‘I don’t see the point of me without the politics’: video game writer Meghna Jayanth on the benefits of staying indie
More than a decade into her career, Jayanth is indie by her choice, but also, perhaps, the world’s. During the 2023 Golden Joystick awards in London, Jayanth sat at home,for amending her remarks to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. In 2019, from the stage of the Independent Games festival, Jayanthas rooted in capitalism, colonialism and whiteness. These are not necessarily ideas that interest the producers of successful mainstream games.
Horizon has sold more than 20m copies, it has two sequels and counting, and there is a TV show on the way. That’s where the ship was supposed to go. But Jayanth – who has worked on other AAA projects that have not been released – has come to think that on a ship like that, any one person can only be a deckhand. “You can put a veneer of a gesture at ideas in the narrative, but the systems of the game themselves don’t actually play that out.