The Jam & Tea Mission
We want to solve loneliness through games.
When we set out on the journey of creating Jam & Tea Studios, it was in no small part because we kept coming back to a core truth: we believe games can foster social connection and a sense of belonging for players. I personally experienced it as a kid growing up playing MUDs (queue half of you know exactly how old I am, and the other half is googling what a MUD is). I’ll never forget that moment where I came out for the first time to my guild on a Wheel of Time Roleplaying MUD. The setting and that social group allowed me to embrace my identity, and to try it on with folks I had higher trust with than just my high school friends.
From recess games, to chess clubs and board game stores, to sports at all levels, play has served as a powerful medium for connection.
Today, however, loneliness is on the rise worldwide. Folks feel less connected to each other. The accessibility of shared social spaces and institutions is on the decline. Trust among individuals has eroded, and the feeling of being a part of a larger community has generally fallen out of our daily lives. This has happened in spite (and sometimes because) of ever more tools to connect, from social media to games themselves.
We want to solve loneliness through games.
While some games have carved out social spaces by design, or more often, by accident (who can forget the joys and horrors of Barrens chat in early World of Warcraft days), modern day design tenets and demands of the industry has pushed many games to optimize the human element out of player interactions.
Even in multiplayer games, teammates and opponents feel more like bots—and in some cases, are bots designed to be indistinguishable from humans playing the game. The concerns around the ramifications of poor sportsmanship or behavioral outbursts drive many competitive games to reduce communication tools and obfuscate the other player’s presence — further dehumanizing those you play with and against, which in turn exacerbates the very problems they seek to solve.
We are tackling these challenges head on.
At Jam and Tea Studios, social design isn’t a secondary concern, or a “toxicity” problem to solve well into a game’s life cycle. It’s core to how we approach all of our work, and is why we are creating uncompromisingly multiplayer games where players can build communities of trust. We believe games that empower playful creativity, collaboration, and expression have unlimited potential to excite players and offer fresh, new experiences they haven’t found elsewhere.
Expect more on all of these concepts and thoughts in the near future.
We want to solve loneliness through games.
It’s a bold statement, and a daunting one. But it’s a passion and drive that we all share as cofounders.
-Carl
