We Liked [Indie Games] Before They Were Cool, Man

JohnHam

-Tal wrote: »

anyway here's a neat little indie game

http://wip.warpdoor.com/2014/08/31/superdimensional-pixelmind/

As someone who is continually disappointed in games with multi-world mechanics along these lines, I was surprised by how effective this was, on a pure mechanical level.

Tube

I don't care what anyone's side on an issue is, you all have the responsibility not to act like arseholes if you're going to continue posting on this forum.

Lalabox

One of the weirdest things I've seen with regards to the Zoe Quinn stuff was when someone on tumblr made a post about how it's pretty appalling that there's a large section of people in the gaming community who will latch on to just about any excuse to go and attack women simply for having the audacity to be female. And someone else chimed in saying that Zoe Quinn was a bitch and this had nothing to do with misogyny at all and that the original poster should "educate yourself at knowyourmeme.com".

Or the fact that the people making videos about the whole conspiracy thing sound like people doing moon-landing denials or chemtrail videos. All a bunch of "look, the connections are all there, can't you sheeple see???!!"

Kyoraki

Bluedude152 wrote: »

There isn't a social justice circle jerk

There is a group saying "Hey maybe we can treat women better in videogames?"

Meanwhile the other group thinks this means gaming needs to end and the only way to stop this is death and rape threats

Yeah, you see I don't buy this at all. Putting my own treatment to the side for a second, look at how Totalbiscuit, a man fighting for his life against cancer, has been treated. He's made a number of very level headed and calm calls for everyone to calm the shit down and look at things from a less biased perspective. How was this received? Praise from the gamers that have been labeled as misogynistic, while Zoe Quinn sets loose her fanbase to send him death threats. Totalbiscuit. A man already dying of cancer.

For the third, and hopefully last time, please realise that this whole controversy is nowhere near as black and white as you currently think it is.

I needed anime to post.

Kyoraki wrote: »

Bluedude152 wrote: »

There isn't a social justice circle jerk

There is a group saying "Hey maybe we can treat women better in videogames?"

Meanwhile the other group thinks this means gaming needs to end and the only way to stop this is death and rape threats

Yeah, you see I don't buy this at all. Putting my own treatment to the side for a second, look at how Totalbiscuit, a man fighting for his life against cancer, has been treated. He's made a number of very level headed and calm calls for everyone to calm the shit down and look at things from a less biased perspective. How was this received? Praise from the gamers that have been labeled as misogynistic, while Zoe Quinn sets loose her fanbase to send him death threats. Totalbiscuit. A man already dying of cancer.

For the third, and hopefully last time, please realise that this whole controversy is nowhere near as black and white as you currently think it is.

I don't think you have the neutral stance on this you claimed to have at the beginning of the conversation.

JohnHam

If there were a breach of professional ethics in the Zoe Quinn situation, it would have only been on the part of the journalists who decided to compromise their coverage for an external reason.

The fact that the entire thing ended up focused on her is a pretty clear signal about how and why this spate of abuse actually arose.

-Tal

okay which one of you guys leaked zoe's orders

-Tal

JohnHam wrote: »

If there were a breach of professional ethics in the Zoe Quinn situation, it would have only been on the part of the journalists who decided to compromise their coverage for an external reason.

The fact that the entire thing ended up focused on her is a pretty clear signal about how and why this spate of abuse actually arose.

I'm surprised that pretense is still being used at all when it was known day 1 with a 5 second google search that none of the people in question even reviewed depression quest

Magus`

When will these people remember to stop choosing to be female? Obviously things would be much easier if they didn't keep doing that.

Bluedude152

I just said that yeah if some of the stuff that has been claimed is true then yeah Zoe is in the wrong

But that doesn't mean you respond with harassment, death threats, hacking of anyone who supports her, leaking bank information.

Cheating is wrong. Trying to censor the people you think are trying to censor you that way is worse

Mr. G

anyway

Every time I think Velocity 2X is rad they add a new thing to the game that makes it even radder

UnbrokenEva

Kyoraki wrote: »

Okay, this seems like an interesting place, and I think you're all more intelligent than you're currently being. I'm a part time writer that's been getting death threats since spearheading the Gamergate debacle. Only I decided to cover the story from a neutral perspective and got threats from the social justice crowd (along with famous folks like Totalbiscuit, JonTron, and Adam Baldwin), people who are acting and thinking like you are now, that this is about misogyny and smelly disgusting nerds and absolutely nothing to do with widespread corruption that's been the centre of discussion since day one.

More than enough mud has been thrown on both sides to make it clear that this is not a black and white issue. You can do better than this.

the thing is, this righteous outcry against corruption didn't start with Jeff Gerstmann being fired for his Kane & Lynch review, it didn't start with Geoff Keighley looking dead inside while sitting between piles of mountain dew and doritos, it didn't start with developers flying reviewers to resorts to play advance copies of games, it didn't start with "exclusive first looks" or reviewers being banned by developers from future access to advance copies/information because of bad reviews.

It started because a woman was accused of having sex. A woman that the shittiest parts of the gaming community had already tried and failed to drive away when she had the nerve to make a game while possessing two x chromosomes.

Bluedude152

Total Biscuit has been getting death threats for years. Zoe didn't sick anyone on him, reddit threatens him every day of his life.

Why do you think youtubers keep turning off their comments

Kyoraki

I needed a gnome to post. wrote: »

I don't think you have the neutral stance on this you claimed to have at the beginning of the conversation.

If only there was some evidence to back up my point. If onl- oh, wait. Here you go.
http://gamesnosh.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/RNF8nm9.png

Bonus Phil Fish douchebaggery:
http://gamesnosh.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/zFBoyuZ.png

Magus`

Mr. G wrote: »

anyway

Every time I think Velocity 2X is rad they add a new thing to the game that makes it even radder

I need to start that. I downloaded it (I hope, did it via the PS app) and need to get into it.

I'm told it's very Sonic-like. My question is is it Metroid like at all?

UnbrokenEva

beyond that, I'm going to just quote Matt Lees at length as he's a smart dude that has been very thoughtful about this whole fucking disgraceful mess.

"We want to talk about improving games journalism."
Ok sure - well what specifically do you think is the problem?

"Too much corruption, not enough transparency, media keep trying to silence our complaints."
Oof, that’s a tricky one. I mean you’re sort of suggesting a number of things there, first of all that corruption has been proven to be a major problem - which is difficult, because it hasn’t. So I mean really you’re asking me to offer up a tangible solution to a widespread problem that - as far as I’m aware - doesn’t actually exist. As you can imagine, that’s a bit of a tough one.
I mean obviously the past few weeks have highlighted certain situations in which corruption potentially could have happened, but jumping to that conclusion without explicit evidence is like suggesting that anyone who’s ever worked a cash register is a thief.

"Well you need to be more transparent, then."
I mean, do we? This comes down to two factors: How many people are actually interested in this stuff, and at what point does the line get drawn? Do I need to start keeping a little black book about everyone I’ve ever had a brief chat with? In an industry this tiny you end up bumping into everyone - and yes, that means having a drink with that developer you quite like, but it also means having to politely shake hands with a snooty exec that genuinely still wants you eviscerated for the time you gave his game a 6/10.
Watching people whip up spider diagrams that prove most people in games know each other was a genuinely insane waste of time - you could have just asked any of us whether or not that was true, and any one of us would have happily told you. Frankly I’ve been a bit unimpressed at how much detail these diagrams lack - everybody knows everybody. To suggest that means cronyism is very naive, mind - not everyone in the industry likes each other, they just hide that relatively well out of a sense of professionalism. It’s not something I’m personally very good at, because I’m a feisty prick who should really know better.
But the core of this call for transparency comes back to an absolute lack of trust. Yes, we all know each other. Yes, most of us have shared a drink with countless developers over the years. If you don’t trust us not to let that influence our work, then no form of transparency is going to change that - we’d simply be providing you with citations to help prove this invented corruption. If you don’t trust a writer or a publication, don’t waste your time reading their stuff.
All sorts of hard work goes on behind the scenes to ensure stuff remains above-board and ethical. I mean, look on Twitter or poke your head into a pub and ethics is practically the only thing that games journalists ever seem to bloody talk about, to the point where it’s almost downright tedious.
Perhaps constantly broadcasting this group-think neurosis has been partly to blame for the current belief that ethical problem musts exist. If that’s the case it’s brutally ironic - this desire to champion squeaky-clean practices only exists because most games media desperately want to rekindle the trust that was unfairly snatched away wholesale because of the actions of an unscrupulous few. If you think you’re still furious about the Gamespot Kane and Lynch stuff, you’ve no idea how professionals feel. To see your entire profession tarred so absolutely with the same brush as a bunch of exec pricks you’ll never even meet is properly heart-rending.

"Well if all that’s true then why are the media trying to silence our complaints?"
It’s difficult to answer this question without tweaking it a little bit, as it sort of comes packaged with the inherent suggestion that the games media is some sort of Borg-like entity that’s secretly in cahoots.

"I do think that’s true though."
Well there’s definitely a tendency for people to react in the same way when put under the same pressures, and sure - you will get a visible sense of unity when a group of people are being attacked in ways that don’t seem entirely fair. So I can see that sometimes it might appear like there’s some form of formal collaboration going on behind the scenes - with different sites from around the world working towards the same planned agendas - but obviously it’s more likely to suggest that any appearances of direct collaboration are more the result of like-minded people reacting to the same stimulus in very similar ways.

"No I do believe that the games media are working together to silence us."
Oh, right. Well that’s tricky. You’re sort of working from a frame of reference that’s so vastly different to the reality that I know exists that I’m not really sure how we can go about having a meaningful conversation. It’s like we’re trying to work together on a map of the earth, but one of us believes the world is flat and the other one believes the world is a triangle, you know?
The only way I could talk about how to improve games journalism with you would be to force my brain to entirely reject things I know to be true in favour of things you believe to be true. And I can’t prove that what you believe isn’t true, because it’s impossible to provide evidence that disproves evidence that as far as I can tell doesn’t actually exist.
Gosh, sorry- this has become awfully complicated. I guess the short version is that there’s no point in us having this conversation - I’m unable to integrate your perspective into the version of reality I know to be true, and you seem unwilling to consider the proposition that the conspiracies you believe in might not be real. So yeah, I’m off to do something else. Sorry.

"Typical! Completely unwilling to talk to us about fixing our legitimate complaints…"
(Hopefully this serves both as a FAQ for people genuinely asking me these questions, and also as a partial explanation - although not a justification - as to why many media have reacted to these criticisms with derision. It’s tough to remain rational when surrounded with madness.)
Edit: I understand that people remain very angry at what they see as journalists lashing out at the community in general, and whilst I won’t try and justify that (or even entirely accept that this isn’t even true) I’d like to ask you to consider this: When the community you’ve worked so hard to serve choose to stand beside a group of manipulative misogynists rather than entertain the idea that you might not actually be corrupt, how do you think this makes people feel?
So much of this argument boils down to a misunderstanding - the games media aren’t calling you misogynists. They don’t think you hate women. But you’ve decided that your distrust of the media is so strong that you’d rather side with dangerous bigots than believe that the media might not be corrupt, that’s a hell of a statement to be making.
There’s a lot of talk about gamers being disrespected right now, but honestly - take a step back and think about how that might actually feel. Here’s a clue: it feels fucking awful. I’m doing my best to continue to talk about this stuff without getting too emotional and angry, but trust me - it remains a constant struggle.

-Tal

JohnHam wrote: »

-Tal wrote: »

anyway here's a neat little indie game

http://wip.warpdoor.com/2014/08/31/superdimensional-pixelmind/

As someone who is continually disappointed in games with multi-world mechanics along these lines, I was surprised by how effective this was, on a pure mechanical level.

yeah it was just a quick thing made for ludum dare but I'd love to see it expanded upon

step 1 is that the mouse controls need some work

I needed anime to post.

Kyoraki wrote: »

I needed a gnome to post. wrote: »

I don't think you have the neutral stance on this you claimed to have at the beginning of the conversation.

If only there was some evidence to back up my point. If onl- oh, wait. Here you go.
http://gamesnosh.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/RNF8nm9.png

Bonus Phil Fish douchebaggery:
http://gamesnosh.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/zFBoyuZ.png

https://twitter.com/TheQuinnspiracy/status/502195217391697920

TotalBiscuit is not the only person who uses YouTube.

Crimson King

for the last week i've been trying to figure out what the demands of these gamergate people even are

"get corruption out of the industry!" there... isn't any

"SJWs need to stop censoring video games" that's not happening

"stop calling us nerds" no

like what they are trying to do just does not make sense on a basic level

JohnHam

Also of note; TotalBiscuit chose to involve himself in this discussion, while people like Quinn absolutely did not.

Besides, everyone knows saying something vaguely mean to a man is roughly equivalent to literally threatening the life of a woman.

Bluedude152

That's evidence that he was harassed

Note Zoe Quinn never said "go attack this guy"

At the time total biscuit put up his thoughts on this every other YouTube personality that deals with the journalism put up a video about it

Hell, jontron was actually telling people to go harass her

You are seeing it as her talking specifically about totalbiscuit because that makes the best narrative to make her look evil as possible

CaptainNemo

Transistor was really, really incredible.

I mean, shit, I've cried over a girl and her magic talking sailor outift, but now I've cried over a lounge singer and her cyberpunk talking USB sword, which is sort of a whole 'nother level to me.

Magus`

Also I actually don't know what this whole Zoe Quinn thing is about. Is it worth looking into or will I just grow in my hatred for the internet?

UnbrokenEva

seriously though, the moment someone produces actual evidence of a widespread conspiracy amongst games journalists, or evidence of corruption that the rest of the industry didn't already call out and criticize at length, people with even a rough understanding of what critical thinking is will start to take this whole "gamergate" thing seriously

until then, it's a bunch of hideously misogynist turdscooters using journalistic ethics as a smokescreen to convince a bunch of gullible people that they're being persecuted to further their own malicious ends.

I needed anime to post.

Bluedude152 wrote: »

You are seeing it as her talking specifically about totalbiscuit because that makes the best narrative to make her look evil as possible

Particularly with your weaponizing TB's cancer as sympathy for your position.

UnbrokenEva

Magus` wrote: »

Also I actually don't know what this whole Zoe Quinn thing is about. Is it worth looking into or will I just grow in my hatred for the internet?

the latter, and then some

whatever you're speculating it might be, it's much worse, much uglier, and incredibly sad & petty

Crimson King

Magus` wrote: »

Also I actually don't know what this whole Zoe Quinn thing is about. Is it worth looking into or will I just grow in my hatred for the internet?

shitty men's rights guys harass a woman for having sex, people go through the most ridiculous contortions to deny that's what's happening, often in the same 4chan threads as the harassment is taking place

it is a level of cognitive dissonance i literally did not realize existed

I needed anime to post.

-Tal wrote: »

JohnHam wrote: »

If there were a breach of professional ethics in the Zoe Quinn situation, it would have only been on the part of the journalists who decided to compromise their coverage for an external reason.

The fact that the entire thing ended up focused on her is a pretty clear signal about how and why this spate of abuse actually arose.

I'm surprised that pretense is still being used at all when it was known day 1 with a 5 second google search that none of the people in question even reviewed depression quest

Much of the issue is that people are using youtube videos that did not do this research and in fact stated the opposite as a basis for their opinions.

CaptainNemo

Really, Transistor is just a top notch production, though I do have some annoyance at what seems to be a recurring trend of indie games. Which is to say, some core story elements are deliberately obfuscated and left really vague, even by the games ending.

Now, I don't need all the answers to everything, or infodumps about it, but I feel like we could've used some more info on stuff like SPOILERS:

The Process, as well as the Camerata's end goal with regards too the assassinations.

Bluedude152

They literally believe there is a gaming illuminati

I'm surprised I am not seeing diagrams of how all the feminists getting attacked have made a triangle at some point

Magus`

Transistor (and I say this as someone who enjoyed it) feels, plot-wise, like the 2nd part of a 5 part series. I've noticed this a lot with some animes on Netflix. You get shown characters and it feels like you're supposed to know them/care about them but nothing is really said and everything moves really fast. This is not to say Transistor is bad (it's not, at all) but I feel the story was too compact for its own good.

CaptainNemo

Anyone want to talk about Transistor, or should I find another thread? Is there a dedicated thread for it I'm missing or-?

Bluedude152

This is the right thread

It's just kinda a bad time

UnbrokenEva

Kyoraki wrote: »

Bluedude152 wrote: »

There isn't a social justice circle jerk

There is a group saying "Hey maybe we can treat women better in videogames?"

Meanwhile the other group thinks this means gaming needs to end and the only way to stop this is death and rape threats

Yeah, you see I don't buy this at all. Putting my own treatment to the side for a second, look at how Totalbiscuit, a man fighting for his life against cancer, has been treated. He's made a number of very level headed and calm calls for everyone to calm the shit down and look at things from a less biased perspective. How was this received? Praise from the gamers that have been labeled as misogynistic, while Zoe Quinn sets loose her fanbase to send him death threats. Totalbiscuit. A man already dying of cancer.

For the third, and hopefully last time, please realise that this whole controversy is nowhere near as black and white as you currently think it is.

calling for a balanced middle ground between harassing someone and sending them death threats and... not doing that? is still pretty shitty.

this isn't a "both sides need to be heard" situation, not all issues have 2 equal sides that deserve equal attention. There's trying to ruin a woman's life over allegations that are both unproven and none of anybody's business, and there's acting like a decent human being. If Totalbiscuit is trying to find a middle ground there, he'll end up somewhere in the vicinity of just being moderately shitty, which is actually the impression I've been getting.

Stilts

CaptainNemo wrote: »

Anyone want to talk about Transistor, or should I find another thread? Is there a dedicated thread for it I'm missing or-?

I'll talk about Transistor with you.

That's a pretty great game.

Magus`

I still need to finish the NG+ of Transistor. Then again there are a lot of games I need to finish for the first time.

Kyoraki

I needed a gnome to post. wrote: »

https://twitter.com/TheQuinnspiracy/status/502195217391697920

TotalBiscuit is not the only person who uses YouTube.

That's a fair enough point, and wasn't aware she did a follow up tweet. Kind of an admission of guilt there though, isn't it? Made 5 hours after the original offending tweet and after the damage was done. In context it could be in reply to either people harassing her over that tweet, or after learning that her fans took it as a signal to attack.

JohnHam wrote: »

Also of note; TotalBiscuit chose to involve himself in this discussion, while people like Quinn absolutely did not.

Besides, everyone knows saying something vaguely mean to a man is roughly equivalent to literally threatening the life of a woman.

TB didn't pick a side though, and still by no means deserved to get shoved into a position he never wanted thanks to SJW fuck wits, and sent threats.

And you know what? Neutrality is getting me plenty enough hate so I'll say it. Yes. Sending death threats to a man that's already dealing with the possibility that he hasn't much time left on earth is perfectly equivalent to sending death threats to a woman. Even more so, since the gender of the person being threatened shouldn't fucking matter.

Kwoaru

Bluedude152 wrote: »

This is the right thread

It's just kinda a bad time

No that means there is no better time than now to talk about transistor

Transistor Facts: it is super pretty and I like it a lot

CaptainNemo

I noticed. I mean, I have no idea about this thing you guys are talking about, so I don't want to comment on it, but at the same time I do want to talk about indie games, but I don't want to be a passive aggressive ass about it, you know what I mean?

Anyway.

Magus` wrote: »

Transistor (and I say this as someone who enjoyed it) feels, plot-wise, like the 2nd part of a 5 part series. I've noticed this a lot with some animes on Netflix. You get shown characters and it feels like you're supposed to know them/care about them but nothing is really said and everything moves really fast. This is not to say Transistor is bad (it's not, at all) but I feel the story was too compact for its own good.

Pretty much this. I feel like they had a lot of ground to cover and just not a lot of resources to cover it in. It'd definitely benefit from a sequel or expansion, but I doubt either will happen.

-Tal

Magus` wrote: »

Transistor (and I say this as someone who enjoyed it) feels, plot-wise, like the 2nd part of a 5 part series. I've noticed this a lot with some animes on Netflix. You get shown characters and it feels like you're supposed to know them/care about them but nothing is really said and everything moves really fast. This is not to say Transistor is bad (it's not, at all) but I feel the story was too compact for its own good.

I think a lot of games feel like this, simultaneously too sparse and too abundant in story, just unable to communicate information very well