Nick Jones

We welcome Nick Jones—lead narrative designer at Grinding Gear Games and Ad-Alternum—to chat with us at Queerly Represent Me.

QRM: Can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do in the games industry?

Nick: Sure, well, I'm Nick. I'm a 27-year-old Narrative Designer from Auckland, NZ. For those wondering what a Narrative Designer is – in layman's terms I make sure there's a story to accompany and complement the gameplay. I also try to take a unique transmedia approach to my work so that anything I do for a particular company has the potential to branch out across multiple platforms, be it more games, graphic novels, web series, films and so on.

QRM: How long have you been involved in the game industry, and what projects have you worked on? What are you working on currently?

Nick: Surprisingly, I haven't actually been involved in the game industry for very long at all. I had been studying video game narrative off and on at university for the entirety of my Bachelors, but actually working in the industry? That's only been happening over the past eight or nine months. As of right now, I have just finished work on Path of Exile: The Fall of Oriath and am midway through a VR MMORPG that is based in the States called Orbus VR. They're my two main jobs, however I've always got several extras that I'll be tinkering away with in the background – always busy!

QRM: What inspired you to get started in the games industry?

Nick: Well, I've been a writer my entire life. Born into a family of writers and poets. I guess it's kind of in my blood. As I mentioned before, I studied game narrative off and on during uni, but my purpose being at university was to actually become a novelist. Prose is my first love! In a way, I kind of just fell into this industry. I'd been doing a lot of transmedia based work, in particular work revolving around immersive live theater, and happened to bump into a guy who knew a guy, who knew a guy and ended up working alongside the original Narrative Designer for Path of Exile on a side project of his –the Falconers franchise. After we got done with that work, he offered me a job as his assistant and from there I eventually took his job. (No, I didn't bully him out! He was just wanting to pursue something else.) So my entry into the industry was kind of bizarre, as it happened by accident and I ended up bypassing a lot of the stuff most folks have to do when starting out. That's been awesome in a certain sense, though I sometimes wonder if I missed out on learning a few important lessons!

QRM: In what ways do you feel your experiences as a queer person manifest in the games you work on, and influence the work you do?

Nick: Okay, so growing up, I had the greatest parents ever – they always encouraged me to follow my heart, find what I was passionate about doing and pursue that dream. However, I was raised in the Pentecostal Christian Church as well, so it took me a long time and a lot of guts to actually come out. I think that part of the reason for this was that I never really saw queer heroes in games or books or films that I aspired to be like. All I ever saw was the occasional news article about gay marriage, or movies that depicted queer people as being drug addicts or crazy. I feel like I stayed closeted for so long because I was afraid that I would end up like that if I ever came out. It was kind of the unspoken lie that I taught myself through combining religion with the representation of queer people at the time of my childhood.

So, getting to the point here – I'm a big advocate for seeing queer characters and queer stories in games. I have concerns that as an industry, at times we've gone from having no queer characters to having only queer supporting characters and extras in our games. (Not always the case, but something I have seen a few times.) It concerns me that the argument of not needing to make a big deal out of it is really side-stepping the problem that I faced as a child. We need LGBTQ protagonists in stories because that's where queer issues can be explored and queer identity can be celebrated. In my own work I try to think about what would have inspired, fascinated and/or answered questions for me as child, and then try to write accordingly. In Path of Exile, it's a little bit more of a background thing, and I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say who exactly, but there are definitely queer central characters in that game. With Orbus VR, I've gone for a much bolder approach and fans of the game will find upon playing the final release at the end of the year that Ad-Alternum and I have put a lot of time and effort into cultivating a rich history and lore that includes several queer representations.

QRM: Do you have a favourite queer character—in games or media more generally? If so, what is it about them that makes them your favourite?
Question asked by @kamienw.

Nick: The book (turned movie) The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky has a truly beautiful gay character in it by the name of Patrick. I found him to be quite inspiring because he's never depicted as being a clichéd hopeless gay mess. He has this really interesting multifaceted personality and character arc and I felt that even when the book dealt with gay issues that could be considered a little cliché, it did so in a way that didn't make him feel derivative or two dimensional.

In a game... hmmm. Perhaps Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn. It was interesting seeing a potentially asexual character in the role of hero, though it would have been nice if they'd explored that part of her a little more than it did, which from memory was more like just a couple of lines of dialogue spread throughout the game.

QRM: Have you ever encountered roadblocks in trying to include queer characters in games? What do you think is preventing greater diversity within games?
Question asked by @dustinalex91.

Nick: Unfortunately, we live in a society that is still, when it comes to entertainment, pretty firmly entrenched in the Hollywood bigotry of white-washing and hetero-normative typecasting. I'm yet to encounter anything that has really ruffled my feathers, however there have been conversations with certain people in certain projects from time to time where I've had to argue for the level of representation I felt appropriate.

I don't think that it's necessarily anything as insidious as homophobia though. A lot of the time, I think that if you have, for example, a straight developer, they want to be inclusive and they want to be LGBTQ friendly, they just either don't know how to do that, or are afraid that if they veer too far in one direction, it will upset people further down the road – whether that's fans or financiers. And as unacceptable as that may sound (allowing lack of representation out of fear of homophobic backlash), I think we have to go easy on heteros in this particular sense because at the end of the day, making games costs a lot of money, and a finished game is expected, first and foremost, to earn a lot of money back to cover that cost.

That being said, I'm not about to roll over if some[one] tells me I can't have a dashingly handsome, brave gay knight as my hero. 😉

Path of Exile The Fall of Oriath logo.

QRM: Why do you think it is important that queer audiences are able to see themselves represented in the games they play, and in the developers who make the games they see? What can we do to improve the industry for queer audiences and devs?

Nick: I feel like I've already covered this fairly extensively in my previous answers, but the short and skinny is – I think it is important for queer audiences (especially young queer audiences) to see themselves represented in games and media in general because it instils a sense of confidence, it creates a normality around being queer and it can be encouraging to see a heroic representation of oneself in a fictional context. Just adding to that, I want to clarify – when I talk about a heroic representation, I'm not saying that queer characters can't be complex, multifaceted messes of both good and bad morals. In fact, they should be, because us gays, we're people, and people are complicated hot messes most of the time! So don't worry – you can have queer bad guys, you can have queer good guys that do bad things, or struggle with difficult issues. The point is to have them in the limelight and to show them as solid, realistic and powerful protagonists.

In regards to improving the industry for queer audiences and developers, I think we need more! More stories across multiple genres that represent queer diversity in its central characters. Show me a Dark Souls-esque Playstation game about a lesbian monster hunter. I want to see a cute platformer about two young boys in love, or a Telltale Games series about asexual friends trying to find their way in the hard hitting streets of New York City. Let's not relegate queer stories to one genre of game. Let's have them everywhere!

QRM: In what ways can non-queer folk increase and support queer diversity present within games, as well as in the industry more broadly? How can we all work to support intersectional approaches to diversity, and why is this important?

Nick: I mean, that's a hard question. In an ideal world, I'd say I'd love to see all straight people being open enough to take on the perspective of a queer character in a VR first person game for example. Will that ever happen? I don't know – I hope so!

In reality, it’s a bit harder than that unfortunately. Industry-wise, I'd say to all you straight developers out there that are wanting to be inclusive, don't be afraid to piss some people off! And ask questions of us queers! Listen to what we tell you and try implement as much of it as you can into your games.

And lastly, queer people – go easy on the straights. They weren't born knowing everything and neither were you. If they're ignorant, then they're only ignorant because someone hasn't taught them yet with compassion and patience. Don't be easily offended if they say or do something that you deem to be squashing, rather look for ways to explain how what they're doing looks and how you would do it differently.

QRM: Is there a message that you would like to share with the queer game players, game studies researchers, and other interested folks who comprise the Queerly Represent Me community?

Nick: I guess I'd really just like to give a message of encouragement out to those of us that are still in the closet for whatever reason. I know it's cliché to say, "It gets better," but it truly does. I was in my mid 20s before I finally came out. While I was in the closet I was a husk of myself, I suffered depression and all sorts of complex emotions. Then I came out – and all the heaviness I had been carrying left me. It was tough for a time, but I'm now me, and I'm happy with who I am, which is the whole point of growing up and coming of age. So yeah, be inspired by the queer heroes that are starting to appear with more frequency in the media you consume, and may they help you find the courage to learn to be truly you.

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You can find Nick on his website, and on Twitter.
You can check out the new Path of Exile game here, and keep up to date with Orbus VR on their website.