{"id":8347,"date":"2017-12-21T00:17:00","date_gmt":"2017-12-21T00:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/312142"},"modified":"2017-12-21T00:17:00","modified_gmt":"2017-12-21T00:17:00","slug":"how-donut-county-shifted-its-focus-on-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2017\/12\/21\/how-donut-county-shifted-its-focus-on-los-angeles\/","title":{"rendered":"How Donut County shifted its focus on Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“In many different ways — it hurts them and it hurts you, because it’s not a genuine story.”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

– Developer\u00a0of Donut County\u00a0<\/em>Ben Esposito on why he decided to shift focus away from Hopi culture<\/p>\n

During an interview with Engadget<\/a>, Donut County<\/em>\u00a0creator Ben Esposito discusses his decision to stray from the game’s original roots (titled Kachina<\/em>)\u00a0which drew from Hopi culture, saying\u00a0that “I learned this really important and now very obvious lesson, which is, it doesn’t pay to tell someone else’s story.”<\/p>\n

Even with the proper care and research, it was difficult to present\u00a0an authentic vision of the tribe to an audience without coming across as insensitive. Cultural appropriation is a subject game developers are still trying to grapple with.<\/p>\n

“I think people are tuned into the cultural implications of the media they consume a lot more now, probably thanks to stuff like Feminist Frequency doing the big, foundational work of showing people, ‘Hey, you should think about it,” Esposito points out.<\/a><\/p>\n

Shortly after that, he realized\u00a0there was no way to create a game about Hopi\u00a0culture. Because\u00a0there was no personal attachment to the subject matter, it was time for a change. “It’s really painful, and it costs a lot of time and energy, but I have to do it,” Esposito explains. “And I felt totally safe doing that. I didn’t feel under attack or anything.”<\/p>\n

According to Esposito,\u00a0the switch to centering\u00a0Donut County<\/em>\u00a0in L.A. was easy. He already\u00a0knew the lay of the land and was involved in its scene.\u00a0“I knew the game was about a place and the people who live there. So I had to make the game about LA. Because I love LA, I’m fascinated by it.”<\/p>\n

Check out the full interview available at Engadget.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“In many different ways — it hurts them and it hurts you, because it’s not a genuine story.” – Developer\u00a0of Donut County\u00a0Ben Esposito on why he decided to shift focus away from Hopi culture During an interview with Engadget, Donut County\u00a0creator Ben Esposito discusses his decision to stray from the game’s original roots (titled Kachina)\u00a0which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}