Is Being an "Existential Gamemaker" My Job Now?

Ludic Liberation 2021 Annual Report

Dear Ludic Liberators,

I recently learned of the Betteridge’s Law of Headlines, which states that if a headline ends with a question mark and asks a yes-no question, the answer to the question is decidedly a “no.” If you weren’t familiar with this principle, you’re welcome – I just saved you a lot of future reading time!

But wait, does this law apply to the headline of this very email?

…Or to the question that was just asked?

😉

Something about this “proven pattern” apparently really delighted me, so my brain has been generating headlines with pointless question marks at the end. When this Lab Report title presented itself as this week’s possibility, I laughed and thought “I guess not!” But then I paused.

Could it be so?

Is Being an Existential Gamemaker Actually My Job Now?

The answer, in this case (to Betteridge’s chagrin) is: well, kinda!

Q: Can I tell you a fantasy I have? (A: YES!) I dream of living in a world where people have magical ridiculous businesses offering services and products that are simultaneously completely unnecessary and totally essential. By being an Existential Gamemaker, I believe I am prefiguring this world. When I meet a new person or see an old acquaintance and they ask me “what I’m doing now,” I tell them that I make existential games. I love the confusion and curiosity that follows. What does it mean? What do I actually do? I could try to be more legible and say that I’m a coach, consultant, or a designer, but instead I share that I help people remember that life is a series of contradictory games the rules of which we have the power to change. I even tried to explain the mission of Ludic Liberation to my mom, translating my carefully crafted taglines into my native but awkward Russian. I think I said something like “I play psychological games with people to free them from old complexes.” She paused for a second and then asked, “and they play?”

“They play.”

I hosted the first Ludic Liberation Lab in February 2020. I wanted to cultivate a community and a playground to explore play as a mode of personal and collective liberation. 7 people came to that first in-person session, where we shared our stories and played with how we walked. I kept hosting a Lab every month, moving it online as the world shut down. More people came. Other gamemakers brought their games. On a post-it note that spring, I jotted down a wild idea: I wanted people to pay me to make them personal games. The same day, without me sharing what I’d dreamt up, a friend texted me a random request – would I design a weird special game just for them?

Um, yes, of course I would! (Also: how did they know???!! Also: Thanks, Universe!)

In August 2021, 18 months after the first Lab, I filed paperwork to make Ludic Liberation an official LLC. In the last 2 years, I have hosted 23 Ludic Liberation Labs, have had 41 1:1 Existential Gameplay Sessions with 31 different clients, have sold 2 email-based existential games (Trading Places and Existential Escape Room) have been a “Gamemaker-in-Residence” at two other online communities in addition to Incite Seminars which hosts the monthly Labs, have had 2 corporate game-based event commissions, taught two online courses, designed a board game and a card-based party game and many other short group games for my classes and labs, and launched a paid newsletter. I also became a part-time team member at the Deep Play Institute, where my official (self-appointed) title is “Vice President of Existential Games.”

All of the above is evidence that being an Existential Gamemaker is, in fact, my job. It’s what I do! It’s what I say I do. It’s what I keep doing, over and over again, when no one is making me.

My Existential Gamemaker gig earned me a little over $6000 USD in 2021 (which was 6 times more than the previous year so I feel great about it! Four figures baby!). I spent about half of it paying other people as collaborators, creators, teachers, and coaches to keep playing and learning and developing my craft. I also had to pay for various hosting services to “keep the lights on” in the Ludic Liberation digital offices. I have a Profit & Loss statement and probably too many affiliated accounts, which makes the whole thing feel very “pretend official.”

I know what you’re thinking: but $6000 a year is not a job.

Of course, there’s that traditional metric of what constitutes “a job,” referring to the primary way we earn money for living expenses. In this sense, being an existential gamemaker is not my job (that Betteridge wins after all!). I have multiple ways I currently sustain myself including managing a short-term rental and freelancing as an educational consultant. But those are not “my job” either. I recently told my friend that I’ve made a “meal out of side hustles like they are side dishes.” On one hand, I’m just describing what it takes to survive in the neoliberal precariat. But on the other hand, I’m appreciating a mode of personal life organization that actually works for me, a neurodivergent multipotentialite with a non-linear, twisted career path. I’ve made a life out of various niche opportunities, skill sets, and talents, and while that life is not predictable or easily summarizable, it is definitely very interesting and variously rewarding!

I guess I’d love to be a Full-Time Existential Gamemaker or a have a Six-Figure Business designing Immersive and Subversive Experiences. But to be honest, I’m cautious about trying to monetize every aspect of Ludic Liberation. I love it too much to measure its value in dollars only, and I’ve ruined other creative passions in the past trying to fit them into a conventional and capitalizable box.

So for now, I’d like to just answer this yes AND no question for you with a perfectly contradictory “kind of!”

Yes, I’m an Existential Gamemaker (and Destroyer!).

No, it’s not my “full-time job.”

Yes, it’s a real business.

No, it’s not my “side hustle.”

Yes, you can make an appointment, hire me, or invest in one of my many genius product ideas.

No, I’m not a “therapist” or “coach” or “event planner” or “game developer.”

Yes, I really am here for existential liberation.

No, I don’t 100% know what that means, which is why we have to keep playing together to figure it out.

Yes, you can definitely invent your own cool “job” title and join me in the world of magical and absurd business proliferation! In fact, in the past 2 years I’ve played with (and paid for services of) people who call themselves things like Multidimensional Explorer, Dream Witch, Underworld Hypnotist, Quantum Accountant, Reaper, Remote Animal Communicator, Galactic Seer, Daydream Artist, Divine Daddy, and more. You 👏 can 👏 be 👏 whatever 👏 you 👏 want. You are an infinite player and choosing what game you’re going to play in this lifetime is your fundamental freedom.

Thank you for being part of the Ludic Liberation community via one or more of its tentacles. Please join me in celebrating 2 years of manifesting this dream, together 🥂 May it inspire you to liberate your own game in whatever way you’re being called to transform. If you need some playful support from an Existential Gamemaker, you know where to find me.

In Play & Liberation,

Natalia

Existential Gamemaker/Destroyer