Bring in well-established indie game developers. Add a lot of cameras and premise for a YouTube reality show. Then throw in serious product placement from Mountain Dew and stir up accusations of producers manipulating cast members to get reactions.
If all accounts are accurate, this is how potential reality show GAME_JAM ended production after only one day, as the 11 indie developers asked to participate left the set in anger. The show was a production of Maker Studios' subchannel Polaris, which focuses on games and gaming culture.
According to Jason Rosen, a journalist who does contract work for Polaris and writes about independent games, the reality show was originally pitched as something representing the spirit of the indie games community, but became 'misguided' as more people and money got involved. Rosen was on the set and wrote about the whole experience on Indie Statik.
The idea was to 'document the ups and downs of actually developing a game - hopefully sharing that experience with a viewership likely ranging into the hundreds of thousands, possibly millions,' Rosen wrote - at least that's what drew the 11 developers to travel to Los Angeles for the shoot.
'More importantly, it would be an opportunity for the group to share the closely-knit spirit of togetherness unique to indie development, presented through the lens of popular YouTube personalities with massive, mostly younger built-in viewerships,' he continued. 'A slam dunk, you might say, created in earnest to shine a kind of light into the often misrepresented world of creating ... or, at least, that's what everyone thought.'
Rosen's account coincides with blog posts written by three participants: Robin Arnott, Adriel Wallick and Zoe Quinn, who characterize the experience coming to a head after the teams were on camera with producer Matti Leshem. Rosen said Lesham seemed to work for Pepsi/Mountain Dew, and 'barr[ed] any drink that wasn't water or Dew from being consumed while the cameras were rolling.'
Lesham was then reported as questioning the teams as to whether having female members gave them an advantage or disadvantage. Wallick writes he said 'Do you think you're at an advantage because you have a pretty girl on your team?' to her teammates, which she said eventually got her 'with an embarrassed and flushed red face launch into a statement about how his question is indicative of everything that is wrong in our industry in terms of sexism.'
That line of questioning was followed with, according to Wallick, 'Do you think the teams with women on them are at a disadvantage?'
Rosen said this was the final straw for many of the developers, four of whom left the show outright. Afterwards, he said the team tried to work to reconcile, but couldn't reach an agreement.
There was uncomfortable begging. There were tears. A lot of heavy shit came out, and by the end of it all, Maker, Polaris and the dev teams had said their peace [sic] and resolved to move forward ... later. Polaris had a good idea, and their people had won everyone over with their dedication and perseverance to getting game development out there where people could see it. Maker could make that happen.
Mashable has reached out to Maker Studios, which was just acquired by Disney for its side of the story, but hadn't heard back.
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