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Penny Arcade - Comic - Thanks In Advance

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Thanks In Advance!

Penny Arcade - Comic - Thanks In Advance

Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.

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  • OverkillengineOverkillengine Registered User regular
    Now hurry up and hand me your money, huh-HUH!!

  • GrendusGrendus Registered User regular
    I'm awaiting the blog post on this, because I have no fuggin clue what it's about but it scares the living daylights outta me.

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    Grendus wrote: »
    I'm awaiting the blog post on this, because I have no fuggin clue what it's about but it scares the living daylights outta me.

    I feel like my decision to not have any streaming subscriptions, or a Fortnite account, is about to be thoroughly validated.

  • LucascraftLucascraft Registered User regular
    Grendus wrote: »
    I'm awaiting the blog post on this, because I have no fuggin clue what it's about but it scares the living daylights outta me.

    There's some sort of big deal between Disney and Epic.

    Epic is wanting to turn Fortnite from being a singular battle royale game into being an entire gaming ecosystem full of lots of games. They have already started doing this with LEGO Fortnite, the car racing Fortnite thingie, and the music beat-matching Fortnite game made by Harmonix.

    Now they are going to be adding even more Fortnite games to the Fortnite ecosystem that are built on a long term partnership deal with Disney.

  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    Grendus wrote: »
    I'm awaiting the blog post on this, because I have no fuggin clue what it's about but it scares the living daylights outta me.

    https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/02/epic-working-with-disney-on-new-gaming-universe-after-1-5b-investment/

    Basically amounting to 3-5% stake. Sweeney still has > 50% and Tencent is the other one with a huge chunk.

  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    Also, why don't people even google these things? When you google "fortnite disney", you get more information than you could possibly need to understand the comic. I find that's true of almost every comic that's baffling to me. Just throw in a couple of words to google and you don't have to wait for the newspost (which may or may not explain things to your satisfaction).

  • Steel AngelSteel Angel Registered User regular
    Lucascraft wrote: »
    Grendus wrote: »
    I'm awaiting the blog post on this, because I have no fuggin clue what it's about but it scares the living daylights outta me.

    There's some sort of big deal between Disney and Epic.

    Epic is wanting to turn Fortnite from being a singular battle royale game into being an entire gaming ecosystem full of lots of games. They have already started doing this with LEGO Fortnite, the car racing Fortnite thingie, and the music beat-matching Fortnite game made by Harmonix.

    Now they are going to be adding even more Fortnite games to the Fortnite ecosystem that are built on a long term partnership deal with Disney.

    Fornite already was a battle royale and horde mode shooter in the same system. The latter just became vestigial over time. Given that Fortnite is built in the Unreal Engine which also supports a wide variety of different games, this actually sounds kind of on brand for Epic.

    Big Dookie wrote: »
    I found that tilting it doesn't work very well, and once I started jerking it, I got much better results.

    Steam Profile
    3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
  • LttlefootLttlefoot Registered User regular
    Epic funded Jill of the Jungle by making ZZT, an object-oriented ASCII game which allowed people to make their own games. Epic has been doing this since 1991

  • LtPowersLtPowers Registered User regular
    I've still got Jill of the Jungle on floppy disk somewhere around here. No disk drive, though, which is why I copied all my floppy contents to hard drive folders years ago.


    After reading the newspost, though, I have a question. What is it about "young people" that makes it difficult for them to understand the concept of selling out?


    Powers &8^]

  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    LtPowers wrote: »
    I've still got Jill of the Jungle on floppy disk somewhere around here. No disk drive, though, which is why I copied all my floppy contents to hard drive folders years ago.


    After reading the newspost, though, I have a question. What is it about "young people" that makes it difficult for them to understand the concept of selling out?


    Powers &8^]

    Because their entire identity is built around online popularity and brands give you more shit the more you talk about their shit which makes you more popular.

    They have no values, no morals.

    They'll gladly make Stanley millions of dollars for the low price of a mug it cost the company $2 to make. Forget a salary or insurance, I see hearts popping up on my screen.

  • LttlefootLttlefoot Registered User regular
    Because the counterculture and the mainstream swapped places. Now if you want to sell out, you have to start off as a conservative Christian

  • nialloniallo Registered User regular
    LtPowers wrote: »
    I've still got Jill of the Jungle on floppy disk somewhere around here. No disk drive, though, which is why I copied all my floppy contents to hard drive folders years ago.


    After reading the newspost, though, I have a question. What is it about "young people" that makes it difficult for them to understand the concept of selling out?


    Powers &8^]

    Nothing. Jerry and Mike's own kids probably disagree entirely with that point.

    Corporations and influencers certainly try to make young people entirely debased and transactional slaves of capitalism, but huge amounts of young people would rather not.

    It's just 'kids today' crap, and older people will lap that up, because then the problems of the world can be laid at their feet, not ours.

  • DelzhandDelzhand Hard to miss. Registered User regular
    Young people today are growing up in a different world than you/we did, have different pressures, different coping mechanisms, different modes of failure. That's all. They're victimized by the newest and most efficient weapons capitalism has ever produced, and they'll be sorted into successes and failures based on criteria completely alien to us.

    They'll be alright or they won't but I suspect the handwringing of their elders won't be a major factor.

  • Rhesus PositiveRhesus Positive GNU Terry Pratchett Registered User regular
    Also, shit is fucking expensive now

    [Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
  • RatherDashing89RatherDashing89 Registered User regular
    I honestly have no idea what he means in the newspost saying young people (or the specific ones in the podcast) don't understand the concept of selling out, don't believe it exists, and presumably thus are doing it without realizing it? I'm not really following. "Selling out" which I guess here is specifically shilling for corporate interests, is by no means new or the purview of the young...if anything I feel like young people are more savvy to recognize the Superman Crunchy Oats Hour Brought to You By Crunchy Oats might be about more than superheroes and nutritious breakfasts.

  • Rhesus PositiveRhesus Positive GNU Terry Pratchett Registered User regular
    edited February 13
    Maybe it's more the concept that "selling out" is a bad thing

    Like how musicians used to be all up themselves about not licensing their songs for adverts because it's all about the music, maaaan

    Well, being all about the music doesn't pay the rent that's been outpacing inflation for decades, so pass me the Rhyming Dictionary, I'm writing about Doritos

    It's no longer "selling out", it's "trying to earn enough money not to share a flat with three strangers"

    Rhesus Positive on
    [Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    edited February 13
    I think Gabe's comment (from a book he's reading) on the post quantifies it pretty well
    “...it did not simply mean someone was trying to sell something in order to get rich. It meant someone was compromising the values they espoused in exchange for something superficial (which was usually money, but not always).”

    So licensing music to adverts is not a problem, unless you had for years been saying you would never license your song for adverts because [reasons]. Basically, building a following based on a certain personality, but putting a price tag on changing that personality.

    Of course, a lot of that is just maturing. It's a lot easier to not care about money when you're in your 20s and are fine with a lifestyle of top ramen and couch surfing.

    dennis on
  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    niallo wrote: »
    LtPowers wrote: »
    I've still got Jill of the Jungle on floppy disk somewhere around here. No disk drive, though, which is why I copied all my floppy contents to hard drive folders years ago.


    After reading the newspost, though, I have a question. What is it about "young people" that makes it difficult for them to understand the concept of selling out?


    Powers &8^]

    Nothing. Jerry and Mike's own kids probably disagree entirely with that point.

    Corporations and influencers certainly try to make young people entirely debased and transactional slaves of capitalism, but huge amounts of young people would rather not.

    It's just 'kids today' crap, and older people will lap that up, because then the problems of the world can be laid at their feet, not ours.

    Not mine - i was too busy lettimg myself in to an empty house during the week and shooting bottle rockets at my friends until 10pm during the weekend to cause any problems.

  • CowboyCaseCowboyCase Registered User regular
    I think the idea was more that the creative world is so heavily monetized that the idea that someone *not* selling out is foreign.

  • nialloniallo Registered User regular
    MichaelLC wrote: »
    LtPowers wrote: »
    I've still got Jill of the Jungle on floppy disk somewhere around here. No disk drive, though, which is why I copied all my floppy contents to hard drive folders years ago.


    After reading the newspost, though, I have a question. What is it about "young people" that makes it difficult for them to understand the concept of selling out?


    Powers &8^]

    Because their entire identity is built around online popularity and brands give you more shit the more you talk about their shit which makes you more popular.

    They have no values, no morals.

    They'll gladly make Stanley millions of dollars for the low price of a mug it cost the company $2 to make. Forget a salary or insurance, I see hearts popping up on my screen.

    Young people have no values and no morals? Did you unironically say that?

  • SolventSolvent Econ-artist กรุงเทพมหานครRegistered User regular
    Of course I do see elements of "kids today" but if you try, you can look a bit deeper and admit that there are actually differences between kids of the 2010s, the 2000s, the 90s etc. Not wanting to put hard borders on it, of course it's a continuum.

    How it's possible to make money as a creator these days, and how art and culture have changed, have definitely altered the kinds of lifestyles and heroes younger people are emulating. This isn't a radical thing to notice. For what it's worth, I think the way YouTube and other delivery streams, through which "kids today" get their popular art, have genuinely affected creatives and weakened the idea of "selling out."

    I don't know where he got the scorpions, or how he got them into my mattress.

    http://newnations.bandcamp.com
  • The WolfmanThe Wolfman Registered User regular
    niallo wrote: »
    MichaelLC wrote: »
    LtPowers wrote: »
    I've still got Jill of the Jungle on floppy disk somewhere around here. No disk drive, though, which is why I copied all my floppy contents to hard drive folders years ago.


    After reading the newspost, though, I have a question. What is it about "young people" that makes it difficult for them to understand the concept of selling out?


    Powers &8^]

    Because their entire identity is built around online popularity and brands give you more shit the more you talk about their shit which makes you more popular.

    They have no values, no morals.

    They'll gladly make Stanley millions of dollars for the low price of a mug it cost the company $2 to make. Forget a salary or insurance, I see hearts popping up on my screen.

    Young people have no values and no morals? Did you unironically say that?

    I wouldn't really personally try to say that in regards to a generation of people. But when it comes to streaming culture? The likes of Youtube/Tiktok/Twitch?

    The only thing that matters is the latest thing.

    This has become entirely predictable by now. The second Palworld blew up, everybody went rushing to make their own videos on it, to strike while the iron was hot. It'll then shift to whatever is the current zeitgeist game is (so probably FFVII Rebirth). Everybody has the same shocked face on their thumbnail, because that's what you need to do to get noticed by the almighty algorithm. The second some bizarre act becomes viral, like I don't know... owning a shitty travel mug, there will be a million videos on tiktok of people doing it, all to get in while the gettings good.

    It's not that you don't have values and morals. It's that if you want to be a part of this "culture", then you can't have them.

    "The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    I do have to wonder what % of the "kids today" are actually pursuing those avenues of youtube/tiktok/twitch. Are we talking 5%? 50%? 90%? Because if it's 5%, it really doesn't matter one way or the other.

  • VontreVontre Registered User regular
    Lttlefoot wrote: »

    More than half, damn that's a crazy number.

    "Some 57% of Gen Zers said they would like to become an influencer if given the chance, according to a new report from Morning Consult, a decision intelligence company. That’s a notch higher than the 41% of adults overall who’d opt for the emerging career path."

    Oh what lmfao alright then. Seems that being delusional has no age boundary.

  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    What that report claims and what that question asks are two very different things.

  • nialloniallo Registered User regular
    I think Mike read a dumb book, or at least a book that said one particular silly thing. Perhaps as hyperbole.

    And because he's famous and we like his work, people are working to make that statement true, rather than looking at the actual humans around them. And no, Youtube and Polygon don't count.

    When I talk to young people in person they seem, frankly, much more politically aware than my own generation. But even if they were much less, the idea that they are so entirely broken that they don't understand basic concepts like 'selling out'? That's insane.

  • nialloniallo Registered User regular
    niallo wrote: »
    MichaelLC wrote: »
    LtPowers wrote: »
    I've still got Jill of the Jungle on floppy disk somewhere around here. No disk drive, though, which is why I copied all my floppy contents to hard drive folders years ago.


    After reading the newspost, though, I have a question. What is it about "young people" that makes it difficult for them to understand the concept of selling out?


    Powers &8^]

    Because their entire identity is built around online popularity and brands give you more shit the more you talk about their shit which makes you more popular.

    They have no values, no morals.

    They'll gladly make Stanley millions of dollars for the low price of a mug it cost the company $2 to make. Forget a salary or insurance, I see hearts popping up on my screen.

    Young people have no values and no morals? Did you unironically say that?

    I wouldn't really personally try to say that in regards to a generation of people. But when it comes to streaming culture? The likes of Youtube/Tiktok/Twitch?

    The only thing that matters is the latest thing.

    This has become entirely predictable by now. The second Palworld blew up, everybody went rushing to make their own videos on it, to strike while the iron was hot. It'll then shift to whatever is the current zeitgeist game is (so probably FFVII Rebirth). Everybody has the same shocked face on their thumbnail, because that's what you need to do to get noticed by the almighty algorithm. The second some bizarre act becomes viral, like I don't know... owning a shitty travel mug, there will be a million videos on tiktok of people doing it, all to get in while the gettings good.

    It's not that you don't have values and morals. It's that if you want to be a part of this "culture", then you can't have them.

    My 50-something friends, from a variety of nations, also bought Palworld, and follow many media trends and fads.

    Do you actually know any young people in person? I have a teenage child, and used to teach high school. There is also lots of peer-reviewed research talking about young people involved in activism - Greta Thunberg is famous, but she's hardly unique.

  • The WolfmanThe Wolfman Registered User regular
    niallo wrote: »
    niallo wrote: »
    MichaelLC wrote: »
    LtPowers wrote: »
    I've still got Jill of the Jungle on floppy disk somewhere around here. No disk drive, though, which is why I copied all my floppy contents to hard drive folders years ago.


    After reading the newspost, though, I have a question. What is it about "young people" that makes it difficult for them to understand the concept of selling out?


    Powers &8^]

    Because their entire identity is built around online popularity and brands give you more shit the more you talk about their shit which makes you more popular.

    They have no values, no morals.

    They'll gladly make Stanley millions of dollars for the low price of a mug it cost the company $2 to make. Forget a salary or insurance, I see hearts popping up on my screen.

    Young people have no values and no morals? Did you unironically say that?

    I wouldn't really personally try to say that in regards to a generation of people. But when it comes to streaming culture? The likes of Youtube/Tiktok/Twitch?

    The only thing that matters is the latest thing.

    This has become entirely predictable by now. The second Palworld blew up, everybody went rushing to make their own videos on it, to strike while the iron was hot. It'll then shift to whatever is the current zeitgeist game is (so probably FFVII Rebirth). Everybody has the same shocked face on their thumbnail, because that's what you need to do to get noticed by the almighty algorithm. The second some bizarre act becomes viral, like I don't know... owning a shitty travel mug, there will be a million videos on tiktok of people doing it, all to get in while the gettings good.

    It's not that you don't have values and morals. It's that if you want to be a part of this "culture", then you can't have them.

    My 50-something friends, from a variety of nations, also bought Palworld, and follow many media trends and fads.

    Do you actually know any young people in person? I have a teenage child, and used to teach high school. There is also lots of peer-reviewed research talking about young people involved in activism - Greta Thunberg is famous, but she's hardly unique.

    You misunderstand what I'm getting at. You and your friends buying and liking Palworld is fine. That's not the issue. The issue is if you want to be a "professional streamer" or "tiktoker" or "influencer" or whatever word we're using. If you want any degree of notability, you do whatever the algorithm is doing. If you want any degree of profitability, you damn well do whatever the algorithm is doing. Go look at a bunch of people doing let's plays or reaction videos, and take a look at their videos. You're going to notice a lot of overlap. In what they're doing, when they're doing it, and I bet even their video thumbnails look shockingly similar. They're of course free and clear to do whatever they want. And those people typically languish in obscurity.

    "The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
  • PyrianPyrian Registered User regular
    edited February 14
    Vast majority of the people chasing the algorithm also languish in obscurity. I'm not quite sure what chasing the algorithm has to do with selling out, though. In fairness, "selling out" was always a bit of a weird, nebulous concept that depended heavily on arbitrarily drawn lines. Like, a musician who directly hocked a product for pay would typically be accused of selling out - even though much of that same musician's income would come from sponsorships and radio advertisements that were adjacent to their music in the first place. But if they did it directly, that would get hackles up. You see the same dynamic on YouTube. Nobody blinks at ads that appear before/during/after your video, but if you personally endorse a sponsor in that video, that's both much more potentially lucrative and looked down on by some audiences. Heaven forbid you fail to disclose that you were paid for that endorsement. The terminology is different, but the dynamic hasn't shifted so much, IMO.

    Pyrian on
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    You can't "sell out" if you never got popular to actually have a fanbase to begin with.

    Or I guess you can, but it's just normal person shit. Like taking a boring business job for a company you don't believe in instead of trying to break into acting. The main difference is that nobody else cares.

  • Anthrax! Please.Anthrax! Please. Registered User regular
    I think the divide that Tycho is talking about has less to do with universalizing differences between the young and old, and more to do with the "corporate terraforming" part of the post. Maybe I'm missing something, and there's a degree to which ads have become deeply embedded in our media that the people in the podcast maybe haven't seen as much of the alternative to. I just watched the final scene of Torque out of context, and it features huge soda billboards as the visual backdrop for a motorcycle fight. That seems to me to be flagrant and separate from the media in a way that's glaring. We can all think of examples of out of place advertising that has that feel (of "selling out" or something adjacent). Our media environment (on phone apps, our influencers, the nature of microtransations in shops) is a lot more seamless than it was. Surveillance capitalism has made the advertising an unobtrusive cost for entry as both the producer and consumer in a lot of ways, and the architects of it have managed to keep values a separate question, I think.

  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    I'm just thinking what our parents made of my generation. Our entire childhood entertainment was basically just toy commercials. Oh, and junk food.

  • Steel AngelSteel Angel Registered User regular
    Vontre wrote: »
    Lttlefoot wrote: »

    More than half, damn that's a crazy number.

    "Some 57% of Gen Zers said they would like to become an influencer if given the chance, according to a new report from Morning Consult, a decision intelligence company. That’s a notch higher than the 41% of adults overall who’d opt for the emerging career path."

    Oh what lmfao alright then. Seems that being delusional has no age boundary.

    It's worth pointing out that there's varying degrees of influencer, not just the Mr Beast or whatever type. Plenty of influencers with day jobs that just have enough success making youtube videos about a topic they're passionate about to cross over from "it's fun to talk about this stuff" to "getting invited to events related to said hobby as an influencer." In some ways, it's similar to how we used to have so many new gaming sites and people writing for them pop up in the early 2000s but who weren't dedicated game journalists.

    Big Dookie wrote: »
    I found that tilting it doesn't work very well, and once I started jerking it, I got much better results.

    Steam Profile
    3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    edited February 15
    I see that poll as similar as asking "would you become a professional athlete if given the chance" or "would you become a movie star if given the chance." I feel like the answer would similarly be very high if they'd asked several earlier generations at the same age. Influencers are just the newest category of people like this. And there's probably a similar number of people doing it as a hobby with that in their head, but of course they'll drop out before getting anywhere close.

    dennis on
  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    I can sort of understand why people might want to be "influencers", what I can't work out for the life of me is why people follow them. It's such an alien mindset to me.

  • DjiemDjiem Registered User regular
    dennis wrote: »
    I see that poll as similar as asking "would you become a professional athlete if given the chance" or "would you become a movie star if given the chance." I feel like the answer would similarly be very high if they'd asked several earlier generations at the same age. Influencers are just the newest category of people like this. And there's probably a similar number of people doing it as a hobby with that in their head, but of course they'll drop out before getting anywhere close.

    In the 2000s I was totally gonna be a webcomic author/artist "if given the chance", and I did it inconsistently as a hobby and dropped out before getting anywhere. I can totally see that being what the 57% meant.

  • DelzhandDelzhand Hard to miss. Registered User regular
    V1m wrote: »
    I can sort of understand why people might want to be "influencers", what I can't work out for the life of me is why people follow them. It's such an alien mindset to me.

    Critical thinking is a skill that develops with use and over time. If you haven't had time (and this isn't just from youth, the pressures of poverty, stress, and depression effectively steal time) or interest (your community/culture doesn't value it) in developing it, you won't see this for what it is - manipulation.

  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    edited February 15
    I don't know why (beyond in abstract) people watch sporting events, much less follow them obsessively. But it's just something that I know is different about my brain. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    Edit: Plus, I actually have some streamers that I watch (people like Josh @ PA). Not mega-influencers, but it's in the same vein of some people saying "Why would you watch that???"

    dennis on
  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    Influencer just means minor celebrity. That's it. There are plenty of celebrities, small and big, I'd actually listen to on certain topics. Virtually everyone does.

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