This is not a blog post to complain or debate, though both of those activities are extremely valid. This is a space for those of us that object to the AI-fication of our hobby. If you don’t care about this, then perhaps just ignore this space! If you do care, or think you possibly might, then read on.
Agricola has been one of my top five games ever since it came out in 2007-8. I have so much love in my heart for it and what is happening now is absolutely devastating to me.
It’s time for me to surrender to reality and understand that a game which has a lot of soul, charm, and human magic, is in the hands of corporations and businesses that don’t share my outlook on what I’d like this hobby to be about.
So this is for those of us that value artists and the artistry of game design, that view game design as a conversation between designers and players, that want to build and believe in community and relationships, that understand that we live in capitalism, and our hobby interfaces heavily with capitalism, but it can also function with relationships on the peripheries of the economic logic that it must engage with. Relationships, that is the heart of it for me. Relationships with artists, with people, designers, and their relationships with us, their mutual care. I can think of a few companies that have tried to build relationships with me: Orange Nebula, Leder Games and Earthborne Games are three that come to my mind readily.
Clearly many of us here don’t want parasitic AI models to manipulate us into participating in something we don’t really want to participate in. We want authentic relationships with humans that do really care, that we can attempt to build shared values with, that we can converse with authentically. This will get more and more difficult, as AI will undoubtedly (or already has begun to) infiltrate these very forum boards with bot users created by oportunistic businesses, just as is happening in every other market. That is just the world we live in now.
What do we do? Build those relationships. Perhaps elaborate some core values that we can establish between dedicated designers and artists and gamers. Sign our names to those values (yes, some kind of manifesto), pay a LOT of attention to who is making our games, what the chain of ownership is, which corporations do they go back to. put our money into truly small and middle sized makers that sign up to these core values. Other conversations have been at the forefront of our hobby for a while. pushbacks against colonialism in board game design, a desire to better reflect the full spectrum of game players, in our racial, sexual and cultural plurality. These conversations will cause debate, not everyone will be on the same page, but if we’re truly interested in the human element here, then it’s important that we not forget the interconnectivity of just about everything. I believe that if we create the spaces where under-represented and marginalised voices can speak for themselves, and we value and appreciate that authenticity, then the exchanges can be transformative, and can deepen the relationships that are making our hobby meaningful. These are conversations that AI can only mimick, but never really give us authentically. These conversations only make sense between humans.
The key, I believe, is relationships.
The idea of the Commons could be an interesting one to pull on, and one I might develop in a near-future blog post. We can identify and create a commons based on relationships, values, the stories we tell and the games that bring all of that to life.
What values are important to you? What kind of relationships do you want with boardgame designers and artists? How would you like to see our community respond to encroaching AI?
However we move forward, we don’t have to be passive in this moment; we can step forward and shape our strange little hobby. The key, I believe, is relationships.
