Today, over 50 game developers met in a park across the street from Moscone Center where the annual Game Developers Conference (GDC) was taking place. They had one objective: to scream as loud as possible.
The event, known as "GDScream," took place in an open area in the middle of Yerba Buena Gardens, where event organizers assembled the crowd by holding up pieces of paper with "SCREAM" scribbled on them. One of the organizers wore a shirt printed with Munch's The Scream; another participant wore a shirt printed with an ice cream cone. At exactly noon, the cluster of individuals from all corners of game development let loose a loud scream that lasted for several seconds. As it trailed off, the group broke into relieved laughter and applaused before slowly dispersing.
The scream was organized by Scott Jon Siegal and Caryl Shaw in response to growing discontent among game developers in the face of ongoing industry mass layoffs, as well as coordinated harassment campaigns against marginalized individuals and overall fears of worsening industry conditions. I spoke with Siegal post-scream, where they told me the event came together after they posted "half-jokingly" on Facebook about the general powerlessness they felt about it all, and wanting to get everyone together to scream. Shaw reached out upon seeing the post, and seriously offered to help organize it.
The two set up event pages and used word of mouth to get information out. Siegal says their hope was to get enough people to attend so everyone would "have a moment of feeling good, a moment of comradery, and moment of just fully acknowledging how messed up everything us and acknowledging that we're all here at this event pretending everything is fine...it can't be a constant topic of conversation, but it feels like there needs to be just one moment of just letting it out."
I asked Siegal why they, personally, were screaming. Siegal replied, noting that while they had had a "very blessed" 16-year career in games, they were struggling to recommend aspiring game developers to even enter the industry due to the current conditions, which they said was "tragic."
"I'm always slightly screaming inside for a lot of personal reasons, but this is an industry that is built on passion," they said. "I entered the games industry in my early 20s because I loved games so much and I found that I had this passion for building them and building experiences that brought delight to other people. It's an industry that really feeds on that passion and takes advantage of that passion, and that's broken my heart over and over again...and I just wanted to scream about it."
As I chatted with a number of the developers attending the scream, it seemed many of them had shown up for those exact reasons.
"I'm screaming because I was just in a really good, valuable, much-appreciated [GDC] session that I absolutely hated," one game developer who asked to be anonymous told me. "Because we talked about diversity in games and we were all marginalized people, and we're all looking at each other going 'Yeah it sucks, for some reason we have to do this, and we cannot not do this and I don't know how to deal with the obligation of having to do this just because I'm the person that I am.'"
Another anonymous industry figure who works on the business side told me they were screaming because "the industry is in an interesting spot where our fiscal needs and our creative needs are not matching up, and it's causing a lot of damage which I think will have long-term effects on the pipeline. Also, obviously a lot of people came together for something that isn't the usual GDC vibe. We all have a lot of tension that needs to be released."
Also among the crowd were two representatives from the CODE-CWA, a union organization representing developers from studios such as Tender Claws, Activision QA United, Blizzard Albany, ZeniMax Workers United, and Sega USA.
"The layoffs in the past couple of years have been absolutely horrible," said Robin LoBuglio, gameplay programmer at Tender Claws. "My partner was actually laid off almost 18 months ago. It's nuts. We screamed because we're angry. But we're also here because we really want people to know that you don't just have to be angry. You don't just have to feel hopeless...I think it's really really urgent in this time that people use the leverage that we have, that we unionize...because while you have a job, you have that leverage, there's still time. And I think the last year has shown us that if we don't stand up for ourselves, they will treat us like trash."
Dara Insixiengmay, 3D artist at Tender Claws, added, "The state of the industry has been at such, such a low point. And screaming out our frustrations, our anger, but also channeling that into something where we together, working together, as a community, we can empower ourselves to fight back and to stand up for our rights, our jobs, our livelihoods."
As the crowd dispersed, I asked Siegal if the scream had helped them at all.
"Aside from how my throat will feel tomorrow, it helped me," they replied. "Not enough opportunities in life to scream."
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
