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[TRENCHES] Thursday, October 18, 2012 - Unoccupied

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Posts

  • The Good Doctor TranThe Good Doctor Tran Registered User regular
    edited October 2012
    There is no law obliging them to provide you with their intellectual property for free. Straw man analogies don't change fact.

    E: I do love the idea that The Law, which doesn't protect employees of game developers from treatment which is considerably more ethically questionable than not giving you your video game man for free, is going to White Knight in and stop those bad publishers from mucking about in the secondhand retail market. This is not how the real world works.

    But there are laws saying they can't interfere with the rights of resale. Like... a lot of them. Also, straw man analogy isn't a thing... What you're wanting to say is "bad analogy" or "analogy that doesn't work". Straw man fallacy has more to it than being bad.

    The law DOES protect these employees to some extent. They are not suing enough. Like the bus story may have been actionable with a good lawyer in the right area of the country. But testers are generally poor and thus don't have the money to do much in the way of legal action. And if you'd read the words as written and not skim so you can start your counter post, you'd note that I was talking about legal consequences for this anti-used stuff, not for DLC practices (selling bad value products is quite legal).

    I'm not entirely certain why you think offering DLC incentives for purchasing new games is 'interfering with rights of resale', since...you know...you can still resell the game you bought? I won't even address the pedantry that's going on after that point, this has gone further off topic than is remotely necessary. DLC is good because it helps the industry sustain jobs across projects, resulting in less underemployment for developers overall. Fin.

    The Good Doctor Tran on
    LoL & Spiral Knights & MC & SMNC: Carrington - Origin: CarringtonPlus - Steam: skdrtran
  • shoeboxjeddyshoeboxjeddy Registered User regular
    I'm not entirely certain why you think offering DLC incentives for purchasing new games is 'interfering with rights of resale', since...you know...you can still resell the game you bought? I won't even address the pedantry that's going on after that point, this has gone further off topic than is remotely necessary. DLC is good because it helps the industry sustain jobs across projects, resulting in less underemployment for developers overall. Fin.

    Er, there's a lot more going on than that, and you know it. Like locking out things that are not DLC at all. Or making people pay to access the servers which they then sell to other people who can then ban you from accessing the servers (BF3 if you're wondering).

    Good arguing technique there, don't address the argument at all but DO insult the arguer. Wow, if only there were a name for that strategy...

    Finally, DLC is not a pure good as it allows (and may in fact encourage) developers to take advantage of consumer's misunderstanding of product value. The goal here is not JUST for devs to have jobs, but for games to be good and worthy of the amount of money they cost.

    But fine, I too tire of the argument.

  • TriskTrisk Registered User regular
    Man, the Trenches got good suddenly, the whole reference joke was something I can admit without any fake internet hyperbole made me laugh out loud.

    Not that it's been bad mind you, just ehhhhh

  • TasteticleTasteticle Registered User regular
    here is the best way to sum up day 1 dlc that is not on disc:

    m6gLU.jpg


    Uh-oh I accidentally deleted my signature. Uh-oh!!
  • nonoffensivenonoffensive Registered User regular
    I think the issue might be that no one wanted multiplayer for Mass Effect 3. So instead of getting an extra character for the story, you know, what you bought Mass Effect 3 for; You get a completely needless multiplayer mode tacked on because "Call of Duty" or something. My guess is they charged for the extra character because they knew people wouldn't pay for the multiplayer.

    Along with Origin exclusivity on PC, Mass Effect 3 represented a huge shift in the way customers had done business with Bioware, and they were understandably miffed with the new hoops they had to jump through for complete storyline resolution 5 years in the making.

    EA is entitled to do business the way they want, and customers are entitled to have an opinion about it. I continue to not buy ME3.

  • shoeboxjeddyshoeboxjeddy Registered User regular
    The lie is put to that argument immediately by the fact that not every company does it EA's way. Even EA does not always choose to do it the same way. Sometimes the early DLC is free to encourage new buyers. Sometimes it is free because encouraging people to actually play the dang game is seen as more important. And sometimes it is $10 because MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY. The idea that because they like money, we should roll over is silly and you (or whoever created that chart) should feel bad for floating it. Jim Sterling, while often an obnoxious goose, has very good videos on these topics.

    Or how about I put this in accounting terms. Salaries are NOT directly connected to a purchase product. They're usually connected to VALUE. So creating value, even value that DOESN'T directly and immediately produce profit is worth paying a salary for. This absolute horse shit that "if you don't physically pay money for every bit of work that's done, it will sink the company" is idiotic and has got to stop. Sometimes giving people things doesn't have to make you (immediately and in a way that is easy to measure) richer. There's such a thing as brand loyalty that improves product life cycle and customer retention. There's such a thing as positive press leading to more discovery. Like, if you spend X Million on advertising and then reputation of your game tanks because you got greedy with microtransactions? You done screwed the pooch. You killed the golden goose. Etc, you get what I'm saying.

    tl;dr CAN you chop things out of the game and then sell them back on day one? Yup. SHOULD you? Er... you'll want to think on it.

  • TasteticleTasteticle Registered User regular
    edited October 2012
    The lie is put to that argument immediately by the fact that not every company does it EA's way. Even EA does not always choose to do it the same way. Sometimes the early DLC is free to encourage new buyers. Sometimes it is free because encouraging people to actually play the dang game is seen as more important. And sometimes it is $10 because MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY.

    And I would say to you "...Okay? And?"

    Day 1 downloadable DLC is extra content that either:

    1) Would not be in the game if DLC was not a thing
    2) Would cause for further delays of the game if it were not to be Day 1 DLC

    In either case, day 1 DLC keeps people employed and momentum going on a project, and is by design ancillary. Game design is not a linear process. At all.

    Yes how dare developers sometmies ask for money for their extra efforts, and sometimes not. You have a very twisted view on how this type of DLC actually works.

    Downloadable day 1 DLC is actually one of the better things to come to this industry in recent times. People cry out against it because they do not understand it.

    Tasteticle on

    Uh-oh I accidentally deleted my signature. Uh-oh!!
  • TriskTrisk Registered User regular
    edited October 2012
    Tasteticle wrote: »
    here is the best way to sum up day 1 dlc that is not on disc:

    This is a pretty terrible argument because it is a HUGE fucking strawman argument to the opposing side, holy crap.

    At any rate, I like DLC but there are clearly times when it feels gougy, 60$ is -A LOT- to pay for a game and when they don't include various things and instead say "Pay 10$ for this" it feels far more than just not being generous, it feels greedy.

    Not that they can't, making games is incredibly pricey and it's a way to combat piracy but in the end the consumer is the one who feels the pain in their wallets. But to sum up the argument of the opposing side as something that reads as "Whiny Entitled Babys That Don't Get It" is really disingenious at best and downright ignorant at worst.

    DLC isn't a new thing, it used to be 'expansion packs' and some people did it right and some people did it wrong just like today. Nothing is black and white, it is never always wrong to have day 1 DLC but the opposite holds true as well.

    I don't like ME3's, if you're on the third game and you suddenly miss this big chunk of the narrative because you paid 60$ and were told to pay 70$ on launch day or miss out on this wonderful part of the story then I don't think it's a challenging to empathize with people who take issue with it.

    Trisk on
  • TubeTube Registered User admin
    This thread really isn't about day one dlc. It isn't even close. You can go to the G&T forum if that's what you want to talk about.

  • crashsuitcrashsuit Registered User regular
    Tasteticle wrote: »
    here is the best way to sum up day 1 dlc that is not on disc:

    Totally in agreement with you there.

    On a much more related-to-the-comic note, the Penny Arcade forums are a good example of why life is so much easier when your comics don't have a comments section.

    I'm just this guy, you know? Sometimes I draw comics.
  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    Is this the first we've seen of the Trenches' company name, assuming that's what 'Vega' is?

  • GaslightGaslight Registered User regular
    No. It was seen on the Lawstar box art a while ago.

  • ShamisOMallyShamisOMally Registered User regular
    Can I ask a serious question?

    Why is this story about Issac, or following Issac?

    He has zero, repeat, zero likable traits

    Not once have I seen him say or do anything likable, in all honesty the way the comic is carried out I don't know why Cora isn't the main lead or main following character.

    Why are we following him? Are we supposed to be rooting for him etc? I don't understand this sort of writing at all. Its like reading a story about a child rapist, and the author going "Wait, let me explain him!" and instead it just makes you hate them more and more, and then the author expects praise for writing such a "Deep" character.

    Cora right now is the only likable character at all in the story (I dunno about Gwen yet) and it should be following her, not Issac.

  • JokermanJokerman Everything EverywhereRegistered User regular
    Can I ask a serious question?

    Why is this story about Issac, or following Issac?

    He has zero, repeat, zero likable traits

    Not once have I seen him say or do anything likable, in all honesty the way the comic is carried out I don't know why Cora isn't the main lead or main following character.

    Why are we following him? Are we supposed to be rooting for him etc? I don't understand this sort of writing at all. Its like reading a story about a child rapist, and the author going "Wait, let me explain him!" and instead it just makes you hate them more and more, and then the author expects praise for writing such a "Deep" character.

    Cora right now is the only likable character at all in the story (I dunno about Gwen yet) and it should be following her, not Issac.

    Because he is the entry into the world of testers. His decent from being a hot-shit developer to an unemployed bum living out of his Tesla roadster, to the bottom of the barrel filled with burnouts and starry eyed idealist gives the theme of the comics.

  • GaslightGaslight Registered User regular
    edited October 2012
    Can I ask a serious question?

    Why is this story about Issac, or following Issac?

    He has zero, repeat, zero likable traits

    Not once have I seen him say or do anything likable, in all honesty the way the comic is carried out I don't know why Cora isn't the main lead or main following character.

    Why are we following him? Are we supposed to be rooting for him etc? I don't understand this sort of writing at all. Its like reading a story about a child rapist, and the author going "Wait, let me explain him!" and instead it just makes you hate them more and more, and then the author expects praise for writing such a "Deep" character.

    Cora right now is the only likable character at all in the story (I dunno about Gwen yet) and it should be following her, not Issac.

    Are we really on this again?

    Isaac is the main character because his being new to the world of testing facilitates introducing the audience to it. Using an uninitiated protagonist this way is a standard storytelling device. You can tell the audience what they need to know by telling the protagonist what he needs to know, whereas if the protagonist were a seasoned, well-versed veteran, you'd be stuck with a lot of tiresome and unrealistic exposition.

    Isaac is also the main character because he is set up to develop the most over the course of the story. He has gone from riches to rags and is trying to work his way back up to riches again. This also is a time-honored storytelling construct. He starts out as a self-absorbed dick and along the way he meets people and gets to know them and hopefully changes as a person. This, also, is basic storytelling. If a character starts out perfect or remains static throughout the story, they are not interesting.

    Finally, none of the characters are likable. They are all dysfunctional, selfish, short-sighted idiots, and Cora may be the worst of the lot because of her hypocritical self-righteousness. This comic is about horrible, broken people and the terrible company they work for. Think of it as being like Dilbert, alright? Do you get mad at Dilbert? The difference is that unlike the joke-a-day format of Dilbert where nothing ever changes the characters in Trenches have a chance to actually grow.

    Gaslight on
  • JetstreamGWJetstreamGW Registered User regular
    edited October 2012
    Gaslight wrote: »
    Finally, none of the characters are likable. They are all dysfunctional, selfish, short-sighted idiots, and Cora may be the worst of the lot because of her hypocritical self-righteousness. This comic is about horrible, broken people and the terrible company they work for. Think of it as being like Dilbert, alright? Do you get mad at Dilbert? The difference is that unlike the joke-a-day format of Dilbert where nothing ever changes the characters in Trenches have a chance to actually grow.

    To be fair, Dilbert is the likeable character in Dilbert. He's the long suffering everyman, except that he's also an exceptional nerd. And a bit of a bungler, because we like our identifiable characters to be entertainingly imperfect.

    ... Oh and Dogbert, because we can all get behind a good troll as long as he's not trolling US.

    JetstreamGW on
  • RatherDashing89RatherDashing89 Registered User regular
    Maybe a better example than Dilbert would be The Office (the US version at least--I assume UK is similar but I haven't seen it). No one is "good people", really. Some of them are likeable in that you like the character as a reader, even if you wouldn't like meeting them in real life. Xarley or Dwight are like that. Heck, even Jim is not exactly the best worker. That's the comedy. Yeah, it's got some utterly abhorrent characters like Cora, but then, The Office had Roy.

  • GaslightGaslight Registered User regular
    edited October 2012
    Gaslight wrote: »
    Finally, none of the characters are likable. They are all dysfunctional, selfish, short-sighted idiots, and Cora may be the worst of the lot because of her hypocritical self-righteousness. This comic is about horrible, broken people and the terrible company they work for. Think of it as being like Dilbert, alright? Do you get mad at Dilbert? The difference is that unlike the joke-a-day format of Dilbert where nothing ever changes the characters in Trenches have a chance to actually grow.

    To be fair, Dilbert is the likeable character in Dilbert.

    Arguably, but Dilbert as a character is actually pretty bland. Like you said, he's the everyman, and his lack of character traits is supposed to make it easier for us to identify with him as stupid and unfortunate things happen to him. If you examine the identifiable traits he actually has, he's socially awkward to the point of being inept and rather pathetically spineless and unambitious. I'd say we pity Dilbert more than we truly like him.

    Gaslight on
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