In my WIP, a major theme is how weak the main character feels. At best it’s losing a fight or two, but at worst, players can choose to be actively depressed. I guess I’m just wondering the limits of portraying depression. I don’t mean to glorify, but is the MC feeling worthless and the narration explicitly saying “You are worthless” as a way to show the MC’s mental state… is that too much? Could that fall under the realm of glorification?
My intention is a story where a depressed person finds lasting happiness, mirroring my own journey, but I do still want to portray how deep that depression goes. I know that asking if it could still get published won’t mean anything until the WIP is done and sent off, but I do want to get a feel for if I need to change this sooner rather than later.
Whether something is glorified can’t really be established without looking at the work as a whole. The PC in I, the Forgotten One uses self-injury to cope with the effects of trauma, and there are a number of scenes in which it is shown to work in the short term as a coping mechanism - but in the context of the story as a whole, it’s treated as a maladaptive behavior that works against the PC’s mental health in the long run. Depicting depression and feelings of worthlessness is definitely not a dealbreaker for publication with Hosted Games, and since it’s based on your own experiences, you’re probably in a better position than most to write about it in a way that’s nuanced and true. But it might be a good idea to find other people who have had similar experiences and ask their opinion of your work.
Didn’t know that about I, the Forgotten One, thanks for the help! I’ll see if I can get a few IRLs with similar experiences to do a focused reading on those sections and see what their thoughts are
Several games include player self-harm and suicidal ideation, and one off the top of my head includes outright suicide as an ending. So long as you’re in good taste about things it should be fine.
Back in “the day” (by which I mean late-1970’s to mid-1980’s), one could post porn stories to Usenet – Hey! Remember Usenet?! – via a string of anonymous remailers.
Today, you can still post to Usenet, but anonymous remailers seem to have gone bye-bye…
