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she climbed on stage and challenged the MC to adance-off on the pristine, first-gen Dance DanceRevolution pad that had been restored specificallyfor the event. I don’t want to spoil what happensnext, but suffice it say that ten minutes later, thebubble machines were turned on and the party reallygot started.Peering through the screen at the glamourousworld of game designers, watching the weeklyvideo recap for updates on the extraordinary livesof eccentric, exciting, elusive digital artists, viewingthe lives they have authored and the episodessectioned off and commodified for entertainment,one could be forgiven for not remembering that itwasn’t always like this.It’s hard for me to believe it too, and I’ve spent theentirety of my professional life—almost 9 yearsnow—exploring and commenting on the digitalart and games scene. But even just a decade ago,going to a game’s PAX booth meant meeting some(if not all) of the devs. Going to a GDC party wasas simple as showing up on time and paying thecover charge.Making friends with your heroeswas often as easy as introducingyourself.The goal wasn’t to create a space where artistscould continually reach further and push theboundaries of the artform, but to push against thevery boundary between creator and player. Thegoal was to get everyone creating games and tolet this movement spill outward to inculcate andinform every aspect of a digitally connected, system-ladenworld.I suppose it’s easy to look back on this as simplyan extension of bygone, starry-eyed Silicon Valleyutopianism, but at the time, this radical inclusionismwas meant to be in direct oppositionto the tech-startup brand of Randian heroics that