If you don't know about my game, I Feel Attacked, going on Kickstarter in February 2022 (please join the mailing list for updates), here's the premise:
All 349 cards in the deck look like this:
And here's what you do with them:
Ok, now that you got the game, onto professional wrestling!
Intro: Diversity in Professional Wrestling
I'm a big professional wrestling fan. Right now, the biggest story in the industry is AEW, and its rise as the first true competitor in decades to Vince McMahon's WWE (formerly "WWF" before the World Wildlife Fund took a chair to their heads in court). Both companies are doing some great work (you should watch), but AEW has gotten criticism for its lack of diverse talent—both overall and at the "top of the card." For the most part, it's white dudes all the way down. While the last couple years in WWE has been nothing short of transformational—from the Women's revolution, to KofiMania, to the first Black champion to be crowned by defeating another Black champion, to the first Muslim vs. Muslim singles match in Saudi Arabia—AEW seems to be building its brand up from wrestling's segregated past.
Despite this, I don't think that AEW is racist (I wouldn't recommend anyone watch something like that). There are a lot of potential explanations for their actions, but the one I've heard the most often from defenders (I respect) is this: "Diversity is a value-add, but comes with an upfront cost, both in resources and winnowing potential new audiences. [AEW] is just establishing themselves on solid footing; it'll come soon." I cannot disagree with this more. Thinking of diversity as just a "value-add" is myopic, whether creatively or in a business sense. Not to mention, it allows you to just sidestep early problems in the name of "establishing yourself." Yeah, I get it, a lot of what's seen as the "traditional wrestling demo" is cis-gendered, heterosexual, white, men. But that ignores, for example, the proportionally huge Latino/a and Black fanbase, and the fact that WWE's own stats puts women at nearly 40% of their audience.
The same is true among many fields. Established businesses are finally focusing on diversity, but because they see it as a "good thing for PR," rather than as the great opportunity it is. Diversity is not simply value added; it's value defining.
Why The Intro Was About Professional Wrestling
I've been thinking about this issue a lot because my game is about people and all the silly things we do, and what we think when other people do those silly things. My game is for everyone. We all do utterly human things, and we all act judge-y from time to time. As I developed the game I ran into a problem: It's just me designing these cards, and I have my own perspective that I can't exactly change overnight. I am a white, cis-het, abled, millennial male who grew up in the Northeast exurbs, who loves horror movies, Magic: the Gathering, and can't tell a baseball from a football. I have varied interests and always love learning, but much of my perspective is immutable and the design "team" is literally just me. So how can I make a game for everyone?
I got some friends to help finalize the design file, and I specifically looked for people I knew whose experiences were as different from my own as possible, but the game is still in my voice—for better and worse.
As my core values for the game include "Connectedness" and "Personal Growth" (behind only "Fun" in my "Core Value Power Rankings"—thanks, marketing consultant), not long after that realization I decided that as early as I could, my game needed to be diverse, not because it's the right thing to do (it is), but because my game is just better the more perspectives it embodies.
So...Wanna Work Together?
Though the first "base set" (which I hope to update in the future) is 350 cards and attempts to be un-themed, I am going to release expansions of varying sizes and themes to add to your I Feel Attacked box. Sets like Millennials Feel Attacked, Cinephiles Feel Attacked and Gamers Feel Attacked will allow you to build your box in the way that you, your friends, and your family find the most resonant and hilarious.
But I can't design all these expansions. Not just because my day-to-day work is all boring small-business stuff now, but because I'm not all people and I never will be. Others are better suited to designing card sets about demographics I'm not in, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
Though at the moment I am still basically a one-man business, I'm looking to the future. I want my 2024 expansions and beyond (and maybe even earlier) to be as inclusive as possible, assuming y'all find the game fun enough to keep me employed that long. I want to hire (for actual money) people to design a set themselves, work with me and others to make an expansion you love, then see part of the sales from it too. I still have a lot to figure out—from budgets to timelines—but I want to get started as early as possible. Hell, my game's not even Kickstarted yet, and I'm looking over a year into the future.
If you think you have a great theme idea for an expansion, I want to hear it. I don't just want to hear a few card ideas; I wanna hear the why, and why you are a good person to lead that expansion's design. I am beginning a re-design of the website, and plan to add a place for submission ideas of just this sort, but that doesn't mean you can't start emailing me now. I'll be starting expansion work in earnest right after the Kickstarter campaign closes. (Note, I will be asking you to sign a piece of paper before I read the submissions; that's the most my lawyer could convince me to do.)
As with almost every business, mine will be better the more diverse it is. This might all seem like platitudes, but I think this is the right way to go about it (though I'm always open to being wrong, and surely will be about many, many things). As a no-employee entertainment company started by a 30-something white dude four months ago, I hope this is a good start.
Sign up for the mailing list to keep updated on all the exciting news and ideas being implemented—and the impending Kickstarter in Feburary 2022.
If you want to talk to me, you can always reach me at my e-mail.
Thanks for reading,