deep dive tech + games

Necessary Stubbornness For Continuing To Make Strange Things

Studio head explains survival strategy amid market pressures.

The world, it seems, has developed a peculiar allergy to the genuinely strange. It prefers the predictable hum of the known, the comforting rhythm of the established narrative. It craves the well-trodden path, the neatly paved road where every pothole has been documented, every detour sign is perfectly aligned, and the destination is, invariably, somewhere sensible.

And I, apparently, am a persistent weed in the meticulously manicured lawn of consensus.

This piece, this particular collection of observations and tangents, is a testament to that stubbornness. It is a refusal to smooth the edges, to sand down the sharp, inconvenient angles of a thought simply because they might snag on the prevailing breeze of acceptable discourse. It is the necessary obstinacy required to keep digging when the soil is hard, when the neighbors are politely suggesting you plant something more conventional—a rose bush, perhaps, or a sturdy, predictable hydrangea.

To make "strange" palatable, one must either sanitize it until it resembles a mild curiosity, or frame it within a pre-approved narrative structure. The latter is the easier route; it requires only a slight adjustment of the lens, a gentle re-focusing onto a familiar subject matter. The former, the sanitization, is a slow, insidious erosion.

It is the process by which the truly weird—the thing that makes you pause, that makes you feel a slight, exhilarating dislocation from the norm—is slowly leached of its charge, rendered merely quirky.

I am not interested in quirky. Quirky is a polite euphemism for 'slightly off-brand.' I am interested in the necessary friction.

There is a profound, almost geological weight to the act of continuing to make things that resist easy categorization. It is the refusal to accept the easy categorization offered by the market, by the algorithm, by the polite nod of the editor who prefers the predictable quarterly return. It is the internal, almost biological imperative to follow the thread of an idea until it unravels into something unexpected, something that might not fit neatly into the designated box labeled 'Opinion,' 'Analysis,' or even 'Art.'

This "necessary stubbornness"—it isn't some grand performance designed solely for applause. It’s quieter than defiance; it’s deeper than mere resistance. It’s deciding to write those meticulous footnotes when everyone else has moved on happily having read only headlines.

It’s choosing that difficult oblique angle purely because it reveals something true about shape versus surface area. It’s refusing to allow external expectations—market pressure or academic comfort—to flatten out essential textures inside an idea during construction.

The machine loves efficient throughput; it rewards clear lines drawn quickly towards measurable endpoints. Yet often find themselves missing precisely where gravity bends hardest—at those subtle deviations from expected trajectory. Those fainter signals demand intentional effort; they require deliberately pushing aside mountains of already agreed-upon background noise just to hear them whisper clearly among yourselves amongst others willing to lean in closely enough to catch them.They're rarely tidy packages ready for immediate shelf placement. They insist on demanding context change.}**