use the wholesome branding to, I think, skirt criticism and exploit an audience. Uh and I think it is really difficult though because as we've all talked about, like, we're not here to really define what wholesome is, and wholesome is a more subjecting and like feelings-based term rather than something like racing or FPS, where it has to be a very certain thing before you are like, "Okay, like, yeah, that's definitely a racing game." Um so, yeah, I think that's just something that we need to keep in mind when we talk about wholesome, uh and kind of where I think a lot of critique comes from. Yeah, that that question of what makes a game wholesome comes up again and again and there are themes that emerge and like I said a few

engage with like the Wholesome Direct and stuff like that, you'll probably see some things, but I just think it devalues the conversation to think that there's going to be like this algorithmic answer to what is a wholesome game. I just don't think that's coming and even if it were, I don't know that I'm interested in it. It sounds like you don't want to define exactly what a wholesome game can be. Basically. Okay. Um No answer, your honor. Well, but what's really interesting and I want to just pop in. Um What's really cool is using terms like casual and wholesome. Um I feel like because they're often dismissive classifications for games. Um allowing it to be a little bit more open and allowing people to come in and make it what it can be to themselves allows more people to embrace like a new style or a new way to play. Um so it's really exciting to see the ways folks have taken on the definition and defining it for themselves, but also um coming to a really shared understanding. I feel like people who are in the community do have this sense of understanding together even though it is

this sort of a amorphous cozy blob, you know. Cozy blob? Yeah. That's another name I considered. Yep. Cozy blob games. What Well, I mean with that ambiguity in mind, um Matthew for instance with the Twitter account, what do you say to a developer who submits a game for your consideration that doesn't fit your definition because even if you don't want to define it for others, you certainly have to have a working definition for yourself? I think you know, as a developer, I just do what I would want which is like really simple and honest feedback. Um Sometimes you see a game that's great, it's not ready yet for a spotlight. And sometimes you see something that is just awesome, but it's not a good fit for our audience or what I think our audience is. Um and in that case, it's not going to benefit anyone to feature that game. So I just try to be honest. Uh but I think everyone in this room knows that there are great games that aren't wholesome. So it's not an indicator of the quality of the game.

I want to seize on a word that you used, which is audience. Um when we talk about the wholesome games community or the audience for wholesome games, who exactly are we talking about? Is that something you can go into a little more detail for us? Yeah. Um what's really cool is seeing just first of all the expanse and the increase of people who are showing an interest in this type of game, whether it's players, influencers, developers, publishers. It's been wonderful to see. Um We see people across platforms like Twitch, Discord, YouTube, TikTok. Um I have a few numbers I'm just going to throw out to you all. Um when looking at TikTok, you can see the hashtag cozy games has over 753.4 million views current like as of 2 weeks ago. Um wholesome games hashtag has 195.1 million views. And what's great is we see streamers and influencers taking on um this as the genre of choice that they

are completely dedicated to featuring these types of games and fostering a community with this sort of shared sense of value. Um what's also really exciting is that demographically we've found that um just looking at the types of streamers and creators and players who engage with these games represent a wider swath of demographics typically not seen and thought of as traditional gamer. So if you look at like the top 50 creators on Twitch or YouTube, they are predominantly white and male presenting, but if you look at the top cozy and wholesome creators, they represent a wider variety of underrepresented groups, which is really cool. Yeah, for sure. And just to like build off of Jenny's demographic data, I did want to caveat that I don't think the lack of participation in more like vi- uh violent games is not like a direct product of gender or anything. It's not like, "Oh, Yeah. boy shooting game.

All right, you you're assigned a shooting game. But rather it's basically the socialization of what's acceptable um for people to play. So through things like marketing, through media, like you know, history behind all of it, design choices, advertising, that sort of thing. Um and I don't really want to like preach to the choir necessarily since I'm sure if you're listening to this, you have like some sort of interest in wholesome games and all that kind of thing. Um and you probably have some sort of open mind towards it. Uh but in general, especially I think with the public and like outside of the Twittersphere, outside of like the social media bubble, uh we can see a lot of misconceptions when it comes to what's cool or acceptable or real games that gamers play. And I feel like we've had this discussion numerous times, yet somehow we're still here, but okay, that's fine. Um Pull out the bingo card. bingo card of what's a real game. Um but I would do want to say that even like mainstream sources, we are seeing a lot of more like people pick it up. Uh and things like uh the Financial Times wrote

an article called "Why Gamers Are Hugging Animals Rather Than Fragging Enemies" uh that talks about how wholesome games that avoid violence are rising in popularity and reaching new audiences. And then gamesindustry.biz themselves wrote about how E3 2021 uh the 33% of games at E3 2021 and Summer Games Fest uh were actually non-violent thanks to a lot of indies. So good job, indies. Yay. Now thinking about those social media numbers and the views for wholesome games, the discussion around wholesome games, I have to ask like the numbers can be impressive, but people don't always vote with their wallets. Uh are wholesome games actually financially viable or is this just a feel-good fad? Well, I think you're going to have to define success, right? Because like if we Everybody in this room knows Animal Crossing and Stardew like games that kind of changed the world and changed the industry in a lot of ways. Uh but if we define success as less than

a mega hit, which I don't know how many of us are expecting that kind of success. Uh like generally I'm ready. Awesome. You're ready for the mega hit? Like positive reviews and enough money to make your next game, like there are a lot of examples of success if you have more reasonable expectations and it examples of success in this space. Yeah, definitely. Um and there are so many that aren't I think just farming sims. I think like a lot of us when we talk about wholesome games, a lot of the times like the first successful game we can think of is a farming sim, which is great. I personally love farming sims. Uh but I do want to kind of highlight other games that aren't necessarily farming sims that have done really well just to kind of give you a breadth of the genres that are successful within um wholesome games. Um There's Bear and Breakfast, obviously. A Short Hike, Dorfromantik. And then because I know we all love numbers and being read out uh numbers, I have a list of numbers I'm going to give you right now. All right. I know, just just prepare yourselves.

It's it's going to blow you away. I tried to pitch that. Okay. But first, we have Unpacking, uh an organizational puzzle game that sold 100k units in 10 in the first 10 days and within a year uh hit 1 million units sold worldwide. Very exciting. Second is Spiritfarer, a management sim management game about dying. Uh this also sort of has farming in it, I suppose, but it also has a lot of other things. So I'm adding this in. Uh it came out in August 2020 and then they hit 1 million sales in December 2021. Uh Coffee Talk, a visual novel, made 550k USD in gross revenue in less than a month following its release. We have Slime Rancher, a first-person sandbox game. This sold over 5 million units and has spawned an incredibly successful uh sequel, Slime Rancher 2, which I'm obsessed with. Uh this sold over 100k copies in 24 hours in early access. And the last thing I will throw at you is The Wandering Village, which is a city-building sim, and this sold over 150 copy 150k copies with within 1

month in early access. So like the entire point of me listing this off is to just be like wow, it sells. Amazing. So there are numerous examples of commercial and critical success to be had in the game genre. Uh and still a lot of content and themes to be explored and the audience is honestly really hungry for it. I am also really hungry for it. I'm just saying if you want to make a really nice cooking game, I'm lining up. I'm right there. Yeah. You've already got one sale. Now a lot of the games that you mentioned were featured in Wholesome Direct. We're not here to like plug that showcase, but uh is there anything you can tell me about the the impact of these targeted showcases on wholesome games and their financial success? Yeah, definitely. I think what's really cool um is that showcases just in general provide this um ability for developers and publishers to kind of

get a gauge of success and sort of start seeing what reception is like for their title in specific moments in time. And so as Victoria said, moments like E3, Summer Game Fest, um they're proving points for games to be able to get in front of those audiences. And what's interesting is a lot of the more traditional game shows have been catered towards the traditional quote gamer. Um and so what's been exciting is just showcases like the Wholesome Direct as well as There's a Paper Mario Showcase, a Mother Direct, a you know, a PS1 horror title showcase. There's so many that are cropping up that address specific hungers and needs and desires of audiences. And so to answer your question, the Wholesome Direct um is a showcase that cropped up to meet the needs of a specific audience looking for a specific type of game. And for context, um we've gotten over 3 million views excluding co-streamers. And what's really exciting is um there has been a

dramatic wish list increase for participating titles. So, in 2021, um 22% of games saw at least a 10K wish list increase. Um and this was regardless of whether they had maybe a 15-second spot in like a sizzle reel or they had a larger feature. And so, it was really exciting just from just us seeing the showcase and seeing the impact is it's not necessarily the duration, but it's just finding the audience that really resonates with what you want to show them. That was really exciting. Um and I also, just really quick, before you say I also want to highlight wholesome isn't the only showcase that's even doing like wholesome cozy indies. Uh there's so many showcases like The Mix, they had a showcase even last night. Um I'm like, what was was it last night? What's time? Um They had a The Mix is wonderful. Um the Nintendo Indie Directs do an incredible job of showcasing wholesome titles. Uh Day of the Devs, which is also here, so

you can check out some of really great games there. So, what's neat is seeing again it's not just us doing it, but it's all of these showcases finding the the right games and the right audience for it. I feel like we've answered a lot of technical questions. We've listed a lot of numbers. Um we've talked about who's talking about wholesome games, who's playing wholesome games. Uh beyond that, why should we care? Like money isn't I'm sorry for saying this at GDC, but money isn't the only thing, right? I'm out. Bye. Sorry, Victoria's just finding this out for the first time. I'm revoking your badge. Um yeah, why should we care? I mean what I love personally, just is that we we talked a little bit about how it's expanded the definition of what it even means to be in this industry as a player, as a developer. Um it's really exciting to see people more and more

consider themselves as I feel like it's a dirty word, but like I play games or I'm a gamer. Um it's it's not it's becoming more and more acceptable for more people. Um I forgot to say this earlier. I did say one more number. I want to say one more. Um what's interesting is like with the Wholesome Direct, we've seen about like 77% of our audience is identifies as women and that's a little bit out of the norm, I would say for a lot of traditional again showcases. And so, it's really exciting to see just a more nuanced demographic of players, a new nuanced industry where more people are creating games and more stories are being told. Um and like unpacking boxes or guiding people into the afterlife, it's great. Uh in addition to the more diverse player base, could you talk about the diversity of the developers? Yeah, so what's really interesting I am the numbers person of the Let's pull out the calculator. Um no, about half of the teams in the Wholesome

Direct, um we we take surveys after the direct to just see, you know, how how we're doing and what sort of the makeup is and half of the teams in the direct included at least one BIPOC core developer, not including contractors or interns. 79% included at least one woman core developer and 37% included at least one non-binary developer. So. Cool. Did you were you aware like when when curating games for the direct, were you aware that you were picking these diverse teams and their games for this or was was that a consideration coming into it? I think it it came about naturally kind of due to the kinds of games that we curated, um but also due to the specific rules that we have uh protecting a lot of marginalized individuals um and banning hatred and bigotry from the direct itself. Um and that care kind of follows through, I think, in the diversity of the

developers who submit their game and were showcased in the direct. Um I know many of the games are quite vulnerable when it comes to wholesome games, like a lot of it is tied to identity and that is really important and knowing kind of what you're getting into is a really important thing that you want to make sure developers are aware of. And I do think it is a story about who actually gets to be a part of showcases in general. Um Wholesome Direct, for example, has like a free, open, public submission process. Uh you don't need to know one of us in order to be even able to submit. And as someone who has seen a lot of showcases and been a part of them, sometimes you do actually just need to know someone in order to even be considered or to have your email read, which is sad, I will say. Um and you don't need a publisher or third-party platform. Like you don't need that one contact to somehow get to us or whatever. Um so, whether you're just straight out of college, um an established indie or triple-A group,

there is a chance to be featured in Wholesome Direct, um which explains, I think, why a lot of underrepresented groups show up in our numbers. So, money, network, and geography, especially, can be a huge gatekeeper. Um so, I'm glad that there are other showcases as well who allow for like this more free submission process, which is really nice. And again, this isn't an advertisement for our showcase. Um it's just something to consider, I think, as an industry of who we let in and who actually gets the opportunities to do these kinds of things. Yeah. I want to switch gears a little bit, but I think this still falls under the umbrella of why care about wholesome games, but a question I hear a lot about games as escapism in general, but but especially in with wholesome games, I think is it's the world we live in is a violent and scary and dangerous place. With that in mind, um are wholesome stories dishonest? Like is this something that we need or is it um deflecting or hiding from some of the

darker realities of the world? Yeah. Um as a person whose day job is to promote a game about murder and gaslighting I did want to say that there is, I think, a lot of positivity and reflection in wholesome games that we need in the world. Uh I know the industry and I do this 100% all the time. Uh we talk about spite fueling us, which is valid and I respect that. Uh but honestly, I do think that it can make us run out of fumes quite quickly uh if we aren't also like caring and loving the art form and the developers that we work with. So, the Wholesome Games team has said this before, but I'm stealing it. So, I'm going to sound real smart, but uh sometimes it's a radical act to make dark or upsetting art and sometimes it's radical to make hopeful art in times of adversity. Mat I agree.

I deserve Good words. Yep. Uh Matthew, you're a game designer. Something I wanted to ask you about is the constraints associated with making a wholesome game. Like do you feel handcuffed by removing all these verbs that may be a little more violent or upsetting from your toolbox? mean, I think creative limitations like that can force a lot of creativity, right? And it it always goes back to that feeling first versus mechanic first kind of idea. Like if you're writing a song and you start with lyrics, you're going to end up with a different song than if you start with chords or something. So, like it gets you to a different place. Um Ooblets is a really great example. I always love to use them because they start making a game that's really cute about farming these cute creatures and then the default verb that they kind of land on is, well, we'll make it like Pokémon, so these creatures are going to fight each other. And then they find their audience and start like interacting with those people a little bit and everyone starts to realize, oh, this doesn't make much sense. Like why

would we want these cute creatures that we've literally plucked from the earth, you know, to fight each other? That doesn't make much sense. So, then they go back to the drawing board, they come back with dance battles where the Ooblets are like cutely battling against each other in a dance battle and see who has more hype from their moves. And that got them something like infinitely more creative, I think. So, like that's an example of the genre or at least kind of listening to your audience working for you and giving you something more unique that's better suited to your game. Is that unique to wholesome games as a genre? No, no, I mean, like I think Jenny did a good job earlier mentioning some other like showcases and stuff that are doing it, but like Haunted PS1 Demo Disc I really like as another example that, you know, they're they're instituting like technical limitations, right? Like you're the kind of graphics you can make and you still get these super creative things out of that. So, some limitations are bad, some like we don't want to be limited by, you know,

our budget or whatever, but I don't think it's a bad thing to say, I want to evoke this feeling out of the player, how do I get there? Like that's a different path to walk than saying, what's a cool mechanic to play with? So, you're just going to end up with a different game and I think that can spur a lot of creativity. Yeah, what's kind of cool, um we we talk about this a lot cuz again, we just talk about this topic a lot. Um but what I really love about this this sort of genre and designing for it is it does allow um and encourage folks who are creating these games to find sort of almost the simple things in life and really expand upon them. So, so many of the games that were listed up on the slide earlier, they all took really mundane tasks or very slice-of-life everyday activities and turn them into something magical and wondrous and needed to be captured in a full game. And I think that's what's really cool about wholesome games in general is this ability to capture not only the

mundanity of daily life, if that's even a word, um but to make it something magical and something that as a player you could really dive into and embrace and just like like relish. So. No. It's great. Um I will say unfortunately as moderator I think one of my jobs is to in the sake of being unbiased to dump a bucket of cold water on everyone when they talk about how cool and freeing it is to make wholesome games. Um so with that in mind um we're coming up on our question segment soon, but before that I wanted to uh I wanted to ask about the challenges of making wholesome games. Like we've you've said that they're financially viable, they give creative opportunities, there are people playing and talking about them. Um if if everything's great, why isn't everyone doing it? Yeah. I think drawing back on the kind of socialization point I made before and I think I touched upon it a bit too. I do think one of the biggest challenges to wholesome games is the industry

itself. Um can we create diverse games and support developers and keep a diverse audience if other elements of the industry like discrimination in work, uh funding, powers stay stacked against developers? Uh can we remove the stigma of cozy games uh not being as prestigious and still get key visibility in places like storefronts, third-party platforms, or showcases, especially when the people potentially making the decisions aren't the people who have maybe wholesome games like best interest at heart? Yeah, and and just to hop on that um I think what's really interesting, I agree with all of that. Um a major struggle for a lot of wholesome games is they tend to be smaller, they tend to want to be bite-size experiences. Right? Unpacking is a game about unpacking rooms, but that's not going to be a 60-hour experience. I mean, it could be. I wouldn't be mad. Um but generally you if you're designing a wholesome game, they tend to be smaller experiences in scope and funding

request. And so finding a viable source of funding, a publisher who's willing to put that money in for an unproven concept can be really difficult. Often you'll see um perhaps if you're pitching it if a publisher doesn't understand, oh I want to make a game about guiding spirits into the afterlife and giving them hugs, you know, that's harder conceptually than I want to make another, you know, roguelike, which I love roguelikes, but it's not as tested, it's unproven. It's interesting because like you were talking earlier about finding these like small mundane things and like on the developer side I really like the idea of finding something smaller and like easier to scale than like a farming game that has a bajillion systems that I have to get working. From a funding standpoint like because you've you've looked for funding with your games and you're developer, like is it hard to find smaller funding because I would think that that would be easier and yet it doesn't seem that way?

It's very strange. There is a weird I feel like there's a weird gap between very small funds that would not sustain a studio, a development beyond, you know, just a hobby project almost, and the larger funds that need big teams, you know, a big office space, more multi-million. Like um for context I also participate and I'm an advisor for Kowloon Nights, which is an indie game fund, and what's I've noticed not just with like Kowloon or a lot of other publishers, they're looking for titles that commercially are a larger success than what may some some may anticipate from a bite-sized game. So half a million, million, 5 million plus and a lot of developers making wholesome games, I would say when I talk to them are like, I would like 250k, which is still a lot of money, but but you have this gap where the funding is not really being met.

Um and then you have alternative funds that give you like 10k, 50k, which is not enough to make a living, let alone a game. So um those are all really helpful to have and to build, but there is a gap uh just in space Yeah. And if I just want to jump in like I think one of the things that I've heard actually is like, well why wouldn't you if you want 250k, take the 2 million? Like why wouldn't you just take that? Um and that's not really the point. So I I think a lot of the complications that come with trying to make a bigger game, to add systems to a game that you already have planned out and you have a design doc for and you're like, this is the game I want to make, I don't want to owe you even more money and take have you take more of uh the rev share of my game uh just so that I can hopefully hit like the the 2 million mark, right? And when they just want the 250k. Well, there's that idea of scope is really interesting too because if you are wanting to make a bite-sized game and that's sustainable for you, making the next Stardew Valley

is probably not as a producer, I'm saying, look at scope. Cut it down. And so I think that's exactly it where you we don't, at least we collective we, I feel like I we don't want to push developers to create these larger games to compete on a scale that they don't necessarily want to. Um but how can we create space then for these bite-sized really like wonderful projects that should exist, but there just is not really a space for in sometimes? If you could give one piece of advice to improve things, to help developers, to help our industry, what would that be? Um just because again of my perspective having been on both the developer side as well as the funding side, I think I would genuinely like to call out folks who have the power at places like funds,

publishers, people who have the money to invest in these kind of experiences. Um this is a rhetorical question, you don't have to answer out loud, but like if you're in that role right now, um what are you doing to meet the needs of an increasingly non-traditional audience? Um like Victoria was saying, how are you creating spaces for this type of game to even happen and just who is even in the room making these calls? Uh just who's who's helping these games be seen in the first place? And with that, I think we have some time for questions. Uh if you would make your way to the microphone if you want to ask something and we'll uh we'll get it started. Hi guys. I'm Emily. I'm the founder of Soaring Studio. I make narrative games with heart with a focus on Asian-American representation. I wanted to touch on something that you said earlier, Jenny, about how a game can be wholesome but deal with uncozy topics. That's kind of my next game. It's

wholesome but can deal with un um uncozy topics like cultural identity. So my question is how should I go about marketing that when I see that a lot of wholesome games are marketed in a more like cute, lighthearted, funny way. How should I approach a game like that? Should I go first or Yeah, go ahead. Um a marketing campaign is a very big question. I'd love to like further chat with you. I think one of my gut feelings about any game is that core um what is the core message and what is that takeaway that you're hoping the audience gets? And I think we've mentioned Spiritfarer before because I think that is a game that for me when I see it balances this um that bittersweet that's so lovely where you have these very tender moments, but mixed in with that are these really heart-wrenching um experiences as well and these really tough concepts that, you know, we deal with in daily life. And so I think being gentle but honest with your audience is really important

and I think very appreciated, especially in our experience um when we communicate with our folks, you know, an audience on places like TikTok and Twitter. One of my favorite words to describe wholesome games is uplifting because it implies that you're going to deal with really tough topics, but if like your trailer even can show, hey, we're going to dive into this, but we're going to say something about it and have, you know, some optimism about it. Uh I think Spiritfarer does such a great job with that. So that's the kind of the direction I would go in is focus on those like uplifting elements, but don't shy away from, you know, the struggles that you're talking about. Yeah. And what I'll do a quick jump in. Um agreed, look into those things. One of the things I actually think you could explore is actually to see which horror games that use wholesome elements display their horror bits because you can draw a lot of inspiration from that and looking outside of the genre usually helps quite a bit to kind of inspire how you can present these kinds of things. Yeah. I think you actually never thought of that before. Thank you. Thank you for your question.

Yes. I'm Meg from One More Multiverse. Um I have a question about marketing. Um so you have to convey a game at a glance. Um I'd recommend wholesome games almost always as a first entry point to gaming for people who may not identify as gamers, but how do you hit a more mainstream audience that may see these games as juvenile at first glance? What meaning does wholesome really carry to casual gamers? It's a good question. Like I I remember James telling me about when we started wholesome games like his core thing was like, I don't want The Last of Us to be the only thing that gets like critical acclaim and kind of considered like a real experience. And I do think even though we're kind of in this bubble, that's still a big part of the struggle. So, I'm glad you brought it up because people still inherently think of a lot of these games as like Nintendo / kid games, and that's a real like, you know, something to overcome. I don't have the perfect answer, but certainly in our work we're trying to like reach those people more than ever and get those

games in spaces where they're seen by more traditional players. Cool. Thank you. Hi. My name is Sharif. I do a lot of work in citizen science games, games where players contribute to scientific research by solving puzzles. I'm curious if you would consider those wholesome games. We get a lot of educational game pitches, I would say, and it's interesting to find that balance because you know, it's it's one of those things that's absolutely wholesome in a general sense, right? Does it fit the capital W wholesome games? I don't know, but that doesn't mean you can't market it that way, right? Like if you think it's relevant to that audience, and frankly if it's a relevant keyword to that audience, then you should use it. Thanks. Hello. My name is Ryan. I made a game called Button City. It's very pastelly and cute. And the reason I bring this up is because something that I noticed with a lot of wholesome games,

they're extremely ooh woo, very soft, very pastelly. And I think of things like Junji Ito, who's a horror mangaka and has a comic about his cats, but it's in his artistic style of kind of like grotesque and weird and things like that. Do you think that kind of style would fit within not necessarily the capital W W wholesome, but just wholesome in general. Can we see stuff outside the pasteliness of the games? I think so. I think it's one of those things again where it's not like we can necessarily define wholesome in itself, but I think of a lot of the ways in which I'll use Among Us for example. Like Among Us is not supposed to be a cute game. It's not supposed to be wholesome, but a lot of fan art and a lot of creations, a lot of marketing that we get is they think it's really cute. We didn't expect it to be. So, I think the aesthetics doesn't necessarily have to be ooh woo, pastel, whatever. And I'm

sure there's examples of games like that. I just can't think of it at the top of my head that do exist in that space. Yeah, and when we're reviewing games for a wholesome director something, I care more about the theme than I do the style. Like success on social media, that's a different thing, but like my definition it absolutely includes it. Yeah, I would definitely just agree with everything said. And also the fact that like what's really interesting just as a tangent is this element of looking at coziness as elements within non non cozy spaces, I think is really interesting. And so like your example of a Junji Junji Ito like comic, which typically we see and it evokes in that like unease, but seeing a cat in that style and a story about a cat, just finding ways to make non cozy spaces cozy is really interesting and I find very wholesome in a way. I think I think wholesome elements within a wholesome game are it's such an interesting and fruitful topic. Like one that always made me really happy was

talking about the wholesome elements in Death Stranding, which is a game you wouldn't consider for that, but you're making deliveries that save people's lives. They're thanking you for it. There's this theme of connection. So, I think it's it's very fruitful even if you're not making a game that you think is 100% wholesome to consider those elements. Thank you. Great question. Thank you. Hi. My name's Anna. Thank you for your talk. I was just wondering where you see like the future of cozy games going. I know there's like a cozy MMO in the works. I was just wondering if you see like that kind of progression, like a cozy MOBA or like where where you see it going really. Cozy e-sports. Here we go. Yeah, I don't know. I think right now all you can do is kind of just like ride the wave and see where it's heading, but I definitely think and am actively concerned about like giant companies attaching it to games that like mechanically and thematically are

not wholesome. That's why I like the aesthetics of it are kind of the least of my concern. I'm sure it'll happen. Like you look at a game like in the aftermath of something like Animal Crossing, so many things like implemented elements of that. So, I'm sure that'll happen. I think everything kind of progresses at two different speeds and like the indies are kind of the test bed for all this stuff. So, I think a little delayed you will see like big studios like you're describing attach it to all kinds of genres. And hopefully there's really fruitful stuff from that experimentation. I agree with that. I think also what's really interesting is gaming is such a young industry. And so when we, back when we started making games, I feel like a lot of the there were some really prominent verbs that we were engaging with and they were all very like kind of active, maybe a bit more aggressive in a lot of ways. And it's almost this pendulum swing where we've now said, okay, well what's almost the opposite we can do. And I

think what I what I would love to see is a continue almost a meet

in the middle where people are experimenting their perspectives and things like that? Yeah, it's it's a great question. I think ultimately with any art form, right? You put it in front of an audience and it's going to be up to them to interpret it however they

want to. It's a great example of something where we control the capital W and not the lower case W wholesome games. We're really keen on the idea that like these progressive themes are wholesome and we want to make sure those are included in the conversation. So, in a way it kind of makes me happy that your experience your game was described that way. What do you guys think? Yeah, I think um what's really difficult is if you intended for the game to be interpreted in a certain way, it can be difficult when others take it and make it their own. And so, I think that's just an internal artist struggle. Just from a marketing perspective, I think if that is feedback that you're getting about your game and you want to reframe the way folks are thinking about it, I think um it's it's very specific to I guess each title. So, I can't speak really specifically to it, but it would be an opportunity to say, "Hey, if this is what people are saying, maybe investigate why and see how you

can reframe the language that you're using, the media that you're posting about your game to convey what you're hoping to get across." So, a very vague answer, but I hope that helps someone. It's so important to find the people that you want to speak to. So, it's another example of marketing being like super important. Yeah, I I will say one of the things is sometimes, especially with the interpretation of a game or art or whatever, people will interpret it however they want, no matter how much you try to push back against it sometimes, which is maybe unfortunate, maybe cool, depending on what you want from your game. So, an example is I know the Descenders folks, this is not a wholesome game. Maybe is. I don't know. Um the Descenders folks from No More Robots wanted their mountain biking game to be like real like they wanted to talk all about the really specific things and how cool it was and anything they tried all people would talk about was go downhill fast. And that was the thing they had to work with because that was the one thing people kept hooking on to. Um so it can be really difficult, but yeah, it's all up to you kind of your wants, your needs, your interpretations and how uh

you really want to kind of work with your game. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, thank you for the great panel. Um my name is Indrani. I'm the marketing and communications director at uh Pariah Interactive. We're an indie studio based out of Mumbai and Brooklyn. All that context because back in India where I'm from, TikTok is banned and TikTok seems to be like the platform if you want to find you know, critical and commercial success as an indie especially working with like wholesome games. Do you have any recommendations specifically directed to marketing um to reach similar critical mass when you don't have access to the platform as a game dev as well as a as consumers? Yeah, this one is really difficult. It kind of ties into what I was talking about geography and network and money are huge factors on like what games usually get find success and things and that's why we need less gates I think when it comes to these sorts of things,

but even then that's really difficult, right? We're all speaking in English right now. Um and I think for places that often um can't access uh different networks or whatever that sort of thing or like TikTok, um I will say one of the best things I've seen for any and this is again really difficult uh is to get some sort of storefront access and this is me just throwing it out in the dark, right? Like I can say like, yeah, just get a Steam deal in the front page. Yeah. Whatever. But it is one of those things. Honestly, itch.io has been amazing. Among Us actually found a lot of success in the beginning stages because they were on itch.io and that's a really good way to kind of access a lot of gamers and potentially contacts that you might not have. Um I would say any other sort of like social media platform hopefully you can access. And honestly, working within your local um community I found a lot of people have found a lot of success in that. Like really harnessing like, you know what? Like this is my community, this is like

things I'm going to play um really closely to. Um that can have a lot of resonance especially for people overseas who like, you know, might come from India, right? They might be like, oh my goodness, this is amazing. Um that sort of thing, but I don't know if anyone else has. No, I think that's pretty good. Yeah. Good luck. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, great talk. Thank you. My name is Celeste Bean, hardware engineer at PlayStation. You talked about the kind of commonality of wholesome games and maybe that there is no kind of core thing that is wholesome. When I think about them for myself, I think of games that lack a time pressure. You know, where I'm not like, oh god, if I don't do something someone's going to shoot at me. Like, oh god, I can like build my flowers at my own pace. Would you say or do you have any counter examples to that where there is kind of this mechanic or lack of mechanic where you have to do something with a time pressure? Um I think I mean, well, this is not the entire point of Little Gator Game, Little Gator Game, um but there are time uh challenges, I would say. I think there

are a lot of games with like time challenge. Yeah, I feel like the the time challenge itself isn't as much of a big deal as like the high stakes of if you don't do this, it's game over right now. So, um yeah, nothing springs to mind for me immediately, but I feel like that's not an unwholesome thing on its own as long as the stakes are low. Yeah, I I would agree with that. I think what is interesting is in yeah, the context in which these mechanics are happening. If you feel like you have the opportunity to try again. If you know that um it's relatively yeah, there's no punishment for failing that first time around and you can you can go back and like retry the race or whatever you're doing. That's really important. Um Yeah, there's a really it's maybe a like a decade old at this point, but there was a really interesting paper written by Tanya Short and a bunch of folks about designing for um coziness and kindness, I think was the title. Just coziness. Um and it discusses and dives into the ways in which

mechanically, um aesthetically, through sound design games can be designed intentionally to provide that sense of safety and satiation so players can feel comfortable going maybe and experimenting with things or going deeper into themes that are hard. Um I think Celeste is a really great I personally find Celeste very wholesome um because it's it's a difficult game. It's really hard, but the way that accessibility um allows you to toggle on and off the different um like scaffolds allows it allowed me as a player to feel like I could try and practice and get, you know, better each time and gradually add or remove scaffolds as I needed and it felt very wholesome for me Good example. And I would add to that it's not all or nothing in the same way that we talk about how uh dark games or horror games can have wholesome elements. You can certainly have wholesome games that have elements that are stressful or anything like that. Like cooking games for instance always have a lot of time or

usually have a lot of time pressure, but yeah, great question. Great question. Thank you. Thanks so much. Yes. Uh hi, I'm Kendrick. Uh I'm a producer with quite a few different drafts for wholesome games including a cooking game. So, this kind of follow-up question, in your perspectives, is there a line in the sand where there's too many horror or dramatic moments uh to the story that really turns away the target demographic? Hm. It's a great question. I mean, I think in some instances you might need like a trigger warning, right? Like if you create a game that's really dark in some way, that might not uh appeal to the majority of wholesome games players, but I don't think there's this clear line so long as it is uplifting. So long as you have something to say about those difficult topics as opposed to just kind of wallowing in them. Uh I don't think there's necessarily a line in the sand. It is it is about context at least for me as a player. Um if I'm informed and I know ahead of time what I'm getting into, I can mentally prep for that, right? So, I could have a game with

maybe I don't know, one scary moment and if I don't know, that will completely change my experience as a player versus if I know something is coming up. That's a great point. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Yes, please. Hello. Hello. Sorry to be loud. My name is Darren Carney. I uh make games uh in my spare time. Uh I came over from Ireland and thank you very much. It's been really nice to hear the panel here. Um Earlier on when you were talking about why we should care about wholesome games, um there was talk about uh the composition of teams being more diverse and wanting to kind of change the industry to be better. And that's something that really hit home with me and has been a part of like the approach that I've taken as an indie game developer. Like, why am I doing this my way cuz I don't like the way the

industry is this kind of this tire fire mess and I wanted to do it my way. So, uh one of the questions I the question I'd like to ask is like uh there's lots of these tensions when you're making a computer game. Um Deciding what you want to make. Deciding like what you can make and with the team that you work with. Um so, those are tensions that are common to every game. Sure. But there's this additional thing with wholesome games, I think, where you're also trying to do it with a maybe a principled approach. Right. And I was wondering because we'll all come across periods of time when we're making a game where we're kind of under a lot of pressure. What? And yeah, I know, right? That was a surprise for me somehow.

But uh I had a kind of uh rough time when we gave ourselves this kind of arbitrary deadline where we wanted to release our our game and uh we kind of got into this crunchy thing because we're all very passionate about what we do. So, I was wondering if you have advice for people who are making wholesome games, who are passionate about what they do, but don't want to let that passion turn into crunch. Hm. Yeah, I mean, that's another question that I feel like is inherent to all art forms. Like if you become really, really passionate about something and we have a lot of examples and I think a lot of them are really unhealthy examples of great artists throwing themselves at something to, you know, create something bigger than themselves and I think that I don't know. I imagine you apply the same techniques you would apply to any crunch, but you have to be a lot more stern with yourself when you're working on something that is a passion project, something that you feel is important. Um

I would just remind you that you're not the only person on that, you know, side of the world. You know, there are other people trying their best to make important things and make things that can make our industry a better place. So, it doesn't all fall on your shoulders. And with that, that's our time for today, sadly. But we will be in the the the wrap-up room. Yeah, we'll be in the wrap-up. Um before we go, I just want to say really quick, uh big thank you to our other panelists who couldn't be here, Esme. Uh thank you to our wholesome games moderators who make our lives much easier. That's Jacob, Julia, Celine, Vex, My, uh, Crystal, Anhelina, and Toma. Thank you so much to the AV and tech folks here, all of the CAs and GDC, uh, people who've been helping us out throughout the week, our advisor, uh, Helen and Violet, um, our interpreters, James and Jenny, um, and just a reminder to please rank this session. Um, not only does that feedback help us improve, uh, it lets GDC know that people are interested in things like this. Um, and with that, thank you so much.

Thank you so much.