//// manifesto ////

The old ways are ending. You can feel it, a lingering persistence in the anxious stillness, an inner knowing that whispers: it is done. You can hear it, the static, the murmur that rises to a deafening wail - and the crushing silence that follows. You can see it, 7 billion ghosts on autopilot, pretending routine in the bloated carcass of our grand, dead machine. You can almost touch it, the turn of page, the sharp inhale, the new age struggling to be born.

It is a time of crisis in the world. We should not be surprised. We did not prepare. Yet it shows up anyway, right on schedule. This is precisely where our human endeavors have led us, and we are suffering for it - all of us. Mass societal division, political upheaval, misinformation, climate disaster, economic turmoil, industry collapse, violence, fear - all are symptoms of a single indelible truth: humanity has globalized.

For the first time in recorded history, we are a single species connected through a massive near-instantaneous network of communication, production, and trade that covers most of the Earth. Coupled with a half-decade of global pandemic conditions, we have now become a species normalized to cross-cultural connection in shared digital space. Where it was once considered rare, it is now common to have friends and colleagues in different continents and nations around the world. Goods & services can be exchanged with unprecedented speed and frequency through the global network. Cultural blending is accelerating us into new frontiers of knowledge, understanding, and artistry.

Or at least, that’s how this was supposed to work. That was the promise, the dream, the thing we all believed when we were buying our little glowing boxes and filling our homes with magnetic radiation. That was the reason we gave our privacy, our connection, and our very identities to a demiurge of lithium & silicon. We built the Great Machine, and it could not stop the fall.

Now we find ourselves in the frantic grasp of dying systems that refuse to let go. The politics of nationalism & conquest don’t work in a global society. Capitalism has nowhere left to grow, devolving into its final form: exploitation of self. We live in a world that divides people into binaries. We call art “content”, praising commodity as we pervert the creative act into a soulless performance. The snake has eaten its tail, and we react in fear as if this is anything other than our own self-inflicted suffering. No one is coming to save us. No one ever was.

It’s time to save ourselves.

Not through fighting. Not through war. Not through division that masquerades as justice. We need to find a new way forward - a path of radical co-creation. Now is the time for reconciliation. Now is the time of the artist.

In eras past, humanity has been led by different groups: feudalists, spiritualists, industrialists, and most recently - technologists. Those influences have gotten us far, but we find ourselves at a loss for where to go next. These are painful, uncertain times. No one is more well equipped to navigate uncertainty than an artist. We are the unseen hand that takes suffering and transmutes it into meaning. In a world slipping further into polarization, we are the ones who walk the third path. We are the ones who harmonize the chaos of reality. In a globally connected consciousness, art is the next frontier, and we need to start leading the way.

It’s time to put down the sword and pick up the brush. We need to model new ways to work, learn, and experience life together. We can’t wait for it to appear, we need to imagine it. To that end, we’ve created a new kind of studio, one rooted in equity, shared ownership, and the prosperity of community. We will start with what we know: making art, telling stories, and evolving our creativity. We’ve taken the best bits from decades of professional experience, and rebuilt our working process from the ground-up. This is not meant to tear down and replace the old world - but to evolve and transcend it.

The Ludos Initiative is our new way, a remote collective of artist-auteurs working in true open collaboration with our community. We own our work. We share resources, education, and decisions. We build in public for all to see. We’re making a video game - and we want you to be part of it.

What was once seen as a niche hobby has now emerged as the most popular artform on Earth. Gaming is not a subculture, it’s who we are becoming. Younger generations already know this. Everyone else is just catching up. We are on the threshold of Homo Ludens, the next evolution of our society - Humans at Play - but we’re not there yet. If we don’t get through our divisive extremes, we will stall out in a digital void full of guns and corporate branding. Competition has become a trap filled with loot boxes and violence. We can be so much more than that. We should be so much more than that.

We won’t get there when more people are playing games. We get there when more people are making them. To do that, we need to drastically rethink how we build games, and how we use our work to help support a society that desperately craves creation. We need to do our work out in the open, with hands extended to all who are curious. We need to be honest in our decisions, and honor our relationship with our audience. We need to meet people where they are and respect their time, money, and attention. We need to invite the world in. We need to be fearless.

It’s not a coincidence that the headlines are dominated by the collapse and consolidation of industry titans. Massive job loss, creative attrition, and financial exploitation don’t happen in a vacuum. What is happening in the world is happening to all of us. As the once-mighty continue to lose their grip, what will we build that’s better? We don’t need to wait for permission. We need to start.

So this is us starting: we will model a new way to work, and through that perhaps a new way to live. As we grow our community, and our resources with it, we will build things of beauty that sustain the world. We invite you to join us.

Fear nothing. Create everything.

//// The Ludos Initiative