"LET'S START WITH THE GOOD NEWS," Mike says, and I immediately clutch the edge of the conference table to brace myself.
It's the specific combination of words—start and good—that switches on my fight-or-flight reflex. It implies that there will be an end, one we can surmise will be bad, and that's not what I want to hear from the CEO of the indie video game studio I work for. My mind, often prone to suspicion and overthinking, cannot help catastrophizing.
Slumps in sales. Impending bankruptcy. Mass layoffs.
On the streets, dumpsters burst into flames.
“You’re still welcome to return home. Stay with me for a few weeks while you get back on your feet and look for a real job.” Mom’s worried voice sounds crystal clear in my head, probably because Thanksgiving was just last week, and she had the opportunity to rehash her talking points multiple times over a five-hour dinner. “Viola, you can’t really believe that designing video games will pay the bills in the long term.”
And yet, when I glance around the conference room, the rest of the core team broadcasts excitement, lots of it, and no panic. It dials down both my fight and my flight. Clearly, I’m being overcautious. FlyButter Studios is doing great. Better than ever, in fact. Six months ago we released our most successful game to date, selling millions of copies. I was among its lead designers. My job is safer than it’s ever been.
Not to mention, a major US video game publisher just invited us to submit a proposal for—
“StarPlay got back to us regarding our ideas for the Limerence 3 game,” Mike says. His eyes circle the table and come to rest on me. It makes sense, since I’m in charge of that project. However, I’m not a fan of his three-second dramatic pause, which I spend perched on the edge of my seat, contemplating whether to strangle him. Until he continues, “And they believe we are the right people to develop the new game.”
Suddenly, the conference room sounds like Coachella. FlyButter’s core team is small, fewer than ten people, but we can make some impressive noise when there’s something to celebrate. People clap and whistle. One of our programmers even stands for some quick flossing. It’s a rare moment of joy in an industry that’s mostly energy drinks sipped late at night while wailing over ergonomic keyboards.
“I don’t have to remind you that the Limerence franchise is an incredibly hot property,” Mike goes on once the cheering has died down, “and that StarPlay has been in talks with several other studios. So it really speaks to your talent that we were able to impress them with our work.”
My gaze catches Ethan’s. Like me, he’s a game designer, and he and I have been close friends since our first year of college, when we nearly flunked out of a software engineering class because we were too busy . . . talking about video games, for the most part. (
He knows, better than anyone else in the room, that The Limerence Saga books were my favorite while growing up. Some of my most cherished memories involve my dad reading them aloud and pointing at the black-and-white illustrations of the first editions—and nearly two decades later, after his eyesight took a turn for the worse, me doing the same for him. When Ethan and I heard that StarPlay, the publisher holding the licensing rights, was thinking of developing the third installment in the game series based on the saga, we immediately started lobbying to have our name in the ring.
I may have taken the lead position when it came to developing a proposal for this project, but Ethan was with me every step of the way.