Student profiles
Stanley Baxton
Email: stanwixbuster@gmail.com
Website: https://stanwixbuster.co.uk/
Thesis Title
Institution
Supervisors
Dr Garry Crawford
Dr Tom Brock
Research Summary
The modern games industry is a deeply unsustainable. This is both in economic terms, with over 8,000 job losses in the UK alone since 2022, and environmentally, with increasing tech demands and studios running hundreds of high-end PCs upwards of 40 hours a week. On top of this, the industry is considered a monolith, with many consumers believing that the only games that exist come from the industry, with new development studios and talent apparently appearing out of thin air.
This completely ignores the existence of the “punk indie” games scene. An emerging term describing a loose collective of game makers–often marginalised–that create deliberately non-commercial games as artistic praxis, to showcase stories and ideas from marginalised groups, to make games in direct response to what they see as bloated industry development cycles, or simply enjoying the games that come from the scene and later making games themselves. The punk-indie scene is already creating games with an ethos of low-tech, low-cost, and quick turn-around development cycles, and is thus a sustainable alternative to games development. Notably however, the mainstream games industry has made no effort to bring consumer attention to this scene, despite liberally taking skills and talent from the scene once they become artistic or financial standouts.
Stanley’s research aims to fill the gap the industry has no economic incentive to, and research how the punk-indie games scene operates, and how it attracts both developers and consumers alike who believed that the mainstream games industry holds complete control over videogames as a medium. This follows on from his previous experience working directly in the AAA games industry, creating and releasing games within the punk-indie scene, championing the punk-indie scene within councils such as BAFTA, and workshop and talks promoting the scene to AAA game developers and consumers.
Research Interests
Sustainability in videogames; Game development communities; Experimental game development; Queer and transgender game culture; Emerging interactive mediums
Publications
coming soon