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Penny Arcade - Comic - Hunger

DogDog Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
edited August 2019 in The Penny Arcade Hub

imagePenny Arcade - Comic - Hunger

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

Read the full story here


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Posts

  • ProwlingmonkeyProwlingmonkey Registered User regular
    Nice subversion of a cliche. The thumbnail is a standard comic and the Comic is a blown up thumbnail, genius

  • trickcyclisttrickcyclist Registered User regular
    Definitely genius

  • OctoberRavenOctoberRaven Plays fighting games for the story Skyeline Hotel Apartment 4ARegistered User regular
    Stitch before his morning coffee.

    Currently Most Hype For: VTMB2, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, Alan Wake 2 (Wake Harder)Currently Playin: Guilty Gear XX AC+R, Gat Out Of Hell
  • DjiemDjiem Registered User regular
    The tease!!!

  • SorryTorreySorryTorrey Registered User new member
    Its so early for humor this complex.

  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    Alright, back to bed them.





    Can't sleep. Ever again.

  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
  • John MatrixJohn Matrix Registered User regular
    New strips every weekday! And sometimes complete strips!

  • FireballDragonFireballDragon Registered User regular
    It was probably a glitch in the system or something. No big deal, it'll probably get fixed soon enough.

    But yeah, it seems kinda hypocritical to chastise others for allegedly "mooching" off of something they don't NEED to pay for. If you set something up for free use, you don't get to complain when others use it for free, as was your intention in the first place. But they're doing it anyway. Wow.

  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    edited August 2019
    Calling them freeloaders is rude. They're more like anglerfish males.

    UhroFzo.png

    Unable to feed on their own with a poorly developed digestive system, thus forced to find a female and fuse to her in anglerfish centipede fashion.

    You just know they're constantly ranting on the forums, too.

    dennis on
  • RatherDashing89RatherDashing89 Registered User regular
    I am the lucid dream...the monster in your nightmares...the fiend of a thousand faces! Cower before my true form! BOW DOWN BEFORE THE GOD OF DEATH!

  • Golden YakGolden Yak Burnished Bovine The sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered User regular
    Freeloaders is actually a fun term for people who play a game for free.

    They're 'loading' the game, for free. Clever!

    H9f4bVe.png
  • Golden YakGolden Yak Burnished Bovine The sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered User regular
    I am the lucid dream...the monster in your nightmares...the fiend of a thousand faces! Cower before my true form! BOW DOWN BEFORE THE GOD OF DEATH!

    I get it!

    H9f4bVe.png
  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    I don't think they called everyone who plays the game a freeloader.

  • EnlongEnlong Registered User regular
    My favorite thing is when other players get mad when someone says they’re playing for free or plan to stop buying stuff. Going with the rhetoric of “if nobody pays, then the game will die and we won’t get to play it anymore!” my thought on that is “so be it.”

  • T-DangerT-Danger Registered User regular
    I don't think they called everyone who plays the game a freeloader.

    Just the ones that called them out on making players grind dozens of hours and spend upward of a hundred bucks on premium lootboxes just to earn the right to purchase a shitty looking pretend axe.

  • SpinelesSSpinelesS Registered User regular
    edited August 2019
    Without the non paying players "freemium" games player bases would be too sparse and the games would die, making the term freeloaders incorrect. Shills would be a more accurate term :P

    SpinelesS on
  • MooseMuffinMooseMuffin Registered User regular
    As a rule, I won't pay a cent for free to play games, many of which I have hundreds of hours in, over multiple years. If they wanted my money, they should have charged me money. I have no problem paying for games that cost money.

  • LucascraftLucascraft Registered User regular
    I think there was more to the story with Respawn, right?

    Like, this was specifically due to the community backlash at their new skin that required that you spend something like $180 to unlock it. Because there was a premium skin that was locked behind owning a complete set of other premium skins. You had to open like 12 event chests in order to unlock the potential to buy another skin. Or something like that. Basically, it was an event that was a whales-only event and the F2P's weren't even allowed a shot at it, because they only gave 1 chest for free, so the F2P players could get 1/12 of the way there without spending money.

    And so they bitched about it on the forums. To which Respawn was like "This event isn't designed for the freeloaders, this event is designed for the people who spend money on our game" or something to that effect. That's my own personal paraphrase.

  • cB557cB557 voOOP Registered User regular
    The "freeloaders" comment got taken out of context.
    6jo3sq6b8qcr.jpg
    In context, it's going for more of a playful ribbing sort of thing than an actual accusation against the playerbase. I'm to understand there are some more directly accusatory comments about players not respecting devs anymore, but apparently that was the result of people doing stuff like sending death threats to the devs over this event.

    This controversy wasn't caused by any official statement by Respawn, it was just a few devs on reddit who were at the end of their patience dealing with toxic elements of the community, and I really don't like how the narrative around a few people dealing with way too much bullshit finally lashing out has been that the studio has "turned on their community" and whatnot instead of how the toxic elements of the community treated those developers.

  • qikinkqikink Registered User new member
    I'd say Tycho's post covers the idea pretty well. Like it or not, there's a lot of latitude for criticisms of actions taken by corporations, and a very narrow band of "acceptable" responses as far as public opinion is concerned. I'm not saying that's a great state of affairs, but it is the world we seem to leave in just now.

  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    I think the comic covers it pretty well, too. It wasn't a full-on roasting of Respawn. It was a slight annoyance, followed by Gabe mocking Tycho for making a very unconvincing argument as to his grievance.

  • EnlongEnlong Registered User regular
    dennis wrote: »
    I think the comic covers it pretty well, too. It wasn't a full-on roasting of Respawn. It was a slight annoyance, followed by Gabe mocking Tycho for making a very unconvincing argument as to his grievance.

    I thought it was Gabe not understanding a pretty obvious metaphor.

  • OctoberRavenOctoberRaven Plays fighting games for the story Skyeline Hotel Apartment 4ARegistered User regular
    edited August 2019
    Honestly though, the only way you're going to have 100% paid playerbase in any game and be able to keep the lights on is if it's subscription only.

    Besides, I can't imagine their paid to free ratio is any different from any other freemium game, including Fortnite.

    OctoberRaven on
    Currently Most Hype For: VTMB2, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, Alan Wake 2 (Wake Harder)Currently Playin: Guilty Gear XX AC+R, Gat Out Of Hell
  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    I don't know if this some kind of "hot take' it I'm just old, but seriously what just happened to being a customer who buys something from a company? Why am I in a 'community'?

  • OctoberRavenOctoberRaven Plays fighting games for the story Skyeline Hotel Apartment 4ARegistered User regular
    MichaelLC wrote: »
    I don't know if this some kind of "hot take' it I'm just old, but seriously what just happened to being a customer who buys something from a company? Why am I in a 'community'?

    It's just a new economic model. No different from YouTube being freemium because it's actual purpose is advertising and metadata collection, or a museum with no entry free but has suggested donations.

    Currently Most Hype For: VTMB2, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, Alan Wake 2 (Wake Harder)Currently Playin: Guilty Gear XX AC+R, Gat Out Of Hell
  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    I was thinking more about people on Twitter parroting all this marking speak like 'how you engage with your community.' etc.
    I mean I know why the companies like it; as your said, to collect data, but why do all the players so readily eat it up?

  • PlatyPlaty Registered User regular
    I was always fascinated by the former American tradition of free lunch

  • rahkeesh2000rahkeesh2000 Registered User regular
    edited August 2019
    Customers relate directly to companies. Communities in theory are full of people relating to each other. By, for example, reading, posting, and voting in a community reddit that rarely involves company employees.

    rahkeesh2000 on
  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    edited August 2019
    I am the lucid dream...the monster in your nightmares...the fiend of a thousand faces! Cower before my true form! BOW DOWN BEFORE THE GOD OF DEATH!

    CaptainAmerica1_zps8c295f96.JPG

    Even quitting for years, Death's Demise is my favorite earned title in any game.

    Hevach on
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    Enlong wrote: »
    dennis wrote: »
    I think the comic covers it pretty well, too. It wasn't a full-on roasting of Respawn. It was a slight annoyance, followed by Gabe mocking Tycho for making a very unconvincing argument as to his grievance.

    I thought it was Gabe not understanding a pretty obvious metaphor.

    Wait, I don't understand. So, are you the metaphor?

  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    The fact the fish is inherently a predator speaks volumes for what the metaphor is saying.

    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • Eat it You Nasty Pig.Eat it You Nasty Pig. tell homeland security 'we are the bomb'Registered User regular
    MichaelLC wrote: »
    I was thinking more about people on Twitter parroting all this marking speak like 'how you engage with your community.' etc.
    I mean I know why the companies like it; as your said, to collect data, but why do all the players so readily eat it up?

    it's the customer-level equivalent of 'corporate family', which lots of people eat up as well

    basically people love to feel like they're part of something, and it turns out that making people feel like they're part of something is a really good way to extract all sorts of concessions (upcharge for products, less of a raise at review time, etc)

    the flip side of that for media companies is that if a bunch of idiots on twitter decide they don't like a particular word in your statement well, now everyone has to care about that

    NREqxl5.jpg
    it was the smallest on the list but
    Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
  • DrascinDrascin Registered User regular
    Besides, "freeloaders" isn't the correct term for someone who doesn't pay in a multiplayer game. The correct term is "content". You, as a free player, are part of the game's content to entice the whales.

    Steam ID: Right here.
  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    Drascin wrote: »
    Besides, "freeloaders" isn't the correct term for someone who doesn't pay in a multiplayer game. The correct term is "content". You, as a free player, are part of the game's content to entice the whales.

    Right, theres plenty of reasons, but one that stands out for me is that queue times of <1min are gonna keep your whales a lot happier.

  • DjiemDjiem Registered User regular
    cB557 wrote: »
    The "freeloaders" comment got taken out of context.
    6jo3sq6b8qcr.jpg
    In context, it's going for more of a playful ribbing sort of thing than an actual accusation against the playerbase. I'm to understand there are some more directly accusatory comments about players not respecting devs anymore, but apparently that was the result of people doing stuff like sending death threats to the devs over this event.

    This controversy wasn't caused by any official statement by Respawn, it was just a few devs on reddit who were at the end of their patience dealing with toxic elements of the community, and I really don't like how the narrative around a few people dealing with way too much bullshit finally lashing out has been that the studio has "turned on their community" and whatnot instead of how the toxic elements of the community treated those developers.

    I agree with you that gamers are an abusive, toxic lot and that no amount of freemium bullshit justifies this behavior.

    However, Tycho is right: while I don't mind the devs calling dicks dicks and ass-hats ass-hats, they really let out a nasty truth on how they see their playerbase out there.

    To me, the only offensive word in their pushback is 'freeloaders', for its implications.

  • RatherDashing89RatherDashing89 Registered User regular
    Aldo wrote: »
    Drascin wrote: »
    Besides, "freeloaders" isn't the correct term for someone who doesn't pay in a multiplayer game. The correct term is "content". You, as a free player, are part of the game's content to entice the whales.

    Right, theres plenty of reasons, but one that stands out for me is that queue times of <1min are gonna keep your whales a lot happier.

    Plus you have to have a lot of people in the default skin to make the premium skins actually look special.

  • MarcinMNMarcinMN Registered User regular
    MichaelLC wrote: »
    I was thinking more about people on Twitter parroting all this marking speak like 'how you engage with your community.' etc.
    I mean I know why the companies like it; as your said, to collect data, but why do all the players so readily eat it up?

    it's the customer-level equivalent of 'corporate family', which lots of people eat up as well

    basically people love to feel like they're part of something, and it turns out that making people feel like they're part of something is a really good way to extract all sorts of concessions (upcharge for products, less of a raise at review time, etc)

    the flip side of that for media companies is that if a bunch of idiots on twitter decide they don't like a particular word in your statement well, now everyone has to care about that

    Or at least they have to pretend they care about that. :) lol

    "It's just as I've always said. We are being digested by an amoral universe."

    -Tycho Brahe
  • YoungFreyYoungFrey Registered User regular
    I believe "freeloaders" is also the industry term for credit card holders who pay off their balance every month.

  • NamrokNamrok Registered User regular
    YoungFrey wrote: »
    I believe "freeloaders" is also the industry term for credit card holders who pay off their balance every month.

    Yeah, that cracks me up. Credit card companies are betting on me being numerically illiterate and/or irresponsible to make their money. I on the other hand have never paid a single finance charge, and have easily raked in $1000's of reward, often paid directly to a savings account.

    I guess technically I'm skimming some of the profits from all the people who are numerically illiterate and/or irresponsible. The rich getting richer at a rate of 2.5% cash back on average. On the other hand, the rules aren't that complicated. Don't spend money you don't have, and pay your bills in full.

    The number of even smart people I've seen buying new living room sets despite having 5 figures of credit card debt already, and constantly signing up for new credit cards to rotate their balances to a new 0% APR grace period horrify me. At some point they fuck up and the house always wins eventually.

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