Henroid

I come to the thread bearing some good news. Albeit not in the realm of video games (but fuck that, this topic spans everything right?). If anyone doesn't keep up with news from the world of sports, the NFL had a problem this past year regarding a player (Ray Rice) hitting his then-fiance (now wife) and dragging her out of an elevator when she was unconscious. Terrible things happened in the aftermath. First, the team made his fiance apologize for "her part" in the incident (it was captured fully on tape). That would be the Baltimore Ravens. This has not been remedied. The NFL came down with its punishment like a month ago, and it was a two-week suspension. The public was furious as shit and at the time the NFL was all, "rules are rules!" Which it was the written rules at the time of the punishment being given to Rice. Just for contrast, marijuana possession (or use, I forget which) give you a four-week suspension. Today, the NFL commissioner sent out a letter to all teams informing them of a huge change to the player conduct rules of the NFL, specifically about the domestic violence thing. - On first offense, the player in question will get a six week suspension with no pay minimum. Depending on the circumstances of any given incident, like weapon used or severity of the violence, etc, the six weeks will be extended to be longer. - On second offense, the player is banned for life from the league. What I don't know about the ban is if it's a ban on playing or if it includes being a staff member for any teams / the NFL commission. Either way though, this is a vast improvement on that shitty punishment they had going in their rules. Ideally, nobody would be hitting their spouse in the first place like this. Edit - Oh I forgot, the article link: http://espn.go.com/espnw/news-commentary/article/11425377/nfl-implements-domestic-violence-penalties?src=mobile

Isn't this the first year of PAX Prime since the whole safety-zone thing they came up with, which is shit because they should be making the entirety of the event a safe zone? That's a whole other can of worms.

I had an argument with a friend a couple days ago about this. Humans have emotional responses to things, and while staving it off does mean something initially, over time it just makes you a pushover. And the olive branch extension is meaningless if it gets lit on fire. So I'm all for people cutting loose after being constantly spat on.

I wonder if the Vita would get more traction if Sony started to make a big push from the indie games angle. They've already partnered with a lot of indie devs to develop for it, now they just need to talk about it.

That's actually a very important factor in all this. Not many people on the... I dunno how to describe that 'faction' or group of people... are willing to put their own faces and names up, to stake a responsibility in their beliefs. Edit - Like as far as I know, JonTron and sorta Adam Baldwin are the two faces + names attached to all that. The latter though is mostly just seeing shit and ranting about Communism or something so I'm not sure he counts.

It seemed clear to me that the comment about hitting people was speaking about how you feel inside when someone you're trying to talk to more or less shuts you out, just repeating themselves. Not acting on those internal feelings is what makes one a better person. Speaking about feeling it is not the same as doing it. Part of what Sarkeesian points out is the difference in how women die. If there's a fault to her argument, she doesn't present enough examples of how males die in these games compared to how female die. But when discussing Watch Dogs she did point it out - the male victim will actually fight back (and is an aggressor sometimes). But the women who die in it are helpless and pushed around always. The argument has never been "only women die." It's all about the depiction and substance. Edit - Also "echo chamber" being used for describing people you disagree with is pretty lame.

Those kind of unacceptable statements though have two effects: The first is that people already blindly tied to an individual / personality get even closer. But it comes at the cost of the second effect, Which is that people finally realize that individual has crossed a line they can't cross either. The net gain is lost influence, even if it's stronger with the fewer that remain. It's a slow burn though.

In case anyone missed it, Leigh Alexander's thoughts on 'gamers': http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224400/Gamers_dont_have_to_be_your_audience_Gamers_are_over.php I agree top to bottom.

Leigh Alexander wrote about what's going on, from a broader perspective. But it's good stuff: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224400/Gamers_dont_have_to_be_your_audience_Gamers_are_over.php

... You're supposed to wear a suit to job interviews?

I'm not giving up my avatar for three reasons. First, I don't want to associate something broad and expansive with something so negative and ugly. It brings the whole thing down to a childish level to act on seriously. Sure it's funny to point out, but come on. Second, I don't have my own computer anyway and don't have Photoshop access to work around with making a new one. Third, the Etrian Odyssey games rule, eff the haters! Edit - Wait, are the angry guys using anime avatars of girls or guys?

He won't say anything, he's gonna find a legit way to monetize it on Steam and everyone will be on board. BTW just as an aside, Poe's Law makes it hard to see legitimacy in this whole SNAFU.

I assume they're real to the person who made them and a dozen of their buddies.

There seems to be a new mantra these guys have; not buying video games from any developers or publishers that speak in favor of anyone sane. So as they add more to the list they're going to pretty much boycott themselves out of playing video games and then everything will be okay!

Where do I go to sign up for the Social Justice League? And when we combine our powers, what gets formed?

Via NeoGAF via something else: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=882863 The XBox One Kinect will be available stand-alone this October for $150, making it $50 more expensive than the original SKU. I guess it's a punishment tax for doubting the awesomeness of the Kinect. Meanwhile MS hasn't done shit to sell it as a product this year.

Who likes patent trolling! Some company named "Capcom" is suing Koei Tecmo over an infringement. The original source of the news is Japanese and the details aren't exactly known, but the patent in question has to do with the distribution of additional content for video games (in other words, expansions or DLC). http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224170/Theres_a_patent_battle_brewing_between_Capcom_and_Koei_Tecmo.php On a more serious note about Capcom though, oh how the mighty have fallen.

Kuchera is a polarizing enough figure to draw his own shit storm. Being attached to the Zoe thing though it'll be amplified.

That's pretty much how I feel. As long as Al Sharpton isn't trying to get in front of cameras for it, I'm fine with the idea of the funeral being televised. The family would have had to give consent anyway right? There are Tweets about a helicopter (or two?) in the air, being noisy and generally disrupting the funeral. That's not right.

On a practical scale, here's what developers and/or publishers giving gifts or other incentives to reviewers does: Higher official review scores may lead to more sales, though word of mouth is still powerful and can influence people more strongly. There's also the meta-critic problem. The guy who did the A Life Well Wasted podcast had an episode in which a game dev (who had his voice altered in the recording to retain anonymity) spoke about Meta-critic scores influencing project lighting by publishers. But they follow the same insane scale where 7 is maybe-territory, while there's six numbers below that to be accounted for. In that regard, there could be a danger, but I don't know how wide-reaching it would be or how frequent. It's a little tinfoil hat, but if it's happened at least once, then it did indeed happen and that one instance was shitty.

Hello Monday. Things I'm seeing on Gamasutra: Gamefly is dropping its digital distribution service. This surprises me because it was a very Netflix move when they picked it up a couple years ago, and I thought it would secure their longevity. They've sold it off to a company in Taiwan but are still operating it for the moment. Long live physical discs and the US Postal service! http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224088/GameFly_is_getting_out_of_the_digital_distribution_game.php The rumors of Google buying Twitch are only half-true; it isn't Google, it's Amazon. According to the Wall Street Journal, later today an announcement will be made about this. It's still a one billion dollar deal. The implications of the purchase are definitely changing, but I don't know how. When the rumor was centered on Google I was being that guy saying, "Oh of course Twitch would have a content ID system now." I dunno what Amazon ownership will mean. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224090/Now_Amazon__not_Google__is_rumored_to_buy_Twitch.php And my -favorite- story is that Sony is shutting down Playstation Home in Asia. Because I had no idea that shit was still operational. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224015/Sony_sets_a_date_to_shutter_PlayStation_Home_in_Asia.php

Over the last couple days there have been stories about the backgrounds of police officers in the Ferguson PD, how they have a paper trail or video record of their racism or corruption. I have a feeling more will come up over the week. It feels like people are splitting the department apart one officer at a time. I'm for it, since many of them gladly signed on with the bullshit tactics.

Yeah, Don't Starve is really strong at its tension building. But I mostly brought it up to talk about a presentation layer of fear. Not scary to the player, but perhaps to the character as they increasingly lose it. In PT there's not as much separation of player and character in the game. As I wrote, its presentation layer is very predictable to me. Danielle actually responded over in the PT thread about the suspension of disbelief of all this, it's a good read.

From that crazy rant: What the actual fuck.

Gamasutra managed to sneak some business news in (well, broader-speaking business news) before the week closed out. It seemed slow this week. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224003/Report_Most_US_smartphone_owners_rarely_download_new_apps.php A research firm found that smart phone users rarely pick up new apps. They tend to find a few they really like and then just stick with them. It isn't like a constant cycle of picking up apps when someone is done with them. Which is understandable given that not every app type is a video game. This has some pretty damn big implications for video game makers though, because it brings into question how to get your app picked up in the first place, and maybe there should be investment in your one app for the long term. Shotgunning a bunch of apps (I dunno who does this, but I'm sure it's 'easier' to do on this platform than making traditional video games) is not the way to go. Also there's a pie chart. Everyone loves pie charts!