Website Feature: Polygon, and its New Series "Human Angle"

At The Edge of Humanity

It's easy to forget that behind massive triple-A games like Bioshock Infinite, and the great indie games like Guacamelee!, there are real people who put literal years of their lives into these experiences. Granted, some are in it to make money, but others are in it because it's their way of getting a message across to potentially millions of people. For many developers, making games is their life's passion, it's what they eat, sleep and breathe. Polygon is here to show us those people who put so much time and energy into something that could potentially leave them unemployed, or worse.

Polygon has recently launched a new series of features called "Human Angle". The point of these videos/articles is to help the gaming community get to know the people behind the games that they read about, spend their money on and play every single day.

Knowledge of "Human Angle" came to me when I read a tweet from their managing editor, Justin McElroy.

We're launching a new series in 45 mins that I think is the best representation yet of what we wanted to do with Polygon since its inception
— Justin McElroy (@JustinMcElroy) April 3, 2013

I had no idea at that time what it would be, but my interest was already sparked. To talk about what I think Justin McElroy meant by that Tweet, we'll have to go a little farther back in Polygon's history to find the roots underneath not only that Tweet, but the website itself.

It's no secret that Polygon is a relatively young site, but just how young may come as a surprise to some readers. Polygon is only about five-and-a-half months old. After just one look at the website this may just seem unbelievable. How could a site that looks so full featured, so realized, like it has truly found its way, come into its full form in just under six months?

Polygon's inception was handled in an incredibly smart, and dynamic way. On Feb. 21, 2012, Polygon's parent company, Vox Media, split their tech site The Verge into two separate entities. Typing theverge.com/gaming into your web address bar would take you to Polygon's temporary home until things were up and running at the website proper.

At this time, I was already frequenting The Verge, so when a gaming section popped up, I was very excited. Feb. 21 was also the day before the United States launch date of the PlayStation Vita, a console that I had been drooling over since it's announcement. When I saw the boxed featured stories section at the top of the page, complete with a review of the console and a buyers guide, I knew right then and there that the page was getting bookmarked on every device with an internet browser in my possession. After reading some of the reviews and other features they had posted, I knew that it was becoming something special.

It wasn't until April 6, 2012 that Vox Games' true form was revealed in the post "Vox Games is dead. Welcome, Polygon". The meaning behind the brand was revealed in the post by their editor in-chief, Chris Grant to be derived from the Greek meaning of the word. It's simple really, "Poly" means many, and "gonia" means angles, so Polygon directly translates to "many angles".

"With the most high-profile editorial team in the industry, gathered from outlets including Joystiq, Kotaku, The Escapist, IGN, 1UP, Game Informer, MTV, The Daily, Kotaku AU, and Videogamer.com, we're approaching the challenge of launching a new site from many angles with the help of these many voices," said Grant in the announcement article.

When you stop to think about it, they're right. This isn't a gimmick, they literally have compiled people who each bring a truly unique piece of games journalism with them. Their staff literally encompasses the world of games journalism from almost every possible angle.

To introduce their new team, and celebrate the death of Vox Games and birth of Polygon, they came up with the neat video shown below.

Vox Games was officially transformed into Polygon as a brand, but it still continued to be a subsite of The Verge. On Oct. 24, 2012 however, Polygon.com was launched. In another post from Chris Grant, titled "Welcome to Polygon! It's a website (finally)", things were finally up and working.

So, What Did They Do Next?

Skip forward to April 3, 2013. Polygon has made a name for itself with arguably the most beautifully unique layout in the industry, a plethora of regular video series like "Good Cop, Bad Cop", "Mobile Game Watch" and "Today I Played:" and even a podcast called "The Besties" featuring Russ Frushtick, Chris Plante, Justin McElroy and Griffon McElroy. They had found their legs, so it was time to shake things up.

"Human Angle" is their newest regular series which includes a video portion and a fully formed written feature. It provides viewers and readers with a way to "meet the people behind the games," and so far it has shown both the good and bad things that go on behind the scenes in the gaming industry.

The first episode, with the written portion penned by Jeff Dunn, launched on April 3 promptly at 12:00 p.m. Titled "We Built a Booth," it focuses on The Indie Megabooth, a product of over 50 indie game developers working together to compile over 60 indie games into one booth at PAX conventions.

The cinematography is wonderful, Polygon's unique aesthetic shines through literally the entire time. The borderless video box, a staple of the site, looks beautiful as it seems to really be part of the overall page itself. It doesn't feel foreign or embedded. The text is broken up into sections and a navbar constantly hovers on the left side as you scroll about the page. The soundtrack to the video features the happy curiosity of Robot Science's electronic beats, and the sense of flow does wonders with its ability to pull you in.

Moving back to the content itself, it's emotional to say the least. One part that stood out a lot to me is when Phil Tibitoski, the co-creator of Octodad: Dadliest Catch and his team are setting up their booth. Two of their monitors that were checked at the airport came back to them cracked and unusable. This happens just after he finishes explaining that many of the people making his game have day jobs because they can't pay the bills without them. It shows the viewer that these people are sacrificing a lot to make these games. Adding to the emotion even further is when Rami Ismail, a developer from Vlambeer games, creators of the iPhone game Ridiculous Fishing talks about Tibitoski being one of "the most dependable people" that he knows.

"None of them are in it for the money or fame, if only because there's zero of it to go around. They just love video games. They want more creators to more easily bring more experiences to more people. And if that means staring at a computer monitor with bloodshot eyes every night for a few days, weeks or months, so be it," said Dunn in the article.

This statement struck the deepest chord for me, which is saying a lot in the context of this feature. For the same reason that Polygon exists, for the same reason that I'm writing this right now in my preciously limited spare time, these developers aren't there to make money. It's why they're independently making their games, sure some of them may not have been able to get a publisher to sign onto their idea, but they all stuck to their guns and made the game that they alone wanted to make. It's all just inspiring, to say the least.

Why it Matters

"Human Angle", is now on it's third episode, and it just keeps getting better and better. The main reason that I think it is such an amazing feature is the honesty and integrity that each video exudes. Much like their first series of features "Press Reset",  the writers at Polygon aren’t afraid to mention the good things that other sites (a.k.a. their competition) do, and they also aren't afraid to talk about the not so favorable aspects of the industry.

So far they've touched on issues ranging from sexual harassment towards women, to a snarky comment from an indie game developer. It truly humanizes the industry, and it shows that video games aren't always fun and games.

Polygon was built on the philosophy that the way we interact with the games industry is always changing. From the start it has been their goal to create an environment where the writers, gamers, developers and even the marketers can live in ubiquitous harmony. If this series, and everything else the website has done so far, is indicative of what's to come, there is nothing holding them back from achieving their original vision.